Re: [asa] getting my anecdotes straightened out

Thanks, John. That does sound like the story (& much longer it was) that I do
remember reading. Though I'm pretty sure I didn't see it in DISCOVER magazine
or from a Disney source. Probably it's been repeated elsewhere. While the
scientist has derisive "fun" with the scientific side of the issue, his light
engagement with the theology side was based in his own position of personal
ignorance on the subject. (When all you have is a hammer...)

It's just as well if the story isn't really true, although as you pointed out,
Bill, such beliefs have been held by many of us --lending a certain credibility
to the tale. One thing I've discovered as a high school teacher is that my
effort to craft a facade of intellectual invulnerability in front of my students
is roughly in inverse proportion to my actual knowledge and depth of experience.
 (As a young new teacher I was not about to admit any mistake in front of my
students that I didn't absolutely have to ---I had to prove to them that I knew
more than they did.) But as I become a little more self-secure, I can begin to
actually have fun with some of my foibles in front of the students & let them
laugh with or at me. (although sometimes some embarrassing self-disclosures can
still be too fresh for comfort.) Anyway, I'll bet we all have our list of
things we look back at and laugh at how long we were in "arriving" when we
perceive others to have been there long before. The trick is not to assume such
humor in the presence of someone who has not yet made the same "arrival" and
then feels belittled.

(I wonder how old I was before it occurred to me that my assumed belief of
little "dwarf-like" people who lived in and controlled stop lights for us --was
just plain silly.)

--Merv

Quoting wjp <wjp@swcp.com>:

> Merv:
>
> While I agree the Bible teaches no such thing, and the result of an
> "unfortunate"
> translation in the King James:
>
> "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept;
> and he took one of his ribs, and closed the flesh instead thereof;
> And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman,
> and brought her unto the man" Genesis 2:21,22
>
> The word used for rib here more literally means "curved".
> In Ex 25:14, the sides of the Ark, are its "ribs".
> Since we have all heard of the rib of a boat, one wonders whether the
> translators of the KJ, ever meant the rib as a bone.
>
> However, the next verse powerfully says,
> "And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh:
> She shall be called Woman because she has been taken out of Man."
>
> Anyway, my only point her was to confess that I believed the very same
> thing as this woman until I nearly graduated from high school, having
> had no experience with female anatomy until well into my college years.
> How I came to believe this is utterly lost in history. Of course, I also
> had a lot of other strange ideas, like where babies came from, and I'm
> certain no one taught such things to me. For the record, I believed that
> somehow babies came out of the navel of woman. I didn't have a very
> detailed theory. I was simply never called upon to get more detailed.
> Reflecting the times, I remember in college a friend of mine consulting
> an encyclopedia when his parents were away as to the nature of female
> anatomy. I don't think I'd exchange such naivete for today's enlightened
> views among the very young.
>
> bill powers
> White, SD
>
>
> On Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:42:15 -0600, Merv Bitikofer <mrb22667@kansas.net>
> wrote:
> > Can anybody remember the source of this, or discern if it is no more
> > than urban legend?
> >
> > From the point of view of an anthropology professor, the story
> > goes.... a young lady raised her hand in class and quite calmly and
> > seriously informed him that it was impossible that men and women have
> > the same number of ribs because the Bible teaches otherwise. The
> > incredulous professor then challenges her to go examine the skeletons in
> > the lab to see for herself.
> >
> > This was probably used in the context of belittling creationists (I
> > think.). But I can't remember where I read it. I want to say in one of
> > Stephen Jay Gould's books, but I'm not sure. (And Gould is generally
> > more respectful towards believers though he could be feisty in his own
> > right on behalf of truth and science.)
> >
> > Oh ---and please note; this isn't to open commentary on the anecdote
> > itself. Obviously the claimed facts are all wrong and the Bible teaches
> > no such thing about our rib counts today. And of course most reflective
> > creationists would never make such a claim. The point of the whole
> > thing is/was to illustrate a simple-minded interaction between belief
> > and the self-prided hard core "scientist". I want to find the source
> > to see if the alleged event is convincingly documented to have happened.
> >
> > --Merv
> >
> >
> >
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>

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Received on Fri Feb 20 10:57:05 2009