#7 Why do/don’t we believe in the Theory of Evolution?
This is a great way to phrase the question because there are two very distinct types of evolution that Evolutionists came up with, which will be very crucial in evaluating the theory from a Jewish perspective.
The basic rudiments of the theory (then and now) asserts an idea which is called “common ancestry”. It means that all the diversity of all biological life we see today started from one single self-replicating organism which lived billions of years ago.
This original organism (no evolutionist has a clue as to how it got here) generated all this diversity from two factors:
1) Random advantageous mistakes in the self-replicating process
2) Natural selection—environmental conditions which favors the new advantages acquired by the newly modified species to help it edge out over the old standard type and cause it to dominate the ecological niche.
This theory’s view of the origins of ALL biological life on Earth is at complete loggerheads with Judaism’s account of origins via mystical creation.
From the Chumash text, to Chazal, to rishonim and achronim—all traditional Jewish writing on the matter shows that Man’s creation was not a natural biological event produced by biological parents. Only since Darwin
· What are the facts? Doesn’t the direct observation of species adaptation contradict the Torah’s account of special creation?
There are two types of evolution (as distinguished by evolutionists themselves):
1) There is the idea of micro-evolutionary changes and adaptations to environment within various sub-sections in the biological world:
which can be directly observed by studying a given population over time. Bacteria and antibiotics are a classic example. In addition, to assert that all species of dogs came from a single common dog ancestor, the Torah has absolutely no trouble accepting this as plausible. Judaism does believe in micro-evolution.
2) There is the idea of macro-evolution which posits that very different types of animals share a common ancestor.
A single ancestor apparently must have had certain root characteristics which later branched out into the tremendous diversity we see today throughout the entire biological world. Bats and whales and every mammal in between (including humans) share a common mammal ancestor, etc. I.e. the grand 'tree of life' connected by familial relationships via descent (not just classified by similar characteristics)
The Torah has a lot of trouble accepting 2).
As the above terminology implies, micro-evolution can be observed directly and can be repeated consistently by any researcher, but macro-evolution by its definition CANNOT be observed by anyone today. It’s referring to an alleged ancestor and an alleged process that is only perceptible in terms of hundred of thousands or millions of years. This alleged process can be allegedly described in very detailed scenarios by some evolutionists, but they are not describing a process they have actually observed. They are describing a scenario in which they imagine that this macro- process could have occurred under the assumed conditions.
Aside from various lines of indirect evidence and multiple biological clues in favor of macro-evolution, the only real logical basis they have for common ancestry and that some process of this kind must have occurred is-- the non-existence of certain types of animals at an earlier period of natural history and their appearance later.
This logic assumes that Divine non-natural creation is not an acceptable explanation for new forms of life even though there may be physical evidence in its favor and it could answer a lot of problems in the data. It is ruled out simply because it is not a scientific proposition.
The rhetorical question that macro-evolution comes to answer is: “How else did these new types of animals come into existence later, if not due to a process of development from earlier animal forms?” This is why many prominent evolutionists openly refer to Evolution as an indisputable fact and the theory is really just about the details of how this fact came about. About the precise mechanism of evolution there is lively debate with each school dismissing the arguments/evidence produced by the other. These dismissals are not mutually exclusive.
The bottom line is that there cannot be evidence against a theological position that claims new species were simply produced mystically and did not require any physical/natural process. Science can only analyze natural physical events from a vantage-point of methodological naturalism. Creation is a mystical process/event which is not (normally) detectable or given to careful examination by any of the physical tools of scientific measurement and experiment.
The irony is that macro-evolution itself has similar impossibilities of measurement and experiment, but the dominant community of scientists like to call it science anyway. The scientific community is simply pitting their naturalistic explanatory framework for life against our mystical explanatory framework for life. Direct evidence is not available for either side (unless we make a time machine, or see a golem being made today).
In truth, evolution is not really a laboratory science but “historical science” which does not have nearly the same certainty nor authority as ordinary physical science. It is a grand explanatory framework for what is assumed to be a natural process. It is not a real physical science and is not something traditional Judaism needs to feel threatened by.
