<html><head><style type='text/css'>p { margin: 0; }</style></head><body><div style='font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000'><br>RavMBerger has done a much better job than I ever could at describing how<br>one can believe in evolution by natural selection and also believe in hashgachah<br>pratis. However, I wanted to restate one point that he makes, and also add in one<br>more element to the discussion:<br><br>One problem that comes up is in the discussion of 'random mutation' that plays a<br>role in natural selection. One problem in understanding this idea is that we have<br>two uses of the term random. In common parlance, the word random means without<br>reason or order. This is the usage that I think people see as incompatible with hashgachah<br>pratis. <br><br>However, in science/mathematics, there is a different definition. The fact that you can identify<br>the underlying distribution of a random process is stark evidence that there IS order to the process.<br>The role of a die is a random process, but, given enough throws it is going to come out as a rectangular<br>distribution between 1 and 6. Furthermore, the role of the die is clearly based on the physical features <br>of the die, the throw, and the surface where it hits. If one could calculate all the physical forces & properties,<br>one could predict how the die would come out. (On this topic, I recommend the book "The Eudaemonic Pie"<br>about a group who tried to predict the outcome of a casino roulette wheel in real time. It has been over 25<br>years since I read this book, so although I do not recall anything that would bother someone frum reading it,<br>I cannot guarantee it).<br><br>---<br><br>On another note: Evolution is a process over time. It really only appears as organisms changing because we<br>live our human life as a passage of time. HaShem, however, lives out of time. Or, perhaps all time is a single<br>moment for Him. All this is beyond our understanding, but couldn't that explain how evolution can exist from our<br>human perspective, but the Torah account of creation -- which seems to imply fixed species created in Gan Eden<br>and never changing -- could exist too?<br></div></body></html>