A Different Nativity Story

I wanted to tell a slightly different nativity story. The Bible itself has very little written about the birth of Jesus. It doesn't even mention what time of year it happened. Over the years small additions to the story have been added to help flesh it out. But those were just assumptions created in later European culture. Because of this, and also because of translations issues, a number of items have become part of our "collective memory" about the nativity. For example the assumption that Jesus was born in a stable or barn, even though the Bible never says that. In some cases entire stories have been invented hinging on the mistranslation of a single word.

So I wrote this as an alternative nativity story. Some of the things included are my own interpolations, but in many cases I tried to use the best historical understanding that we have. In some places I have tried to use different words than is normal to make you pause and actually think about what is being said.

~~~~~oo0o000o0oo~~~~~

More than two thousand years ago a young couple about to be married had an unexpected surprise. It turned out that the soon-to-be-wife was pregnant. In their small community in Galilee this would have been quite a scandal, and in the culture at the time the shame of having a child out of wedlock would have followed her throughout her life. For her, while it was still a surprise, she had been warned about her coming pregnancy by an angel. In a great act of faith she accepted what the angel told her and said that she would be the Lord's servant. For the next few months she stayed with her cousin who also had a miraculous experience and received a promise that after many years of infertility she too would have a child. Together they rejoiced in what they had been called to do.

After several months Mary traveled back to her home and to her waiting fiance. The soon-to-be-husband and unknowing soon-to-be-new-adoptive-father found out that his soon-to-be-wife was pregnant, in a very impossible way, with what people would say was his first child. But he knew differently because he was a man of honor. After some thought he decided to do the honorable thing, as demanded by his culture, and break off the engagement. Being a kind, though honorable man, he didn't want to make a public display and wanted to keep everything "private". But again God interceded. In a dream an angel commanded him to ignore the honor based values taught to him by his culture, and to do a more holy thing so that a greater good could be done.

Joseph may have been a man of honor, but he was also a man of faith. He accepted what God had commanded him to do and married the woman who would come to be known as the Mother of God.

In their small community they would have been aware of the whisperings and gossip around them. Concerned with how it would affect the child he would raise, Joseph considered moving back with his family several days' journey to the south. Wanting to know what would be best for the child because the angel had told him the child would be a savior and ruler in Israel, even God Himself. There was a scripture known to the faithful that said the Ruler and Shepherd of Israel will be born in Bethlehem. This scripture came as an answer to his prayer to know whether he should move his new family.

Joseph took that as a sign that he was the right man to make sure the prophecy would be fulfilled. He was from Bethlehem and he had family there. Taking his young wife, and soon-to-be-mother, he set out on a journey of faith. He was a man of faith and was doing what he had been commanded by the angel. Also doing what he knew to be true from the scriptures. He knew it had to be this way.

Shortly after arriving at the house of relatives his wife went into labor. With the women in Joseph's extended family there to assist, Mary gave birth to the Son of God, the future Savior of not just Israel, but of the whole Earth. Despite his relative's generous accommodations there was not enough room in their guest room for the young couple, a new baby, and the others staying there. Mary needed rest and could not sleep if Jesus was woken up every few minutes by the others in the room. To help Jesus sleep they wrapped him tightly in some cloth and placed him, outside, in a disused stone watering trough for some animals. Not a very auspicious beginning for the King of Heaven.

Before long they heard hushed talking coming from outside and went out to find a group of shepherds had entered the fenced in yard by the house and were reverently observing the baby lying in the manger. The shepherds told them that they were visited by a host of angels proclaiming a covenant of peace between the kingdoms of the earth and the Kingdom of God, and that God would extend mercy to all people, even though they had sinned. And they instantly went looking for the Savior of the World, and just as the angel had said, they found the child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

On that night something changed. A sequence of events began that will ultimately culminate with God fulfilling the covenant he made with all humanity. The gulf of sin and alienation between all of humanity and God has been bridged. And God, through his Son, offers eternal life to all those who are faithful and willing to take upon them the name of The Son. As Christians we have taken His name upon us and faithfully await the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, where, as promised, we will dwell in peace.

