Mutual Respect for Scientific Theory and Jewish Biblical Creation

Misusing a scientific critique of Big Bang theory as a support of creationism
There are many assumptions underlying the big bang theory, there are plenty of discussions of these assumptions; there are various weaknesses of  the theory, and there are critiques: these are well-known and acknowledged by scientists, indeed they come from scientists, there are many quotes from scientists available on the web, and all these scientists are constantly seeking to improve the theory.

Obviously none of the scientists quoted as critiquing the big bang theory meant that they are therefore choosing the biblical account of creation over the big bang theory, or are giving up seeking a scientific theory and simply concluding that it is beyond human understanding, merely that there are holes or flaws they feel ought to be addressed.

Science looks for rationalistic explanations, and scientists assume such can be found, and try to create them. The assumptions they make are all part of this program, and make sense from within it.

It is a tribute to science and scientists that they are willing to seek holes in scientific theories, and to change these theories: the fact that the theories have flaws and need to be changed is not an indication that the scientific pursuit of a theory of cosmology is wrong-minded, it simply means that scientists are constantly innovating to make the theories progressively better.

When scientists critique cosmological theory, obviously they are NOT proposing that one should as a result choose the biblical account of creation over the big bang theory - they are merely indicating that there are holes or flaws in the scientific theory which they feel ought to be addressed in order to develop a better scientific theory.
Most likely the same scientists have far sharper critiques of the biblical creation account etc than of the big bang theory, so it is hypocritical to quote them as somehow undermining the scientific approach in favor of the fundamnetalist/literalist interpretation of breishis.
The flaws in present scientific cosmology theory will eventually be addressed and a better SCIENTIFIC theory will emerge; of course that will also be flawed, and analysis will lead to yet a better theory: we may never reach apoint where we know absolutely everyhing we need to know about cosmology, but maybe we will - in any case it is in my view naive/absurd to suppose that a scientific theory will EVER emerge which proves that the universe emerged as described in breishis according to a literal reading and in six days, and 6,000 years ago, with proof that it was the work of a God. It is a forgone conclusion that the scientific search for rationalistic explanations will lead to rationalistic explanations, not to God or breishis. And this is not in any way a problem for religion or for the torah. {Note: see discussions in my book "The Instant Universe".]  

Lord of the Flaws
Rambam said about Aristotle's theory of the eternal universe, that since his proof is flawed, one need not accept it as true and therefore one can believe in creation.. Perhaps those who believe in fundamentalist/literalist interpretation of breishis believe that although no scienific theory will ever lead directly to the literal reading of breishis, nevetheless eventually all scientific theories of cosmology will prove to be flawed - and they will always seek out and hold to these flaws so as not to feel obligated as rational people to accept any scientific theory of cosmology.

Supreme (Being) Irony
There is an incredible irony in all this: The big bang theory was originally taken by scientists as being 'too genesis-like' since it overturned the concept of an eternal universe, which was the central counter-Torah tenet of philosophy - indeed this alleged contradiction was the central reason Rambam wrote the moreh nevuchim. These scientists were not concerned with the issue of the 6 days or the 6,000 years, and considered the central idea of breishis to be creatio ex nihilo, and that this fundamental torah-concept was vindicated by the big bang theory. However, somehow later on the big bang theory was considred by religious people to be a contradiction to breishis because they felt that one needs to interpret the 6 days literally and that the torah meant us to count up the numbers and arrive at an age of 6,000 years.
So whereas some scientists viewed the big bang theory as problematic because it was pro-torah, some religious people (due to their literalist/fundamentalist inteprretation of brieshis) considered it problematic because it was anti-torah! [See more extended discussion of all these points in my book "Einstein's blunder and the god who plays dice"]
[Note: As I've said in my lectures, I think that this may mean that some scientists understood the meaning of breishis better than did some religious people.] [Ilana, I'm sure the above is a problematic sentence - it'd probably be a death sentence!]

Is Evolutionary Theory Correct?

In an infinite universe with the appropriate initial ingredients and laws, the evolution of the purely physical aspect of humanity is inevitable.
However in order to determine whether or not evolutionary theory is the correct explanation for the emergence of humanity here in our universe, with our laws of nature, we need to examine the following:
  1. Do the known laws of nature and the conditions as they were on Earth really permit a process of evolution of progressively more complex entities?
  2. Is there something about what we call life that is not purely physical, and therefore no natural system could produce life?
  3. Was there really sufficient time to allow for the evolution of life?
  4. Is there something unique about humanity so that even if some natural system could produce life, it could not produce humanity
  5. If there was sufficient time, and the laws allow the evolution of humanity as outlined by the theory of evolution, did humans actually emerge that way?
Some people - particularly religious critics of evolutionary theory - somehow expect that science should already have all the answers, and today. It does
not. Evolutionary theory is still very young. In a few hundred years science will presumably know a lot more about how life emerged.

