Space For Doubt

Science is misunderstood by many.

That shouldn’t be too surprising though. Science is complicated and hard to do well.

You don’t trust just anyone to perform neurosurgery. We wouldn’t want our neighbor’s 14-year old to be in charge of designing a nuclear power plant’s control rods. You probably wouldn’t want your taxi-driver to be thrown into the leading rocket design role for a human mission to mars.

People with many decades of education and experience tend to know what they’re talking about when it comes to science.

We’re going to look at the story of Jacob’s speckled/spotted/streaked flock and see what happens when you try to use science to prove very non-sciencey things. (Yes you are right. That’s not a word 😂)

We’re looking in Genesis 30:29-43. I’ll provide a bulleted summary up to the main event.

• Jacob wants to break free somewhat from his duties to Laban so that he can tend to growing and prospering his own household
• Laban ask what he can give Jacob
• Jacob responds that he just wants all the speckled/spotted/streaked sheep and goats, and all the dark colored lambs
• Laban removes all animals with said features from his flocks that very day and gives them to his sons to keep
  • This is seemingly in attempt to keep Jacob working for longer and preventing him from securing a life-sustaining amount of flock
• Laban skips on out of town a three-days journey

³⁷ Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the rods. ³⁸ He set the rods that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, ³⁹ the flocks bred in front of the rods, and so the flocks produced young that were striped, speckled, and spotted. ⁴⁰ Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and the completely black animals in the flock of Laban, and he put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban’s flock. ⁴¹ Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob laid the rods in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the rods, ⁴² but for the feebler of the flock he did not lay them there, so the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s. ⁴³ Thus the man grew exceedingly rich and had large flocks and male and female slaves and camels and donkeys. – Gen 30:37-43 NRSVUE

Here’s where the story gets a little weird. Jacob performs some strange non-scientific actions to create more striped/speckled/spotted animals. Almost a bit of voodoo-like magic if you ask me.

From a science-minded individual as myself, the story definitely doesn’t come across as sound science. I’m not a geneticist or biologist, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how one makes spotted/speckled/streaked animals.

Good thing we find out that’s probably not what happened in the next chapter.

 ¹⁰ During the mating of the flock I once had a dream in which I looked up and saw that the male goats that leaped upon the flock were striped, speckled, and mottled. ¹¹ Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am!’ ¹² And he said, ‘Look up and see that all the goats that leap on the flock are striped, speckled, and mottled, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you. – Gen 31:10-12 NRSVUE

It seems God had given Jacob a dream that may have described how to get this particular type of animal trait. It doesn’t definitively spell it out, but that’s a reasonable conclusion. Far more reasonable than what you’ll read shortly.

God likely had Jacob conduct a performative action to receive the blessing awaiting him. We see this type of thing elsewhere.

Think of the story of Naaman’s healing. Did God really need Naaman to dip himself into the Jordan river to be healed? Of course not. He could have just immediately healed him. However, a performative action was required to receive that healing on Naaman’s part. A little humble pie eating if you will.

Jacob’s performative action was to do the stick and animal arranging thing. He had to get some DIY crafting and outdoor decor properly in order before those animals could be his.

Scientists today call BS on the science of this story. Rightfully so. There’s nothing Jacob is doing from a geneticist’s point of view that would yield these results.

Under God’s providence, and with a little performative antics, Jacob is duly blessed by a large herd of spotted/specked/streaked goats and sheep.

This should be where this article ends. Anyone arguing for the validity of this story would do well to argue it from the point of divine intervention. But…I wouldn’t be writing this article if it did! We have a little bit of poking-fun to do, and a lesson to learn.

During my research on this topic, I decided to check in on my favorite extremely biased apologetic source…you know…for science. What did they have to say on the matter?

Let’s look at Answers in Genesis. (Yes I know…I just told you all a few posts ago to never use them. It’s just such good blog material!) They are using science, but in a way similar to how a 5yr old thinks making a fossil can happen if you put a dead frog in between two rocks for a while. Like the elements are sort of all there, but there is just a fundamental lack of overall understanding with a very predetermined end goal.

Here’s what their “abstract” in this article says:

Chapters 30–31 of Genesis have often come under attack and touted as being an example of folklore, superstition, and primitive veterinary understanding. But when recognizing that divine providence was at work, coupled with astute botanical knowledge, the picture rapidly changes. Research into botanical and herbal remedies over the past few decades has exonerated the methodologies which Jacob used with Laban’s flocks. Indeed, some of the same botanical specimens Jacob utilized are now being used to supplement livestock feed and are used as veterinary treatments on several diseases and conditions.

The author, Troy Lacey does indeed hold a BS in Natural Sciences, which I suppose is a bit of a ding on the reputation of the University of Cincinnati’s Natural Science’s department.

He goes on to claim the following:

• Consumption of these types of wood have medically beneficial properties
• They can help improve fertility and reproduction rates
• They can increase multiple births
• A variety of other health markers are improved

Troy writes and cites studies in a way that comes across to the reader as “this guy knows what he’s doing.” He wants to dazzle the reader with science just enough that they don’t go digging too much further. Well…I did Troy. I read the study you cited. Here’s a few big issues with your conclusion. Speaking of which, let’s actually state his conclusion for the record.

