Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
Fitting the 6 days of Creation into current scientific theory
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
--- Quote from: muman613 on February 15, 2012, 03:41:37 AM ---It is good to know that you do not put your faith in science because many people do. You may deny it but it is true.
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Ill tell you right now I work in science and I have never met someone like that so I don't know what they would sound like. Science is an academic discipline. It cannot be worshipped or replace faith any more than history or english literature can. I think a lot of my colleagues would think some of the things you are saying (and warning against or bemoaning as a belief in others )sound nuts or only ideas that a nut would have.
--- Quote ---Sometimes it seems you over react when I point out that science is not carved in stone, and it has been used for political and often times anti ethical goals.
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Actual science as a discipline (there also many types of science for example biology) is by definition not political. The scientific method for rigorous establishment of reproducible results is what defines science and it is not a political process. Sometimes people try to use science or certain scientific studies (both good ones and bad ones) toward political ends. That doesn't make it science. And big difference there.
--- Quote ---One must never believe that the scientist has the answer to every problem.
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This is a very strange idea and I don't know what you are so paranoid or worried about that every time a scientific matter is brought up you post this kind of disclaimer. Maybe you yourself once had these kind of weird ideas about science?
why would a scientist have the answer to every problem? If they did they wouldn't do science. The whole purpose of science is to try to arrive at answers to questions which we do not currently know how to answer. A big part of the scientist's job is to ask questions.
--- Quote ---And your example about oxygen is not something we need science to prove.
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Um. It already was proven by science. Yes we did need science to prove it. People did not know what oxygen was at one point. You only say this now because it's become so obvious that it is self evident. But that was exactly my point. Some science deniers try to discredit all of science by saying " it changes therefore we cannot trust it, maybe it will all be overturned" - an argument that is truly pathetic. As an example, biology knowledge will continue to grow and evolve and be refined especially in certain disputed or unclear processes/systems people are currently studying. These become more understood as time goes on and more experimentation produces additional evidence for things. But it does not make sense to say the entire discipline of biology willl be thrown in the trash bin one day (thus my obvious comment about oxygen ) because they are still trying to master the creation of antibody-drug conjugates and how to link these molecules, for cancer treatments. some things are so well established by science that it would be unreasonable to expect them to change and "reinvent the wheel" - certain basic facts and evidences we can be very confident about.
--- Quote ---Regarding dinosaur fossils... There is no doubt that there will be dinosaur fossils 20 years from now, but I have every reason to believe that those same fossils will now be classified differently and the date is was supposed to have lived will have changed. What I was taught about dinosaurs when I was a kid {about 20+ years ago} has been invalidated. Many of those dinosaurs are now thought to have looked different, or not have existed at all.
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Glad you brought this up because this is a common misconception and one of the frequent arguments by people trying to discredit scientific knowledge. It may be that some details of the classification will be altered as scientists dig up more findings and can better place them (especially certain specific findings which are less certain than others. And that's because a classification system is simply a limited human model put together by the disparate facts that have been uncovered - some things will fit better than others. But it would not make sense to expect that the entire system of classification will be discarded and thrown in the trash because some specific details need refining and additional experimentation or additional evidence to clarify
I'm no dinosaur expert but I'm not aware of people thinking tyrannasaurus or teradactles to no longer existed. Dinosaurs certainly did exist and are now dead.
muman613:
Many people do not believe in Hashem simply because there is no science which can prove that he exists. If science is the ultimate truth then why has no scientist ever proven that Hashem's existence in the world is the truth? Most people are willing to trust scientists who say that there is no Hashem simply because the word 'scientist' is associated with their title..
Tag-MehirTzedek:
--- Quote from: muman613 on February 15, 2012, 09:37:57 PM ---Many people do not believe in Hashem simply because there is no science which can prove that he exists. If science is the ultimate truth then why has no scientist ever proven that Hashem's existence in the world is the truth? Most people are willing to trust scientists who say that there is no Hashem simply because the word 'scientist' is associated with their title..
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Science itself is proof that their is a Creator and Director of the world. Do you think that certain laws just create themselves?
And about discovering G-D (that is in the physical sense) is the same as asking to discover G-d through a microscope. A microscope shows you something that G-D created (the bacteria for example) but the fact of the bacteria, what is does, how it comes into being etc. etc. all point (without physically pointing) to the Creator and Director of the Universe.
edu:
Quote from Kahane-Was-Right BT
--- Quote ---The Rambam classifies what are called "days" of creation in Bereshit as categories and heirarchies of creation, rather than literal days or periods of time. Edu, is this, in your opinion, also "denying the literal truth of Genesis chapter 1?"
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I downloaded Moreh Nevuchim at Hebrewbooks.org and searched for the Hebrew terms six days and days of creation. I found in my limited computer search nothing in the Rambam's book that I implied heirarchies of creation. So if you know of a source in the Rambam that I have overlooked let me know.
edu:
The Scientist I am about to quote is Prof. Nathan Aviezer
His credentials as summarized by Wikipedia
Nathan Aviezer is an American-Israeli physicist who writes on creationism, evolution and cosmology from an Orthodox Jewish perspective. He is a Professor of Physics and former Chairman of the Physics Department of Bar-Ilan University.
Aviezer was born in Switzerland and raised in the United States. He received his doctorate in physics from the University of Chicago, and subsequently held a research position at the IBM Watson Research Center near New York. In 1967, He and his wife Dvora made aliyah to Israel. He is the author of more than 100 scientific articles on solid state physics. In recognition of his important research contributions, he was honored by being elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (1984) and a Research Professor of the Royal Society of London (1992).
He wrote a book In the Beginning trying to defend Genesis 1 as accurate on a science level if you accept the view, which has precedents in some (but not all) of the words of our Sages that the six days of creation weren't 24 hour days.
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