First Americans?

Posted on May 5, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

Scientists used new DNA screening tech to study caves in Belgium, Croatia, France, Russia, and Spain. What they found wasn’t a big surprise. What’s exciting about the news is that we now have another tool for unraveling our family history.

We’ve been pretty sure that nobody lived in North America until about two dozen millennia back. That may change, if scientists who say they found 130,000-year-old tools in San Diego County, California, are right. Quite a few other scientists are dubious, understandably.

I took a longer look at what we’ve been learning about Homo naledi. They’re folks who don’t look like humanity’s current model. We found their remains in a cave they probably used as a crypt.

Since you may be reading my stuff for the first time, I’ll review why I think truth is important. All truth, not just the bits I grew up knowing about. Also why I take the Bible seriously, but not ‘creation science.’ (March 31, 2017)

Embracing Truth: ALL Truth

If some states had banned lessons about post-Copernican astronomy in schools, or grudgingly allowed its mention as an alternative belief in the required ‘flat Earth’ curriculum, I’d most likely be writing about that.

Interestingly, even the most fervent ‘Bible believers’ I’ve known drew the line at rejecting Earth’s shape. (March 24, 2017)

About Sacred Scripture, I take the Bible very seriously: all of the Bible, not just the parts I like. That’s ‘Catholicism 101.’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 101–133)

Wondering about God’s creation, including how we got started, is part of being human. It’s what we’re supposed to do. (Catechism, 279–289)

Scientific discoveries are opportunities for greater admiration of God’s work. (Catechism, 283, 341)

Deciding that God’s work must conform to assumptions made a few centuries back makes no sense at all. Not to me.

Particularly since those assumptions were largely based on lockstep-literal reading of poetry written by and for folks familiar with Sumerian and Babylonian cosmology.

I might as well reject what our Lord said, or decide that Minnesota doesn’t exist, because my home state isn’t mentioned in the Bible. Not once. (April 21, 2017)

God gave us brains and curiosity. I’m quite convinced that the Almighty isn’t offended if we use them. (Genesis 1:26–27, 2:7; Catechism, 16, 341, 373, 1704, 1730–1731)

This should be obvious, but truth cannot contradict truth. (Catechism, 159)

What we learn cannot interfere with an informed faith.

Using our brains does, however, sometimes mean learning something our great-great-grandparents didn’t know. That’s been happening pretty often lately.

Charles Dawson and the Piltdown Legacy


(From John Cooke, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Charles Dawson is second from the right in back, next to a picture of Charles Darwin.)

Credit where credit is due. Charles Dawson successfully scammed many, but not all, scientists; and apparently did it solo. (August 26, 2016)

That’s not how I’d want folks to remember me.

He wasn’t the first fellow with a fake fossil. I’ll get back to that.

I don’t know why Charles Dawson faked the Piltdown Man skull. He apparently could have made significant contributions to archaeology and paleontology: assuming that parts of his Hastings Castle research was honest.

Dawson said he found parts of a skull, skull, assorted teeth, and “primitive tools” in Pleistocene gravel beds near Piltdown, East Sussex. That was in 1912.

Four and half decades later, scientists using newly-developed tech like fluorine absorption dating confirmed what Marcellin Boule, F. H. Edmonds, and other scientists, had been saying. Piltdown Man is a hoax.

Adding patina to a 500-year-old orangutan jaw and medieval human skull, and filing fossilized chimpanzee teeth to fit expectations, Dawson had shown English-speaking scientists in 1912 what they wanted to see: a British “missing link.”

I don’t know how much we’d have learned by now, if attention hadn’t been diverted from real evidence like the Taung Child and Peking Man, to Dawson’s fake.

Lost time and wasted effort wasn’t the only problem. Folks who desperately want God to follow the cosmology of ancient Mesopotamia and Ussher’s timeline probably still use Piltdown Man as “proof” that science is a Satanic plot.

Never mind that that scientists exposed the Piltdown Man fraud.

An Honest Mistake, Hoaxes, and the Regrettable Bone Wars


(from Amédée Forestier, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(Forestier’s imaginative 1922 illustration of H. haroldcookii, modeled on the Java Man.)

In 1917, rancher and geologist Harold Cook found a tooth in Nebraska. In 1922, Henry Fairfield Osborn said that the tooth was from an anthropoid ape. Osborn called his North American ape Hesperopithecus haroldcookii, after the tooth’s discoverer.

Amédée Forestier made a picture of “Nebraska Man” for Illustrated London News. Osborn apparently called the illustration “a figment of the imagination of no scientific value, and undoubtedly inaccurate.”

Most scientists were dubious, at best, about the tooth being from an ape.

Field work in 1925 and 1926 uncovered other parts of the critter. The tooth came from a now-extinct North American peccary.1 Then W. K. Gregory announced that Hesperopithecus was most likely not an ape or a man.

I’m guessing W. K. was William King Gregory.

I’m pretty sure Osborn’s 1922 announcement was an honest mistake. Peccary teeth aren’t all that different from human teeth, for one thing.

Not-so-honest claims didn’t waste as much time as the Piltdown Man, happily.

Scientists with grudges sometimes waste more than their own time. The ‘Bone Wars’ between Edward Cope and Othniel Marsh took it a few steps further.

They’d been friends until they both got interested in rich fossil finds in the American West.

Cope had Washington connections, and got himself a position with the U.S. Geological Survey. The job was unpaid, which didn’t bother the comparatively wealthy Cope.

Cope had the scientific qualifications for the work, plus a flair for writing. He might have gotten the job anyway. I don’t know if Marsh saw it that way.

Relations between the friends cracked. They wrote papers at each other, let hostilities escallate, and eventually wrecked their scientific and social reputations.

Scientific shenanigans have comic side, too.

The 1866 Calaveras Skull started as a shopkeeper’s and miner’s practical joke.

They convinced a geologist, a professor, and some theosophists that a thousand-year-old skull was about a million years old. The Smithsonian’s William Henry Holmes examined the skull around 1900. He pointed out that the skull was shaped like today’s version.

Scientists had realized that change happens by then, so a million-year old skill with contemporary features was as out of place as a cell phone in Lincoln’s White House. Fluorine absorption dating eventually pegged the skull‘s age at about a thousand years.

The Cardiff Giant, “discovered” by William C. “Stub” Newell in 1869, was declared genuine by some theologians.

Yale palaeontologist Othniel C. Marsh called it “a most decided humbug.”

He was right.

A New York tobacconist and atheist, George Hull, had paid to have the Cardiff Giant carved from a block of gypsum. The idea was to win a “Biblical” argument about “giants” and Genesis 6:4.

I don’t think that proves that all tobacconists are atheists, or that atheists aren’t honest. I do think the Cardiff Giant’s fame shows that folks like novelties.

P. T. Barnum tried to buy the Cardiff Giant, but had to settle for hiring someone to make a copy. The Giant was a curiosity at the Pan-American Exposition of 1901, where it drew almost as big a crowd as it did while stored in a Fitchburg, Massachusetts, barn.

It was a coffee table in an Iowa publisher’s basement rumpus room for several years, and is currently one of a museum’s exhibits in New York state.

About Genesis 6:4, I’m not sure why some English translations of the Bible used “giants” instead of transliterating Nephilim, נְפִילִים‎. Nephilim may be related to “descendants of the Anakim” mentioned in Numbers 13:22.

Nephilim and Anakim show up elsewhere, too. I talked about the Bible and why I don’t expect Sacred Scripture to discuss science that we’ve learned recently earlier.

One more fake fossil, and a 19th-century rivalry, and I’ll get to DNA and real fossils.

National Geographic should have known better when they published a piece about Archaeoraptor in 1999. That critter was correctly identified in 2002.

I’m not sure which part of the 1877-1892 Bone Wars did more damage: Marsh and Cope’s mutual and very public squabbling, or reports of dynamite and sabotage.2

1. DNA in Cave Sediment


(From Science, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“The researchers also found the DNA of many animals – some of them extinct”
(BBC News))

“DNA of extinct humans found in caves”
BBC News (April 28, 2017))

“The DNA of extinct humans can be retrieved from sediments in caves – even in the absence of skeletal remains.

“Researchers found the genetic material in sediment samples collected from seven archaeological sites.

“The remains of ancient humans are often scarce, so the new findings could help scientists learn the identity of inhabitants at sites where only artefacts have been found….”

The researchers found Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA, which wasn’t a big surprise. One of the sites was the Denisova Cave. What’s important is that now we can tell which part of humanity’s family lived in places where all we’ve found so far are the stuff they left behind.

Scienitsts knew that DNA binds with parts of cave floor sediment, so they checked seven caves we knew had been used by Hominins.

That’s the taxonomic tribe that includes Siamangs, Bornean gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, chimps, and us.

Scientists started rethinking primate taxonomy, again, around the 1960s. (September 23, 2016)

The scientists analyzed sediment from sites in Belgium, Croatia, France, Russia, and Spain, ranging from 14,000 to 550,000 years old.

Even samples that had been stored at room temperature for years held enough mitochondrial DNA for analysis.

Besides hominin DNA, the scientists found genetic material from woolly mammoths and rhinoceroses, cave bears and hyenas.

We’ve learned quite a bit since Friedrich Miescher’s and Nikolai Koltsov’s research. We’ve also uncovered new questions, like what most of our noncoding DNA does; if anything. (March 31, 2017; March 10, 2017; January 13, 2017)

Fossils, Swamps, and Us


(From MPI For Evo Anthro / J. Krause, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“The remains of Neanderthals had previously been found at Vindija Cave in Croatia”
(BBC News))

Fossil evidence of our origins, and our tools, have often been in caves. Learning to isolate DNA from cave sediment should be a big help to scientists studying our past.

We’ve found fossilized insects in amber and critter-shaped hollows in volcanic ash, but most fossils form when a critter dies and gets covered in mud and silt. That’s why we’ve found so many fossils of critters with shells of critters that lived in water.3

We need water, so we generally camp or settle near fresh water.

We can even live on or near places with muddy water. But marsh and swampland isn’t our idea of prime real estate. Aside from that, our habitat seems to depend on where our most recent ancestors settled.

We’ve moved around a lot since the first of us headed for the horizon.

By now we’re living year-round on every continent except Antarctica, and have semi-permanent settlements there.

Since 1998 we’ve had about a half-dozen folks living and working in the ISS.

My guess is that our travels have barely started, and that’s another topic. (February 17, 2017; September 30, 2016)

Caves and Being Human


(From Steward Finlayson, via BBC News; used w/o permission.)
(“Our cave,” “turn right,” or something else.)

We’ve used caves for shelter and storage for at least a million years. We still do, although what we’re storing has changed.

These days we have ‘wine caves‘ and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Places like the Atchison Storage Facility, Marengo warehouse, and SubTropolis are good for storing food, equipment, and documents — traditional or digital.

Since we’re human, we also create reflections of the truth and beauty that surrounds us. (July 17, 2016)

We’ve been doing that for quite a while now.

