Slifkin: Why the hype/controvasy?

I read "Mythical Creatures" by slifkin a while back in Shul while I was looking up names to call my new pet in an RPG I played. Besides leaving nothing really answered, I thought it was a nice book, a bit "non commital" but nothing to really praise or fight against.

This shobbos I read "Science and Torah" and again, didn't find anything particularly enlightening. The book itself, makes a few claims here and there that some might find his ideas offensive, but I didn't find anything that made me go. Yeah! Thats it! Can't wait to show this chapter to my agnostic friend! (I have had that feeling when reading Kaplan and Kellerman books though)

So I am curious, whats all the hubbub about?

Is it just that people are so anti censorship that they have to rally behind anything thats been "banned for bad reasons" or is there honestly groups of people who read Slifkin and go "wow!"


One thing that I was reminded of however, which really struck me as interesting, is how many different sciences there are to determine the age of the universe. We have Treerings, Ice cores, Geology, Chemistry half lives, Biology, Astronomy and Archeology. However, when it comes to things like Gravity, or "How light works" or Health, or computers, very few different fields of science will all come to the same conclusions and work off eachother.

I think this is something worth pondering and discovering how true it is. The sciences we use in our everyday lives, appear to only come from "one source" but the science that is used to make people question beliefs come from all directions. Why is that? I ask this questions from two directons. 1. Why would G-d do that? 2. why does "every day science" Not come from all directions?