Huggy, purebred health issues are exactly the point. The story of Noah isn’t about him domesticating these animals and selectively breeding them to accentuate certain physical characteristics. It’s about trying to repopulate the planet of all sorts of animals with one mating pair each. Which is absolutely ludicrous. Inbreeding negatively impacts the survival rate.
I’ve owned several purebred dogs (German Shorthaird Pointers, all). One had regularly occurring seizures until she was fixed (seemed to be a severe hormonal imbalance). A couple others had frequent UTIs. These were not animals that would’ve been able to survive in the wild, domestication or not. If I had to rely on them to repopulate the world’s canine population, well, it wouldn’t happen. It took human intervention and technology (far beyond Noah’s nonexistent level) to ensure they lived relatively normal lives.
A hearty stock requires several unrelated mating pairs to start with. The more, the merrier. Farmers have known this forever.
Also, yes, science’s self-correction is indeed a virtue. It’s not that the truth of a thing changes, but rather our understanding of it. Sometimes things are complicated. Sometimes things appear to be something, when they’re actually something else.
I mean, do you even know what the scientific method is? Why it’s structured the way it is? It’s a process whose structure is iterative. Each time through the loop, either precision is gained, or something new is answered/proven wrong, and the cycle starts again. And because we’re limited creatures with limits to our technology, who may be interpreting data wrong (if we’re actually recording it properly), there’s always a margin of error.
I understand that the lack of certainty is, for whatever reason, uncomfortable to theists, but I find that emotional discomfort to simply be the symptom of a weak intellect. There’s always a chance, even if it’s microscopic, that we’re wrong. And that’s okay, because that’s one of the things the scientific method accounts for. It’s why measurements and experiments are repeated, why things are peer-reviewed, why, from the outset, extraneous variables are attempted to be eliminated.
I find that infinitely more satisfying - intellectually and emotionally - than simply saying “god did it.”
I’ve owned several purebred dogs (German Shorthaird Pointers, all). One had regularly occurring seizures until she was fixed (seemed to be a severe hormonal imbalance). A couple others had frequent UTIs. These were not animals that would’ve been able to survive in the wild, domestication or not. If I had to rely on them to repopulate the world’s canine population, well, it wouldn’t happen. It took human intervention and technology (far beyond Noah’s nonexistent level) to ensure they lived relatively normal lives.
A hearty stock requires several unrelated mating pairs to start with. The more, the merrier. Farmers have known this forever.
Also, yes, science’s self-correction is indeed a virtue. It’s not that the truth of a thing changes, but rather our understanding of it. Sometimes things are complicated. Sometimes things appear to be something, when they’re actually something else.
I mean, do you even know what the scientific method is? Why it’s structured the way it is? It’s a process whose structure is iterative. Each time through the loop, either precision is gained, or something new is answered/proven wrong, and the cycle starts again. And because we’re limited creatures with limits to our technology, who may be interpreting data wrong (if we’re actually recording it properly), there’s always a margin of error.
I understand that the lack of certainty is, for whatever reason, uncomfortable to theists, but I find that emotional discomfort to simply be the symptom of a weak intellect. There’s always a chance, even if it’s microscopic, that we’re wrong. And that’s okay, because that’s one of the things the scientific method accounts for. It’s why measurements and experiments are repeated, why things are peer-reviewed, why, from the outset, extraneous variables are attempted to be eliminated.
I find that infinitely more satisfying - intellectually and emotionally - than simply saying “god did it.”
