(Reviewer: David Saks, Vol. 67, No. 3, Chanukah 2012)
Most people by now automatically accept unquestioningly the notion that there is an irreconcilable and unbridgeable gulf between ‘Religion’ and ‘Science’ (sometimes tellingly replaced by the respective terms ‘Faith’ and ‘Reason’). It is also by now commonly assumed that in the quest for dispassionate, objective and intellectually rigorous answers to the great questions of existence, the Science side of the debate has emerged victorious by a knock-out.
Stereotypically, religious belief is now assumed to have been an essentially regressive, obscurantist phenomenon that for a long time impeded the onward march of scientific discovery. Historically, it has been defined by such events as the confrontation between Galileo and the Inquisition or the Scopes Monkey Trial aimed at suppressing the teaching of evolutionary theory. So deeply-entrenched is this mind-set that proponents of any particular religious belief are by definition considered incapable of mounting a coherent, logical argument in its favor that can stand up to rigorous scientific scrutiny. Conversely, scientists are assumed at all times to conduct their work along scrupulously methodical, logically impeccable and solidly evidence-based lines.
So complete has been the perceived triumph of scientific materialism over anything smacking of theism that today, those attempting to defend the latter even along strict scientific lines are routinely dismissed out of hand. As an example of this, the author of the book under review has elsewhere drawn attention to what Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini wrote in the introduction to their book, What Darwin Got Wrong (2010):
This is not a book about God; nor about intelligent design; nor about creationism. Neither of us is into any of those. We thought we’d best make that clear from the outset, because our main contention in what follows will be that there is something wrong – quite possibly fatally wrong – with the theory of natural selection; and we are aware that, even among those who are not quite sure what it is, allegiance to Darwinism has become a litmus for deciding who does, and who does not, hold a “properly scientific” world view… In fact, we both claim to be outright, card-carrying, signed-up, dyed-in-the-wool, noholds-barred atheists…
The very fact that scientists admit to having religious beliefs of some kind would seem to be enough to discredit anything they might have to say, as if their basic reasoning must have been somehow twisted and subverted from the outset. Is that the real reason why Fodor and PiattelliPalmarini felt it necessary to pledge upfront their allegiance to atheism?
The converse situation, in which dogmatic, knee-jerk atheism on the part of the scientific establishment can likewise act as a serious retarding force in the advancement of knowledge, is seldom considered. This is beginning to change, with a growing number of scientific scholars distancing themselves from this simplistic dichotomy, but it will evidently be some time before serious inroads are made into what the writer David Klinghoffer has called the “sealedshut intellectual fortress of the Darwinist worldview”.
In his compelling new book Genesis and Genes Yoram Bogacz, a Johannesburg rabbi and educator with a background in chemical engineering, provides a persuasive and erudite challenge to the tendency of uncritically accepting the prevailing scientific thinking of the day as, if one can use such a term, ‘gospel’. As he expresses it at one point, “Many members of the public entertain fantasies of scientists as apolitical creatures, ensconced in their laboratories and isolated from the corrupting effects of power”. Elsewhere, he remarks on how pervasive has become “the caricature of scientists as supermen”. The reality, of course, is that scientists are subject to the same kind of flaws inherent in all human beings, and are heavily influenced both by the context political, economic, professional or ideological in which they work and by their own personal worldviews. Far from the majority viewpoint always being right, even a basic familiarity with the history of scientific discovery will demonstrate that it has frequently been dead wrong. The greatest scientific breakthroughs have been made not by those who rigidly adhered to the accepted wisdom of the day but by those who had not only the theoretical genius, but just as importantly the tenacity and courage to question it. In this regard, the author quotes the insightful observations of the novelist and science commentator Michael Crichton, who said: “I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus”.
