Category Archives: Science

And now for something completely different

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29 “And these are unclean to you among the swarming things that swarm on the ground: the mole rat, the mouse, the great lizard of any kind, 30 the gecko, the monitor lizard, the lizard, the sand lizard, and the chameleon. 31 These are unclean to you among all that swarm. Whoever touches them when they are dead shall be unclean until the evening. 32 And anything on which any of them falls when they are dead shall be unclean, whether it is an article of wood or a garment or a skin or a sack, any article that is used for any purpose. It must be put into water, and it shall be unclean until the evening; then it shall be clean. 33 And if any of them falls into any earthenware vessel, all that is in it shall be unclean, and you shall break it. 34 Any food in it that could be eaten, on which water comes, shall be unclean. And all drink that could be drunk from every such vessel shall be unclean. 35 And everything on which any part of their carcass falls shall be unclean. Whether oven or stove, it shall be broken in pieces. They are unclean and shall remain unclean for you. 36 Nevertheless, a spring or a cistern holding water shall be clean, but whoever touches a carcass in them shall be unclean. 37 And if any part of their carcass falls upon any seed grain that is to be sown, it is clean, 38 but if water is put on the seed and any part of their carcass falls on it, it is unclean to you.”

—Leviticus 11:29-38, ESV

Some number of years ago, my friend Hap wrote a poem dealing, in part, with what happens when a dead gecko falls into your pot. She was good enough to send me a copy; unfortunately, thanks to the magic of cross-country moves, I don’t know where my copy is. (Update: problem solved. Too perfect. 🙂 Thanks, Hap. To the rest of you—go and read.)Anyway, it turns out there’s good reason the Torah is only worried about dead geckos falling into your pot; apparently, though I didn’t know this, gecko feet are among the wonders of nature, maybe up there with the fact that bumblebees can fly. Certainly they were as mysterious as the flight of the bumblebee. I love the picture Heather McDougal paints:

Traveling in Southeast Asia, geckos on the ceiling were a common occurrence. They would stake out territory, chasing each other away with vehemently waving tails, as if they did not notice they were in the middle of a rough, lumpy, peeling ceiling, hanging upside-down. I would lay in my bed and watch them fight, wondering why one of them did not fall on my face. As it turns out, no one else knew either until relatively recently.

The answer to the puzzle is a fascinating one (or at least, I think it is). Go read the post and see if you agree. Personally, it makes me marvel at the incredible imagination of God.

Presumption, my dear sir; pure presumption

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It’s one of the interesting (and annoying) things about scientists these days—well, to be precise, about the high-profile ones who write heavily-publicized books attacking Christianity—that they refuse to hear of anyone without a Ph.D. in science writing anything at all bearing in any way on science, and treat anyone who tries with utter contempt, but don’t hesitate to wade into the fields of the humanities, of which they know nothing at all, with the serene assurance that since they’re scientists, they must be experts here, too. Watching the likes of Richard Dawkins and Steven Weinberg dress up as philosophers, theologians and historians would be hysterically funny were it not so embarrassingly cringe-inducing, at least for those who actually know something about practicing the disciplines of philosophy, theology and history; it’s amateur hour to the nth power, rather as if someone stepped out of America’s Funniest Home Videos and into the finals of American Idol. Watching the noted philosopher Alvin Plantinga dismantle Dawkins’ book The God Delusion, however, is a very different experience, one in which Dawkins’ work plays the role of carrot to Plantinga’s Cuisinart; for his part, Weinberg’s smug, self-satisfied theory of historical development doesn’t fare much better against Barton Swaim.

I’ll concede, it would be unreasonable to expect these folks to stop trying to refute Christianity; but I would appreciate it if they would at least set aside their disciplinary arrogance and treat the humanities with the same academic respect they demand for the sciences.

Edit: as noted in the comments, including Daniel Dennett with Dawkins and Weinberg was inappropriate in more than one respect; he has therefore been removed. Mea culpa; mea maxima culpa. That said, I would still appreciate it if he would “treat the humanities with the same academic respect [he] demands for the sciences,” even if he’s formally a philosopher himself, as he treats even his own ostensible discipline with public disdain.