B.H.
15th of Elul, 5724
Brooklyn. N.Y.
Dr. Velvl Greene
1476 Independence South
St. Louis Park 26, Minn.
...P.S. You refer, in passing, to my letter relating to the theory of evolution.
I am prompted to reveal to you that the letter was written in reserved and guarded terms, inasmuch as my purpose is to win adherents to the Jewish viewpoint. Hence I try to avoid anything which might deter some individuals from a deeper commitment to Yiddishkeit. In writing to you, however, I will be more candid, being certain that you will not take my remarks amiss.
You write that your secular background and scientific training prevent you from immediate acceptance of some of the concepts outlined in my said letter (although acceptance or non-acceptance of same in no way modifies your obligation to perform Mitzvos). Frankly, it surprises me very much that you cannot accept those concepts.
My said letter does not appeal to “belief“; its premises are scientific, based on my years of scientific study, first at the University of Berlin, and later at Paris. I upheld the admissibility of the account of the Creation in Bereishis on scientific grounds. On the other hand, I pointed out that the so-called scientific arguments which purport to deny the possibility of the Torah account of Creation are not scientific, since in truth science does not, and cannot, make such a claim. Moreover, modern science declares that it can never offer an unequivocal scientific solution to this and similar problems. The reason for this is not that modern science is still incomplete, but rather because of the very nature of science which can never speak in absolute terms; it can only offer working theories and hypotheses. Science can only examine and classify phenomena, and make probable deductions and predictions. If these are eventually substantiated by experiment, the theories are confirmed as approximate verities. But never can science claim to speak from terms of absolute truths, for it would be a contradiction in itself.
The above is true in all areas of scientific inquiry. When it comes to the theory of evolution, dealing with an effort to reconstruct the distant past, science lacks even that degree of probability which it has in regard to future predictions, as explained at some length in my said letter. Here science can only speculate. If such speculations are represented in text-books as "facts," then it is a gross and unscientific misrepresentation.
To cite one illustration: For years the Ptolemaic system was accepted as true, according to which the sun revolves around the earth. Later Copernicus evolved the theory that the earth revolves around the sun. This is the theory which is now given in all text-books as an indisputable fact.
But what are the facts? Aside from the fact that even the Copernican sun centered system is no more than a theory, subject to a variety of reservations, as all scientific theories must be; apart, also, from the fact that the Copernican theory did not presume to settle all the questions relating to astro-physical observations, but only answered more questions, and more simply, than the Ptolemaic - modern science has reached some revolutionary conclusions in the wake of the General Relativity Theory. Specifically, modern science is now convinced that when two systems are in motion relative to one another, it could never be ascertained, from the scientific viewpoint, as to which is in motion and which at rest, or whether both are in motion. Let it be remembered that the General Relativity Theory has been accepted as fundamental to all exact sciences without dissent.
Yet - and it is surely no revelation to you - this new orientation in science is ignored in discussions relating to the Ptolemaic and Copernican theories not only on the high school level, but even in specialized studies of astronomy and physics in colleges and universities. In other words, science in many domains is still taught in terms of a scientific orientation which prevailed at the close of the 19th century, when two cardinal principles of modern science were yet unknown, namely the relativity theory, and that all scientific conclusions necessarily belong in the realm of probability, not certainty.
I once asked a professor of science why he did not tell his students that from the viewpoint of the relativity theory the Ptolemaic system could claim just as much validity as the Copernican. He answered candidly that if he did that, he would lose his standing in the academic world, since he would be at variance with the prevalent legacy from the 19th century. I countered, "What about the moral issue?" The answer was silence.
In discussing this question with another scientist, he expressed surprise that there should be an individual in the 20th century who could still think that the earth stood still and the sun revolved around it. When I protested that from the viewpoint of modern science this could be as valid as the opposite theory, he could not refute it.
