The asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa isn’t exactly Earth’s second moon. But it’s been circling our world for centuries: and near Earth’s orbit for much longer.
Now scientists say they’ve traced the asteroid back to Giordano Bruno crater on the Moon.
I’ll be taking a look at what I could find of their research, Earth’s moons, and asteroids whose orbits keep them near Earth. Then I’ll talk about one of the more colorful personalities of the Renaissance.
Asteroid Kamoʻoalewa, Giordano Bruno Crater: Origins & Orbits
Giordano Bruno Crater on the Moon; 22-kilometres, 14 miles across. 35.9°N 102.8°E.
469219 Kamoʻoalewa is a small asteroid that’s circling, but not orbiting, Earth. If it came from Earth’s moon, which seems likely, it’s probably debris from the Giordano Bruno impact event.
Before getting into Kamoʻoalewa’s origins, a quick (for me) look at Earth’s neighborhood.
Earth has only one moon. Make that only one large moon that isn’t artificial, and that’s been orbiting our planet for a very long time.
Like so much else, it’s complicated.
Earth’s moon — it’s actually more like ‘the other part of the Earth-Moon double planet’ — And that’s another topic. Anyway, the Moon has been orbiting Earth, or sharing Earth’s orbit, good grief: point is, it’s been around Earth for billions of years.
Folks have claimed that they found a second moon for Earth at least since 1846.
But until very recently, other astronomers couldn’t find Petit’s, Waltemath’s, or other second natural satellites. That changed, maybe in the early 21st century.1
I haven’t verified when the first ‘second moon’ claim was backed up by other researchers finding the same thing.
Dust, Asteroids, Astrodynamics, Temporary Moons, and Lagrange points
There’s a mess of small Solar System objects with orbits near Earth’s, but they’re not usually orbiting our world.
On the other hand, sometimes they become temporary moons.
2006 RH120, for example, orbited Earth from July 2006 to July 2007. 2020 CD3 was a moon from somewhere around roughly 2016 or 2017 to May 7, 2020.
Earth’s Moon isn’t going anywhere, not soon at any rate, since it’s well inside Earth’s (astrodynamic) sphere of influence. That’s an oblate-spheroid-shaped volume of space where Earth outvotes other gravitational influences.
Oh, boy. Geek-speak and anthropomorphism. An oblate spheroid is a squashed sphere, sort of like a loaf of pumpernickel.
The two main mathematical models for an astrodynamic sphere of influence are called the Hill sphere and Laplace sphere.
Earth’s gravity isn’t the only thing affecting stuff inside these spheres.
There’s radiation pressure from the sun, for one thing; and the gravitational influence of everything else for another.
Like I said, complicated. Very complicated.
Long before 2006 RH120 and 2020 CD3 were spotted, Kazimierz Kordylewski said that he’d detected two roughly banana-shaped dust clouds, centered on the Moon’s L4 and L5 Lagrange points.
The L4 and L5 Lagrange points are the spots in a planet or moon’s orbit sixty degrees ahead and behind the object where gravity of the two larger bodies balance out.
Kordylewski died in 1981.
Then, in October of 2018, the Royal Astronomical Society confirmed that the Kordylewski clouds are real.2
One reason I like living in our current “now” is that international cooperation, among scientists at any rate, isn’t as grudging — or difficult — as it’s occasionally been.
I think that video does a better job than I could, of explaining how 469219 Kamoʻoalewa is circling Earth, but not orbiting our planet.
About the video’s title, “Asteroid 2016 HO3…”, 469219 Kamoʻoalewa had the provisional designation 2016 HO3 when NASA posted that video: June 23, 2016.
I talked about astronomical names and designations back in 2021. There’s a link near the end of this post.
Anyway, 469219 Kamoʻoalewa is a quasi-satellite of Earth. It’s circling our planet at the moment, but it’s outside Earth’s astrodynamic sphere of influence.
469219 Kamoʻoalewa stays close to Earth because it’s in a co-orbital configuration: a 1:1 orbital resonance with Earth. Its year is the same length as Earth’s.
Objects with a particular sort of orbital resonance that keeps them close to a planet, but that stay outside the planet’s sphere of influence, are called quasi-satellites.3
Don’t bother trying to remember that stuff: there won’t, happily, be a test on this.
In This Week’s News: 469219 Kamoʻoalewa and a Lunar Crater
Giordano Bruno crater, with 100 meter topographic contours. NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University. (2012)
“You may never be able to go home again, as the old proverb asserts, but for a chunk of rock sharing Earth’s orbit around the Sun, you might at long last know where it is.
“The provenance of asteroid Kamo’oalewa, discovered in 2016, is something of a mystery, but astronomers believe it may be a chunk of the Moon. A new analysis has even identified the crater from which it may have been gouged.
“Using numerical simulations, a team led by astronomer Yifei Jiao of Tsinghua University in China has determined the properties of the crater most likely have to produced the asteroid, and found a real one that matches those properties: the Giordano Bruno crater on the far side of the Moon.
