I’ve read a lot of claims by creationists so I’m used to wildly biologically-implausible claims. However, I’ve been having a slight back and forth that was so strange and dare I say ridiculous that I just have to share it. It’s about this old post where I discuss the story in Genesis where Jacob puts speckles in front of sheep so they see them as they’re mating in order to get speckled sheep. Below is a slightly-abridged and reparagraph version of the utterly bizarre conversation that started 3 weeks ago, over 3 years after the post was written. I’ve illustrated it in a Lord Privy Seal style since I feel a Pythonesque atmosphere is appropriate. Enjoy!
Marc: I am intrigued. Maybe visual cues can effect the passing of genetic recessive traits. I am a scientist and not joking, I think this is worth researching. Mabye the genetic splicing events are not entirely random, and can be controlled to some degree[…]During intercourse new sperm cells are made by the process of meiosis (splitting a cell). This is where homologous recombination of the DNA occurs and effects what traits will be included in the sperm. Therefore the final traits that are passed on to the sperm (and therefore offspring) are decided during intercourse, when the secondary spermatocytes divide into haploid spermatocytes[…]The sites where the protien Spo11 will break the DNA for mixing is not random, but whether or not the break is made, and where that piece of DNA is inserted into the other chromosome is not known how that is regulated. There may be factors that effect this “mixing” of the DNA, visual cues might be a good place to start[…]
Once again this biblical story seems to imply that the spotted gene was recessive and the plain white gene was dominant. Therefore these genetic events (meiosis) during sex could influence the genetics of the offspring (ie: factors during sex can effect the genetics of the babies), and whether or not the recessive gene of spotting was passed on. Then if the female had the recessive spotted gene and a dominant solid white gene (very plausible given the backstory of spotting before Laban breeded it out of the dominant position) then the recessive of the female could pair up with the recessive of the male and produce a spotted offspring. The question that remains to be scientifically proven is: can visual queue’s (spotted rods for example) effect homologous recombination during spermatidogenesis?
Me: What scientific institution do you work for? How is this investigation different to a physicist trying to come up with a quantum model that predicts the ability to turn water into wine a la Jesus in John?
Marc: My scientific institution has nothing to do with this. What I proposed is science. You have a hypothesis and test it im order to see if it is true. Science is the aquiring of knowlege, nothing more and nothing less.
Me: The institution was to get more details on your credentials over and above “I’m a scientist”. Still keen to hear your answer to my main question above before saying anything about sheep”¦
Marc: I don’t believe people should be listened to for their credentials, but rather what they are saying makes sense or is proven. So I am not going to ask you what your credentials are. Your asking me how my proposed experiment is different than a physicist figuring out using quantum theory whether or not we can explain how water could be turned to wine? I’m not familiar with that though to be able to weigh the similarities and differences. Mabye if you gave me a source I could help you think about it[…]
Many of us think all ancient civilizations were primitive, but not all were at any given time. Many ancient civilizations we know had technology we can’t even match today such as stonework and the civil engineering at Maccu Piccu. That is something we can see, imagine how much knowlege some civilizations could have had that was not preserved[…]
I tend to trust that the writers of the bible would offer as historically accurate of a presentation as there exists otherwise, since I know what values they stood for; truth, humility, and standing up for the poor and oppressed. Not to say that the stories are ones we see in our everyday life; but I do trust the writers character, that they would not intentionally (or otherwise) decieve. That said I think it is a great book to find lost ancient knowlege like this method of genetic engineering. This method goes a step beyond traditional selective breeding. My input is that I think it would be a valuable thing to test to see if we can improve our current selective breeding genetic engineering technology and make the world a better place. Yes our “monsanto” type genetic engineering may be faster, but if this biblical method works, then it could offer a much cheaper and side effect free alternative[…]
To clarify: I think we should perform experiments to see if we can replicate the findings of Jacob (who I believe was a scientist in this regard). That is what you do when you happen upon any piece of scientific work, you attempt to replicate it before you either support the findings or deny them. No one has a corner on the truth, and that is why we in science tend to come to consensus instead of absolute truth, since it only takes 1 experiment to change what we think we know.
Me: You’re the one who brought up that you’re [allegedly] a scientist – if you didn’t I wouldn’t have mentioned anything about credentials! Ok, forget the quantum physics experiment, let’s take an analogy from biology instead. How is your experiment different to someone reading Genesis 1-2 (about YHWH making a woman from a man’s rib), forming some hypothesis about this using biological terms (eg. that the ribs contain stem cells which can be taken out and [more] easily manipulated to fertilise an embryo) and then trying to create an experiment to test this hypothesis? As you can see the specifics I listed don’t matter much, I just mean would you consider that on the same footing as your proposed experiment or not and why?