Misusing a Scripture about Worshiping Idols

It finally happened. Someone tried to use a scripture about Asherah poles to justify their particular belief. Five years ago I wrote about a hypothetic argument about planting trees near a temple. In Deuteronomy there is a verse that says,

"Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God." Deuteronomy 16:21

Conceivably someone who did not understand the context could argue that this verse applied to modern day temples and that trees near the temple were forbidden. But in context, and translated correctly, this verse forbids Asherah poles, or groves near holy places. This commandment was directed at a common Canaanite religious practice, and directed the Israelites to not worship the goddess Asherah.

Recently I came across someone who said their father considered Christmas trees to be "of the devil" and pagan because Jeremiah 10:2-5 forbids it. In the King James Version the critical verses read,

2 Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. 5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

In this case the father interpreted these verses to be an condemnation of Christmas ("the customs of the people") and Christmas trees ("for one cutteth a tree out of the forest"). But with a little bit of historical knowledge (and a slightly better translation) we find that this is actually condemnation against worshiping wooden idols, such as wooden statues of the goddess Asherah.

A more modern translation (New Revised Standard Version) of these verses reads,

2 Thus says the Lord: Do not learn the way of the nations, or be dismayed at the signs of the heavens; for the nations are dismayed at them.
3 For the customs of the peoples are false: a tree from the forest is cut down, and worked with an ax by the hands of an artisan;
4 people deck it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.
5 Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor is it in them to do good.

Because someone did not understand the historical context of this passage, they interpreted it to mean that Christmas trees were forbidden. This is why we need to learn the context of the scriptures or we will think things like, God condemns Christmas trees, and miss the original teaching of, don't worship dumb idols who can't do anything for you or answer your prayers.

Did Doctors in the 1800's really not wash their hands?

Spoiler: They washed their hands.

Earlier this year Google made a doodle for their main search page about Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis who practiced medicine in Vienna, and later in his native Hungary in Pest. Dr. Semmelweis is famous for advocating for hand washing before we even knew about the existence of germs. At his hospital in Vienna he was able to greatly reduce maternal mortality rates by simply having the doctors and medical students wash their hands. Supposedly there were doctors across Europe who resisted this idea and fought against the suggestion that they were killing their patients. Only later when doctors discovered the existence of germs and understood how they caused disease was Semmelweis vindicated. Countless lives could have been saved if people had just listened to Semmelweis, but doctors were obstinate and stubborn and refused to listen.

This version of the story is the one that gets repeated in numerous news stories from NPR to the Washington Post, along with other places. It makes for a dramatic story, which is why it gets repeated, but there is a problem with it. It isn't true.

To understand what happened we have to consider the context, and also look at what Semmelweis himself wrote about his own ideas and also what we wrote about his supporters and critics.

In 1847 Semmelweis started an experiment in national hospital in Vienna. In the maternity ward the mortality rate was terrible, to the point that it was reported that women would rather give birth in the street than go to the hospital. During some months one out of every seven women who entered the maternity ward died there. But for women who used midwives and not doctors, even in the hospital, the mortality rate was closer to one out of every hundred women. To Semmelweis this indicated that the problem was the doctors and the medical students.

Because the hospital was also a research institution, an autopsy was performed on every woman who died there. Usually the same doctors and students who performed the autopsies were the same doctors who later attended the births. You can probably see where this is going.

A woman dies after childbirth because of an infection. The doctor performs an autopsy on her, and later attends another birth and the woman also dies from an infection. Semmelweis noticed this and implemented strict handwashing procedures.

But here is where actual history diverges from the story that usually gets told. When people tell the story of Semmelweis they portray it like washing their hands was a new, unusual, and radical practice. But in reality the radical change Semmelweis started was to change what the doctors washed their hands with. The doctors routinely used soap and water to wash their hands. They weren't barbarians. If they did an autopsy they would always wash their hands with soap and water before doing anything else. They were doctors, and knew how to keep things clean, just not sanitized by our standards.

Semmelweis had the doctors wash their hands with a solution of chlorine (bleach) after an autopsy. In the months that followed the mortality rate dropped dramatically. After two years of collecting data the difference was so clear that Semmelweis's students began travelling across Europe to explain the new theory of how to prevent what they called "childbed fever". As reported in letters from his students the reception of his ideas was positive and enthusiastic. Much of this we know because Semmelweis later published a book entitled The Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever where he laid out his theories and data. At the end of his book he included a chapter on reactions to his theories with excerpts from personal letters and also formal published responses to his ideas. He took extra care to respond to all those he thought had unfairly criticized his work.

