Biology × Judaism

Or, science and religion generally.

Despite being an actual biologist and rabbi, I find the "religion and science" space kinda boring and bad. I haven't written anything about this, and I don't really plan to.

Instead I'll share two quotes. One is from Ernst Mayr, the father of the modern "synthesis" between evolutionary and molecular biology, and probably the twentieth century's greatest theoretical biologist. The other is from Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik, foremost Orthodox Jewish theologian of the twentieth century

Ernst Mayr: All biologists are thorough-going materialists in the sense that they recognize no supernatural or immaterial forces, but only such that are physio-chemical.

Rabbi Soloveitchik: Man and beast share equally in the same biology, physiology, and pathology. Judaism never looked upon this relatedness of man to animal as something degrading, evil or corrupt. On the contrary, God's inscrutable scheme of creation embraced man and animal alike. Both belong to nature; both sprang forth from the soil. Of course, there is a distinctive element in man, the Imago Dei, the tzelem Elokim, the image of God. Judaism considered the imago element to be not a gratuitous grant bestowed upon man but rather a challenge to be met by man; not as an endowment fashioned by God but rather as a mission to be implemented.