Marc: […]First of all, it is easier to test. While in theory with pluripotent stem cells you can create every cell in the body, i’m not sure about the autologous stem cells in the bone marrow. Anyway to try to replicate creating a person out of bone is unimaginable. Second, its done by a man. My idea is something that was already done by a man (according to record). Therefore if we replicate his methods, we should be able to replicate his result.
Me: Ok, a cruder analogy: how is it different to investigating whether bran, pins and needles when mixed together and injected into the brain will improve cognitive ability a la the Scarecrow in Wizard of Oz? (Injected by a man, ie. the Wizard).
Marc: The Wizard of Oz is a fictional story. While it could be argued whether the Bible is fiction or non-fiction, It can be safely concluded from world history that at least the early israelites and the authors of the bible considered it to be non-fiction, not to say anything of the new testament. I suppose by this question you would like to draw similarities between the wizard of oz and the bible; including talking animals, and other things in the bible that don’t seem to reflect real life, and therefore conclude that the bible is the same type of fiction as the story of the wizard of oz. What constitutes non-fiction? Recording something historical. Is the bible a historical account of ancient Israel? Yes, it is proposed to be. Is the Wizard of Oz a historical account? No[…]The second difference is whether or not the author intended that the situation would apply to real life. The author of that book in the bible seems to be proposing that this could work in our world. The author of the wizard of oz doesn’t seem to be saying this, based on the fact that the “˜bran, pins, and needles’ wasn’t actually used in the book to improve brain function, but rather to fill up his head with something. This can be supported by the fact that the wizard gave the lion a silk heart; possibly implying that there was nothing there before.
Even since the wizard of oz is fiction, the author could still propose something that could be applied to real life (ie: science fiction often does this), but he doesn’t seem to be doing this in the wizard of oz for the above reasons. I am not an expert on the brain and treatments to neurodegenerative diseases, even an idea who’s source is questionable, could spark innovation. A micro or nano surface resembling “bran, pins, and needles” put on a micro particle or device may be something worth researching in medical treatments of the future.
Me: [I think I overdid it but I was just flummoxed, especially about using the Wizard of Oz for nanotechnology.] To cut to the chase, if you have ANY evidence that (A) Jacob was a historical figure (B) the story in Genesis is anything but a completely invented story, I would love to hear it and I’m sure so would millions of others – it would be earth-shattering or revolutionary.
Either way, the idea that you can affect colouring is so ludicrous that my original responses were genuinely baffled but I can’t any more. For this to be right, incredibly large swaths of everything we know about biology have to be wrong. Of course I am not a scientist and do not have any training in biology whatsoever. However:
- According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermatogenesis meiosis of sperm takes about 64 days. More details at http://www.embryology.ch/anglais/cgametogen/spermato03.html – I really doubt that it would be that different for sheep. Alas, the signals in the sheep’s visual system corresponding to Jacob’s rods will have to accelerate beyond the speed of light and go back in time to affect the sperm.
- This is a highly specific mechanism since it only affects certain traits and not the whole process of spermatogenesis. To say that it’s wildly implausible that such a mechanism could have evolved (unless I’m missing something really big) is an understatement. Furthermore, if an animal could direct the genetic makeup of its offspring based on semantic features of its visual field it’s evolution would not look like what we see for any domestic or non-domestic animal.
- The point of the biblical story is there’s a correspondence between what the animal sees (speckles) and its offspring’s coat. This is nothing more than sympathetic magic, the idea that essenses can be transferred like that. The steps needed to (say) write an artificial computer program that takes inputs like that of a visual system and then outputs instructions for reproducing the image on a coat colouring (through development, no less), would be worthy of several dozen Nobel prizes. If there was such a system, it might be as much of a gamechanger as (say) the evolution of multicellular life. That such a system would have no effects that we’ve noticed seems, ahem, strange.
The science [sic] beside the point, if this were true it would have to mean that out of the possibly millions of people who have engaged in animal breeding nobody had found this out except a guy called Jacob and then the knowledge was lost. It requires that no breeder had tried this (a bit far-fetched considering how many millions of animal breeders who believed in a literal Genesis there probably would have been). This is especially interesting given the incredible care and attention that’s been given to prize breeds of various mammals for coat colour[…] Alternately, if someone had done this and it had worked, for us not to have heard of it, this knowledge was somehow lost, even though controlling this would make the person who developed it incredibly rich? On the suppressed side, it would mean a conspiracy worthy of a thousand of the most outlandish 9/11 conspiracies.
I cannot adequately express how low a probability this has of being true, this comment box would probably run out of zeros. But to top it all off, to suggest this is true because of an ancient story for which there’s not an iota of evidence […] is mind-boggling. I am hence promoting highlights from this thread to a new post as a testament to mind-bogglement. I’ve seen lots of stuff by creationists so I’ve got experience with biologically-mind-boggling arguments but this is shocking even to me.
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