Alternative Science

On the excellent liberal-affairs web site, Raw Story  there appeared an essay, “Science still losing the battle for America's hearts” by John Steinberg. Probably not the same Steinberg, although the writing is excellent. Steinberg’s main point was that literalists were able to frame the debate on evolution, excluding other, less defensible elements of literal biblical belief, such as the biblical assertion that the sun goes around the earth. Imagine, Steinberg suggested, if fundies demanded that schools insert in their textbooks an admonition that whenever it was stated the earth revolved around the sun that in fact alternate theories existed that suggested that the sun revolved around the earth and that the theory of a heliocentric solar system was just that: a theory.

Well, this is an approach that I’ve been using for some time. I’ve written essays on what changes a literal biblical interpretation would have on the death penalty, and what is required to take the Great Flood story literally. And over five years ago, I wrote about what actual implementation of the Ten Commandments into American law (which fundies believe is based on the 10Cs) would mean, and listed some of the other biblical commands that follow the ten commandments and, according to the bible, are no less important. 

The Old Testament is fertile ground, and there is an utterly amazing amount of nonsense that a literal belief in the bible demands. In addition to the two contradictory genesis stories, the great flood, and the sun going around the earth (except when it stops, as it does from time to time in the Old Testament), there are an incredible number of items. 

It’s bad enough that you have to believe that there were talking snakes in the beginning of days, or that these snakes had an interest in driving a wedge between God and his creations by making the creations equal to God. Or that this omnipotent God had to spend time searching for a couple of people in a relatively small garden that evening. That God would get pissed because they ate from this delectable tree that he stuck right in the middle of their turf is perplexing. (Genesis 2, 8-20). 

At a time when humans were just getting used to the concept of agriculture and didn’t yet have any folklore regarding medicine or hearth, Adam was still knocking up chicks until the age of 930. (Genesis 5, 5). So when you see in a medical text that the normal extreme for human life expectancy is 120, and that fertility usually ends at about age 70 in men, be sure to demand that your legislature impose a rule saying that those statistics are only a theory, and that alternative theories suggest that guys are still mounting the babes when they are old enough to remember the signing of the Magna Carta. 

According to the Bible, Noah was 600 when the great flood hit. Despite that, he built an ark that could hold two of each animal on earth. So don’t be surprised when Putsch suggests raising the retirement age to 850 as a way of ensuring that Social Security stays solvent. After all, according to the bible, guys are still humping, and building great big boats, well up into their first millennium. So when medical texts say humans rarely live to be older than 120, feel free to disparage them for their lack of inclusiveness.

Biology isn’t the strongest of suits in the Bible. In Leviticus 11, Moses is told that it’s forbidden to eat “all teeming winged creatures that go on four legs.” Except four-legged locusts. It’s ok to eat those. So if you encounter any four legged insects, don’t eat them. That’s an order. Also, lobsters are fish, it seems. And bats are birds. If you see any, don’t eat those, either.

But obviously, all biology texts need to carry a disclaimer, noting that there are alternative theories that insects have four legs, not six, bats are birds, not mammals, and lobsters are fish.

Medical science in the bible is a bit lacking. For instance, if you have sores and the priest has determined it is a malignant skin disease (leprosy or scurvy, from the descriptions), the victim “shall wear his clothes torn, leave his hair dishevelled, conceal his upper lip, and cry, ‘Unclean, unclean.’” Let’s hope HMOs and insurance companies don’t get wind of this. They’ll probably ask you to buy ad space in the classifieds declaring yourself unclean before you can qualify for benefits.

But the bible does have a cure. Once the sores have vanished, the priest takes two birds, kills one, drains the blood into a bowl, and dips the live bird into the blood from the dead bird. Then he sprinkles the blood on the afflicted seven times. Then the afflicted goes and takes a bath, shaves off all his hair, and is forbidden from entering any tents for seven days. On the eighth day, he brings two young rams and a young ewe, some flour, and some oil and makes a “guilt-offering.” I hear it’s all the rage in Scandinavia this year.

Authors of medical texts on the epidermis should take note of this, and include at least one chapter on the efficacy of the use of chickens, both living and dead, for the treatment of melanomas, pustules, and cysts. 

Law school texts will have to be amended, too. Forensic evidence, while useful, is just guesswork, and a good alternative exists. Sherlock Holmes, it seems was not a very good bible reader, or he wouldn’t have wasted all the time he did examining footprints in the mud and noticing how people wore their clothes and what not. 

Let’s say Sherlock and Watson are traipsing through the countryside, and they encounter a fresh-killed stiff. According to Deuteronomy 21, here’s what Sherlock has to do in order to resolve the crime: “When a dead body is found lying in open country, in the land which the Lord your god is giving you to occupy, and it is not known who struck the blow, your elders and your judges shall come out and measure the distance to the surrounding towns to find which is nearest. The elders of that town shall take a heifer that has never been mated or worn a yoke, and bring it down to a ravine where there is a stream that never runs dry, and the ground is never tilled or sown, and there in the ravine that shall break its neck. The priests...shall then come forward...then all the elders of the town nearest the dead body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck has been broken in the ravine. They shall solemnly declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did we witness the bloodshed. Accept expiation, O Lord, for they people ...”

I think every whodunnit movie that comes out on DVD should have this as an alternative ending. It will be ideal for people who are puzzled and confused by plot twists and ambiguities – the sort of people, in fact, who want warning stickers in evolution texts advising the kids that there’s a much simpler version of events that doesn’t require any knowledge of biology, zoology, palenotology, astronomy, chemistry, physics, or math. 

Why learn, when it’s so much easier to just have blind faith?