[Avodah] eye pains on shabbat

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 01:21:04PM +0300, harchinam wrote:
:  Interesting. But I see a different definition for the words nishtanu hateva
: than you are using.
...
: It is not that the physical teva changed necessarily but that our
: understanding of it changes constantly according to what we are able to see
: with our own eyes [or our researcher's eyes]...

Berukhah shekivant ledaas R' Avraham b haRambam!

This is also compelling when/if nishtanah hateva is invoked about fields
other than biology. Is it?

(Although the molad and the day changed since Rabban Gamliel's day,
since both the earth's spin and the moon's orbit are slowing down. But
that deceleration follows the same formula now as it did then.)


But some of the biological cases could be a change due to changes in
diet or breeding than in genetics or theory. The possible change of the
size of an olive which was called nishtaneh hateva, could be because we
bred a slightly different strain of olive. Or chicken, yeilding different
chicken-egg sizes. Or that mothers are healthier with today's nutrition
and medicine, and therefore 8th month babies are more likely to live.

So we have three senses of the term on the table:
1- RAbhR: theory changed
2- The population changed due to breeding, nutrition and medicine
3- The biology changed

R' Yaakov Menken (of torah.org) noted to me in a discussion that nishtaneh
hateva in the usual sense (I think #3 is the one most contemporary
observant Jews assume) is belief in evolution.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             We are what we repeatedly do.
micha at aishdas.org        Thus excellence is not an event,
http://www.aishdas.org   but a habit.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                   - Aristotle