“True Science Corroborates Scripture“

“Rather than being an example of superstitious folklore and “fertility magic,” the account in Scripture is backed up by botanical and pharmacology studies, is being practiced today, and is being studied in more detail. The benefits of herbal remedies compared to some antibiotics, which bacteria and parasites are becoming resistant to, is being looked into by many at in the animal husbandry industry as a welcome addition to veterinary practice. Once again, the critics find that Scripture teaches sound science and, more importantly, that the answers were in Genesis all along.”

Back to the issues with this conclusion.

1.) In the study on poplar, the low and high feed groups were given ~1.7 lbs and 3.3 lbs/day of poplar. POUNDS! How many pounds of poplar does a goat ingest by drinking cool water that has flowed around a stick? I agree that a tiny fraction of poplar sap would seep into the water. Let’s be extremely and unreasonably generous and say we’re getting 10% of that eaten dosage with the stick water. Is that an effective enough dose to even register statistically? The low feed group, eating 1.7 lbs, only showed a 20% increase. That’s not dramatic really. Jacob’s stick water? You’d be lucky to even notice anything at all. It’d be the real lacroix of poplar consumption 😂

2.) Something you seem to be ignoring is that the offspring must also be speckled/spotted/etc. None of these studies help you out there. That’s like…the primary issue at play here.

3.) The poplar study was done with the control group eating “low quality pasture.” This feed is 80+% dead material, and relatively devoid of good nutrition. How fair is that? No doubt some fresh lush living grasses would outperform dead matter, even without poplar involved! Laban is described as inhabiting Padan Aram, some very choice grazing lands of Mesopotamia.

4.) The author of this Genesis story also appears to understand this in a non-scientific way. By writing “He peeled white streaks in them [branches]” it’s clear that this is a symbolic action (the streaks were what was desired as an end trait of the animal). If animal husbandry and biology was so commonly and well understood as a scientific process, the streaks part wouldn’t matter. It would be more apt to write “he peeled and exposed the inner bark to seep into the water.” Most commentaries I read conclude the same.

5.) Please tell me more about how “scripture teaches sound science.” How can you write that without feeling the ick all throughout your body? The Bible is not a science textbook. It was never meant to be used as one either.

Unfortunately the science just doesn’t provide for the conclusions reached in this article. As we read later, Troy seems to want to play both sides of the fence. He wants to attribute it to God, but also to science. That way he can claim that “real science” backs up scripture, but also make space for the “real science” to inevitably come up short in matching the scripture.

Coming back to the point of this article. There is a reason why geneticists and biologists poke fun at stuff like this. They are educated, read the studies, and fully understand the material. That is most certainly not the case for an apologist on a mission to force science to fit into the box of scripture.

When science is used in this way, it sets people up to have the church be the arbiter of what constitutes “true science” vs what is “atheist science” or “fake science.” It removes the entire point of science in the first place.

Think this is a unique scenario? By no means. See this Instagram video of Ted Wilson talking about a WWII plane found under 260′ of snow.

He’s making the claim that because the plane was found so deep, that it invalidates the scientists’ claims of ice cores that go back tens of thousands of years.

He simply does not understand the science. It’s again, like that kid who wants to make a fossil by putting a dead creature between two rocks. He’s saying a lot of the right words, but he just has no concept of how anything works.

Scientists know this and account for this. It’s not a “gotcha moment.” It should be incredibly embarrassing for such a public figure to trumpet “the science is wrong” in this manner. I say Should be because…well…identity politics and dogma are rather immune to embarrassment from the truth.

Ted uses terminology to describe things in a way that again, leads many to think “this guy seems to know what he’s talking about. It also happens to agree with what I believe. Guess I’m good!”

The simple cliff notes explanation is that the pressures higher up are far less. The first 100′ of snow might represent 20 years. The next 100′ might be 50 years. The next 100′ might represent 200 years. Keep going and once your a thousand feet down, each layer is incredibly compressed and thin. There are other factors at play too, but this is enough to get the point across. It’s simple enough that I didn’t even need to get technical to describe this. As you’re reading this, I have no doubt you’re thinking “Oh ya. I guess that does make sense.” Your understanding is now greater than Ted’s. (BTW Ted, a simple Wikipedia overview on ice cores would have educated you enough to avoid this blunder. You don’t need a PhD in Climate Science or Physics. I don’t have one 🤷)

Science is not inherently bad or good. It is not faith affirming or atheistic. It has no agenda. It just…is.

Next time you want to entertain an apologist’s talking points because it feels good, but find yourself up against a near unanimous field of PhD’s disagreeing, I’d suggest taking a moment to think critically about what you are being told. Does the apologist even plausibly understand the subject well enough to have such an opinion? Are you giving massive amounts of special leniency to their view because it is what you wish was true?

God just is (in my opinion). Humans have created many boxes over the centuries in which to house Him, boxes that always somehow conveniently fit their own ideologies. Science is being treated no differently.

Peace