The Great Chain of Being

[porphyry]

Answers in genesis has begun to publish a peer-reviewed 'sceitific journal' It's taken them a few months to scare up even 3 articles, however, so its coming out on the web a piece at a time. Here is the abstract of the first article, Microbes on the day of Creation:


The world of germs and microbes has received much attention in recent years. But where do microbes fit into the creation account? Were they created along with the rest of the plants and animals in the first week of creation, or were they created later, after the Fall? These are some questions that creation microbiologists have been asking in recent years. Ongoing research, based on the creation paradigm, appears to provide some answers to these puzzling questions. The answers to these questions are not explicit in Scripture, so the answers cannot be dogmatic. However, a reasonable extrapolation from biological data and Scripture can be made about the nature of microbes in a fully mature creation. This article attempts to provide reasonable answers to when microbes were created and is meant to stimulate discussion and further research in this area.

Very little has been written in Bible commentaries or in creation literature on the subject of when microbes were created. Some have postulated that microbes were created on a single day of Creation, such as Day Three—when the plants were made. This is partially due to the “seed-like” characteristics that bacteria and fungi have—therefore classifying microbes as plants. In addition, we observe microbes (such as Escherichia coli) isolated in the lab and we tend to think of microbes as individual entities much like birds or fish or animals and, therefore, created on a single day. However, in nature, the vast majority of microbes live in biological partnerships, not in total isolation. The natural symbiosis of microbes with other creatures is the norm. Therefore, we postulate that microbes were created as “biological systems” with plants, animals, and humans on multiple days, as supporting systems in mature plants, animals, and humans. This idea is further supported by the work of Francis (2003). Francis calls microbial symbiotic systems a biomatrix, or organosubstrate. He proposes that microbes were created as a link between macroorganisms and a chemically rich but inert physical environment, providing a surface (i.e., substrate) upon which multicellular creatures can thrive and persist in intricately designed ecosystems. From the beginning, God made His creation fully mature, and complex forms fully formed. This would ensure continuity and stability for the times to come. Although we cannot be certain as to specifically when the Creator made microbes, it is within His character to make entire interwoven, “packaged” systems to sustain and maintain life. 

So, there doesn't seem to be any science in it at all, as far as I can tell (We assume every article ever published in a peer-reveied sceince journal is wrong and then start guessing...), but it rather falls back on the Great Chain of being: the Idea that God is linked to rocks by an infinitely graded chain of entities moving from the more God-like (e.g. angles) to the more rock-like (e.g. truffles), with man square in the middle. But then they can't even call it the Great Chain of Being, beucase it wouldn't sound scientific. They ought to be more careful about that though, since that is exactly the kind of idea Darwin learned about in school which got him thinking...suppose you could move up or down the chain?

Comments

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

What an occasion to quote Finnegans Wake, p. 150f (kindly note the allusions to Darwin's Descent of Man and microbes):

'by Allswill' the inception and the descent and the endswell of Man is temporarily wrapped in obscenity, looking through at these accidents with the faroscope of television, (...), I can easily believe heartily in my own most spacious immensity as my ownhouse and microbemost cosm when I am reassured by ratio that the cube of my volumes is to the surfaces of their subjects as the sphericity of these globes (...) is to the feracity of Fairynelly's vacuum.

(Annotation to the "Fairynelly's vacuum": castrato singer Farinelli was famous for his great power of breath retention)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

May I ask, have you read Finnegan's Wake in its entirety? And if you did, was it all at once, or smaller pieces? Please forgive me if it seems a silly question--I guess I just feel guilty that I could never get through that book though I felt I ought to.

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

Not a silly question.

I have started a few times, but didn't get very far at first. Then I've tried shorter and commentated versions (by Anthony Burgess, Campbell & Robinson's Skeleton Key.) I have read a lot of essays and books on Finnegans Wake, browsed, and tried to understand a couple of pages or themes. I've read "translations". (That didn't help.) I've tried to read as many books as possible from Joyce's library. I've listened several times to the brilliant abbridged audio book version by Jim Norton and to the boring unabbridged one by Patrick Healy. I've seeked help in online communities and participated in finnegans wiki.

And also I have stared at each page, more or less in blank incomprehension. (In the right order, but of course not in one go.)

