[Avodah] Some thoughts on a recent book "Knocking on Heaven's Door"

[Rich, Joel]

R' Katz commented

 1. Keep up what good work?  The work of famous atheist writers like Hitchens and Dawkins?



 2. HOWEVER, it is a fool's mission to try to persuade someone like Lisa Randall of this.

 3. All of that leads her to imagine that she has some kind of special knowledge and insight into fields in which she is in fact entirely ignorant: theology, politics, history, economics, and scientific fields other than physics.  Her authority as a Harvard physicist and writer gives her standing to babble on about things she literally knows nothing about.

 4. In the Oct 3 issue of TIME magazine
  5. We religious Jews do not need to be overly impressed and we certainly don't need to be intimidated.  There are religious Jews who, unlike Lisa Randall, actually know science AND Torah.   Oh and political science and history and economics, too.
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1. The good work of  trying to make physics and science interesting and understandable in a country that  is not graduating enough STEM majors to even fill the shoes of those retiring, let alone any future growth.
2. I am only trying to convince her that the "tautology" she provided (religion and science contradict) is not QED - she may not think (and I don't think you can "prove" belief to anyone -listen here for a shiur from R' OY Glickman - I wonder if anyone disagrees today http://download.yutorah.org/2011/2310/764672/Is%20Hilchot%20Teshuva%20a%20Contradiction%20in%20Terms%20Thoughts%20on%20Law%20and%20Philosophy.MP3) it's the most likely explanation but I want to show it can't be rejected out of hand
3. I can't speak for her but (hey we can agree on something) the end note of her book mentions this and finance/probability (I borrowed it from the NYPL so I don't remember exactly) as areas she wouldn't be comfortable writing about without some others tutelage - one of those areas happens to be something I work on professionally and I also thought it could have stood some peer review.   {but just note that we make the same claim in a way for gedolim - a few hours on medicine etc.}
4. will read -
5.Not at all intimidated, that's why I wrote her in the first place. If we can't stand up to  those who disagree, it is a cause for concern (i.e. we only convince the convinced because they know no better)
GT
Joel Rich
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