Someone created paintings in the Cave of El Castillo and Pettakere cave, 35,400 or more years ago. We don’t know who, or why.

We also don’t know why someone carved what looks like a tic-tac-toe grid on the wall of Gorham’s Cave in Gibraltar more than 39,0000 years ago; or a wave or chevron pattern onto a shell, about a half-million years back. And that’s yet another topic.4


(From Wim Lustenhouwer/VU University Amsterdam, via Nature, used w/o permission.)
(“A shell found on Java in the late 1800s was recently found to bear markings that seem to have been carved intentionally half a million years ago. The photograph is about 15 millimetres wide.”
(Nature))

2. Cerutti Mastodon Site, San Diego County: Early Americans?


(From Kate Johnson, San Diego NHM, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Experimental breakage was able to re-produce the same patterns seen at the ancient site”
(BBC News))

“First Americans claim sparks controversy”
Paul Rincon, BBC News (April 26, 2017)

“A study that claims humans reached the Americas 130,000 years ago – much earlier than previously suggested – has run into controversy.

“Humans are thought to have arrived in the New World no earlier than 25,000 years ago, so the find would push back the first evidence of settlement by more than 100,000 years.

“The conclusions rest on analysis of animal bones and tools from California.

“But many experts contacted by the BBC said they doubted the claims….”

One of the puzzles, aside from whether this is an archaeological or a palenotological site, is why someone would have been breaking mammoth bones.

The scientists didn’t find evidence that the purpose was getting meat. They suggested that maybe the folks were extracting marrow, or maybe getting material for non-stone tools. Those were big bones.

This may be another ‘Nebraska Man’ situation, where scientists make an honest mistake.

It could be a hoax, but that seems unlikely. A whole lot of folks are involved in the research, and they’d all have to agree to sabotaging their careers. Besides, the paper appears in Nature, one of the most well-respected peer-review journals around.5

About folks arriving in the Americas “no earlier than 25,000 years ago,” that’s about right; although there’s already evidence of slightly earlier arrivals.

Folks living near the west coast 130,000 years back is quite a jump: and will take a lot of work to verify. Or disprove. I don’t see that it’s impossible, though.

Folks who look about like us have been around for something like 200,000 years, and humanity started moving out of our homeland much earlier.

By Land; or, Maybe, by Sea

The obvious way of reaching the Americas from Asia is by walking. The connection between Asia and North America has been above water intermittently ever since the current ice age started, some two and a half million years back.

Hunting on that land bridge wouldn’t be very good, so how folks would support themselves on the trip is a reasonable question.

Another possibility is that folks arrived in the Americas by sea. Folks who look like us were living at Africa’s Pinnacle Point between 170,000 and 40,000 years ago. We still do. The caves are near Mossel Bay, a harbor town that about 130,000 folks call home.

Some scientists say folks moved to the Pinnacle Point caves because the site gives access to shellfish, whale, and seal. If they’re right, it will mean rewriting assumptions about when “modern” behavior started, but we should be used to that by now.

I think it’s likely enough that folks who had developed seaworthy vessels for hunting whales would eventually wonder what’s over the horizon.

It’s what we’ve been doing for at least the last 1,900,000 years, and explains why European explorers nearly always found that someone else had gotten there first.6

Stone Tools, or Maybe Just Rocks


(From MPK-WTAP, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(Tools found at the Lomekwi site near Lake Turkana, Kenya, a few years back.)

A Vanderbilt professor of anthropology, religion, and culture, says that the stone tools found at the California site aren’t tools.

Tom Dillehay told BBC News he thinks they’re rocks that just happen to look like tools, and that the mastodon bones just happen to look like they’d been broken by the rocks. He may be right.

Natural processes could, in principle, have shaped rocks to look like stone tools, and deposited them with bones that look like they’d been shaped by someone using the rocks.

Tools made by outfits like Black & Decker and Weber are obviously artificial. Even tech that’s been around for a few million years, like the mezzaluna, often has a manufacturer’s mark on it these days. We’ve tweaked the design, of course.

Early technology, like the tools in that photo, doesn’t always have that obvious ‘made by people’ look. Those tools are about 3,300,000 years old, most likely made by the folks we call Kenyanthropus, whose remains we found nearby.

They’d most likely have had a terrible time trying to fit into today’s world. But I’m inclined to think of them as “folks,” since they’d already started acting like people.

I don’t assume that looking just like me is what defines being “human.” (January 13, 2017; October 28, 2016; August 26, 2016)

3. Updating Humanity’s Geneology: Homo Naledi


(From John Hawks, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Homo naledi has much in common with early forms of the genus Homo”
(BBC News))

“Primitive human ‘lived much more recently’”
Paul Rincon, BBC News (April 25, 2017)

“A primitive type of human, once thought to be up to three million years old, actually lived much more recently, a study suggests.

“The remains of 15 partial skeletons belonging to the species Homo naledi were described in 2015.

“They were found deep in a cave system in South Africa by a team led by Lee Berger from Wits University.

“In an interview, he now says the remains are probably just 200,000 to 300,000 years old….”

We weren’t all that sure about how old the Homo naledi remains were after when Lee Berger’s team reported results of their in 2013 and 2014 field work. The new numbers for their age come from very recently done lab work. That research hasn’t been published yet.

What we can be sure about is that the folks don’t look quite like anyone else. Based on different parts of their bodies and heads, they have lived anywhere from three million to a few hundred thousand years ago.

Berger’s team found parts of 15 individuals in the Rising Star Cave. That’s in the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Cradle of Humankind.

I’m not sure why UNESCO picked a place in southern Africa for its Cradle of Humankind site.

Maybe it’s because the Olduvai Gorge site in the Great Rift Valley has been thoroughly studied as our “cradle,” starting with Mary and Louis Leakey’s research in the 1960s.

Maybe UNESCO figured folks in South Africa needed more of an economic and political boost than Tanzania. There was more than one reason, likely enough.

Folks have been living in eastern and southern Africa for well upwards of 2,000,000 years. Someone had worked the bugs out of using fire in southern Africa about 1,000,000 years back, and that’s yet again another topic.

The Taung Child’s skull was uncovered in a South African quarry in 1924, studied, and largely ignored until scientists confirmed that Piltdown Man was a hoax. That was in 1953. (August 26, 2016)

These days we realize that Australopithecus africanus, our name for the Taung Child’s people, the recently-discovered Homo naledi, and other folks who don’t look at all British, or even European, are part of humanity’s family tree.7

Those of us who prefer taking reality ‘as is,’ that is: even if, particularly if, it means learning something new. (April 28, 2017; September 30, 2016; August 28, 2016)

Homo Naledi, 2015

Lee Rogers Berger is more flamboyant than many paleoanthropologists.

I don’t see a problem with a scientists having ‘style,’ or making results of research open access projects. But then, I’m not quite the button-down type myself; and don’t see a point in keeping ‘riff-raff’ from gaining knowledge.

That’s Dr. Berger in the photo, with a reconstruction of Australopithecus sediba. Dr. Berger’s son, Matthew, discovered the first A. sediba fossil. Those folks lived in southern Africa somewhere between 1,780,000 and 1,950,000 years back.

Dr. Berger’s team announced their discovery of Homo naledi, along with what they’d been learning, in 2014 and 2015.8

They figured the H. naledi fossils might have been as much as 3,000,000 years old — or — be comparatively recent. They lacked our our pointed chins, had less room for a brain and a lot of bone over their eyes.

On the other hand, H. naledi teeth and feet look a lot like the current human model’s.

Maybe H. naledi picked up the custom of interment from Homo sapiens. Maybe.

If the H. naledi remains were interred, that’d give them what’s still thought of as as a very ‘modern’ behavior. We’re the only folks many scientists are sure bury our dead.

Most of us, anyway. Not all do. I’ve discussed end-of-life customs, Neanderthals, and bias, before. (January 13, 2017; November 11, 2016; September 23, 2016)

Dinaledi Chamber, 2015: (Second) Discovery


(From Paul H. G. M. Dirks et al; via Wikimedia Commons; used w/o permission.)
(Cross-section sketch of Dinaledi chamber.)

Rising Star Cave is one of many limestone caves in that part of Africa. Besides the area’s interest to scientists, it’s a good place to go caving.

That’s how the “Dinaledi Chamber” fossils were found, back in 2013. Rick Hunter and Steven Tucker, recreational cavers, found a shaft about 12 meters, 39 feet, deep by about 20 centimeters, not quite eight inches, wide on average.

The shaft was nearly vertical, and led to an underground chamber. Fossil bones, lots of them, littered the chamber’s floor. Hunter and Tucker apparently figured the bones were what was left of another caver who had gotten into the chamber, but not out.

That was a reasonable guess, particularly since they also noticed some survey pegs. Dr. Berger’s team later found records of cavers who had been there in the early 1990s: and made it back out again.

The chamber is about 80 meters horizontally and 30-odd meters down from the cave’s current entrance. The last leg of the trek to the chamber’s shaft entrance involves a 15 meter climb — after climbing down another slope and through a narrow passage.

The Dinaledi Chamber isn’t the sort of place 15 folks, from kids to adults, would ‘just happen’ to wander into.

Even if they lived three million years back, I doubt that folks like us would be all that comfortable in dark, enclosed spaces. Apart from adolescent and young-adult males.

We get a bit crazy around that age, if we’re anywhere near humanity’s 50th percentile. Crazier than at other parts of our lives, at any rate.

Hands, Feet, and Humanity’s Story



(From Peter Schmid, via Thinkstock/BBC News, used w/o permission.

The 15 individuals whose bones were in the Dinaedi Chamber were men, women, boys, girls; infants and elderly, and a fair spread of ages between, when they died. That’s enough to get a pretty good idea of what their sort of folks were like.

Their hands were a bit more curved than ours, for one thing; but closer to the current human model than, say, a gibbon’s.

Apart from their teeth and feet, they were a bit like Australopithecus, our name for hominins who lived between 4,000,000 and 2,000,000 years ago.

The most famous Australopithecus these days is probably “Lucy.” Since SRGAP2, a uniquely-human gene, had been around for about 200,000 years when she lived, I’m guessing that she’s a “who:” not a “what.” (September 23, 2016)

Besides H. neladi bones, scientists found fossilized remains of “micro-mammals” in the Dinaledi Chamber. Those were critters a whole lot smaller than we are. They didn’t find any bones from mid-sized critters.

The Homo naledi bones got there somehow. It’s very unlikely that all those folks wandered in accidentally.

Predators sometimes bury or leave bones in more-or-less one location, but these didn’t have claw or tooth marks. Besides, no known predator selectively buries human or human-like bones.

There’s no sign of flooding that would deposit remains there.

The least-unlikely explanation for how the bones got there is that someone dropped them down the shaft.

I suppose it’s remotely possible that all 15 might have been fleeing something. I’m not sure what would be so scary that 14 of them would keep going after the first one fell down the shaft, but it’s remotely possible.