It took me some umpteen attempts to "get" Ulysses, from my late teens to my late twenties. I'm not very quick in understanding, but have I stamina - when I get obsessed. Finnegans Wake should keep me busy the rest of my useless life, all the more as it urges "that ideal reader suffering from an ideal insomnia" (FW 120.13f) to read all other books as well.

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

PS: I've got several copies of FW, because that's a book I make notes into (top and bottom of the pages, margins, between the lines). When one book becomes unreadable by the scribbles, I buy the next. (And one stays immaculate for "open" browsing.)

[petrusplancius.livejournal.com]

I was watching a programme on the television the other night in which they showed the body of a dead whale; it had many raw spots on the surface which were crawling with these disgusting creatures:

http://www.humboldt.edu/~cmc43/site/Whale%20Parasites_files/30.png

And now I find this in this article: "All germs would have originated after the Fall (Genesis 3). The Edenic Curse would have profoundly influenced all creation, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, and protozoans that would later become pathogens or parasites." So now I understand. Whale lice where a product of the Edenic Curse! Such a satisfying explanation. Eve has a lot to answer for.

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

one of my favourite spoonerisms (Finnegans Wake 29): three *lice nittle* clinkers, two twilling bugs and one midgit pucelle.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

I wonder if whale lice itch and if men could befriend whales by scratching them with big stiff brooms.

Or maybe the relationship is symbiotic and whale lice perform some sort of cleaning function.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Its reassuring to know also that tuberculosis and HIV also once had some more benign way of life, in much the same way that the teeth on a tyrannosaurus were originally meant to slice open watermelons.

[bricology.livejournal.com]

In the xtian monoculture of my boyhood, I was given to asking endless questions about these matters, such as "Why were mosquitos created?" The answer given was that they had originally been benign (sucking fruits and drinking flower nectar was suggested), but the Fall changed their nature. Even at ten or eleven years old, I found this to be an illogical and unsatisfying explanation.

I wonder how they would've explained this?

[petrusplancius.livejournal.com]

I imagine that could be taken as evidence that Satan lives on the sea-bed.

[gislebertus.livejournal.com]

There are days I am so glad I was raised Catholic and away from this nonsense.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Me, too.

[petrusplancius.livejournal.com]

To be sure, Catholics have a better class of nonsense!

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Of course! At least Augustine was cleverer than anyone at Answers in Genesis and could come up with platitudes like, "God, please make me chaste... but not yet." :)

Hmph. One of my good British friends at a university I used to teach at once tried to convince me that Pope John Paul II was "an extremely dangerous man." We had a fun argument. :)

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

James Joyce, "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man":

"I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?"

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

And that's actually Stephen's answer to the suggestion to become a Protestant.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

And that's exactly right. :)

[siamhussein.livejournal.com]

You know you're in for a thrill ride when a journal allows 500-word abstracts. One day, when I am in Texas, you must bring your young son down so that we may all go to the Creation Museum in Glen Rose. I'm curious as to what he might blurt out in the presence of the hicks.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

All right. If you think you can tolerate the embarrassment he might cause you.

The last time he was in a museum was a few months ago in Chicago. He loves dinosaurs and has plenty of toy ones--therefore, small--the Museum of Natural History houses Sue, the famous tyrannosaurus rex which he was very excited about seeing, until he saw her. He stubbornly refused to stand in front of her. He would only stand behind her so she couldn't see him. No matter how many times it was explained to him that she couldn't see him and wouldn't move--her big teeth scared him--he refused to believe it. "She'll bite my ass," he kept saying, loudly.

[siamhussein.livejournal.com]

Sounds like he would be a wonderful counterpart for Admiral and Wagram. They still avoid the Texas woods after this episode:
http://siamhussein.livejournal.com/9508.html

(And their parents have just moved them to a house on the top of a wooded hill!)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I remember that post!

By the way, in my pre-coffee stupor, I forgot to include his reasoning for why Sue would "bite my ass"--and it's the best part!

When my brother asked him why, among all these crowds of people, Sue would want to bite him, he replied, "Because I'm a tender, tasty morsel." Obviously the child understands why witches in fairytales prefer to eat children. At that time, he was fascinated by the story of "Hansel and Gretel."

[petrusplancius.livejournal.com]

When dinosaurs are used to spread the gospel they become 'missionary lizards':
http://the-new-lemon.livejournal.com/10794.html

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I looked at his journal--mad as a hatter, that one.

Or possibly just young enough and full of himself to the point of being stupid.