“‘We have explored the processes for impact-induced lunar fragments migrating into Earth co-orbital space and presented support for Kamo’oalewa’s possible origin from the formation of the Giordano Bruno crater a few million years ago,’ the researchers write in their paper.
“‘This would directly link a specific asteroid in space to its source crater on the Moon and suggests the existence of more small asteroids composed of lunar material yet to be discovered in near-Earth space.’…”
That’s what got me started on this week’s post.
This year’s study of 469219 Kamoʻoalewa wasn’t the first that discussed why the asteroid probably started as a piece of the Moon’s crust. I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last.
The way 469219 Kamoʻoalewa reflects light very strongly suggests that it spins around once every 28 minutes, give or take a bit.
Assuming that 469219 Kamoʻoalewa is an S-type asteroid, again based on how it reflects light, it’s very roughly 40 to 100 meters across: 130 to 330 feet.
That’s not huge, but since 469219 Kamoʻoalewa is spinning so (comparatively) fast, it’s almost certainly a solid piece of rock: not a rubble pile.
Yifei Jiao’s team probably built on research published in 2021 that looked at orbital mechanics and the odds of Lunar impacts in various places sending rocks into resonant orbits.
I also found discussions of a possible connection between 12th century monks and Giordano Bruno crater on the Moon. Possible, but not probable.4
I’d prefer getting a look at the 2024 Kamoʻoalewa research paper, but ran into the same problem as I did last week. I was either looking in the wrong place, or lack the proper credentials: maybe there are other explanations, too.
So my guess, that the 2024 paper builds on 2021 research by Castro-Cisneros, Malhotra, and Rosengren — will remain just that: a guess.
Horseshoe Orbits and Naming Kamoʻoalewa
Although I didn’t find the latest Kamoʻoalewa paper — actually, I did find it. I know where it is, but I don’t have access to it. And I’m wandering off-topic.
Anyway, 2024 Kamoʻoalewa is a quasi-satellite of Earth, circling our planet, but in its own orbit around the Sun. That’s a temporary situation.
Using math that I’ve read about but can’t actually do, scientists have worked out 2024 Kamoʻoalewa’s orbit: from the year 1600 to 2500.
Details vary, depending on which models they’re using.
But there’s pretty good agreement that 2024 Kamoʻoalewa was in a horseshoe orbit around the sun until about a century back, and will transition back into a horseshoe orbit a few centuries from now.
Horseshoe orbits are another sort of co-orbital configuration. Except that instead of being in a 1:1 orbital resonance with a planet that keeps the object circling the planet, an object in a horseshoe orbit circles the planet’s orbit.
Instead of circling a fixed point on the planet’s orbit, the object drifts back and forth along the orbit. The shape reminds me of patterns a Spirograph® makes, only in three dimensions. Four, if you include time.
Let’s see, what else?
2024 Kamoʻoalewa was spotted by the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy’s Pan-STARRS asteroid survey telescope. Pan-STARRS gets funding from NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
The name Kamoʻoalewa sounds Hawaiian because it is: ka ‘the’, moʻo ‘fragment’, a ‘of’, lewa ‘to oscillate’. Folks at the A Hua He Inoa, ʻImiloa Astronomy Center of Hawaiʻi came up with the name, and it’s been official since April 6, 2019.5
(Almost) finally: that possible-but-not-probable connection between 12th century monks and the Giordano Bruno crater.
Gervase of Canterbury and a Monkish Mystery
Left: crater Giordano Bruno on a map of the Lunar farside. Right, Giordano Bruno crater.
Gervase of Canterbury is one of the monks who buried St. Thomas of Canterbury, after Thomas didn’t live down to his king’s expectations.
Gervase of Canterbury is also known as an English chronicler.
In 1976, a geologist said that this excerpt from Gervase of Canterbury’s writings recorded an observation of the Giordano Bruno crater impact event:
“…[On the evening of June 18, 1178] after sunset when the moon had first become visible a marvelous phenomenon was witnessed by some five or more men…Now there was a bright new moon…its horns were tilted toward the east; and suddenly the upper horn split in two. From the midpoint of the division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals, and sparks. Meanwhile the body of the moon which was below writhed, as it were, in anxiety…the moon throbbed like a wounded snake. Afterwards it resumed its proper state. This phenomenon was repeated a dozen times or more, the flame assuming various twisting shapes at random…Then after these transformations the moon from horn to horn…took on a blackish appearance. The present writer was given this report by men who saw it with their own eyes, and are prepared to stake their honour on an oath that they have made no addition or falsification in the above narrative….” (Gervase of Canterbury (ca. 1200) via Melanie Melton, Planetary Society)
The last I checked, there’s no proof that the five monks actually saw a lunar impact; and pretty good reasons for thinking that they didn’t.
