Dr. Daniel Jackson is a professor of computer science at MIT, and a founder of Yedid Nefesh, a minyan in Newton, Massachusetts. This article appears in issue 6 of Conversations, the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals.
Just over sixty years ago, the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists was founded to resolve "the apparent points of conflict between scientific theory and Orthodox Judaism."[1] The claims of paleontology, cosmology, and especially evolutionary biology exposed contradictions with traditional beliefs that were hard to overcome-so hard, indeed, that Alvin Radkowsky (an eminent nuclear physicist and leading member of the association) described the challenge as "a test of faith comparable to that faced by the biblical Abraham."[2]