It is from his own book that we get the story that he was persecuted and rejected by doctors across Europe. He made sure to bitterly complain of his critics inability to understand what to him was very plain. But it turns out that while his data was compelling, it didn't actually support his conclusions.

Semmelweis thought that dead or decaying matter would get on the doctor's hands, which would then release its miasma (smell) causing the women to get sick and die. Other doctors responded that after washing their hands, because every doctor actually did wash their hands, there wouldn't be enough dead material left on their hands to cause the sickness.

Essentially Semmelweis was saying that the raw matter of a dead body was one of the most potent poisons known to man. But this poison could only kill women, and kill them when they were giving birth. Furthermore he insisted, without evidence, that this was the only cause of "childbed fever", and there could be no other cause. This last point was the source of most criticism.

Dr. Carl Levy from Denmark pointed out doctors at his hospital did not perform autopsies. They outsourced autopsies to other doctors who did not work directly with patients. Also in Dr. Levy's reply to Semmelweis's own response to Dr. Levy, he casually mentioned that the doctors in Denmark would regularly wash with soap and water, and in some cases would wash with a chloride solution, just as Semmelweis demanded that doctors do. This exchange is recorded in Semmelweis's book, and shows that doctors in Europe actually did wash their hands.

Also recorded in Semmelweis's book was a letter from Sir James Simpson (the "father of anesthesiology"). Semmelweis attributed most of the criticisms from Simpson to issues of translation (he assumed that when his letter was translated from German into English something must have been lost since Simpson was not ecstatic about his ideas). But based on what Simpson wrote it is clear that he actually had no issue with Semmelweis one way or the other.

Simpson was surprised to learn that in Vienna they treated up to 32 women in the same room, and noted that in the UK they only had one patient per room. Also Simpson was not particularly impressed with reports that in Vienna they failed to change the sheets between patients. Additionally Simpson was not moved by Semmelweis's insistence that the English adopt his theories since, as Simpson noted, in England they had already been using chlorine solution washes before attending patients for many years. 

In fact one medical textbook published in 1854, quoted by Semmelweis in his book, noted that in English hospitals they had already adopted the practice of chlorine washes. When Simpson responded to Semmelweis he was a bit dismissive because he didn't think much of the hygienic practices of the doctors in Vienna who had apparently just barely discovered hand washing.

So what about the hospital in Vienna? Some versions of the story mention that the hospital administrator opposed hand washing. But this is contradicted by what Semmelweis wrote in his own book. It is true that his superior in the hospital didn't agree with Semmelweis, but his disagreement was over Semmelweis's theory, not the actual hand washing. After Semmelweis left Vienna the doctor who replaced him continued the practice of handwashing and kept the mortality rate low.

Semmelweis's reason for departure from Vienna is frequently cited as proof that he was persecuted for his ideas. Semmelweis was not promoted to the equivalent of full professor, and was also given a lower position along the lines of adjunct faculty. Frustrated Semmelweis left Vienna and returned to Hungary where he ultimately ended up working in the hospital in Pest.

To understand this we need to look at the larger events at the time. Vienna was the capitol of Austria, which was at the time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Austria-Hungary was an unstable collection of nations that would very quickly collapse in the aftermath of WW I. As a Hungarian Semmelweis was viewed with suspicion in Austria, especially since his siblings and other family members supported the Hungarian revolution in 1848 and 1849. It was precisely at the end of the revolution, with at least one of Semmelweis's brothers being executed for treason, that Semmelweis was passed over for promotion. Even though many of his colleagues recommended him, the hospital administration decided to hire an Austrian because of political considerations. He also had a contentious relationship with some of the doctors in the hospital, including his direct superior. So being passed over for promotion was more about politics and personal relationships than disrespect for his research.

But in his book Semmelweis maintains that it was because his superiors disapproved of his theories and wanted someone who would not promote them. But, as already noted, his replacement continued using a chloride solution for washing hands, and also wrote a textbook that included a section on Semmelweis's theory. 