We do not yet know the mechanisms whereby evolution takes place etc, and so we do not know how to compute the relevant probabilities, we also do not yet know how many planets there are and what conditions are necessary in order to allow for the emergence of life on a planet, and therefore we do not know whether or not it is reasonable that somewhere in the universe – specifically, here on Earth - life should evolve.
We do not know whether there are mutiple-universes, or areas of the universe with different laws of nature some of which will inevitably permit life to evolve etc.
We also do not know yet enough about chaos and attractors,  complexity, quantum gravity etc and their possible role in guiding evolutionary processes, and other possible natural mechanisms which would do so, let alone  the possible role of consciousness about which we know virtually nothing, in the emergence of life and of humanity - especially if there was a primordial consciousness [see more on this below].
We do not yet know everything we need to know about cells, and about the mechanisms whereby evolution takes place, etc, and so we do not know how to compute the relevant probabilities of for example cellular life emerging from the inanimate mineral world.
Evolutionary theory is a MODEL, an ATTEMPT to find a naturalistic answer, a mechanism which perhaps could have given rise to what we see about us. It is simply too early to determine whether or not the laws of nature actually permit the emergence of life, and of humanity; and it is certainly premature to discuss whether or not there is some way we could determine if it actually happened in that way.
Proponents of democracy are fond of saying that democracy is a terrible political system - except when compared to all other political systems. Even critics of evolutionary theory can perhaps agree that for the moment, so far, the big bang and evolutionary model (or theory) is the best naturalistic theory of the emergence of humanity.  
 
The Scientific and Biblical Cosmologies Will Never Be Identical  
It is certainly unlikely that through experiment, science will eventually prove that the correct cosmological model can be best described precisely as follows: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, ... one day, day four...... God rested... etc.
Even the fundamentalist is unlikely to claim that the scientific method, if applied correctly, will eventually lead inevitably to this picture of the origin of all.

What Science Is and Isn't
A Chinese Communist and a Hassidic American  may disagree about whether or not there is a God, whether or not life has meaning - or what its meaning is, whether one ought to marry for love or for other reasons, and on much else, however they can agree that objects fall to the ground, will agree on the speed at which they fall, as well as that the sun gives of light and heat and so on.
For the sake of this discussion, let's define 'objectively exisiting physical phenomena'  as those which can be agreed upon by all (or at least by 'reasonable people')(without quibbling about each of these words). Issues related to whether or not there is a God, and whether or not life has meaning, or what its meaning is, and what the meaning of love is will, in contrast, be referred to here as 'subjective' or 'supernatural' or 'spiritual'. To many people, including to many students in science classes, the subjective/spiritual issues are more interesting and important than the 'objectively exisiting physical phenomena', but nevertheless with a bit of training they too can agree on the distinction between the two categories.
When we find a concise mathematical equation which predicts/describes objectively exisiting physical phenomena, for example Newton's or Einstein's law of gravity, or the laws of electricity, for our purposes here we'll call these 'naturalistic explanations' for the phenomena (though of course there's a difference between a description or equation and an explanation).

Note that a person may believe that there is a God, that God created the universe and the laws of nature, and that the explanation for why there are laws of nature at all lies in the fact that God created them; one may also believe that humans can understand the laws of nature only due to God's granting of this ability to humans.. However, even if one believes all this one does not need to explicitly invoke the existence of God in order to write down the laws of gravity or of electricity, and thus they constitute 'naturalistic explanations'. Physics (science) is the programmatic effort to find such naturalistic explanations for all objectively exisitng phenomena

Note however that when we say "Physics (science) is the programmatic effort to find naturalistic explanations for objectively exisitng phenomena " we do not mean to imply either that there ARE phenomena which are NOT objectively existent (eg subjective or supernatural or spiritual) or that science cannot deal with them, nor do we mean to imply that there are NO such phenomena - our statement simply does not refer to such, it refers only to objectively exisitng phenomena. Science also does not say that there are no other explanations for these objectively exisiting phenomena, nor even that science provides the 'best' explanation; it is simply the naturalistic explanation. Science does not claim that a natrualistically-describable universe necessarily emerged without God etc, it makes no statements about the reason anything exists, nor about the possible existence of a God.

When making statements about the past science essentially is saying 'if all happened according to the laws of nature, then it happened this way', but science cannot of course say what actually occurred, ie whether there was some supernatural event involved. Even if science has an explanation for why something would have occurred in the past, it may actually have occurred in a different way, supernaturally, but that doesn't mean that science is wrong, since it is only saying what would have happened if the known laws of nature were the only causes operating. Even if eventually explanations are found for everything, this in no way constitutes a proof of the non-existence of a creator etc and so the issue of  this or that naturalistic explanation is not relevant to the question of the existence of a creator.

Intelligent Design (ID)
The issue of ID has nothing to do with religion, or atheism; it should be an issue for science to deal with, without the involvement of any religious or atheistic agendas. So far it has proven very useful to pursue a programatic search for naturalistic explanations. As a result, there's a confidence in most scientists that there is still much about the universe and humanity which will be explained in this way if the effort is made and so they wish to continue to explore. They feel that even regarding problems which are intractable today, there's no way one can rule out the possibility of finding a naturalistic explanation, and they are motivated to continue to research these problems.
From the scientific point of view of course it may be that the universe will turn out to have been designed, but then science will wish to detect the designer and to discover how the designer came to be. An atheist who is a true scientist should not shy away from such a prospect, it would be an incredibly exciting discovery for science, but on the other hand religious people would have to expect that the resulting scientific theory of that entity could be far from the religious conception of God [eg perhaps it would be closer to the science fiction conception of a super-alien]. The bottom line is that the questions of science have to be dealt with form the scientific perspective, and sothe issue of whether or not there is scientific evidence of design (rather than philosophical or metaphysical etc indication of the existence of God or of divine design) should be treated purely from the scientific perspective, and atheists and religious people should be open to science's taking things to wherever they honestly lead.

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