For one thing, the Giordano Bruno crater is probably between one and 10 million years old, maybe older. For another, the odds that an impact as big as the one that made that crater happened in the last thousand years is — minimal.
Besides, an impact like that would have thrown something like 10,000,000 tons of rock into the Lunar sky.
Some of that would have escaped the Moon’s gravity and fallen toward Earth. Nobody, anywhere, wrote about an epic meteor shower around that time.
Maybe the monks just happened to be in the right spot to see a meteor flame out in the English sky, between them and the Moon.
Monks, a meteor, and the Moon being lined up like that is a low-probability event. But so is a Lunar impact happening just then. Given that the Canterbury light show was probably local, odds are that the monks did not witness a Lunar impact.
I was mildly surprised to see no learned composition, asserting that the monks couldn’t have seen a Lunar impact: because both Gervase and the witnesses were monks. And that monks are religious people who, of course, hate science.
The closest I found to that attitude was what I think was a lighthearted reference to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.6
“…Gervase’s report must either be an impact event with a wrong date or a nonimpact event. In either case, the connection between the Canterbury event and the Canterbury Swarm must be a Canterbury Tale.” (“Lunar Event of 1178A.D. — a Canterbury tale?“, B. E. Schaefer, P. M. Bagnall; Journal of the British Astronomical Association (October 1990))
Giordano Bruno Died For Your Sins??
Ettore Ferrari’s bronze relief, illustrating the trial of Giordano Bruno by the Roman Inquisition.
“The fools of the world have been those who have established religions, ceremonies, laws, faith, rule of life….” (“Cabal of the Cheval Pegasus”, Giordano Bruno (1585) via Wikiquote)
“All things are in the Universe, and the universe is in all things: we in it, and it in us; in this way everything concurs in a perfect unity.” “The Universe is one, infinite, immobile. … It is not generated, because there is no other being it could desire or hope for, since it comprises all being. It does not grow corrupt. because there is nothing else into which it could change, given that it is itself all things. It cannot diminish or grow, since it is infinite.” (“Cause, Principle, and Unity”, Giordano Bruno (1584) via Wikiquote) [emphasis mine]
Giordano Bruno was a philosopher, poet, cosmological theorist, and (Western) esotericist. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says he was “one of the most adventurous thinkers of the Renaissance”.
The self-described best and brightest of the 19th and early 20th centuries said Giordano Bruno was a martyr for science: because he was tried by the Roman Inquisition, and burned at the stake in the Campo de’ Fiori.
It’s true that some of his opinions turned out to be (mostly) right. And that his opinions got him in trouble with the powers that be.
He also had self-esteem above and beyond the call of reason.
By the time I was getting interested in science, Giordano Bruno was still recognized as a Glorious Martyr for the Cause.
But by then, the best and brightest were focusing more on Galileo Galilei as the Champion of Truth and Science.
Galileo, heroically standing firm against the Forces of Oppression, whose weapons were Superstition and Ignorance. It made a compelling story.
I’m not sure why focus shifted to Galileo. Maybe it was because he had actually done significant scientific research.
Giordano Bruno was more of a philosopher. He’d started out as a Dominican friar, then (probably) became a Calvinist. Both the Lutherans and the Calvinist Council excommunicated Bruno. Eventually he told the Roman Inquisition that they were wrong and he was right.
In 1600, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori.
These days, that’d be like someone being electrocuted in Washington D.C.’s National Mall. Or maybe New York City’s Times Square.
Although some folks still regard Giordano Bruno as a martyr for science, I gather that most historians have gotten around to checking their records.
His ideas about cosmology weren’t conventional. But it was Bruno’s imaginative and fervent rebranding of nifty old ideas that got him in trouble.
The Bruno spin metempsychosis and panpsychism, for example, was new. The ideas themselves had been around at least since the Axial age.7
Attitudes and Assumptions: Giordano Bruno and Nicholas of Cusa
NGC 4848 and other galaxies.
Giordano Bruno got some things right. Stars are other suns, and planets orbit a great many of them.
Over the last few decades, we’ve made observations which strongly suggest that this universe is infinite. Or that it isn’t. There’s a debate in progress, regarding that point.
The physical universe we’re in may be the only one. Or maybe we live in one of an unknown number of ‘universes’. That’s another debate in progress.
A century before Giordano Bruno left a trail of repackaged beliefs — and scorch marks in the Campo de’ Fiori — Nicholas of Cusa had said that Earth isn’t the center of the universe, and that there might be other worlds — — —
But Nicholas of Cusa was a Catholic cardinal. And everybody knows what they’re like.
I don’t know what went wrong in the centuries between Saints Hidegard of Bingen, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas — and Europe’s 16th-century meltdown.
The 11th through 13th centuries were no picnic, either: I’ve talked about that before.
Looking back at the Giordano Bruno and Galileo SNAFUs with 20-20 hindsight, I see some wisdom in Galileo’s permanent time out. I can even see why his books were banned, and why Giordano Bruno was executed.