Practitioners of all academic disciplines are prone to being swayed by peer pressure, conformism, ‘groupthink’ and an inclination to treat holy cows as holy. Science, too, has its fair share of holy cows and taboos. Writes R’ Bogacz, “[But] the popular misconception of scientists as courageous researchers who cling tenaciously to anomalous results despite the conflicting consensus of their peers is exactly that – a misconception”. The history of science is replete with instances of far-sighted pioneering researchers being ignored, side-lined and even openly ridiculed before their work was finally accepted. The author, amongst other examples, recounts the case of the Australian pathologist Robin Warren, who hypothesized that at least some stomach ulcers were caused by a bacterium, thereby challenging the “standard teaching” that the stomach was sterile and any bacteria one found there were dead. He and his collaborator, Barry Marshall, persisted in their research, despite being labeled as crackpots and treated accordingly by their colleagues. Operating largely independently, they were able to conclusively demonstrate that certain bacteria were able to survive the acidity of the human stomach and were the cause of most peptic ulcers. For their work, Warren and Marshall were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2005. However, the happy ending to this particular story should not blind us to the fact that the acceptance of their discoveries was delayed by the knee-jerk rejectionism of colleagues dogmatically adhering to standard teachings. R’ Bogacz wonders how many scientists over the years have been discouraged from pursuing promising avenues of research for fear of being ridiculed and discredited for going up against the prevailing orthodoxy.
It is important to emphasise that Genesis and Genes is by no means intended as an argument for regarding all scientific discoveries with scepticism. Rather, as Rabbi (Dr.) Dovid Gottlieb points out in the preface, it is an argument for “caution and the careful evaluation of the latest scientific conclusions for their appropriate degree of credibility. In no way does it advocate ‘the wholesale rejection of science’”. The goal should be “Becoming an Informed Consumer of Science”, the title of the opening chapter.
One might ask at this point why it is that a Talmudic scholar, albeit one with a background in engineering, feels it necessary to become involved in this whole debate. The answer, of course, is that in order to challenge scientism, it is crucial to also address the culture of docile conformism and intellectual timidity (“obsequiousness to scientific authority”, as R’ Gottlieb puts it) within which it has been allowed to flourish. The most compelling arguments conceivable on any topic – and, as even a layperson can see, those posed against fundamental aspects of evolutionary theory are clearly substantial ones – will have no effect whatever if the other side has decided beforehand not to listen to them.
Proceeding along the rigorous lines of enquiry set out in previous chapters, R’ Bogacz concludes that the evidence in support of the theory of biological evolution as currently accepted by many (although not all) scientists falls well short of what is required to put it on a truly sound intellectual foundation. He does not state that the theory of evolution is thereby refuted, but (again as expressed by Gottlieb), “rather that the evidence now available does not justify accepting it as true. Indeed, the available evidence justifies profound scepticism”.
At the beginning of Chapter Two, entitled “The Bible and Heredity”, the author encapsulates an important theme of his book when he writes, “When Torah sources clearly and consistently describe a position about the physical universe, then that is the Torah position, whether one finds it conveniently modern or not”. Nor is it incumbent on adherents of Orthodox Judaism to always feel the need to find ways of reconciling their religious tradition with current scientific thinking. The established precepts of the Torah, within which falls the vast realm of the accepted Oral Tradition encapsulated in the Talmud, Midrash, Kabbalistic sources and major commentators, are not subject to change; by contrast, scientific knowledge is, by its very nature, continually subject to change in response to new evidence and discoveries.
Chapter Nine takes the form of a dialogue between the author and ‘Jonathan’, described as “an avatar for many people with whom the author has corresponded about the subjects covered in this book”. In it, the former points out that until 1965, most scientists believed that the universe had never been created, but had existed eternally. At that point, however, the old paradigm was replaced by the Big Bang model which, in demonstrating that the Universe came into existence at a certain point in time apparently ex nihilo, essentially aligned the scientific view with that of the Torah. However, the author asks, this would not have been of any help to someone who had died, for example, in 1950. If that person had been a religious Jew, “he would have lived his entire life with unresolved tension between the scientific paradigm that the universe is eternal, and Jewish belief in the creation of the universe”.