I’ll close with a look at reactions to Homo neladi’s discovery, back in in 2015; and another look at faith and science.

“Wonderful Things,” and Rethinking What “Human” Means


(From National Geographic, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Homo naledi may have looked something like this”
(BBC News))

“…Marina Elliott … described how she felt when she first saw the chamber.

“‘The first time I went to the excavation site I likened it to the feeling that Howard Carter must have had when he opened Tutankhamen’s tomb – that you are in a very confined space and then it opens up and all of a sudden all you can see are all these wonderful things – it was incredible,’ she said.

“Ms Elliott and her colleagues believe that they have found a burial chamber. The Homo naledi people appear to have carried individuals deep into the cave system and deposited them in the chamber – possibly over generations.

“If that is correct, it suggests naledi was capable of ritual behaviour and possibly symbolic thought – something that until now had only been associated with much later humans within the last 200,000 years.

“Prof Berger said: ‘We are going to have to contemplate some very deep things about what it is to be human. Have we been wrong all along about this kind of behaviour that we thought was unique to modern humans?

“‘Did we inherit that behaviour from deep time and is it something that (the earliest humans) have always been able to do?’

“Prof Berger believes that the discovery of a creature that has such a mix of modern and primitive features should make scientists rethink the definition of what it is to be human – so much so that he himself is reluctant to describe naledi as human.

“Other researchers working in the field, such as Prof Stringer, believe that naledi should be described as a primitive human. But he agrees that current theories need to be re-evaluated and that we have only just scratched the surface of the rich and complex story of human evolution.”
(Pallab Ghosh, BBC News (2015))

There’s a lot going on here.

I liked the reference to Howard Carter. That echoes my perception of this universe: filled with “wonderful things,” for those who take time to notice. (September 30, 2016; December 16, 2016)

I think that Professors Berger and Stringer are right — we need to reconsider what we mean by “human.”

Unlike Berger, however, I see Homo neledi as ‘human’ — most likely.

Those folks weren’t as big as the average person today, around five feet tall. Their brains were around 500 cubic centimeters, compared to 1,200 cubic centimeters for today’s model. Our fingers are straighter, and we’re probably smarter than Homo neledi.

But it looks like they interred their dead, a very ‘human’ action. I don’t think I’m ‘more human’ than someone with a lower IQ — and my family history strongly disinclines me to reject folks based on appearance.

About the artist’s representation of Homo neledi, I think the nose may be a best-estimate. That piece of the skull apparently hadn’t been found yet.

“Dragon Pterodactyles … with Vampire Wing”


(From Thomas Hawkins; via The Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania; used w/o permission.)
(Front piece of “The Book of the Great Sea-Dragons, Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri…,” Thomas Hawkins (1840))

Hawkins’ prose was colorful, grandiose, flamboyant, and rhapsodically replete with sesquipedalian loquaciousness: by today’s standards. Here’s part of his assertion that “grim Monsters” and “Dragon Pterodactyles … with Vampire Wing” were Satan’s work:

“…’Adam,’ the Lucifer and Protagonist of Antiquity, doing mis-prision against Sovereignty, turns the weapons of Loyalty upon his Liege, and plunges them into the Bowels of his Mother Earth. Forsaken of Angels, groaning, she bringeth forth grim Monsters, which ravage her Garden, the Locusts that consume it away….

“…Then a Vision of Abysmal Waters, swarming with all wondrous creatures of Life, and gelid Swamps with amphibious things , and Dragon Pterodactyles flitting in the hot air with Vampire Wing….”
(“The Book of the Great Sea-Dragons, Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri,” Thomas Hawkins, Thomas; pp. 4, 5 (1840))

Thomas Hawkins was an English fossil collector and dealer. His “brute Savages haunting Eldritch Caves” probably influenced attitudes toward “cavemen” in the early 20th century.

Calling Hawkins “eccentric” may be accurate. However, today’s ‘science’ documentaries might seem just as crazy if they’re viewed in the last decade of the 22nd century.

“Thomas Hawkins and geological spectacle”
Ralph O’Connor; Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, Volume 114, Issue 3 (2003) via ScienceDirect

“The lurid geological writings of the Glastonbury collector Thomas Hawkins (1810–1889) are often dismissed as the outpourings of a lunatic. When analysed within their literary context, however, they reveal conscious strategies for awakening the public’s visual imagination….”

“Lurid geological writings” are one thing. Selling artistically-restored fossils as the real thing was a bad idea in the mid-1800s, and still is. The problem isn’t fossils, it’s fraud. (Catechism, 2408–2409)

Much of an ichthyosaur fossil collection Thomas Hawkins sold to the British Museum in the mid-1800s was real, but the tail wasn’t.

Folks at the British Museum, realizing that they’d been sold a not-entirely-real fossil, sued. When the dust settled, the Hawkins ichthyosaurs stayed on display, with the reconstructed parts marked by a lighter color.

I like to think this wasn’t quite fraud; maybe more like an enhancement or reconstruction. These days, museums routinely make filled-in parts of their fossil displays a different color, so folks can tell what’s original and what’s not.

That wasn’t the first fake fossil. The earliest I know of were described in Johann Beringer’s 1726 “Lithographiae Wirceburgensis.”

The fraudsters were two of his colleagues who had planted carved stones — with writing on them, yet — that exactly matched what Beringer expected to find.

I don’t think that makes science wrong. It does show that scientists are human, and that being rationally dubious can be a good thing. I’ve talked about hubris, asking questions, and phlogiston, before. (March 24, 2017; December 9, 2016; July 31, 2016)

Assumptions, Knowable Physical Laws, and Tennessee v. Scopes

The Scopes Monkey Trial didn’t help settle a long-standing difference of opinion.

Folks with one set of assumptions still believe that Christianity demands ignorance. I don’t think so, but William Jennings Bryan’s ‘Scopes’ testimony arguably reinforces that belief.

Folks with another viewpoint still cling to belief in a long-dead Calvinist’s timetable,

I’m a Catholic, so I think God is large and in charge, creating a universe which follows knowable physical laws. (Catechism, 268, 279, 299, 301)

The Catholic version of faith is a willing and conscious “assent to the whole truth that God has revealed.” (Catechism, 142–150)

That’s the whole truth.

Truth can be expressed many ways; including words, “the rational expression of the knowledge of created and uncreated reality;” and “the order and harmony of the cosmos.” (Catechism, 2500)

We can learn a bit about God by noticing “the world’s order and beauty,” which reflects God’s infinite beauty. (Catechism, 31–32, 341)

A thirst for truth and happiness is written into each of us, which should lead us to God. (Catechism, 27)

We’re told that the universe is “in a state of journeying,” “in statu viae,” toward an ultimate perfection; but isn’t there yet. (Catechism, 302–305)

I’m okay with that. Even if I wasn’t, my opinion or preference wouldn’t matter much; except maybe to me.

“Our God is in heaven; whatever God wills is done.”
(Psalms 115:3)

I’m also okay with that.

Living in a Changing World, and Loving It

What we know about this universe has changed quite a bit over the last few centuries. That’s not even close to thinking that reality has changed since, say, Aristotle’s day.

Aristotle was quite sure that Earth was in the center — more like ‘at the bottom’ — of the universe, and unique. Aristarchus of Samos suggested that Earth goes around the sun, and suspected that stars were other suns. That’s a bit shy of two dozen centuries back now. (March 24, 2017)

About 740 years ago, some European academics said Aristotle’s ideas must be right: because Aristotle said so.

They were really big fans of Aristotle.

The Church reminded them that God’s God, Aristotle’s not. I’ve talked about Proposition 27/219 of 1277 before.

Meanwhile, folks like St. Albertus Magnus and St. Hildegard of Bingen were helping lay foundations for today’s sciences. (April 28, 2017; December 9, 2016; November 6, 2016)

Since I think God is the source of all truth, and created everything, studying this universe and using what we learn is okay. (Genesis 1:1–31; Catechism, 156–159, 2465)

Science and technology are part of being human. Learning about this wonder-filled creation is what we’re supposed to do. (Catechism, 2293–2295)

These days, that means living in a world where much of what I learned in high school science classes is seriously outdated.

I like living in a world where we’re finding the answers to some questions, often raising more questions in the process.

Folks who don’t like living in a changing world, not so much.

More about humanity’s long story:

1 Nebraska Man, peccaries, and artistic license:

2 Science, silliness, and the Bone Wars of Edward Cope and Othniel Marsh:

3 Branches of the family tree, the recent DNA research, and a little background:

4 Art and being human:

5 Settling the Americas, what we’re learning:

6 Caves and the sea:

7 Homo naledi and related topics:

8 News and papers from 2015:

  • “New human-like species discovered in S Africa”
    Pallab Ghosh, BBC News (September 10, 2015)
  • “Geological and taphonomic context for the new hominin species Homo naledi from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa”
    Paul H. G. M. Dirks, Lee R Berger, Eric M Roberts, Jan D Kramers, John Hawks, Patrick S Randolph-Quinney, Marina Elliott, Charles M Musiba, Steven E Churchill, Darryl J de Ruiter, Peter Schmid, Lucinda R Backwell, Georgy A Belyanin, Pedro Boshoff, K Lindsay Hunter, Elen M Feuerriegel, Alia Gurtov, James du G Harrison, Rick Hunter, Ashley Kruger, Hannah Morris, Tebogo V Makhubela, Becca Peixotto, Steven Tucker; eLIFE (September 10, 2015)
  • “Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa”
    Lee R Berger, John Hawks, Darryl J de Ruiter, Steven E Churchill, Peter Schmid, Lucas K Delezene, Tracy L Kivell, Heather M Garvin, Scott A Williams, Jeremy M DeSilva, Matthew M Skinner, Charles M Musiba, Noel Cameron, Trenton W Holliday, William Harcourt-Smith, Rebecca R Ackermann, Markus Bastir, Barry Bogin, Debra Bolter, Juliet Brophy, Zachary D Cofran, Kimberly A Congdon, Andrew S Deane, Mana Dembo, Michelle Drapeau, Marina C Elliott, Elen M Feuerriegel, Daniel Garcia-Martinez, David J Green, Alia Gurtov, Joel D Irish, Ashley Kruger, Myra F Laird, Damiano Marchi, Marc R Meyer, Shahed Nalla, Enquye W Negash, Caley M Orr, Davorka Radovcic, Lauren Schroeder, Jill E Scott, Zachary Throckmorton, Matthew W Tocheri, Caroline VanSickle, Christopher S Walker, Pianpian Wei, Bernhard Zipfel; eLIFE (September 10, 2015)
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Emmaus: Looking Back and Ahead

Posted on April 30, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

We hear about the ‘road to Emmaus’ event in today’s Gospel, Luke 24:13–35.

There’s been speculation about why folks didn’t recognized Jesus at first, after Golgotha.