That doesn’t mean I think either was a good idea. Censorship and the traditional right of folks in charge to kill their subjects are topics for another time.
That’s partly, I suspect, because I’m an American who grew up in the 1960s.
I wasn’t on the same page as The Establishment then. Now that the folks in charge have different quirks and slogans: I’m still not on the same page.
I’d be even less enthusiastic about the powers that be, if my homeland hadn’t somehow held on to the curious notion that folks shouldn’t be punished for expressing unsanctioned opinions.
And that’s yet another topic or two, for another time.
I’m also aware that, although the folks in charge may be highly proficient in hanging on to their fancy titles and big offices, they don’t necessarily have a clue about anything else.
Like Dante being accused of heresy: based on lines 103 through 108 of “The Divine Comedy”, Inferno.
Seems that Dante Alighieri’s imagery, illustrating the union of body and soul — looked like a heretical denial of the Resurrection. To some of his poetically-challenged contemporaries, at any rate.
“…The Suicides willed the death of the flesh, but they cannot be rid of it: their eternity is an eternity of that death. (The absurd charge of heretically denying the resurrection of the body was brought against Dante on the strength of these lines, but only by those to whom the language of poetic imagery is a sealed book.)” (Dorothy L. Sayers’ footnote to “The Divine Comedy,” Inferno, Canto XIII, line 107; “The Divine Comedy 1 Hell,” Dante Alighieri, Translation by Dorothy L. Sayers (1949); Penguin Classics reprint) [emphasis mine]
Finally, although I’m glad that my access frustrations are mainly limited to paywalls and unnecessarily rigid members-only information services — I do look for “nihil obstat” (“nothing hinders”) in publications that deal with matters of faith and morals.
If I find something that doesn’t seem to make sense in an approved document: odds are that I’m missing something. And that’s — you guessed it — yet again another topic.
As for whether God’s universe fits this, that, or the other cosmological model?
I figure part of our job is learning how God’s creation works: accepting what we’ve learned, and to keep learning.
“Our God is in heaven and does whatever he wills.” (Psalms 115:3)
How we got to a point where Sirius is also called Aschere, Canicula, Al Shira, Mrgavyadha and Lubdhaka, α Canis Majoris (α CMa), 9 Canis Majoris (9 CMa), HD 48915, HR 2491, BD-16°1591, GJ 244, ADS 5423, and HIP 32349
“Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) was one of the most adventurous thinkers of the Renaissance. Supremely confident in his intellectual abilities, he ridiculed Aristotelianism, especially its contemporary adherents. Copernicus’s heliocentric theory provided a starting point for his exposition of what he called a ‘new philosophy’. … The universe was infinite, animate and populated by numberless solar systems. It was also eternal. As such, it exhibited all possibilities at any given moment, and all parts of it assumed all possibilities over time, thereby constituting a cognizable manifestation of a timeless and absolute principle, God. In keeping with these ideas, Bruno proposed versions of metempsychosis, polygenism, panpsychism and, renouncing Christian emphases on human imperfection, advocated a morality that exhorted individuals to perfect their intellectual powers.” (Giordano Bruno, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) [emphasis mine]
“After some inventive sleuthing, the mission team can — for the first time in five months — check the health and status of the most distant human-made object in existence.
For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars).
“Voyager 1 stopped sending readable science and engineering data back to Earth on Nov. 14, 2023,…”
As I’m writing this, Voyager 1 has been outward bound for 46 years, seven months, 18 days and about two hours. And now it’s back online, and sending back useful data. Not bad, for something launched in the mid-1960s.
I went to Mass yesterday, Sunday, for the first time since — Holy Week, at least. I haven’t been keeping track.
Getting to Sunday Mass is a very important part of being Catholic, but so is being a good neighbor and using my brain.
The whole household has been distinctly not well for months, part of the time I simply wasn’t up to hauling myself to church, and learning that we were experiencing COVID-19 was a complication.
We were in quarantine for part of that time — and I figured that not infecting my neighbors was important.
Anyway, yesterday I was in comparatively better shape and had gotten past the ‘don’t make other people sick’ milestones. So I went to Mass: and could hardly have picked a better Sunday to do so.
Yesterday was the day we renewed our baptismal vows. That Sunday is among my top favorite Masses of the liturgical year.
“Do you renounce Satan, and all his works and empty promises?
“Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth?
“Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered death and was buried, rose again from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father?
“Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who today through the Sacrament of Confirmation is given to you in a special way just as he was given to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost?
“Do you believe in the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?
These aren’t quite the words we use, here in central Minnesota; and this particular question-response is called “Order of Confirmation”. But the ideas are essentially the same. The text is what they used in England and Wales.
Finally getting back to Mass was great: and the first one in how-long being this Mass made it a very special treat.
I’ve talked about that before, and what’s been happening in this household:
Scientists have found gene groups we have in common with nearly all animals: thousands of them, from a code library that’s more than half a billion years old.
