Newsflash: Ambiguous phrases aren’t “scientific facts”

It’s been brought to my attention that a certain blog has just concluded a series pertaining to “scientific facts of the Bible”- claiming or suggesting that the Bible has made a number of valid scientific claims long before physics, chemistry, hydrology or biology figured them out. This is total rubbish, first – because none of the nomadic sheep herders that scribbled the texts that later comprised the “good Book” were scientists, they weren’t even scientifically literate. Second, cherry picking ambiguous phrases or references is no guarantor of locating scientific facts. The reason is that in most all cases the references can be read numerous different ways, the phrase is inadequate itself (only a fraction of the whole scientific fact – and hence useless in any practical sense) and we have no idea how much translators mangled the passages.

Let’s look at some of these claimed “biblical scientific facts” to prove this, and meanwhile I refer readers to my earlier blog: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/03/enough-about-bible-trumping-science.html

Genesis 3:15: “between thy seed and her seed” – the female possesses a “seed” for child bearing.

This is absolute rubbish and only works by twisting the meaning of “seed” into something it isn’t. Any biology HS student knows the term “seed” is specifically reserved for the male sperm – NOT the female ova! To use “seed” for both ova and sperm and assert the bible is correctly processing a biological fact is therefore moronic. If these ancient geniuses knew the word “seed” and were so advanced in biology, they’d have at least phrased it so:

“Between thy SEED and her egg” or “eggs”

By using the exact same term the Genesis writer has proven he doesn’t know the difference between seed and eggs, and hence doesn’t understand the basics of human reproduction.


-Genesis: 1:14
“God created the "lights"in the heavens "...for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years"

Proves absolutely nothing. Besides, a little earlier one finds (Gen.:1: 1-5) :

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day”

Now, it's clear that the “light” referred to in the last three sentences is none other than the SUN. However, it is clear from reading each line through that the Earth was supposedly made BEFORE the Sun. (E.g. Earth without form, darkness upon face of the deep).

However, this is physically impossible. We know from modern astrophysics that the solar proto-nebula had to collapse first to yield the SUN. (No planets, since they had yet to spin off the collapsing nebular cloud – and it hadn’t cooled enough to allow it). As the proto-solar nebula collapsed it also began spinning and gained angular momentum. This angular momentum was then transferred to regions of the nebula that cooled and separated from the whole, and these regions became separate clouds of dust and gas that aggregated into the planets.

Under a combination of electrostatic attraction (between larger charged particles) and gravity (attracting the whole mass from the center of the cloud) each planet was formed as what we call a “planetesimal”.

As more angular momentum was transferred – the planetesimal’s (each one) acquired their own spin (in a period of revolution) and specific shapes. The giant planets (e.g. Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus) garnered more spin momentum than the more dense, terrestrial planets. Thus Jupiter’s planetesimal ended up as an oblate spheroid with diameter of about 88,000 miles and rotating rapidly with a day of ~ 10 hours. Earth, meanwhile ended up as a relatively spherical orb with diameter of ~ 8,000 miles and day approaching approach 24 hrs. Mars ended up in a similar shape to that of Earth and a diameter of 4200 miles and day ~ 24 hours.

Thus, the Earth spun off about 1.1 billion years after the solar nebula fully collapsed, and it could not have come BEFORE the Sun. Indeed, the absence of the central mass of the Sun, or ~ 10^ 33 kilograms, would have meant the Earth- if made with no Sun present- would instantly have been hurled into a direction toward the constellation Hercules at 12 miles per second with no central mass to keep it in check. We can compute this exactly using the basic principles of celestial mechanics.

It is clear from this that Gen.1:1-5 has stated a patent impossibility which violates all known laws of physics and dynamics and is therefore WRONG! If this single statement gets a basic fact of astronomy wrong, we may well inquire how many additional references are in error. I warrant more than enough to fill the pages of the whole New Testament.