It wasn’t just the ‘road to Emmaus’ thing. Paul lists some of our Lord’s meetings in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8.

Paul’s list doesn’t mention any of the times Jesus talked with women, I’m not sure why. Maybe Paul had a mental blind spot that way, or he figured he was giving the folks in Corinth enough to think about as it was, or maybe there’s something else going on.

Mary of Magdala, we read about her meeting in John 20:14–17, was a bit quicker on the uptake than some, and that’s probably another topic.

About why folks didn’t recognize Jesus, I figure there’s a reason, maybe more than one, but I’m also pretty sure I can’t be sure. Not at this point. That won’t stop me from sharing — not so much my guess, as something I think seems reasonable.

“…Dead as a Door-Nail….”

I think Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is a good way to start.

“Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

“Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did….

“…There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate….”
(“A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens (1843) via Project Gutenberg)

“Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail” — that’s why Scrooge didn’t believe what he saw when Marley came calling after business hours one Christmas Eve. He even tried telling Marley’s ghost that he was a hallucination:

“…You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato….”
(“A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens (1843) via Project Gutenberg)

You know how the rest of the novella goes: Scrooge and Marley’s ghost talk about chains and opportunity, Marley backs out of an open window, and we don’t see him again.

The point of this excerpt is that Marley was dead, and Scrooge knew it.

About today’s Gospel, there wouldn’t be anything wonderful about the Emmaus encounter if the two disciples had been talking with a ghost. They were talking with someone who was very much alive.

In principle, I suppose they could have realized that Jesus wasn’t dead any more.

They knew that two women had a wild story about an empty tomb and angels.

They knew that the story had verifiable details which, on investigation, checked out.

On the other hand, I might not have done any better in their position. Experience tells us that folks who are dead, particularly if tortured and executed as our Lord was, stay dead.

Our Lord: That’s another matter. But I’m getting ahead of the story.

“Before Abraham …”


(From John Martin, via WikiMedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
(‘Now that I have your attention ….’)

About one and a half or maybe two millennia before the Golgotha incident, someone named Abram moved out of Ur, changed his name to Abraham, and settled near the east end of the Mediterranean Sea.

The Late Bronze Age Collapse happened a few centuries later. We survived and rebuilt, but lost quite a few records. Since then we’ve seen empires rise and fall, the last pharaoh, and that’s yet another topic. (April 14, 2017; March 12, 2017; July 24, 2016)

A descendant of Abraham was sold as a slave. He wound up running Egypt, saving many lives during a famine. That account starts in Genesis 41:40.

Fast-forward a few centuries to a refugee named Moses having a face-to-burning bush talk with God:

“‘But,’ said Moses to God, ‘when I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” if they ask me, “What is his name?” what am I to tell them?’

“6 God replied, ‘I am who am.’ Then he added, ‘This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you.'”
(Exodus 3:13–14)

Egypt’s ruler learned — the hard way — that ignoring what God says is not prudent, and descendants of Abraham moved back to the east end of the Mediterranean.

More centuries passed, and descendants of Abraham finally got it through their heads that God, the great I AM, is ONE.

Then a Nazarene miracle-worker said, as plainly as possible, “I am God:”

“So the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?’ 23

“24 Jesus said to them, ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.’ ”
(John 8:57–58)

In a way, it’s a bit surprising that folks didn’t kill him on the spot. They knew what happened when they worshiped anyone or anything besides the God of Abraham, and didn’t realize that Jesus really is I AM.

Our Lord’s own disciples didn’t catch on much faster:

“Philip said to him, ‘Master, show us the Father, 7 and that will be enough for us.’

“Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”?”
(John 14:8–9)

Jesus Died — — —


(From “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,” used w/o permission.)

Now, back to events we review before every Easter.

Our Lord was railroaded through a trial by the Sanhedrin and taken to Pilate, who sent the case and Jesus to Herod. Herod wanted to see Jesus “perform some sign.” That didn’t work out, Herod mocked our Lord, and it was back to Pilate.

Pilate said that Jesus wasn’t guilty of a capital offense, and tried to get our Lord released after a flogging.

That ended with “the chief priests, the rulers, and the people” telling Pilate to release Barabas instead of Jesus. (Matthew 26:57–66; Mark 14:55–15:5; Luke 22:66–23:18)

I sympathize, a little, with movie critics who said “The Passion of the Christ” (2004) was ‘too violent:’ and that all the blood obscured the film’s message.

Americans have gotten used to nice, clean, ‘decently’ sanitized versions of our Lord’s crucifixion. The typical Hollywood version is arguably less unpleasant than reality: but it’s not real.

Jesus was dead.1 Roman soldiers had been running the execution, and knew the difference between a dead body and someone who had fainted, or was pretending to be dead.

Folks have been bothered by the idea that Jesus could be the Son of God and really die for a very long time. (John 1:1–5; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 430–451, 456–478, 595–618, 638–655)

For anyone else, death and burial would have been the end.

Our Lord’s disciples might have tried returning to normal lives, hoping that the authorities would let them.

— — — and Stopped Being Dead

But Jesus isn’t anyone else.

Two millennia later, we celebrate Good Friday and Easter — because Jesus didn’t stay dead. If that seems unbelievable, it should.

It took a series of meetings and working lunches to convince the surviving 11 that our Lord was really, no kidding, break-bread, eat-a-fish, put-your-hand-in-my-side, ALIVE.

“And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them.”

“With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight.”
(Luke 24:30–31)

“While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’

“They gave him a piece of baked fish;

“he took it and ate it in front of them.”
(Luke 24:41–43)

“Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, ‘Peace be with you.’

“Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.’ ”
(John 20:26–27)

After they’d been convinced that Jesus had stopped being dead, small wonder that all but John chose a painful death, rather than deny that our Lord lives.

They’d gotten a glimpse of the big picture, the reality that our Lord has opened a way into God’s presence.

“Who will condemn? It is Christ (Jesus) who died, rather, was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.

“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?…

“…For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, 9 nor future things, nor powers,

“nor height, nor depth, 10 nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ”
(Romans 8:34–35, 38–39)

John might have made the same decision, but didn’t have the opportunity. Instead, he lived to a ripe old age, in exile on Patmos, and that’s yet again another topic.

The Last Hour — Two Millennia and Counting

Before leaving, our Lord gave standing orders:

“11 Then Jesus approached and said to them, ‘All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
“Go, therefore, 12 and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,
“teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. 13 And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.'”
(Matthew 28:19–20)

Two millennia later, those orders haven’t changed.

“Making disciples” isn’t the sort of ‘convert or die’ thing Charlemagne did at Verden, by the way. We’re still cleaning up the mess from that atrocity. (November 6, 2016)

I’m expected to act as if ‘Love God, love my neighbor, everybody’s my neighbor’ is true — and matters. (Matthew 5:43–44, 22:36–40, Mark 12:28–31, Luke 10:25–30; Catechism, 1825)

Loving my neighbor means working for justice and bearing “witness to the truth.” (John 18:37; Catechism, 2471–2474)

Transcendent Dignity and the Long View

Respect for the “transcendent dignity” of humanity demands that I work for justice — “as far as possible.” (Catechism, 1915, 1929–1933, 2820)

That involves an inner conversion within each of us: starting with me. (Catechism, 976–980, 1888)

I can’t reasonably expect to end hunger, establish a lasting peace, or abolish some great social injustice.

But I can keep passing along the best news we’ve ever had. God loves us, and wants to adopt us. All of us. (John 1:12–14, 3:17; Romans 8:14–17; Peter 1:3–4; Catechism, 1, 27–30, 52)

Part of our job is working with all people of good will, building a better world for future generations. (Catechism, 1917, 1928–1942, 1825, 1996, 2415; “Laudato si’; “Gaudium et spes“)

We’ve made a little progress. (October 30, 2016; September 25, 2016)

We have a great deal left do do. Humanity has a huge backlog of social issues.

My guess is that we’ll still be working when the 8.2 kiloyear event, Y2K, and Y10K seem roughly contemporary.

But — I’ve said this before,2 and almost certainly will again — the war is over. We won. We’re already in “the last hour,” and have been for two thousand years. This world’s renewal is in progress, and nothing can stop it. (Matthew 16:18; Mark 16:6; Catechism, 638, 670)

More; mostly about Jesus, and acting like God matters:

1 This analysis of our Lord’s torture and execution isn’t an easy read, but worth the effort. My opinion:

2 Humanity, love, and the long view, my take:

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Repeatable Results That Aren’t

Posted on April 28, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

I’ll be talking about scientific research that may not be “fake:” but isn’t reliable, either. The good news is that many scientists want to fix the problem.

I’ll also take a look at truth, beauty, Copernicus, and how a science editor sees faith and science.

Truth and Beauty

There are only so many ways to say this: truth is beautiful, and it’s important.

Truth and beauty are expressed many ways: like words, “the rational expression of the knowledge;” “the order and harmony of the cosmos;” and “the greatness and beauty of created things.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 32, 41, 74, 2500)

We’re supposed to pursue truth and beauty. They will lead us to God. Or should. (Catechism, 27, 31–35, 74)

Faith, the Catholic version, embraces truth. It’s a willing and conscious “assent to the whole truth that God has revealed.” (Catechism, 142–150)

Faith and science work together, if we’re doing both right. Studying this wonder-filled universe, using the brains God gave us, is part of being human. (Catechism, 39; 159; 282–289; 341; 2293–2295)

I think the notion that science and religion get along like mongoose and cobra didn’t really get traction until the 19th century.

I’ve talked about that, Copernicus, Henry VIII, and getting a grip, before. (March 24, 2017; March 17, 2017; December 16, 2016; October 28, 2016)

“…There Will be Babblers….”

A story I’ve occasionally seen is that Copernicus delayed publication of his “De revolutionibus…” to avoid persecution by clergy who feared science.

It makes a good story, brimming with drama: a champion of science and reason opposed by those who rule through superstition and ignorance.

There’s just one problem.

Folks like Capua’s cardinal and the bishop of Chelmno urged Copernicus to publish.1

A fair number of clergy getting conniptions from new ideas eventually landed “De revolutionibus…” on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum: in 1616.

That’s upwards of seven decades after its publication. It wasn’t banned, since the problem was nine sentences misidentifying the theory as established fact.

“De revolutionibus…” was taken off the Index in 1620. Maybe that seems like a long time, but the revisions and review process were done with 17th century tech.

Darwin’s works never got listed, three centuries later, and in 1966 the Church closed the Index for good.2

My guess is that Copernicus delayed publication because he didn’t want “…to be ridiculed by those who … play the same part among philosophers as drones among bees….”

