C. Sidney Burwell, the dean of Harvard Medical School from
1935 to 1949, is reported to have told his students, "Half of
what you are taught as medical students will in ten years
have been shown to be wrong, and the trouble is, none of your
teachers knows which half."
This is no less true in our days of all science, as a short
survey of scientific mistakes and revisions that were
reported just in the past two months shows.
Perhaps the biggest news is that Pluto is no longer
considered a planet. Whoever learned that there are nine
planets in the Solar System should unlearn it. Now there are
eight. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) made it
official about a month ago. Suddenly, no one has to explain
or excuse why Chazal never spoke about it, or show some
obscure passage that might possibly be interpreted to show
that Chazal really did know about Pluto. Poof! A democratic
vote of the current membership of the IAU and there is
nothing to explain or excuse.
It was recently reported that through December 31, 1994,
anyone who reported seeing a giant wave in the ocean of more
than 50 feet would have been dismissed as someone who might
also believe in mermaids and sea monsters. Scientists assured
us that their established models of waves show that such
phenomena are statistical improbabilities that happen no more
than once in 10,000 years. Moreover, thousands of ships ply
the ocean every day, and have been doing so for hundreds of
years. If such waves happen even once in a while, why are
there no credible reports of such rogue waves?
On January 1, 1995 there was a credible report: a 61-foot
wave hit an oil platform in the North Sea off of Norway that
was equipped with a reliable measuring and recording
device.
1994 was not the middle of the Dark Ages. It is pretty safe
to say that the world was just as scientifically enlightened
then as it is today. But the report on January 1, 1995 shook
oceanographers up and they looked at the subject again and
they found (with satellite studies) that not only are they
not rare at all, but that at any given moment about 10 rogue
waves are churning through the world's oceans, and many of
them are much larger even than that first measured giant
wave, reaching up to 100 feet (30M)!
Unlike the redefinition of Pluto, the discovery of giant
waves has no evident consequences for the integrity of Torah
knowledge as seen by science, since the passages mentioning
giant waves are obviously allegoric. Nonetheless, it should
undermine the status of scientific "knowledge" since it
provides an example of a scientific belief, backed by
extensive observation and elaborate mathematical theory, that
was spectacularly overturned.
Other recent scientific discoveries and revelations include
the assertion that the residents of Qumran near the Dead Sea
had nothing to do with the famous scrolls that were
discovered in caves nearby. The scrolls, mostly written by
people who were far removed from normative Jewish tradition,
depict many exotic beliefs which suggests that the writers
followed unusual practices. It was assumed that they lived in
isolation in Qumran so as not to come in conflict with more
conventional Jews. The latest digs at Qumran by two seasoned
Israeli archaeologists over a period of a decade show,
according to Dr. Yitzhak Magen and Dr. Yuval Peleg of the
Israel Antiquities Authority, that Qumran was a center of the
contemporary pottery industry for at least a century when it
was destroyed in 3828 (68 CE) by the Romans. "The association
between Qumran, the caves and the scrolls is, thus, a
hypothesis lacking any factual archaeological basis," wrote
Dr. Magen in Biblical Archaeology Review.
A recent article in the New York Times (August 22,
2006) quoted Dr. William Leo Smith, an ichthyologist at the
American Museum of Natural History in New York, about
poisonous fish as saying, "With very few exceptions,
everything we thought was wrong." There are about six times
as many poisonous fish as previously thought, for example.
Twenty-five years ago, the one thing a parent knew about
childhood illnesses was that for an ear infection the child
must get antibiotics. About two years ago the American
Association of Pediatrics declared that 85-95 percent of the
antibiotics taken for ear infection did not help the patient,
and another well-established medical principle was revised.
Before the revised guidelines were issued, 10 million
antibiotic prescriptions were written each year for ear
infections.
If someone is a doctor, or an astronomer, or a professional
oceanographer, or an archaeologist, then of course he or she
must learn the conventional wisdom of their field.
However if we are just private people for whom Torah is our
trade, and our desire is to learn truth and only truth, why
should we spend our time studying "facts" half of which will,
in ten years, be shown to have been wrong? Must we
resolve scientific challenges to Torah when science may
discard the underlying material some time in the future?
This we know (for example): It is a permanent truth that
there are four categories of damagers — arba ovos
nezikin (Bava Kama 2a). This is true now, it has been
true at least since Torah was created, and it will remain
true. Let us stick to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth.
If we learn this today, we will not have to unlearn it
tomorrow — or ever. If we learn this, we have acquired
a piece of truth, and made ourselves closer to Hashem.
When we learn Torah we join the chain of Chazal that
stretches back to Moshe Rabbenu on Sinai, and will stretch
forward forever. The Torah is eternal, true and
unchanging.
