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10 Shevat 5759 - Jan. 27, 1999 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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About Torah, Science and Monkeys

To the Editor:

I didn't see Part I of "Monkeys and Typewriters" (Joshua Josephson, 27 Teves), but one gets the impression that Mr. Josephson sees science, or certain scientific assertions, as a threat to the Torah, and he is presenting logical arguments against these assertions, and in favor of Torah.

I believe that it is a big mistake to make this the issue (that is: Torah vs. Science), because somebody else may come along and produce equally or more convincing arguments that refute his arguments. This would then be a victory for science over Torah, G-d forbid!

There cannot be a conflict between Torah and science. This is not necessarily because there are no scientific findings that contradict the Torah. It is because the Torah and science operate on two completely separate planes. Science does not and cannot take a stand on any religious issue. There are certainly many eminent scientists who are nonbelievers. There are also many eminent scientists who are adherents of just about every conceivable religion.

Legufo shel inyan: Mr. Josephson argues that the probability of a monkey churning out Shakespeare is much lower than one might think. Granted. If one understands Mr. Josephson correctly, he is arguing that the only thing that prevents monkeys from typing out Shakespearean sonnets, or that prevents the chance evolution of a universe as complex as ours, is the incredibly low probability of such events occurring. If this is the case, Mr. Josephson is actually presenting an argument, not only that such events may occur, but that they must occur! And they must occur repeatedly!

The Borel Cantelli Lemma states that, given certain assumptions, if the probability of an event occurring within a given time period is greater than zero, then this event will occur infinitely often with probability one. This means that every possible event will not only occur eventually, but will occur repeatedly! It doesn't matter how low the probability is, as long as it is not zero.

Therefore, if Mr. Josephson is arguing that the random evolution of the universe, or of life, can't occur only because these events are too improbable, then given aeons upon aeons of time, these events must occur! This was hardly Mr. Josephson's intention. For this reason, I feel that Mr. Josephson is treading very dangerous ground.

Danny Kurtz

Israel

The Editor Replies:

HaRav Yaakov Weinberg once said that there is no conflict between science and Torah and there cannot be since there is only one truth. Whatever is on a "different plane" that has nothing to do with truth can occupy itself there, but as far as truth goes there can be no conflict.

Rabbi Josephson replies:

Mr. Kurtz's letter makes essentially two points: that I ought not write about science and Torah, and that my calculation in "Monkeys and Typewriters" is wrong.

As the monkeys and typewriters article did not deal with science and Torah per se, Mr. Kurtz is basing his first set of criticisms on an "impression" he gets from part II of the article. Because it is based on an erroneous impression, I would prefer to reserve my response to this portion of the letter for an article on the subject which I may write in the future.

To avoid a misimpression, however, one point must be addressed.

What prompted me to write about monkeys and typewriters is that I have found that most people do not understand the nature of the issue and tend to make gross errors when applying such probability calculations to real world situations, evolution included. It is certainly useful to understand on what foundation particular "scientific" assertions rest. Many people have been misled by the analogy between monkeys and typewriters and evolution. Surely, it cannot hurt to know that the monkeys and typewriters parable is simply wrong.

Indeed, in the second set of criticisms, Mr. Kurtz himself either displays some confusion about the rules of probability or is not being entirely forthright. He writes, "The Borel Cantelli Lemma states that, given certain assumptions, if the probability of an event occurring within a given time period is greater than zero, then this event will occur infinitely often with probability one. This means that every possible event will not only occur eventually, but will occur repeatedly!"

What he fails to tell us however is what the "certain assumptions" are. It is precisely this point which is the crux of my monkeys and typewriters article, and which apparently did not come through strongly enough.

The rule to which he is referring can only be true in a situation where there can be a sufficient amount of trials. It cannot hold true when time and space impose an inherent limitation on the number of trials that can be performed. How could every possible outcome occur many times if I don't have enough time or resources to generate every possible outcome even once?

All I said in my monkeys and typewriters article is that Shakespeare's sonnets would probably not be written by even an incredibly enormous amount of hypothetical monkeys in our universe. Most scientists today agree that our universe is finitely old and finite in scope. Our universe cannot generate, or even accommodate, the entire set of data that would have to be produced for there to be even a remote chance of randomly generating a single sonnet of Shakespeare. Nor can it hope to see anywhere near the total amount of arrangements that the smaller chemicals of life can achieve. Hence, the calculation I made holds perfectly true for the universe we live in.


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