Is it important how the Chazon Ish knew urology?

But of course it does matter, and matters greatly, how the Chazon Ish knew this [Details of urology -BF ] . If one maintains like one of the local rabbonim, then one can deduce that personal righteousness of an individual is sufficient to grant him knowledge from On High about scientific matters. סוד ה’ ליראיו. If so, we might readily extrapolate that the present Gedolim, who are surely extremely righteous, have deep scientific knowledge of the workings of the world, despite their coming from a culture which looks often down on secular knowledge. And if the Chazon Ish did not value studying secular subjects where they had relevance to halacha, but got the right answer anyway, then perhaps a posek need not make himself familiar with the metzius either. Nor is it likely to be deemed important for the hamon am to have some familiarity with modern science and medicine. And if you think a Gadol is simply wrong for maintaining a geocentric model of the universe, or a flat earth, or that gentiles have fewer teeth than Jews, or (and here to issues of greater concern) that the earth is young, or than evolution is nonsense and heresy, then you are not only a kofer but an ignorant one at that, for surely your shallow observations and the shallow observations of modern scientists are nothing compared with the truth which these tzadikim intuited with their ruach hakodesh.

And further, if this was true of the Chazon Ish, who was a recent Acharon, then al achas kama vechama it is true of Chazal. They must have had ruach hakodesh. And so one is a heretic for claiming that Chazal could err in science. If anything in the gemara appears to be scientifically inaccurate, the gemara either must be interpreted non-literally, with a convenient deep mystical significance, or else their science is true and it is the kofer scientists who are in the wrong.

via parshablog: Is it important how the Chazon Ish knew urology?.

Interesting post by Josh Waxman arguing that even halakhic decisors need to reference modern science when making decisions in that domain.  What is novel about the post, is that the subject of the example, the Hazon Ish, was very conservative and well-respected.