Avira – I’m not denying that our spiritual deeds have an effect on the natural world. I’m arguing that our physical actions ALSO clearly have an effect on the natural world. This isn’t about hashkafah or spiritual matters, it’s about reality and the physical world.
Rav Hirsch was clearly wrong about species going extinct. AAQ provided some examples, and there are many more. The passenger pigeon comes to mind as a great example. Not just animals, but plant species as well. But guess what – it’s okay that Rav Hirsch was wrong about this. Great scholars can be wrong all the time about scientific matters, but it doesn’t make their Torah in general any less important or truthful.
The gemara and rishonim are full of opinions about scientific matters that turned out to be incorrect, such as that the sun orbits around the earth. They were wrong about that, obviously, but it doesn’t disqualify the legitimacy of the entire Talmud. Previous generations who didn’t have the same information that we have about the causes and effects within our physical world would obviously see our ability to cause drastic change as minimal at best, and often an impossibility. But that doesn’t mean they’re right, it means they didn’t have the same knowledge. This isn’t just relegated to the viewpoint of classic Jewish theology. It was the worldview at large. That worldview has changed with new information, and so should ours.