The above is not a recent photo. First, the branches of the ball cypress tree are bare. Second, that’s a mature female cardinal looking very healthy.
A more recent photo is likely to have skittish, disheveled juvenile cardinals visiting the feeder outside my window. And the cypress resplendent with feather-like foliage.
Every year this time in central Florida I invariably observe two developments that speak of the heat and humidity. 1. odd, hairless sores/growths on the squirrels (new pups only?); 2. the older lily plants in our pond become freckled with what is likely to be some sort of parasite.
Hot and humid. A good way to turn up the volume on biological activity. For good and bad.
Science has struck another blow to my self-concept. I must be a bit of a masochist, cause I like it.
Reading Human Microbiome Project: Diversity of Human Microbes Greater Than Previously Predicted, I encountered this:
The human microbiome consists of all the microorganisms that reside in or on the human body. Outnumbering cells in the human body by 10 to 1….
Um, so does that mean that what I considered “me” is only 10% of the biological stuff I walk around as? If my body were teased apart into elemental units, only 10% would be the building blocks of Andrew, the other 90% free-riders?
Well, not quite. First there is this addition info:
…some of the microorganisms cause illnesses, but many are necessary for good health.
Switching metaphors here, so my body is not a train, it’s cars clung-to and filled with free-riding hobo microbes. Many of the passengers actually contribute to my health and well being. Are even essential.
The 10 to 1 ratio can be a bit misleading in this regard too: as with the train, ridden by 9 passengers for every one of its cars, if we were to form a ratio by weight, vs. by elemental units, the genetically-me-stuff would again dominate. Relative to bacteria, a human cell can be super-massive. A Gulliver to Lilliputians.
(Bad Andrew! Switching metaphors mid-stream again. Sit, stay.)
Still. Biological information such as above teaches us just how complex life is.
As a freethought endnote I invite creationists to ponder which “theory” better explains the 9 to 1 ratio: so-called Intelligent Design or evolution. Be honest now.
Yes, eat my flesh. Please. Disperse my seeds to fertile lands so my genes may flourish.
What! You aren’t swallowing my core? What of my seeds, my plan? You cheat! My enticement, my expenditure of energy, has been for naught. Unless of course, you love the flesh of my vegetative wombs so much, you become a Johnny Appleseed. Then, by all means . . .
There are many claims in the Bible that can’t be supported or refuted by direct evidence. For example, in Genesis 5:23 (New International Version) we learn that,
Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years.
The way I interpret this verse is that “altogether” means the real years Enoch lived plus the bullshit years.
I actually prefer the Amplified Bible translation:
So all the days of Enoch were 365 years.
A body doesn’t have rings that, when cut through, can be counted. And we don’t have Enoch’s body in deep freeze, so there is no way to verify whether or not this “man of God” lived that long. Since the average life span today for believer and non-believer alike is edging up toward 80 years in prosperous countries, and because there have been few documented cases of people living a dozen or so years past the 100 year mark, we have strong reason to doubt the above statement. But when wearing our philosopher’s cap, we have to leave it at that. No we can’t be absolutely certain that a statement that, in all reasonably ways, appears to be total B.S. is, in fact, total B.S. Oh sure, beyond reasonable doubt it is. But mixing reasonable doubt and religion is like mixing oil and holy water. Blind faith can surmount reasonable doubt without blinking. Even exponentially extreme reasonable doubt.
In addition to biographical and historical statements, there are claims in the Bible that can be tested to determine if, in fact, they hold up. Of course, when confronted with the falsity of a Biblical statement, believers will do some version of a rationalization tap-dance, including these favorites: 1) while it was true in Biblical times, times have changed, yet the truth somehow remains; 2) well, that part is poetry, or metaphor -sorta like Biblical window dressing, 3) Satan must have inserted that line while the Bible god was refilling his coffee cup and sharpening his quill, 4) my God works in mysterious ways, except of course when it comes to the things I like, which are crystal clear.
How might they explain this passage about sheep from Genesis 30:37-40?
Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.
To me it reflects the superstitious voodoo that passed for science in ancient times. But it wasn’t even science, maybe proto-science if you are generous. For one, Jacob forgot to include a control group in his protocol. Furthermore, we can determine his results were bogus by putting them to the test today. Jacob may have been innovative in his breeding program for sheep, but he was also completely mistaken. His quaint attempt at genetic engineering works in the story, but only because a story is a story.
I suspect that when Jacob’s tale was originally composed, it wasn’t so much about a miracle. Rather the Bible writer wanted to illustrate what he perceived as Jacob’s wisdom. Jacob, after all, is a pillar of the Old Testament.
In terms of wisdom, we know the writer got it wrong. The Bible remains wrong about it today. We know that with absolute certainty because we can test it.
My overall conclusion is the testable “scientific” claims unique to the Bible fail time and time again. What can’t be tested falls into the extremely implausible category. Is this a book we want informing our students, whether in public schools or private? I say no. Yet I also believe in freedom. So keep it out of the public domain. To all those students stuck in private schools where the Bible is considered a textbook: good luck. The education you are receiving isn’t fit for a sheep-herder living in remote mountains. Not if he or she wants speckled sheep, anyway.
This headline over at ScienceDaily got me chuckling: Biology May Not Be So Complex After All, Physicist Finds. I’m not a biologist, but I’m almost certain most biologists encountering that would think, Huh? I like the “Physicists Finds.” The parable of the blind men and the elephant came to mind. Perhaps the physicist has the hind end in his grasp and has concluded that “biology” simply consist of two symmetrical parts bifurcated by a . . . I’ll leave it there.
But wait a minute. Am I being fair? What did the physicist discover?
Emory biophysicist Ilya Nemenman has identified parameters for several biochemical networks that distill the entire behavior of these systems into simple equivalent dynamics.
Hmm. Further down in the piece I think I learned that Nemenman has basically discovered an aggregate property of a number of biological systems. Which is something. Perhaps something very important. But I wonder. At this point wouldn’t it be more accurate to state that the physicist has discovered biology may be easier to describe/model “after all”? For there is a difference. And to the philosophically-inclined, that different is no quibble.
