Why Can't a Dog Give Birth to a Lobster?
Before recorded history, before the scientific method, people understood that children inherited traits from their parents. Not just humans, but all animals passed their essential nature to their offspring. They knew that it was pretty unlikely that a cow would give birth to a dog, or the family cat would give birth to a trout. Why? Because they weren’t idiots! They could reasonably observe that animal’s begat their own kind. No one could remember the last time they saw a weasel have a litter of rhinos. And more importantly, no one expected it to happen. Rewind deep into our distant past; pick a number, a thousand years, how about ten thousand years? You’ll find that humans always seemed to understand this. There apparently was never a time in which people, any people, ever, pondered the possibility of interspecies births—with one exception, that being scientists. You know the really smart guys with all the answers to arcane questions that nobody cares about. Not all scientists, mind you, but some certainly did.
Now, I’m not trying to suggest that scientists are stupid, only that they’re, sometimes, a bit too anal retentive to simply accept the obvious. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Breaking things down to essential structures allows us to see minute mechanical processes at work. It can give us the ability to understand and fix problems that might otherwise be unfixable. And, along the way, as science attempts to solve one problem, other problems are solved as knowledge accumulates. Sending probes to Mars doesn’t just show us how to get to Mars. It produces a whole range of economic and technological benefits that accrue to all of us. On the other hand, scientists can be prone to see the world solely through mechanical processes, reducing the miraculous nature of nature to its component parts and nothing more.
This particular anal-retentive variable is why a good car mechanic can hear that sound that is inaudible to normal humans and fix it before it becomes a much bigger problem—it’s also true of doctors—meaning that; while anal-retentive types may be irritating, all of us benefit by them.
So, why write about it? Because there’s a growing tendency among some very vocal scientists to claim that science is the end all and be all of human knowledge—that before science, people were walking around cowering in fear of the sun, eating poisonous food and dropping like flies until some nerdy, scientific type came along and said, “Hey, stop eating poison!” and then everybody was saved!
Now, I’m not trying to suggest that scientists are stupid, only that they’re, sometimes, a bit too anal retentive to simply accept the obvious. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Breaking things down to essential structures allows us to see minute mechanical processes at work. It can give us the ability to understand and fix problems that might otherwise be unfixable. And, along the way, as science attempts to solve one problem, other problems are solved as knowledge accumulates. Sending probes to Mars doesn’t just show us how to get to Mars. It produces a whole range of economic and technological benefits that accrue to all of us. On the other hand, scientists can be prone to see the world solely through mechanical processes, reducing the miraculous nature of nature to its component parts and nothing more.
This particular anal-retentive variable is why a good car mechanic can hear that sound that is inaudible to normal humans and fix it before it becomes a much bigger problem—it’s also true of doctors—meaning that; while anal-retentive types may be irritating, all of us benefit by them.
So, why write about it? Because there’s a growing tendency among some very vocal scientists to claim that science is the end all and be all of human knowledge—that before science, people were walking around cowering in fear of the sun, eating poisonous food and dropping like flies until some nerdy, scientific type came along and said, “Hey, stop eating poison!” and then everybody was saved!
That’s because scientific folk use empiricism, a big word for watching something and forming conclusions based on observation and evidence. Here’s a good example. A baby gets fed every day at the same time. And when he doesn’t get fed on time he starts crying. The scientific type says “I wonder why he’s crying, “Maybe he wants to be covered in molten lava”? After all, until you’ve looked at all of the variables and eliminated them as possibilities, who can say what the truth is? He then, approaches the baby with a vat of molten lava, looking to test his hypothesis. The baby’s mother responds by shooting him in the face with a cross bow. All of the scientists scratch their heads and begin to question why this happened. Some say “Maybe the sight of molten lava triggers a cross bow reflex in women"? Those scientists go back to lurking about babies and mothers with vats of molten lava, eager to test their theories, hoping to find a correlation between the two. Other, normal folk, suggest that women have a maternal instinct that compels them to protect their offspring, just like alligators and ocelots. The first group says “Let’s not jump the gun on this one. What seems so obvious, may in fact, not be obvious at all"! And so, they commence to lurking, molten lava always at the ready.
I realize I’m getting pretty deep here. So, don’t feel bad if you need to re-read the deep stuff in the preceding paragraphs in order to get a handle on these important questions. And one more thing, before all of those folks who love science abandon my masterful treatise as being anti-science, hang in there, the good stuff is coming.