I’ll be talking about that this week, plus why I see no problem with studying this vast and ancient universe.
Helminthoidichnites-type trail left by Ikaria. Illustration from “…oldest bilaterian…”. (2020)
We’ve learned a great deal about life’s long story since my youth.
Back then, scientists didn’t know why a whole bunch of complex critters suddenly showed up in the fossil record, starting about 539,000,000 years back.
The “Cambrian explosion” is still something of a mystery, and may not have been particularly ‘explosive’. It could be just where the known fossil record picks up after the “Avalon explosion”, some 575,000,000 years ago.
Unless both explosions aren’t so much sudden bursts of diversity, as cases where we’ve got lots of fossils from two eras, but not so many from others.
The point I’m groping for is that we’re learning a lot about life’s long story — and Earth’s, and ours — and it looks like we have a great deal left to learn.
My high school science textbooks didn’t use terms like bilaterians and genome evolution: maybe because ‘most animals have bilateral symmetry’ and ‘some animals have radial symmetry’ fit the lesson plan better, and that’s another topic.
At any rate, genome evolution wasn’t mentioned at all, since that particular subject didn’t exist until the 1970s. I’m putting links to a mess of ‘what is this’ resources in the footnotes, and will explain why science and using our brains doesn’t bother me — later.
Now, before getting to how we share genes with fruit flies, a few definitions.
Bilaterians are critters with a distinct right and left side, top and bottom, front and back. Pretty much all animals these days are bilaterians. Even echinoderms, as larvae, are bilaterally symmetrical before they develop their adult five-fold radial symmetry.1
Bilateral Symmetry and Oh, Look! It’s a — Thing
Being bilateral started early — with critters like Dickinsonia, a might-be-an-animal that hasn’t been around for the last 550,000,000 years. Or disappeared from the fossil record then, at any rate.
Then again, maybe Dickinsonia wasn’t bilaterally symmetrical. Some researchers say the might-be-an-animal had glide reflection symmetry, which looks like bilateral symmetry but isn’t.
Maybe someday I’ll talk about “…a geometric transformation that consists of a reflection across a hyperplane and a translation (‘glide’) in a direction parallel to that hyperplane, combined into a single transformation….”
But not today. I’m still recuperating, and will be doing well to get this thing ready in time.
Next, before getting to a recent analysis of animal genomes, a (very) little about how we know what we know about critters that aren’t around any more.
Sometimes we find fossils of critters with tracks they left just before dying. Often we don’t. The good news is that we can infer a great deal about how a critter acted from the traces/tracks it left. And that’s yet another topic.
Studying critters like Dickinsonia would be a lot easier, if we could observe living individuals: or even had access to specimens preserved with formaldehyde and alcohol. But those aren’t options for creatures that have been dead since long before the non-avian dinosaurs died.
The good news is that scientists have been learning a great deal about how biochemicals work, and how they’ve been changing.
That, along with mathematical tools I hadn’t known about before I started re-learning how we’re studying our past, let scientists make pretty good estimates how life worked at the sub-cellular level in ages long past.
And, which is what I’m talking about this week, when assorted genes have changed.2
Bilaterians: 700,000,000 Years of Building on the Basics
“The mayfly, one of the 20 species studied in the paper.” (CRG) Photo: Isabel Almudi
“Seven hundred million years ago, a remarkable creature emerged for the first time. Though it may not have been much to look at by today’s standards, the animal had a front and a back, a top and a bottom. This was a groundbreaking adaptation at the time, and one which laid down the basic body plan which most complex animals, including humans, would eventually inherit.
‘The inconspicuous animal resided in the ancient seas of Earth, likely crawling along the seafloor. This was the last common ancestor of bilaterians, a vast supergroup of animals including vertebrates (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals), and invertebrates (insects, arthropods, mollusks, worms, echinoderms and many more).
“To this day, more than 7,000 groups of genes can be traced back to the last common ancestor of bilaterians, according to a study of 20 different bilaterian species including humans, sharks, mayflies, centipedes and octopuses….”
The CRG research team published their research in the April 15, 2024 Nature Ecology & Evolution, an online-only monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal.
I didn’t find the April 15, 2024 paper: either because I don’t have the right credentials, or maybe I wasn’t looking in the right place. I did, however, find a prepress draft: which I’ll assume isn’t all that different from the final version.
CRG stands for Center for Genomic Regulation — and Centre de Regulació Genòmica.
It’s one of those happy — or confusing — situations where an an outfit’s name in its own language yields an acronym that’s similar to the acronym it’d have in my language. In this case, it’s Center for Genomic Regulation.
What they regulate, and why, is something I haven’t discovered. I did, however, find their ‘what we do’ page: the English-language version.
CRG (Centre de Regulació Genòmica (Catalan)): “General information“ (Center for Genomic Regulation (English))
“…The mission of the CRG is to discover and advance knowledge for the benefit of society, public health and economic prosperity.