Elsewhere, R’ Bogacz has drawn attention to how belief in an eternal universe was preferred by many scientists for ideological/theological reasons. In this regard, he quotes Quantum cosmologist Christopher Isham, who mused, “Perhaps the best argument in favor of the thesis that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheist physicists. At times this has led to scientific ideas, such as continuous creation or an oscillating universe, being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual academic desire of a theorist to support his/her theory” (C. Isham, ‘Creation of the Universe as a Quantum Process’ in Physics, Philosophy and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding, Vatican City, Vatican Observatory, 1988, p378.) Similarly, the current Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees, recalls his mentor Dennis Sciama’s dogged commitment to the Steady State Model: “For him, as for its inventors, it had a deep philosophical appeal – the universe existed, from everlasting to everlasting… When conflicting evidence emerged, Sciama therefore sought a loophole… rather as a defense lawyer clutches at any argument to rebut the prosecution case.” (M Rees, Before the Beginning, Addison-Wesley, 1997, p41.) Commented the science writer John Gribbin: “The biggest problem with the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe is philosophical – perhaps even theological – what was there before the bang?” (J Gribbin, ‘Oscillating Universe Bounces Back’, Nature 259, 1976, p15.)
This leads into an important aspect of Genesis and Genes, namely that it does not seek to demonstrate, as a number of other recent works have done, an emerging harmony between Torah very critical of how this is sometimes done. Immediately after making the previously quoted statement, the author writes: “The belief in the inerrancy of the latest scientific consensus can sometimes manifest itself in a sincere, but misguided, attempt to force traditional sources into the mould of the ruling paradigm”. In Chapter Seven (‘The Torah and Hominids’), he discusses in detail one example of this, namely the comparatively recent theory put forward by, amongst others, Dr Gerald Schroeder, that the classical Torah sources “support the view that hominids took eons to evolve until, finally, they were infused with a divine soul and made human”. His conclusion, after carefully examining each of the relevant sources, is that such a conclusion is dubious at best. R’ Gottlieb considers this introduction “to the appropriate methodology for investigating Jewish sources for congruence withor contradiction to scientific conclusions” one of the book’s major contributions.
Particularly in Chapters Five and Six (‘Homology, Gills and Embryology’ and ‘The Tree of Life’), the author provides a trenchant summary of some of the challenges being leveled against the orthodox Darwinist line, including even from within that “sealed-shut intellectual fortress” by some of its leading proponents. Naturally, in an area so vast, complex and hotly contested, one should not expect any decisive, ‘slam-dunk’ answers that resolve the whole question once and for all. What these sections should do, though, is provide compelling reasons for adopting a qualified, wait-and-see approach to understanding evolutionary ideas, even – indeed, especially – when certain of its proponents insist that it is all a done deal and there is nothing more to discuss.
R’ Bogacz himself has little doubt that current evolutionary theory is hopelessly flawed and destined, like so many other failed scientific orthodoxies over the centuries, to be transformed radically in the future no matter how much the intellectual establishment tries to keep the genie in the bottle. “What will people say about all this in the future?” asks his imaginary everyman ‘Jonathan’ at the end of the ‘Conversation with Jonathan’ chapter. “They will ask, ‘How could so many people have fallen for this stuff?’” he replies. (The author’s writings on this and related subjects, in addition to this book, can be found on his website, www.TorahExplorer.com).
Genesis and Genes is an impressive work of critical scholarship by one of South African Jewry’s most promising religious thinkers. As a stand-alone history of science alone – and an erudite, consistently readable one – it deserves a wide readership.
Primarily, it represents a major and in many ways unique contribution to the growing literature of Torah-and-Science.
Genesis and Genes by Yoram Bogacz, Feldheim Publishers, 2013
David Saks is Associate Director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and Editor of Jewish Affairs.