That’s what he said in the book’s preface, anyway:

“To His Holiness, Pope Paul III,
Nicholas Copernicus’ Preface
to his Books on the Revolutions”

“…I can readily imagine, Holy Father, that as soon as some people hear that in this volume … I ascribe certain motions to the terrestrial globe, they will shout that I must be immediately repudiated together with this belief…. …Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heaven as its center would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves. Therefore I debated with myself for a long time whether to publish the volume which I wrote to prove the earth’s motion or rather to follow the example of the Pythagoreans and certain others, who used to transmit philosophy’s secrets only to kinsmen and friends … they wanted the very beautiful thoughts attained by great men of deep devotion not to be ridiculed by those who … because of their dullness of mind they play the same part among philosophers as drones among bees. When I weighed these considerations, the scorn which I had reason to fear on account of the novelty and unconventionality of my opinion almost induced me to abandon completely the work which I had undertaken….

“…Perhaps there will be babblers who claim to be judges of astronomy although completely ignorant of the subject and, badly distorting some passage of Scripture to their purpose, will dare to find fault with my undertaking and censure it. I disregard them even to the extent of despising their criticism as unfounded….”
(“De revolutionibus orbium coelestium,” Niclaus Copernicus; translation by Edward Rosen, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press (1992) via Calendars Through the Ages [emphasis mine])

Two of this week’s news items cover a SNAFU in scientific research, so I figure a review of how science should work wouldn’t hurt. Feel free to skip ahead to Science and Faith: “Kindred Paths” — or take a walk, get a cup of coffee, whatever.

Being Scientific


(From ArchonMagnus, via Wikimmedia Commons, used w/o permission.)

Aristotle wasn’t the first to systematically study this world. I’m pretty sure that sort of thing predates the Pharaohs and Sargon by a long stretch, but written records only go back to when we developed writing, and that’s another topic.

Back in my day, introductory ‘history of science’3 books generally started with Aristotle’s inductive-deductive method.

That’s a fancy way of saying that he observed something, came to a conclusion about what the observation meant, thought about what general principles might be involved, then tested the principles with more observations: starting another cycle.

Skipping over more than a dozen centuries, Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln and scholar, got interested in Aristotle’s approach after studying Latin translations of Arabic and Greek commentaries.

Roger Bacon thought Groseteste was on the right track.

He described a cycle of observation, hypothesis, experimentation — and the need for independent verification. That’s pretty much how science works today: or should. In 1265, Pope Clement IV told Bacon to keep him updated on scientific matters.

That was around the time of St. Albertus Magnus. I’ve mentioned him, St. Hildegard of Bingen, and Proposition 27/219 of 1277, before. (December 2, 2016; October 30, 2016)

1. Science and Faith: “Kindred Paths”


(From NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team, A. Nota, and the Westerlund 2 Science Team; via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)

“Two Routes to the Truth”
“Science and faith offer different but kindred paths to grasping reality”
Camille M. Carlisle, Focal Point, Sky and Telescope (June 2017)

“MANY READERS ARE familiar by now with my fondness for black holes. For me, black holes are the Labrador puppies of the cosmos — so cute, so delighted by existence that in their merriment they’re unintentionally destructive.

“But there’s something I love more than black holes. That something is a someone.

“God….”

I particularly enjoyed the comparison of black holes and Labrador puppies, although I’ve never thought of black holes as “cute.”

Maybe that’s because I’m a man. (February 5, 2017; February 3, 2017; October 30, 2016)

I’ve been getting Sky and Telescope magazine for decades, ever since being part of an astronomy club — in high school, I think. It’s a good resource for amateur astronomers, armchair and otherwise.

I share the editors’ and contributors’ fascination with this universe and our growing knowledge of how it works. In the case of Camille M. Carlisle, I also share at least one reason for this interest.

Truth Cannot Contradict Truth


(From Sky and Telescope, used w/o permission.)

“…Astronomy is, in many ways, the bone and marrow of my life. But God’s presence is the heartbeat. Like a heartbeat, He’s often almost imperceptible. But I sense Him like a pulse, just beneath the surface of reality.

“It’s something too many of us forget, that reality has layers. Occasionally people ask me how I can be Catholic and a science journalist. The answer is simple: Truth does not contradict truth. Both science and religion are pursuit of truth. They’re after different aspects of truth, different layers of reality, but they’re still both fundamentally about truth….”
(Camille M. Carlisle, Sky and Telescope)

It’s nice to see someone else writing about faith and science: and making sense.

I sympathize, a bit, with folks like the fellow who told me I should stop writing about science and religion, since the two don’t mix. According to him.4

Taking my faith seriously includes knowing the Bible. (Catechism, 101–133, 390)

That doesn’t mean believing Earth is flat and that we live under a dome with water above and below, like Genesis 1:6 says.

I could be a Christian if we were learning that ancient Mesopotamian cosmology was accurate, or if Aristotle had been right.

But that’s not the way it is. The universe is vastly bigger and older than we thought — and that’s okay. Like I keep saying: knowledge doesn’t threaten my faith. (March 24, 2017; December 2, 2016; August 28, 2016)

I think God is large and in charge, creating a universe that follows knowable physical laws. (Catechism, 268, 279, 299, 301–305; “Gaudium et spes,” 5, 15, Second Vatican Council, Bl. Pope Paul VI (December 7, 1965))

“Truth does not contradict truth” is Camille M. Carlisle’s paraphrase of one of my favorite quotes:

“…God, the Creator and Ruler of all things, is also the Author of the Scriptures – and that therefore nothing can be proved either by physical science or archaeology which can really contradict the Scriptures. … Even if the difficulty is after all not cleared up and the discrepancy seems to remain, the contest must not be abandoned; truth cannot contradict truth….”
(“Providentissimus Deus,” Pope Leo XIII (November 18, 1893) [emphasis mine])

Absolute Truth, Personal Taste

I agree with Sky and Telescope’s science editor. Absolute truth, inflexible reality, exists.

Science wouldn’t work otherwise, and neither would our faith. Each deals with different layers or aspects of truth.

“…We assume that there’s a right and a wrong way to describe the universe. … Quantum mechanics is right or it’s wrong. It isn’t right for some folks and wrong for others. Truth is truth whether we know the truth or not: Earth revolved around the sun even when people thought it was the other way around.

“Science teaches us, in other words, that absolute truth exists. It doesn’t tell us why, or Who that Truth is. Science is a marvelous tool, but in our marveling we must not forget that science is our interaction with and understanding of physical reality. It’s immensely powerful, but it’s not metaphysical….”
(Camille M. Carlisle, Sky and Telescope)

Acknowledging that absolute truth exists is one thing. Expecting the universe to behave exactly the way I think it should is something else: unreasonable, for starters.

I’ve run into folks who act as if they believe their personal preferences and cultural norms are as ‘absolutely true’ as physical laws. That makes no sense. Not to me.

Other folks apparently assume that Christianity is wrong because some Christians get universal principles and personal taste confused.

I suspect the ‘religion is against science’ attitude comes partly from this misunderstanding.

Happily, I knew Christians who could think straight; and kept digging into our history. That eventually led to my becoming a Catholic, and that’s yet another topic.

I’ve got personal preferences, and follow some of my culture’s norms. But I can’t reasonably expect everyone to be just like me.

And claiming that God agrees with me, instead of trying to conform my will to God’s, would be getting my priorities very seriously reversed. (Romans 12:2; Catechism, 562, 1783, 2085, 2745)

2. Cassini at Saturn: Under the Rings


(From NASA/JPL-Caltech, used w/o permission.)
(“Artwork: Cassini will run the gap between the planet and the rings on 22 occasions”
(NASA))

“The Cassini spacecraft is sending data back to Earth after diving in between Saturn’s rings and cloudtops.”
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (April 22, 2017)

“The Cassini spacecraft is sending data back to Earth after diving in between Saturn’s rings and cloudtops.

“The probe executed the daredevil manoeuvre on Wednesday – the first of 22 plunges planned over the next five months – while out of radio contact.

“Nasa’s 70m-wide Deep Space Network (DSN) antenna at Goldstone, California, managed to re-establish communications just after 08:00 on Thursday.

“The close-in dives are designed to gather ultra high-quality data.

“At their best resolution, pictures of the rings should be able to pick out features as small as 150m across….”

I was relieved when NASA announced that Cassini had reported in after passing under Saturn’s rings.

The space between the inner visible edge of the rings and the thicker parts of Saturn’s upper atmosphere looks clear, but probably isn’t. Not quite.

That’s why Cassini turned to go through the rings’ plane with its large antenna facing forward. The idea was that it would act as a shield, protecting the spacecraft from extremely small debris.

Hitting larger bits of ice at that speed would have ended the Cassini-Huygens mission 22 orbits earlier than planned.

If all goes well, Cassini will pass through the ring plane again today, April 28, and several more times before Septenber 15, 2017.

Then, after distant flybys of Janus, Pan, Pandora, and Epimetheus, Cassini will enter Saturn’s atmosphere: ending the mission.5

Besides getting a very close look at Saturn and its rings, these last 22 orbits should ensure that the probe doesn’t contaminate Enceladus. We’ve learned that conditions that may support life exist there. (April 21, 2017)


(From NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute, used w/o permission.)
(“This unprocessed image shows features in Saturn’s atmosphere from closer than ever before. The view was captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during its first Grand Finale dive past the planet on April 26, 2017.”
(NASA))

3. “Fake Research”


(From SPL, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)

“‘Fake research’ comes under scrutiny”
Helen Briggs, BBC News (March 27, 2017)

“The scale of ‘fake research’ in the UK appears to have been underestimated, a BBC investigation suggests.

“Official data points to about 30 allegations of research misconduct between 2012 and 2015.

“However, figures obtained by the BBC under Freedom of Information rules identified hundreds of allegations over a similar time period at 23 universities alone.

“There are growing concerns around the world over research integrity.

“The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has begun an inquiry into the issue to reassure the public that robust systems are in place in the UK.

“Stephen Metcalfe, the committee’s chairman, said it was vitally important that people have confidence in research that is paid for by public funds….”

The official data doesn’t look so bad: around 30 allegations of improper research between 2012 and 2015. That’s roughly 10 per year.

BBC News used the UK’s Freedom of Information rules to look beyond the official numbers for data on “research-intensive” universities: the Russel Group.

They found 300 allegations, at least, in 23 of the 24 between 2011 and 2016. That’s around 60 per year, six times the official count.

We could be looking at an ‘apples and oranges’ comparison. I don’t know what the official figures cover, and those 300-plus allegations included work by staff and research students.

The good news is that about two thirds of the allegations weren’t upheld. The bad news is that roughly a third were.

More good news: the 30-plus dubious research papers were retracted.

Still, it would have been nice if they’d been done right the first time.

Trust and the Great Moon Hoax

The Great Moon Hoax probably helped sell newspapers back in 1835, and didn’t do much more than annoy John Herschel.

So, getting back to 21st century science, what’s the harm of a few dozen academics apparently passing fiction off as fact?

It’s a matter of trust, as Science and Technology Committee’s chairman Stephen Metcalfe said.

He also said that folks should remember that there were a whole lot more than 300 research papers churned out over that five-year period. I’m not sure whether that makes the situation better or worse.