“The CRG believes that the medicine of the future depends on the groundbreaking science of today. This requires an interdisciplinary scientific team focused on understanding the complexity of life from the genome to the cell to a whole organism and its interaction with the environment, offering an integrated view of genetic diseases….”
Regulació apparently translates into English as “regulation”, with pretty much the same meaning for both.
regulation: “an official rule or the act of controlling something” (Cambridge English Dictionary)
Regulació: regulation: “an official rule that controls how something is done” (reglament, norma) (Cambridge English-Catalan Dictionary)
I’m guessing that one the CRG’s functions is regulating how their researchers study “the complexity of life from the genome to the cell…” — which strikes me as a good idea.
Studying this wonder-packed universe, and our place in it, is a good idea. So is remembering that ethics matter.3 (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2258, 2292-2295)
Ancient Genes, Rewritten
caption
“Evolution of tissue-specific expression of ancestral genes across vertebrates and insects“ Federica Mantica, Luis P. Iñiguez, Yamile Marquez, Jon Permanyer, fAntonio Torres-Mendez, Josefa Cruz, Xavi Franch-Marro, Frank Tulenko, Demian Burguera, Stephanie Bertrand, Toby Doyle, Marcela Nouzova, Peter Currie, Fernando G. Noriega, Hector Escriva, Maria Ina Arnone, Caroline B Albertin, Karl R Wotton, Isabel Almudi, David Martin, Manuel Irimia; bioXriv, the preprint server for biology (Posted December 21, 2023)
“…How did this ancient organism specify such a great variety of biological structures? Since all its cells shared the same genome, gene expression regulation was likely key for the generation of unique transcriptomes across these ancestral tissue types, and consequently for the emergence of their distinctive biological functions.
“The bilaterian ancestor gave rise to the vast majority of extant animals, where the original body plan and tissues have been greatly diversified and modified. Determinants of animal evolution include changes in gene complements (i.e. gene gains/losses and gene duplications), divergence of protein-coding sequences 4-6 and regulatory changes in gene expression….”
There’s a whole lot going on here, but this week I’ll focus on an unexpected detail.
Normally, I’d have gone off on several tangents at this point. But CRG’s piece on Phys.org sums up most of what I’d have said.4
“…To this day, more than 7,000 groups of genes can be traced back to the last common ancestor of bilaterians, according to a study of 20 different bilaterian species including humans, sharks, mayflies, centipedes and octopuses. The findings were made by researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona and are published today in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
“Remarkably, the study found that around half of these ancestral genes have since been repurposed by animals for use in specific parts of the body, particularly in the brain and reproductive tissues. The findings are surprising because ancient, conserved genes usually have fundamental, important jobs that are needed in many parts of the body….” (“Evolution’s recipe book: How ‘copy paste’ errors led to insect flight, octopus camouflage and human cognition“, Center for Genomic Regulation, Phys.org (April 15, 2024)) [emphasis mine]
Gene Duplication: Let the Modding Begin!
caption
Recapping, we share thousands of gene groups with pretty much all other animals. And a great many of those genes are repurposed from genetic code that’s very probably needed for basic biological functions.
But bilaterians stay alive: because — apparently — very early on, these ‘need these for basic functions’ genes got duplicated.
With the original genes in place and doing their jobs, bilaterians now had a sort of code library available for experiments. Which eventually, after a great deal of modding, led to centipedes, mosquitoes, zebrafish, and us.
And yes, I’m anthropomorphizing a natural process.5 Maybe more than just one.
That’s another tangent I don’t have time — or energy — for this week.
Instead, I’ll talk about why I’m not offended that we share genes with zebrafish, sea urchins, and centipedes. And why I see no problem in taking both faith and reason, science and religion, seriously.
Faith and Reason, Science and Religion
I don’t see natural processes as threats to my faith, partly because I think St. Thomas Aquinas is right. Secondary causes are real.
He talked about that sort of thing, at length:
“…God’s immediate provision over everything does not exclude the action of secondary causes; which are the executors of His order, as was said above (Question [19], Articles 5, 8)….” (First Part, Question 22, Article 3) “…For the providence of God produces effects through the operation of secondary causes, as was above shown (Question [22], Article 5)….” (First Part, Question 23, Article 5) “…The fact that secondary causes are ordered to determinate effects is due to God; wherefore since God ordains other causes to certain effects He can also produce certain effects by Himself without any other cause….” (First Part, Question 105, Article 1) “…God fixed a certain order in things in such a way that at the same time He reserved to Himself whatever he intended to do otherwise than by a particular cause. So when He acts outside this order, He does not change….” (First Part, Question 105, Article 6) (“Summa Theologica“, Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1265-1274))
Briefly, I think God creates everything. I’d better, if I’m going to be a Catholic. (Genesis 1:1-2:3, 2:4-25; Catechism, 279-314)
And I think that “everything” includes natural processes we call physical laws. Like Newton’s laws of motion.6
We’ve known about secondary causes for three quarters of a millennium. Longer, but that’s yet again another topic for another time.
