Science and Chazal

Pesachim 94b
The Sages of Israel say, During the day, the sun travels below the firmament, and at night, above the firmament. And the scholars of the nations say, During the day the sun travels below the firmament, and at night below the ground. Rebbi said: Their words seem more correct than ours, for during the day the wellsprings are cool and at night they steam (due to being heated by the sun passing beneath them—Rashi).

Sanhedrin 5b

Rav said: I spent eighteen months living with a shepherd in order to know which blemishes are permanent and which are transitory.

Rav Sherira Gaon (or possibly his son, Rav Hai Gaon) Teshuvot Ha Geonim, no. 394:

Our sages were not doctors and said what they did based on experience with the diseases of their time. Therefore, there is no commandment to listen to the sages [regarding medical advice] because they only spoke from their opinion based on what they saw in their day.

Rambam, Moreh Nevuchim 3:14

Do not ask me to reconcile everything that they (the sages) stated about astronomy with the actual reality, for the science of those days was deficient, and they did not speak out of traditions from the prophets regarding these matters.

Rambam; Moreh Nevuchim 2:8

It is one of the ancient beliefs, widespread among both the philosophers and ordinary people, that the motions of the spheres produce mighty and fearful sounds... This belief is also well- known in our nation. Thus the Sages describe the greatness of the sound produced by the sun in the daily circuit in its sphere... Aristotle, however, rejects this, and explains that they produce no sound... You must not find it far-fetched that Aristotle differs from the opinion of our Sages in this. For this theory—that is, of the sounds of the spheres—stems from the belief that the sphere is fixed and the constellations revolve [within it]; and you already know that in such matters of astronomy, the matter has been decided in favor of the gentile scholars over the Sages. Thus, it is explicitly stated, “The wise men of the nations have defeated them.” And this is appropriate; for with speculative matters everyone speaks according to the results of his own investigation, and everyone accepts that which appears to him established by proof.

R. Avraham ben HaRambam, Ma’amar Al Derashos Chazal, in Milchamot Hashem (ed. R. Margaliot, Jerusalem 1953)

The great superiority of the sages of the Talmud, and their expertise in their explanations of the Torah and its details, and the truth of their sayings in the explanation of its general principles and details, nevertheless does not obligate us to defend them and uphold their views in all of their sayings in medicine, and in scientific knowledge.

Maharam Schick, Teshuvas Maharam Schick 7

Matters that were not received by Chazal as halachah leMoshe miSinai, but rather which they said according to their own reasoning - and with something that is not received [from Sinai] and has no root in our Torah, but rather comes from investigation and experience, it is difficult to determine [that it is true]. And there are many occasions when the sages determined, according to their own intellects, that a matter was a certain way, and the subsequent generation analyzed the matter further and disputed the earlier view.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Trusting the Torah's Sages, Chapter 4:

In my opinion, the first principle that every student of Chazal's statements must keep before his eyes is the following: Chazal were the sages of God's law - the receivers, transmitters and teachers of His toros, His mitzvos, and His interpersonal laws. They did not especially master the natural sciences, geometry, astronomy, or medicine - except insofar as they needed them for knowing, observing and fulfilling the Torah. We do not find that this knowledge was transmitted to them from Sinai. …We find that Chazal themselves considered the wisdom of the gentile scholars equal to their own in the natural sciences. To determine who was right in areas where the gentile sages disagreed with their own knowledge, they did not rely on their tradition but on reason. Moreover they even respected the opinion of the gentile scholars, admitting when the opinion of the latter seemed more correct than their own.

Imagine if a scholar such as Humboldt had lived in their times and had traveled to the ends of the world for his biological investigations. If upon his return he would report that in some distant land there is a humanoid creature growing from the ground or that he had found mice that had been generated from the soil and had in fact seen a mouse that was half earth and half flesh and his report was accepted by the world as true, wouldn't we expect Chazal to discuss the Torah aspects that apply to these instances? What laws of defilement and decontamination apply to these creatures? Or would we expect them to go on long journeys to find out whether what the world has accepted is really true? And if, as we see things today, these instances are considered fiction, can Chazal be blamed for ideas that were accepted by the naturalists of their times? And this is what really happened. These statements are to be found in the works of Pliny, who lived in Rome at the time the Second Temple was destroyed, and who collected in his books on nature all that was well known and accepted in his day.

Chacham Yosef Chaim, Benayahu, Bava Batra 25b

Know that regarding what R. Eliezer and R. Yehoshua say here regarding the motion of the sun, was said according to their intellectual assessment, according to whatever seemed true to them in the science of astronomy. And they did not determine these things and establish them as true; rather, each went according to whatever appeared to him in accordance with his principles of astronomy; they did not say these things as a tradition from their teachers. And therefore, nowadays, when the principles of astronomy are widespread, and they have devised observational tools for the stars and constellations and the globe and the elevations of the sun, they have seen and know many things that can be genuinely determined and universally agreed upon, [such as that] the sun travels below the earth at night on the other side of the globe... And if the Sages of Israel said this from their tradition, how could it be said that the words of the non-Jewish scholars seem more correct? And how could one bring a proof from the argument regarding steaming waters to contradict matters that were received via tradition, Heaven forbid? Rather, it is certain that the Sages of Israel did not determine these things to establish them as true; rather, they said that their intellectual assessment suggests it according to the science of astronomy that they possessed in their era, and they only suggested it as a possibility...