Either way, I still think that the BBC turning up ten times the official count of bogus research papers isn’t reassuring.

I might be more upset about this if I lived in the UK, and my taxes had helped pay for this ersatz research.

I’m none too happy as it is, since the news might encourage folks who think all science is fake. Except for “science” they’ve made up themselves. (March 31, 2017)

More seriously, deliberately speaking a falsehood with the intention of deceiving someone is — obviously, I hope — a lie. That’s a very direct offense against truth, and a bad idea. (Catechism, 2482–2482)

A lie does real harm, since it affects a person’s ability to know: which in turn affects any decision involving the false “fact.” It also undermines trust, which hurts everyone. (Catechism, 2486)

I’m pretty sure the same principle applies when a lie is written instead of spoken.

Ignoring trouble isn’t a good option. Like I said last Sunday, both mercy and justice are important. (April 23, 2017)

Deciding whether an act is good or bad is part of being human. So is thinking about what others do. (Catechism, 1778, 2401–2449)

The idea is hating the sin, loving the sinner: and leaving the judging of persons to God. (Catechism, 1861)

4. Replication Failure


(From Getty Images, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Scientists attempting to repeat findings reported in five landmark cancer studies confirmed only two”
(BBC News))

“Most scientists ‘can’t replicate studies by their peers’”
Tom Feilden, BBC News (February 22, 2017)

“Science is facing a ‘reproducibility crisis’ where more than two-thirds of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist’s experiments, research suggests.

“This is frustrating clinicians and drug developers who want solid foundations of pre-clinical research to build upon.

“From his lab at the University of Virginia’s Centre for Open Science, immunologist Dr Tim Errington runs The Reproducibility Project, which attempted to repeat the findings reported in five landmark cancer studies.

“‘The idea here is to take a bunch of experiments and to try and do the exact same thing to see if we can get the same results.’

“You could be forgiven for thinking that should be easy. Experiments are supposed to be replicable.

“The authors should have done it themselves before publication, and all you have to do is read the methods section in the paper and follow the instructions.

“Sadly nothing, it seems, could be further from the truth….”

Plagiarizing someone’s work, or publishing a bogus analysis of quantum gravity, probably won’t kill anyone. Publishing dubiously-accurate medical research might.

About that quantum gravity hoax, the Sokal affair, I gather the intent was to see whether a publication’s editors would swallow full-bore nonsense. They did.

In fairness, the target was an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies, and “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity” was allegedly about physics.

Perhaps since “Transgressing etcetera” was larded with pretentious nonsense fashionable at the time — I’ll admit a bias — the editors didn’t even bother to run the gibberish past a physicist before publishing.

The bad news here is that at least some medical research isn’t being done right. It’s probably not deliberate fraud — I’ll get back to that — but wasting time and effort with bogus results isn’t acceptable. Not with people’s health and lives at stake.

The good news here is that scientists are dealing with the issue: and they’re not the same scientists who seem to be making mistakes. With professional reputations involved, I think there’s a good chance that the problem will be corrected.

I’m also quite sure that the solution won’t be perfect, and won’t last. We’re dealing with people here, humans. As Job 5:7 says — “But man himself begets mischief, as sparks fly upward.”

Guilds and Mortarboard Caps

Back when my civilization was sorting itself out after the western Roman Empire’s collapse, folks were developing new ways of getting things done.

The old Roman craft organizations weren’t there any more — apart from stonecutters and maybe glassmakers.

Even there, it wasn’t old organizations. We had the locals who’d been involved in them.

The original idea was to pass along tools and the skills needed to use them. Guilds also assured folks that a butcher, blacksmith, cooper, or whatever, wasn’t someone with the tools but not the skills.

The system worked pretty well, for a time. Quite a long time, actually. Eventually the guilds had become less interested in quality control and public service, and more concerned with maintaining their own privileges.

Guilds lost their social and legal support, and mostly disappeared. Some places in Germany kept Innungen, with voluntary membership.6 Scholastic guilds eventually became today’s universities. (November 6, 2016)

There isn’t much left of the scholastic guild on most university campuses, apart from those mortarboard caps and long robes in outfits we see at graduation; and that’s yet again another topic.

All the Gibberish That’s Fit to Print

I think the word “crisis” gets used too much these days, particularly in the more breathless corners of news.

But I think Nature magazine is right.

When 70% of 1,500 scientists can’t duplicate experiments, and more than half can’t get their own experiments to work the same way twice, we’ve got a crisis.7

Something’s going very wrong, but I don’t think it’s the scientific method.

Some of what’s happening may be outright fraud. Most will probably be much harder to deal with.

Tom Feilden’s article quotes Marcus Munafo, biological psychology professor at Bristol University; and Dame Ottoline Leyser, director of the Sainsbury Laboratory at Cambridge.

“A Crisis of Confidence”

Munafo almost gave up hopes of a science career while a PhD student.

He couldn’t get a textbook example to work in the lab.

“…’I had a crisis of confidence. I thought maybe it’s me, maybe I didn’t run my study well, maybe I’m not cut out to be a scientist.’

“The problem, it turned out, was not with Marcus Munafo’s science, but with the way the scientific literature had been ‘tidied up’ to present a much clearer, more robust outcome.

“‘What we see in the published literature is a highly curated version of what’s actually happened,’ he says.

“‘The trouble is that gives you a rose-tinted view of the evidence because the results that get published tend to be the most interesting, the most exciting, novel, eye-catching, unexpected results.

“‘What I think of as high-risk, high-return results.’…”
(Tom Feilden, BBC News)

I sympathize, a little, with whoever made that textbook.

While working for a small educational publisher, I spent time writing for Project Special Education’s Dateline: America. I think it’s an excellent high school level remedial reading resource, by the way, if you can find copies.

Folks working with the best intentions are still under pressure to meet deadlines and purchasers’ expectations.

That does not excuse publishing results that won’t usually work. But I think it helps explain what’s going on.

“…Flashy Findings….”

The Sainsbury Laboratory logo, used w/o permission.I think the Sainsbury Laboratory’s director, Dame Ottoline Leyser, is right.

“…The reproducibility difficulties are not about fraud, according to Dame Ottoline Leyser….

“…That would be relatively easy to stamp out. Instead, she says: ‘It’s about a culture that promotes impact over substance, flashy findings over the dull, confirmatory work that most of science is about.’…”
(Tom Feilden, BBC News)

According to Mr. Feilden, she says funding bodies wanting the biggest bang for their bucks and peer review journals competing for the most exciting breakthroughs share credit — or blame — for this mess.

So do universities and institutes that measure success by counting grants won and papers published, and ambitious researchers.

A quick check on the Springer Nature site showed me four more articles8 about dubious research and iffy publishers:

  • “Gibberish” papers
    (2014)
  • Shady online publishers
    (2013)
  • An editor who quit after accepting a bogus paper
    (2009)
  • A “conference” accepting a paper written by jargon-spewing software
    (2005)

I don’t think this is the end of civilization as we know it: or that science is doomed. We may, however, have another name for science a century or so from now.

Let’s remember that alchemists started calling what they did chemistry after grifters started hawking elixirs. (October 16, 2016)

There’s good news in those Nature articles.

I think it shows that some scientists are more interested in science than in hushing up embarrassing facts. As more scientists, administrators, and publishers, twig to what’s at stake, I think we’ll see change.

Or, like I said, we’ll see “science” getting a new name.

Curiosity and a Thirst for Truth

Either way, I don’t think folks will stop wondering how this universe works.

Not all of us.

Curiosity and a thirst for truth is so deeply ingrained in humanity, I don’t think we can stop. (March 24, 2017; March 17, 2017; November 25, 2016; October 28, 2016)

More of how I see truth, beauty, and being human:

1 A pretty good translation of “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium:”

  • “On the Revolutions”
    Copernicus; translation and commentary by Edward Rosen, Johns Hopkins University Press (1992) ISBN 0-8018-4515-7. (Foundations of Natural History. Originally published in Warsaw, Poland, 1978.)

2 More of my take on politics, ideas, and doing our job:

3 Natural philosophy/science, background:

4 In case you haven’t read my stuff before; I don’t believe in “creation science,” or one of the equally-goofy UFO religions:

5 Cassini-Huygens and the Saturn system:

6 Guilds, professionalism, and science:

7 Trouble in science:

8 Dubious research:

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Divine Mercy

Posted on April 23, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

I care about God’s mercy because I’m a sinner. What that means depends on who says it.

I think and hope Jonathan Edwards meant well, and wish some of his imitators would be less enthusiastic. Or at least think about what he said.

Hollywood theology — I’d like to believe that many folks don’t get their religious education from the movies, and that’s another topic.

Basically, Americans have lots of options for what we think “sin” and “sinners” mean.

I’m a Catholic, so my view is ‘none of the above.’

Sinners, Sin, and Sense

I don’t think I’m so “saved” that I can do anything I want. Holy Willie is a really bad role model. (February 12, 2017; December 4, 2016)

I’m not “some loathsome insect,” either.

That sort of thing made “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” a bestseller, and still permeates American notions of Christianity. (March 5, 2017)

Two more ‘what I don’t think’ ideas, and I’ll move on.

I do not think “sin” is doing something from a list of activities I don’t like or can’t enjoy.

Gerard van Honthorst's Der verlorene, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.I certainly don’t think “sinners” are folks whose problems aren’t the ones I deal with, or those who don’t act just like me.

I think I’m a sinner because I don’t consistently do what I know is good for me, and avoid what’s bad. (Catechism, 1706, 1776, 1955)

Whenever I deliberately do something that makes no sense, hurting myself or someone else, I offend reason and truth; and God. That’s a sin, so I’m a sinner. (Catechism, 1849–1850)

I commit a sin whenever I don’t love God and my neighbor, and act as if everyone is my neighbor. (Matthew 22:36–40, Mark 12:28–31; Matthew 5:43–44; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 10:25–30; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1825)

Sins aren’t all alike. They’re all bad ideas, but some are worse than others. Lots worse. (Catechism, 1852–1864)

I can’t work or pray my way into Heaven, but what I do makes a difference. I’ve talked faith, works, and all that, before. (April 9, 2017; December 4, 2016)

Doing what’s right and avoiding what’s a bad idea would be a lot easier if the first of us hadn’t made a really bad decision. We’re still living with the consequences of that wrong turn. (Catechism, 396–412)

But that doesn’t make humanity basically bad. What and who we are hasn’t changed.

Still “in the Divine Image”

We’re rational creatures. We can decide what we do, like angels. Unlike angels, we are also material creatures: spiritual beings with a body made from the stuff of this world. (Catechism, 311, 325–348, 1704, 1730–1731)

Something went wrong, obviously. But the problem isn’t having bodies. God makes us, and this universe, and God doesn’t make junk. (Genesis 1:31; Catechism, 31, 299, 355)

We’re still made “in the divine image,” as Genesis 1:27 puts it.