“Truth Cannot Contradict Truth”
So how come some folks seem convinced that they must either believe that “God produces effects through the operation of secondary causes” and sometimes “acts outside this order”, or that because natural processes are knowable and predictable, God doesn’t exist?
I don’t think you’ll ever hear someone put the ‘science disproves God’ or ‘God forbids science’ attitude that way. But I keep running into variations on the theme.
Because I’m a Catholic, and know a little about my faith, I see no problem with being interested in God’s creation. Unless I put that interest ahead of God in my priorities.
Putting anything — science, politics, canasta, whatever — where God belongs would be idolatry, and a very bad idea. (Catechism, 2112-2114)
But studying God’s creation? Provided we don’t go nuts about it, that’s a good idea.
If we keep learning, we’ll discover that scientific truths we’re uncovering and truths of faith harmonize. We’ll learn more about God, while developing greater admiration for God and God’s work. Faith and reason, science and religion, get along. Or should. (Catechism, 31-32, 35-36, 159, 274, 283, 319, 341, 1704)
Granted, now and again we learn something that upsets preconceived notions. But if we keep collecting data and thinking: we’ll learn that what’s true is still true.
“…if methodical investigation within every branch of learning is carried out in a genuinely scientific manner and in accord with moral norms, it never truly conflicts with faith, for earthly matters and the concerns of faith derive from the same God. … we cannot but deplore certain habits of mind, which are sometimes found too among Christians, which do not sufficiently attend to the rightful independence of science and which, from the arguments and controversies they spark, lead many minds to conclude that faith and science are mutually opposed.…” (“Gaudium et Spes“, Pope St. Paul VI (December 7, 1965)) [emphasis mine]
“…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]
Four Centuries in Europe: the Black Death, Wars, and a Label
Smashing statues in northern Europe. (1566)
I don’t know why isn’t used as (alleged) proof that God doesn’t exist, and that’s still another topic. Topics.
In any case, although physics isn’t shunned, denouncing evolution became an important part of one-hundred-percent-real-American Christianity.
I strongly suspect that the ‘evolution, or God, but not both’ attitude has roots in 19th century English politics.
And that mess oozed out of what many folks call Europe’s religious wars.
The label’s not entirely without merit.
But I see conflicts like the Hundred Years War (14th-15th century), Dutch-Portuguese War (16th-17th century), and Thirty Years War (17th century), more as turf wars.
That may take explaining.
I’m covering several centuries of human folly in a few paragraphs, so bear in mind that this is an extreme oversimplification.
When folks started re-establishing inter-regional trade routes, Europe’s southern princes got first crack at these economic opportunities. Or, rather, southern merchants did, and I’m wandering off-topic again.
They were also first in line for the Black Death (14th century). But that didn’t last, and when the plague ended they were still first in line for imports and exports.
Europe’s northern princes were profiting from inter-regional trade, too; but they arguably felt that they were getting hand-me-downs from the comparatively wealthy south.
It didn’t help that at this point, the Catholic Church was the only pan-European authority, and the largest single European landholder.
I see that situation more as a post-Roman reflection of ancient religion-state relationships, than as a Catholic plot. Good grief, I’m wandering again.
By the 16th century, the Catholic Church was due for an overhaul. We hit these rough patches every half-millennium or so, but this one boiled over into a mess we’re still cleaning up.7
A King, the Age of Enlightenment, and a Few Good Ideas
Enlightenment-era folks reading Voltaire in Madame Geoffrin’s salon, as imagined by Lemonnier. (1812))
Long story short, England’s Henry VIII decided that he’d set up his own personal church, with himself as a mini-pope.
His Church of England was a smashing success, and arguably provided a model for other national leaders who felt inhibited by their political connections with the Church.
Recapping:
Black Death (14th century)
Hundred Years’ War (14th-15th century)
Dutch-Portuguese War (16th-17th century)
Thirty Years’ War (17th century)
England’s Henry VIII was an early 16th century king. His Church of England is still a going concern, and Antidisestablishmentarianism is — a rabbit hole for another day.
Meanwhile, folks who weren’t cooking up religion-themed propaganda for this, that, or the other king, duke, marquess, or whatever, were — — —
Actually, I figure a great many folks were simply living their lives and hoping the powers that be would let them do so.
But a fair number of non-noble aristocrats were getting thoroughly fed up with Europe’s near-constant slaughters.
Many of these folks somehow twigged to the illogic of one king’s subjects killing another king’s subjects. And both butcher brigades shouting with apparent sincerity that God was backing their boss.
That, and aristocrats thinking about what we’d eventually call the Scientific Revolution, gave us the Age of Enlightenment.
