My recent posting about Evolution elicited many heated comments. To set the record straight - I am not a champion of a particular biological explanation. I simply wanted to note that the **IDEA** of creation through evolution and change - is not inherently heresy. (There is a parallel issue - which also elicits heated comments - of whether Torah was given in its entirety at Sinai or whether the Five Books of Moshe were given together with the 13 Midos at Sinai - and the halacha was generated over time - but that is for a different post). What is heresy is to deny that G-d is the ultimate source of everything.
On the other hand, Evolution is clearly more than simply a scientific theory. As Prof Abraham Luchins once pointed out to me - The Theory of Evolution elicits incredible emotional defensive and offensive responses from scientists when it is challenged on rational grounds. When I was studying biology at R.P.I., my professor introduced Evolution by saying first there was matter, this sloshed around for millions of years until organic molecules developed. Several million years later single cells were developed and then evenutally multi- celled creatures. I raised my hand and politely asked him how he got from step 1 to step 2 to step 3 to step 4. What was the mechanism? He looked at me in astonishment. "But if you don't believe this is what happened - that means you are a fundamentalist!" Obviously the most obscene and degenerate state possible. The following Ted presentation illustrates my point.
The following is a recent book which attempts to explain how random selection produce complex traits. At least it acknowledges that there are fundamental problems with the Theory of Evolution. Again the fact that Evolution has problems doesn't mean that the world was literally created in 6 24hour days.
Scientific American Book Review: Arrival of the Fittest
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution transformed our understanding of life's diversity, but it could not fully answer a basic question that still vexes scientists: How does nature introduce complex traits? As evolutionary biologist Wagner puts it, natural selection “does not innovate, but merely selects what is already there.” The latest evolutionary science, however, is beginning to reveal how new traits arise in the first place. “What we have found so far,” Wagner writes, “already tells us that there is much more to evolution than meets the eye.” Drawing on his own and other researchers' work, he explains how large numbers of random mutations within species can combine to form the intricate and innovative traits seen in our planet's vast diversity.
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