The first of us — Adam and Eve aren’t German1 — decided to do what they wanted, even though it meant disobeying God. Then Adam tried blaming his wife, and God. Things went downhill from there. (Genesis 3:1–12)

Original sin, the Catholic view, is that we’re still made “in the divine image.” We started out in harmony with ourselves, with the world, and with God: but that harmony is broken.(Genesis 1:27, Genesis 3:5–3:13)

Human nature has been wounded: but not corrupted. (Catechism, 31, 299, 355–361, 374–379, 398, , 400–406, 405, 1701–1707, 1949)

Love and Neighbors

Ideally, I would unceasingly love my neighbors, see everybody as my neighbor, and treat others as I want to be treated. (Matthew 5:43–44, 7:12, 22:36–40, Mark 12:28–31; Luke 6:31 10:25–27, 29–37)

I don’t.

Making wise choices would be easier if we weren’t living with consequences of a original sin, but that’s out of my hands.

My job is acting as if love and God matter. (Catechism, 407–409, 1730–1738)

I can decide to do what is good: but it won’t be easy. (Catechism, 407–409)

Trying to do what is right doesn’t set me apart from the rest of humanity.

We’re not divided into ‘good’ people who are like me and ‘bad’ people who aren’t. Life isn’t that simple.

“…But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners….”2
(“Visit to the Congress of the United States of America,” Pope Francis (September 24, 2015))

Mercy

After the end of all things, I’ll be with our Lord in Heaven: or not. (Catechism, 1023–1029, 1033–1037, 1042–1050)

Where I go is up to me. Nobody’s dragged, kicking and screaming, into Heaven. At my particular judgment I could walk away from our Lord. It’s a daft option: but it is an option. (Catechism, 1021–1022)

I hope for mercy, so I try to forgive others. (Matthew 6: 12)

“13 ‘Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.

“Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.’ ”
(Luke 6:37–38)

Our Lord set a very high standard for forgiveness:

“Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”
(Luke 23:34)

Forgiving others doesn’t mean ignoring trouble. Justice and mercy are both important. (Catechism, 1805, 1829, 1861, 1991–2011)

So is having good judgment. Judging whether an act is good or bad is a basic requirement for being human. It’s part of using my conscience. We’re even expected to think about the actions of others. (Catechism, 1778, 2401–2449)

That’s because sin isn’t just about me and God. I’m not loving my neighbor if I see nothing wrong with someone hurting my neighbor. (Catechism, 2196)

The idea is hating the sin, loving the sinner: and leaving the judging of persons to God. (Catechism, 1861)

It’s simple, and very far from easy. (April 16, 2017; April 9, 2017; November 29, 2016)

Before a quick overview of Divine Mercy Sunday, and the Divine Mercy devotion here in Sauk Centre; the best news we’ve ever had: God loves us, and wants to adopt us. All of us. (John 1:12–14, 3:17; Romans 8:14–17; Peter 1:3–4; Catechism, 27–30, 52, 1825, 1996)

Divine Mercy Sunday

The Divine Mercy3 devotion started in Poland, where Saint Maria Faustyna (Faustina) Kowalska lived.

I’ve heard that official approval of the devotion took as long as it did in part because her diary was written in Polish. Folks at the Vatican had been reading a botched translation.

We eventually got a Polish pope, Pope Saint John Paul II, who could read the diary in its original Polish. That was good news for folks here in Sauk Centre, and elsewhere.

Divine Mercy Sunday is the Sunday following Easter, so it moves around the calendar a bit. This year it’s April 23, today.

There’s an image associated with the devotion, showing Jesus with two rays coming from our Lord’s wounded heart. One is red, the other white — representing blood and water. (John 19:34)

Sauk Centre, Minnesota, was dedicated to the Divine Mercy on Divine Mercy Sunday, 1982. That’s the year my wife and I married. It’s her home town, we moved here a few years later, and that’s yet another topic.

Our Divine Mercy devotion uses a carving my father-in-law made, based on St. Faustina’s picture. A photo like the one up there takes its place at St. Paul’s church, when the carving is on tour.

Pope St. John Paul II talked about the Divine Mercy, and what the red and white rays mean, when Sr. Mary Faustina Kowalska was canonized:

“…‘Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his steadfast love endures for ever’ (Ps 118: 1). So the Church sings on the Octave of Easter, as if receiving from Christ’s lips these words of the Psalm; from the lips of the risen Christ, who bears the great message of divine mercy and entrusts its ministry to the Apostles in the Upper Room: ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you…. Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’ (Jn 20: 21–23).

“Before speaking these words, Jesus shows his hands and his side. He points, that is, to the wounds of the Passion, especially the wound in his heart, the source from which flows the great wave of mercy poured out on humanity. From that heart Sr Faustina Kowalska, the blessed whom from now on we will call a saint, will see two rays of light shining from that heart and illuminating the world: ‘The two rays’, Jesus himself explained to her one day, ‘represent blood and water’ (Diary, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, p. 132)….”
(“Canonization of Sr. Mary Faustina Kowalska,” Pope John Paul II (April 30, 2000) (Divine Mercy Sunday) [emphasis mine])

There’s a Divine Mercy chaplet and a novena — and that’s yet again another topic.

More of my take on mercy, love, and living as if God matters:

1 I like most art, old and new, including Albrecht Albrecht Dürer’s Adam and Eve. But I don’t think Adam and Eve are German, or even European.

I think the Genesis account of our origin and fall is true.

I am also quite sure that this truth is told in figurative language. (Catechism, 390, 406)

2 Sin, original and otherwise —

“ORIGINAL SIN: The sin by which the first human beings disobeyed the commandment of God, choosing to follow their own will rather than God’s will. As a consequence they lost the grace of original holiness, and became subject to the law of death; sin became universally present in the world. Besides the personal sin of Adam and Eve, original sin describes the fallen state of human nature which affects every person born into the world, and from which Christ, the ‘new Adam,’ came to redeem us (396–412).”

“SIN: An offense against God as well as a fault against reason, truth, and right conscience. Sin is a deliberate thought, word, deed, or omission contrary to the eternal law of God. In judging the gravity of sin, it is customary to distinguish between mortal and venial sins (1849, 1853, 1854).”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, Glossary)

3 More about mercy, the Divine Mercy devotion, and St. Mary Faustina Kowalska:

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Looking for Life: Enceladus and Gliese 1132 b

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

We haven’t found life on — or in — Enceladus. But we’ve found organic compounds in the Saturnian moon’s salt-water geysers.

Scientists detected an atmosphere around Gliese 1132 b, a planet about 39 light-years away. It’s Earth-like, in terms of size; but too hot for life as we know it. We’ll almost certainly learn a great deal, though, by studying its atmosphere.

LHS 1140 b: Super-Earth in a Habitable Zone

Thursday night, as I was finishing this post, I noticed that Harvard’s MEarth Project discovered another super-Earth; also about 39 light-years out: in the habitable zone of its star.

LHS 1140 b is about 1.4 times Earth’s diameter, with a mass 6.6 times our world’s. That makes it very roughly as dense as Earth, so it’s probably a rocky world, like Earth. I took a quick look at the paper published in the April 20, 2017, issue of Nature.1

LHS 1140 b is now on my list of upcoming topics: maybe for next week.

Abraham, Moses, and Minnesota

I take the Bible, Sacred Scripture, very seriously. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 101–133)

I don’t, however, insist on believing only what I find in the Bible. That’s just as well, since I live near the center of North America.

I’m pretty sure that Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Saint Peter, and the rest, didn’t know that the land I live on exists. But I’m quite sure that the State of Minnesota is real: even if it’s not “Biblical.”

I don’t, however, “believe in” Minnesota. Not in the sense that I expect it to give me a reason for living, or occupy the top of my priorities. I don’t “believe in” progress, science, or my computer’s operating system either. Not that way.

My priorities should be God first, everything else second. (Luke 10:27; Catechism, 2083, 2097, 2112–2114)

So how come I let myself think my wife matters, or take an interest in anything but doing every prayer, devotion, and other pious observance the Church has accumulated over the millennia?

For starters, I don’t think there’s time for one person, or one family, to do everything. (January 1, 2017; August 14, 2016)

Besides, although family isn’t top priority; it’s important. (Catechism, 2197–2233)

So is using the brains God gave us. (March 26, 2017)

Faith, Reason, and Questions

My interest in science isn’t a requirement. Using my brain is.

I’ve talked about ‘creation science,’ secondary causes, and getting a grip, before. (March 31, 2017; January 13, 2017; October 21, 2016)

Real-life equivalents of “The Church of Danae” notwithstanding, being curious, asking questions, is okay.

“Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air…. They all answer you, ‘Here we are, look; we’re beautiful.’…
“…So in this way they arrived at a knowledge of the god who made things, through the things which he made.”
(Sermon 241, St. Augustine of Hippo (ca. 411) (from www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20000721_agostino_en.html (December 6, 2016))

Which reminds me: I think Adam and Eve are as real as I am. That’s also just as well, since I’m supposed to. (Catechism, 362, 390–401)

But I’m quite sure that they’re not German. (September 23, 2016)

Since I’m a Catholic, it’s faith and reason. Noticing this wonder-filled universe will, if I’m doing it right, point me toward God. Faith, the Catholic version, isn’t reason. But it’s reasonable. (Catechism, 31–35, 159, 282–283)

“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8–9; 63:2–3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2)….”
(“Fides et Ratio.” Pope Saint John Paul II (September 14, 1998))
(From vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.pdf (April 20, 2017))

Studying this universe and using our knowledge is okay. It was part of being human when it was called natural philosophy, and it still is, now that we’re calling it science. Wondering why we’re here is okay, too. (Catechism, 284, 341, 2293)

Deciding that God can’t exist, no matter what we see, not so much. (Catechism, 2088)

1. Enceladus: Ice, Water, and Maybe Life


(From NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Easy to sample: Jets of water spew from the south pole of Enceladus.”
(BBC News))

“Saturn moon ‘able to support life’”
Jonathan Amos, BBC News (April 13, 2017)

“Saturn’s ice-crusted moon Enceladus may now be the single best place to go to look for life beyond Earth.

“The assessment comes on the heels of new observations at the 500km-wide world made by the Cassini probe.

“It has flown through and sampled the waters from a subsurface ocean that is being jetted into space.

“Cassini’s chemistry analysis strongly suggests the Enceladean seafloor has hot fluid vents – places that on Earth are known to teem with life.

“To be clear: the existence of such hydrothermal systems is not a guarantee that organisms are present on the little moon; its environment may still be sterile. But the new results make a compelling case to return to this world with more sophisticated instrumentation – technologies that can re-sample the ejected water for clear evidence that biology is also at play….”

“Easy to sample,” as the photo’s caption puts it, is a comparative term.

Positioning a probe’s orbit to go through jets from the Enceladan south polar region should be straightforward. No more difficult than any other maneuver near one of the Solar System’s outer worlds, at any rate.