The Age of Enlightenment didn’t light the Beacon of Reason, driving the Shadows of Superstition, Ignorance and Religion into the Abyss prepared for them.
But it did, I think, help put some good ideas into the mix: like the still-slightly-suspected notion that thinking is a good idea, and that folks who aren’t in charge matter anyway.
I don’t know who, how, and where “Age of Enlightenment” got traction as a label for that particular period.8
English Politics and All-too-Familiar Attitudes
Here’s where I finally get around to English politics and 19th century weirdness that we’re still dealing with.
Darwin’s theory of evolution got mixed up in 19th century English politics.
Inheritors of Henry VIII’s Church of England had, among other things, a tight hold on England’s educational system.
The C. of E. set also attacked ideas they hadn’t invented: which I see as part of general human foolishness.
On the other hand, liberal Anglicans attacked the establishment’s position, and folks like Thomas Huxley defended Darwin’s theory — in part, maybe — because it helped pry England’s schools out of the religious establishment’s grip.
He might have defended Darwin’s theory anyway. But his politics probably encouraged greater enthusiasm.
I’m oversimplifying things a lot, but I think you get the idea.
These attacks on the status quo wouldn’t have endeared science to Englishmen who liked their nation’s official church and school just the way they were.
Maybe old-school English views of evolution encouraged old-school Americans to see the newfangled idea as a threat. I don’t know.
Preferring the status quo isn’t limited to Brits. To this day, some Americans have trouble dealing with an increasingly non-English America. Back in the 19th century, the ‘being American is being English’ attitude probably had wider appeal.
At any rate, time passed. Scientists kept studying reality, while some other folks kept trying to ignore newfangled ideas.
Someone founded the Anti-Evolution League of Minnesota. That grew into the Anti-Evolution League of America, with headquarters in Kentucky. Tennessee’s legislature defended traditional values — their version — with the 1925 Butler Act.
That led to the Scopes Monkey Trial:9 which helped maintain the notion that someone could either accept God’s universe as-is, or stalwartly ignore what we’re learning.
Using my Brain, Admiring God’s Universe
I’ve talked about evolution, science, history, and politics: but how do I feel about living in a universe that doesn’t work quite the way my ancestors thought it did?
Pretty good, actually. Which in this case makes accepting the truths we’re uncovering exciting, rather than upsetting or disturbing.
But, whether I’m feeling good or otherwise, using my brain — thinking — is important.
Again, that’s because I’m a Catholic.
I’m human, so I think I’m “an animal endowed with reason”. (Catechism, 1951)
I also experience emotions. They’re part of being human. By themselves, emotions aren’t good or bad. They’re just there. What I decide to do about my feelings: that’s where good and bad come in. (Catechism, 1762-1770)
I’m “an animal endowed with reason”, but I don’t have to think.
I have free will, so using my brain is a choice, not a hardwired response. It’s also a good idea. (Catechism, 1730, 1778, 1804, 1951, 2339)
About thinking or ‘trusting my feelings’: I was born during the Truman administration, am a very emotional man, and have learned that using my feelings as a guide can be highly imprudent.
A few more points, and I’m done.
Besides being “an animal endowed with reason”, I think each of us is made “in the image of God”, with body AND soul. (Catechism, 355-373)
We’ve known for millennia that we’re made from the stuff of this world.
“then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7)
All that’s changed recently is how much we know about “the dust of the ground” God uses: and getting upset about the Almighty’s design aesthetic doesn’t make sense. Not to me.
Last point: each time we learn something new about God’s universe, it’s an opportunity for praise and and admiration.
“…These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator….” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 283)
“Evolution of tissue-specific expression of ancestral genes across vertebrates and insects“ Federica Mantica, Luis P. Iñiguez, Yamile Marquez, Jon Permanyer, fAntonio Torres-Mendez, Josefa Cruz, Xavi Franch-Marro, Frank Tulenko, Demian Burguera, Stephanie Bertrand, Toby Doyle, Marcela Nouzova, Peter Currie, Fernando G. Noriega, Hector Escriva, Maria Ina Arnone, Caroline B Albertin, Karl R Wotton, Isabel Almudi, David Martin, Manuel Irimia; bioXriv, the preprint server for biology (Posted December 21, 2023)
Something new each Saturday.
Life, the universe and my circumstances permitting. I'm focusing on 'family stories' at the moment. ("A Change of Pace: Family Stories" (11/23/2024))
I was born in 1951. I'm a husband, father and grandfather. One of the kids graduated from college in December, 2008, and is helping her husband run businesses and raise my granddaughter; another is a cartoonist and artist; #3 daughter is a writer; my son is developing a digital game with #3 and #1 daughters. I'm also a writer and artist.
I live in Minnesota, in America's Central Time Zone. This blog is on UTC/Greenwich time.
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Blog - David Torkington
Spiritual theologian, author and speaker, specializing in prayer, Christian spirituality and mystical theology [the kind that makes sense-BHG]