We also don't know whether the term “seasons” was plagiarized from earlier ancient sources that predated the biblical writer – like the ancient Sumerians. It was the Sumerian astronomers that documented the changing seasons at least three thousand years before the first bible writer appeared, or Moses. Thus, the biblical writer probably just lifted the information from a Sumerian source, or it was later inserted by 145th-15th century copyists in forging the fraudulent King James bible.


Leviticus 15:13: And when he that hath an issue is cleansed of his issue; then he shall number to himself seven days for his cleansing, and wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in running water, and shall be clean "

Of course, we know today running water isn’t adequate to the task, one needs a good soap as well. THIS use of soap and water is what removes bacteria, running water alone won’t do it. The stupid claim that washing with running water (following Leviticus’ injunction) would “have saved millions in the Black Death” is pure bunkum.

The Black Death (actually a name for one specific form of plague – septicaemic plague – in which the blood is infected and the skin turns blackish) was caused by the plague bacillus Yersinia Pestis, which inhabits the blood of rodents: rats, mice, etc. Also a vector in its spread is the flea: Xenopsylla cheopsis. This flea feeds on an infected host(rat) then the plague bacillus multiplies in the flea’s blood stream When the plague bacillus multiplies enough it clogs the flea’s esophagus and it is forced to feed to slake its thirst. If all available normal hosts are dead or dying (as occurred in the spread of Black Death ) it feeds on a human. Thus, it effectively acts as a tiny syringe, administering doses of the plague to whoever it bites.

Thus, washing hands is useless – with running water or not. So long as any infected fleas are present and jumping bed to bed you could wash your hands for eternity and it wouldn’t help. Those who best survived the plague lived in isolation from all others, and made no contact with them – to the market, for trade or whatever. They grew their own food and stayed to themselves. (see ‘The Black Death’ by Sean Martin)

Following the injunction of Leviticus would have been a prescription for death.

Ecclesiastes 1:6

"The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits "

This is merely a generic, “cartoon” version of the wind. I’ve heard bright eight year olds give their own wind descriptions that are just as good. It doesn’t prove anything since it lacks specifics. What about the Coriolis force? What about major hurricanes which don’t follow any prescribed circuits? Stretching this blankish phrase into anything remotely approaching science is the sign of a desperate person seeking vindication.

Ecclesiastes 11:3 states that "If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth..."

Again, this is nothing and doesn’t prove the author knew one scintilla about a ‘hydrological cycle”. It is about the level I’d expect a bright kindergarten kid to give for accounting for the rain. Btw, filling in blankish spaces with one’s own detailed descriptions, viz.:

“Rainfall is part of a process called "water cycle. The sun evaporates water from the ocean . The water vapor then rises and becomes clouds . This water in the clouds falls back to earth as rain , collects in streams and rivers , and then makes its way back to the ocean . That process repeats itself again and again”

Isn’t exactly kosher. If these bible writers were that scientific then let THEM offer the description, leave out your personal, detailed “translations”. I could do the same for a trained capuchin monkey who yelps:

“Rinneee….geee….oinee..three….fo….”

See here! He’s giving the latest equation in quantum electro-dynamics! Where R is an R-operator, g defines the gamma function and oinee refers to the power to which G is take in iterations of 3, then 4.

All of this mumbo-jumbo reminds me of the attempts some years ago to decipher Nostradamus’ quatrains. For example:

“The year 1999 seven month,From the sky will come a great King of terror: To bring back to life the great King of Angolmois, (the Mongols),Before after Mars to reign by good luck” (Century X, Quatrain 72)

Which was interpreted to be the basis of a great war launched by…who? Well, fill in the blank! Whoever you believe to be a “King of terror”! Saddam? Kim Il Jong? Bush? (aka 'Dumbya' - who many on the planet would place in that category for lawlessly invading two nations, violating the Nuremberg laws)

The point is that there isn’t the detail available to make any rational or coherent connections or inferences, just as there isn’t with assorted biblical statements.


Further footnote: Citing middle ages’ personages like Newton, Kepler and others as valid scientific mouthpieces is also off base, since they wouldn’t have had the extent of background most scientists have today. As one wit once put it: even a 2nd year physics student now knows more than Newton, Galileo, Kepler and William Herschel combined.