Designing a probe to remain undamaged while passing through the jets at orbital speeds should be possible. We’ve built spacecraft that re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and survive.

Collecting samples should also be fairly straightforward. The Stardust probe collected samples from comet 81P/Wild’s coma, returning to Earth in 2006.

Calling any of those steps “easy” is, I think, a tribute to the remarkable engineering we’re used to; but perhaps not entirely accurate.

But that’s arguably easier than designing a probe to land on Enceladus; drill through 30 to 40 kilometers, 19 to 25 miles, of ice; and collect samples.

Particularly since I’m pretty sure that scientists would want to be confident that the probe, drill, and sampler, didn’t contaminate Enceladus with critters from Earth.

Eventually, we’ll want to explore Enceladus in person, and that’s another topic.

Hats off to Jonathan Amos, for that “to be clear” paragraph.

Conditions that allow life don’t necessarily mean that life is present. I’ll grant that we’ve gotten used to finding life just about everywhere near Earth’s surface: including places we thought were uninhabitable.

We’ve found living critters beneath a half-mile of antarctic glacier, and in the liquid asphalt of Pitch Lake. Cryptococcus neoformans is a sort of yeast found growing in what’s left of the Chernobyl reactor. That yeast may be using the reactor’s energy for growth.

Someone named MacElroy or McElroy came up with “extremophile” to describe critters living in places we thought they couldn’t. (“Bioactive Natural Products,” Atta-ur- Rahman, editor, p. 1126 (2006); via Google Books)

My guess is that it’s William D. McElroy, but I haven’t confirmed that.

Life as We Know It: Currently


(From WHOI/NSF/NASA, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“On Earth, the microbes at vents support a range of more complex organisms”
(BBC News))

We got the first evidence of hot spots on Earth’s ocean floor in 1949, in the Red Sea. The unexpectedly hot seawater’s existence was confirmed in the 1960s.

We were pretty sure nothing could survive there. The water was too hot, and too saline.

In 1977 researchers took the DSV Alvin down for a close look at the hydrothermal vents on the Galápagos Rift, a spur of the East Pacific Rise.

There were very odd critters thriving there, like Alvinella pompejana, the Pompeii worm. Now scientists are discussing whether life might have started near hydrothermal vents.

Definitions for life-as-we-know-it have been stretched considerably since my high school days. (March 3, 2017)

Encelandan Geysers: Salt Water and Organic Compounds

NASA's illustration, showing the likely inner structure of Enceladus. (2017) via BBC News, used w/o permission.
(From NASA, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)

“…’We’re pretty darn sure that the internal ocean of Enceladus is habitable and we need to go back and investigate it further,’ said Cassini scientist Dr Hunter Waite from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.

“‘If there is no life there, why not? And if there is, all the better. But you certainly want to ask the question because it’s almost as equally as interesting if there is no life there, given the conditions,’ he told BBC News.

“The sub-surface ocean on Enceladus is thought to be many kilometres deep, kept liquid by the heat generated from the constant gravitational squeezing the moon receives from the mighty Saturn….”
(Jonathan Amos, Jonathan Amos, BBC News)

There’s more than speculation behind the idea that Enceladus may have hydrothermal vents on its ocean floor. A 2005 flyby detected more infrared at the moon’s south pole than could be explained by sunlight. Something inside was providing heat.

“Constant gravitation squeezing” is one of the probable heat sources.

Tidal heating should be happening, but a 2007 study said that it was probably adding 1.1 gigawatts to the 4.7 gigawatts indicated by Cassini’s sensors.

Maybe Enceladus was in a more eccentric orbit at some point, and what we’re observing is heat left over from that era. Heat from radioactive materials is another likely explanation. But the numbers show that there’s almost certainly something more heating the moon.

Where all the heat comes from is one of many things we don’t know. Not yet.

One thing we’re more certain about is that Europa has a subsurface ocean, and that it’s global. The way it wobbles or nods as it orbits Saturn, its libration, makes more sense if we assume that the moon’s crust isn’t attached to its interior.

Like I keep saying, don’t bother memorizing these terms, there won’t be a test

Since sunlight hits those geysers near the Enceladan south pole, and probes orbiting Saturn were ‘watching’ them, we have a pretty good idea of what’s shooting out of that moon.

I’ve talked about spectroscopy before, and put a possibly-excessive set of links near the end of this post.2 (March 3, 2017)

Water from Enceladan geysers isn’t pure. There’s salt, silica-rich sand, nitrogen (in ammonia), and organic molecules: including traces of simple hydrocarbons like methane, propane, acetylene, and formaldehyde.

Organic stuff doesn’t always come from living critters, but our sort of life can’t happen without organic compounds. I’ve talked about what’s organic and what’s not, life, vitalism, science, being Catholic, and Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis,” before. (September 9, 2016)

“…We Need to Go Back….”

The salty, methane and formaldehyde-laced Enceladan water would need processing before I’d drink it, but I’m human.

Earth’s seawater isn’t a particularly safe drink for me: too much salt. And Earth’s ocean is teeming with life.

A great many critters live and thrive in environments that would kill me.

I talked about extremophiles earlier. I also think Dr. Waite is right:

“…’We’re pretty darn sure that the internal ocean of Enceladus is habitable and we need to go back and investigate it further,’ said Cassini scientist Dr Hunter Waite….

“…’If there is no life there, why not? And if there is, all the better. But you certainly want to ask the question because it’s almost as equally as interesting if there is no life there, given the conditions,’….”
(Jonathan Amos, Jonathan Amos, BBC News)

If we do find life in Enceladus, I’m not expecting people. I’d be excited if we found microbes that clearly didn’t have their origins here on Earth.

I’m also quite sure that we’d see many different reactions to the news.

I’ve talked about Thomas Paine, Brother Guy Consolmagno, science, and “greater admiration” before. (April 14, 2017; March 17, 2017; December 23, 2016)

2. Gliese 1132 b: (Somewhat) Earth-Like


(From Dana Berry, via BBC News, used w/o permission.)
(“Artist’s impression of GJ 1132b: The planet’s thick atmosphere may contain water or methane”
(BBC News))

“Atmosphere found around Earth-sized planet GJ 1132b”
Rebecca Morelle, BBC News (April 6, 2017)

“Scientists say they have detected an atmosphere around an Earth-sized planet for the first time.

“They have studied a world known as GJ 1132b, which is 1.4-times the size of our planet and lies 39 light years away.

“Their observations suggest that the ‘super-Earth’ is cloaked in a thick layer of gases that are either water or methane or a mixture of both.

The study is published in the Astronomical Journal….”

GJ 1132 is smaller and cooler than our sun. The GJ stands for Gliese. BBC News could have called the star Gl 1132, too, and that’s yet another topic.

GJ 1132 b’s orbit puts it between its star and us once each of its years. That’s about 39 and a half hours.

It orbits Gliese 1132 at about 1,400,000 miles; 0.0154 Astronomical Units, the distance from Earth to our sun.

Since it crosses the face of its sun from our vantage point, scientists can tell how wide it is. Measuring how much Gliese 1132 wobbles as the planet orbits gives the planet’s mass.3

Gliese 1132 b is about 1.6 times as massive as Earth, and 1.2 times wider. That gives it a density very close to our home’s. It’s very likely made of the same stuff as the Solar System’s terrestrial planets: mostly rock and metal.

I’m not sure where the BBC News article got 1.4 as its size: maybe as an average the mass and diameter comparisons, or data from a source I didn’t see.

It could be a water world, or ocean planet; a hypothetical type of planet that’s entirely covered by water.

We don’t know that ocean planets exist, but that’s one tentative explanation scientists have for what they’ve observed: planets like Gliese 1214 b, a super-Earth discovered in 2009.

Gliese 1132 b is ‘Earth-like,’ but not habitable. Venus is even more Earth-like, with 0.81 our home’s mass and 0.95 Earth’s diameter. Its surface probably cooler than Gliese 1132 b’s, too. I’ll get back to that.

Water, Maybe Methane

When scientists discovered Gliese 1132 b, they realized that we could learn a great deal from the planet.

Crossing its star’s face, and orbiting on of the nearer stars, they figured we could tell whether it had an atmosphere, and what the atmosphere was like.

They were right, at least as far as confirming that Gliese 1132b has an atmosphere goes. We still don’t know what’s in the atmosphere, but water vapor and methane are very likely candidates. Whatever’s there, the planet won’t support life. Not as we know it.

Gliese 1132 b is too close to its star to be like Star Trek’s Class M planets — which generally looked like southern California from the surface.

Scientists figure the top of Gliese 1132b’s atmosphere is around 533 K, 260 °Centigrade, 500 °Fahrenheit; probably hotter at the surface.

At its surface, Venus is 737 K, 462 °C, 867 °F.

Even if Gliese 1132 b is tidally locked, with one face always facing its star, we’ve learned that an atmosphere distributes temperature effectively.

Life as we know it would die quite promptly on Gliese 1132 b. Life not-as-we-know it, maybe fluorosilicone in fluorosilicone or fluorosilicone in sulfur, might. That’s assuming that such life exists. (March 3, 2017)

There’s More to Learn

GJ 1132, this planet’s sun, is in the constellation Vella: not quite half-way to Mu Velorum. GJ 1132 is 12.04 parsecs away, give or take 0.24: which works out to 39 light-years, maybe a bit more.

The “artist’s impression of GJ 1132b” isn’t as ‘artistic’ as some illustrations of other planets I’ve seen, but Dana Berry exercised artistic license.

GJ 1132 is cooler than our star, but it wouldn’t look like that.

That’s okay, since the illustration is there to get a reader’s attention; which it does effectively. Which is probably why Phys.org used this illustration last year. (September 2, 2016)

Although GJ 1132 is a great deal cooler than our star, it’s still hot. It’s a red dwarf, spectral type M3.5D. It’s surface is 3,270 K, 2,997 °C, 5,426 °F.

Our sun’s surface is 5,772 K, 5,498.9 °C, 9,930 °F. I’ve talked about stars and colors before. (July 29, 2016)

GJ 1132’s visible surface is about the color of a tungsten halogen light bulb: ‘warmer’ than sunlight here on Earth; but ‘cooler’ than light from a candle or incandescent bulb.

And certainly far from the deep, rich, red of that illustration.

Because they’re cooler than our star, a red dwarf’s habitable zone is much smaller than our star’s. That’s assuming that planets circling red dwarf stars could be habitable. That sort of star has flares as powerful as ours: and ‘habitable’ planets would be a lot closer than Earth.

I think we’re currently learning how much we have left to learn about life in the universe.4 (September 2, 2016; March 3, 2017; September 2, 2016; July 29, 2016)

More opportunities for admiring God’s work:

1 Another maybe-habitable world:

2 Enceladus, Europa, and a little science:

3 More about Gliese 1132 and studying exoplanets:

4 Stars, planets, and (maybe) life:

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