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I don't remember exactly what the sequence of events was, but I remember the various factors that were involved. It was approximately in the fall of 1999 that my views on the topic changed. But I had to feel sophisticated, so it was important to convince myself that I was objecting to evolution solely on scientific grounds. I was joining a social group which had a siege mentality, where we had to show how wrong the rest of the world was in order to feel good about ourselves. I had "flipped out" in yeshivah, and I wanted to show why the Torah True Worldview that I had absorbed was so vastly superior to everything else out there.
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But, looking back now, I realize that there were more powerful, subconscious reasons for me to oppose evolution. I had read the anti-evolution books by Michael Denton and Phillip Johnson, and they seemed extremely convincing. But most of all, refusing to declare it kefirah enabled me to make a statement that I thought was very impressive: "I'm not against evolution for religious reasons - I'm against it for scientific reasons!" Furthermore, I was aware that Rav Kook held of it, and although Rav Kook didn't count for much as far as I was concerned back then, I figured that it precluded rating evolution as kefirah. I don't think that I ever considered it to be heretical, or even severely theologically problematic I hadn't actually given much thought to the theological issues. As my books Focus and Second Focus attest, I used to be a staunch opponent of evolution.