When scientists mapped the human genome they finally proved once and for all what had been obvious for untold millennia—that genetic information was passed through an incredibly complex code from parent to child. It wasn’t called DNA by ancient people mind you—and if you told someone that little, tiny, invisible things were responsible for your baby looking like you; they might’ve burned you at the stake. But they wouldn’t have batted an eye if you said that your kid looked like you, because you were the father. Of course, it may have caused the father to question why you were bringing up something so obvious, causing him to pound you in the head with the femur of a giant sloth.
Nonetheless, this DNA stuff was a seismic leap in human understanding. The fact that, in its simplest form, it seemed to reinforce much of what people always knew, wasn’t all there was to the story. In fact, it could make possible the end of human diseases of all kinds—and that’s only a very small part of what was learned—if we learned that and nothing more, however, it would be enough. And so, that tendency towards anal retention can have immeasurable value, not just to humans, but to all living things, even if it is oftentimes irritating.
Science, for all its lofty rhetoric, sometimes, actually manages to fulfill its promise. We may have to endure a lot of assholes along the way, but our patience can be worth it—and it can offer a very big payoff in ways that really matter! That science, like all human endeavors, frequently falls short of its aspirations is to be expected. It is always much harder to produce something of genuine value than it is to criticize the process. In a world where prosperity has made basic knowledge attainable with the click of a button, it can be easy to dismiss the struggle, in part because all we ever see is the result and not the herculean effort it took to get there.
I realize I’m getting pretty deep here. So, don’t feel bad if you need to re-read the deep stuff in the preceding paragraphs in order to get a handle on these important questions. And one more thing, before all of those folks who love science abandon my masterful treatise as being anti-science, hang in there, the good stuff is coming.
When scientists mapped the human genome they finally proved once and for all what had been obvious for untold millennia—that genetic information was passed through an incredibly complex code from parent to child. It wasn’t called DNA by ancient people mind you—and if you told someone that little, tiny, invisible things were responsible for your baby looking like you; they might’ve burned you at the stake. But they wouldn’t have batted an eye if you said that your kid looked like you, because you were the father. Of course, it may have caused the father to question why you were bringing up something so obvious, causing him to pound you in the head with the femur of a giant sloth.
Nonetheless, this DNA stuff was a seismic leap in human understanding. The fact that, in its simplest form, it seemed to reinforce much of what people always knew, wasn’t all there was to the story. In fact, it could make possible the end of human diseases of all kinds—and that’s only a very small part of what was learned—if we learned that and nothing more, however, it would be enough. And so, that tendency towards anal retention can have immeasurable value, not just to humans, but to all living things, even if it is oftentimes irritating.
Science, for all its lofty rhetoric, sometimes, actually manages to fulfill its promise. We may have to endure a lot of assholes along the way, but our patience can be worth it—and it can offer a very big payoff in ways that really matter! That science, like all human endeavors, frequently falls short of its aspirations is to be expected. It is always much harder to produce something of genuine value than it is to criticize the process. In a world where prosperity has made basic knowledge attainable with the click of a button, it can be easy to dismiss the struggle, in part because all we ever see is the result and not the herculean effort it took to get there.
Scientific empiricism, of course, isn’t the only way of knowing things. It may provide empirical proof, but, people have always known things, long before they knew what to call them. And if we had to wait for the big payoff in terms of specifics, the human species would have died off a long time ago.
Humans, even in the most isolated of cultures, have always known how to negotiate their world. By comparison, drop the average PhD in biology in the middle of Papua, New Guinea and see how long he survives.
So, in the end, a little humility wouldn’t be a bad thing. Including those scientists who are prone to elevate themselves to the role of God’s personal helpers—and even feel that now that they’ve allegedly answered all the big questions, they can just eliminate the big guy upstairs completely—and that we might, just as well, seek the favor of the guys in the lab coats instead.
Humility works both ways, however, just because you knew that your dog wasn’t likely to give birth to a lobster doesn’t make you a scientist.
Mark Magula
Humans, even in the most isolated of cultures, have always known how to negotiate their world. By comparison, drop the average PhD in biology in the middle of Papua, New Guinea and see how long he survives.
So, in the end, a little humility wouldn’t be a bad thing. Including those scientists who are prone to elevate themselves to the role of God’s personal helpers—and even feel that now that they’ve allegedly answered all the big questions, they can just eliminate the big guy upstairs completely—and that we might, just as well, seek the favor of the guys in the lab coats instead.
Humility works both ways, however, just because you knew that your dog wasn’t likely to give birth to a lobster doesn’t make you a scientist.
Mark Magula
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