So just based on the information included in Semmelweis's book, we learn that doctors commonly washed their hands with soap and water. The medical practices were not uniform across Europe, even down to how many patients were kept in a room and how often they changed the sheets. But in some countries, such as England, it was apparently routine for doctors performing surgery, or delivering a baby, to wash their hands with a chlorine solution. It was not the case that doctors all over the continent were repositories of unmitigated filthiness.

They did inadvertently spread disease because they did not know about germs, but there was nothing in Semmelweis's theory to imply the spread of germs. From the way he understood it he found a cure for a single, though deadly, disease. He never extended his ideas to other diseases such as dysentery, because he focused on a single problem. In his writing there is no indication that hand washing with a chloride solution could be a way of avoiding any other diseases. It was only later with the development of germ theory that doctors could recognize using a chloride solution (bleach) as a general way of controlling germs.

In retrospect Semmelweis is remembered for being correct about washing hands, but he was not correct about the core of his theory which assumed that miasma (vapor or gasses) emanating from decaying matter from a corpse was the primary source of the disease he was studying. A few of the articles written about him mention only in passing those things that made up the bulk of his theories. It was those things, that disease was caused by particles of decaying organic matter, that his contemporaries rejected. They were not opposed to hand washing, they did it anyway, they just didn't think that it was necessary to wash their hands to remove the minute traces of decaying organic matter.

Later because hand washing became such an important thing, that part of his writings were remembered and emphasized, and nothing else. He was only known for telling people to wash their hands, and not for ideas like self-infection through dead organic matter. Thus it was assumed that opposition to him was because of hand washing. And the only conceivable way someone could be opposed to hand washing was if they did not wash their hands. This is the unfortunate source of the idea that doctors in the 1800's did not wash their hands. But just using the writings of the man who is always cited for proof that doctors did not wash their hands, we can see that doctors did in fact wash their hands.

The καιρός of the Second Coming, Not the Χρόνος of the Second Coming

I have been seeing a large number of posts and comments about the time of the second coming and whether it will happen in a few years or not. Hopefully this post can change the way we think about the second coming.

A famous American writer once told a story of two fish swimming along. Another fish swimming by nods at them and says, "Morning, boys. How's the water?" The two fish keep swimming until one looks at the other and says, "What the #$!& is water?”

We are surrounded by our own culture and many times it determines how we think and view the world without us realizing it. In our culture time is something that structures our world. If you have to go to work, you are expected to be there at a certain time. Church meetings are scheduled at a specific time (and not Mormon standard time). TV shows air at preset times. Your GPS can tell you down to the minute how long it will take you to get somewhere. You can track the progress of a package being delivered. What ever device you are using to read this on has a clock that is synchronized over the internet by an official clock somewhere.

Our concept of time is something we are so embedded in that we have a hard time realizing that our concept of time is unique in all of human history. Up until a few hundred years ago the smallest unit of time anyone really used was the hour, and even that was a little hard to measure. For most of human history time was measured by the position of the sun, moon, and stars. The extreme modern obsession we have with exact times did not exist until recently.

Time in the ancient world, the world of the Bible, was a very different thing. For us time is something that increments up. Events start at some time, other events follow, and then things happen after that. There is a specific order to events. We want to keep things in chronological order. If you study history you will probably study it in chronological order, or will study a specific time period according to the years on a calendar.

In the world of the Bible how people interacted with time was very different. There was no exactness. Meetings or events didn't start at exact times. No one was checking the clock to see if a meeting should start, because there were no clocks! (None in the sense that we know them.) A festival, or feast, or celebration, or meeting would start when the necessary people were there to start it.

In Hebrew the word for time is יום, or Yom. The concept of yom is simple, but for us it can be confusing. Yom can be translated, depending on context as "day", "year", "age", "epoch", "season", or just an undefined amount of time. In one way we use the word "day" in the same way when we say, "Back in my day...."

In Greek time is broken down into two separate concepts. Greeks used the word Χρόνος (chronos) to talk about time as we are familiar with it. When King Herod asked the wise men what time they saw the sign of Christ's birth (as recorded by Matthew, which was written in Greek), he was asking them about the chronos of the event. It was something that could be put on a calendar. Time, as it relates to chronos has a start and an end. Or it could be used to indicate the time "before" something happened. But chronos could be an undefined amount of time, but it was still something that could be put on a calendar.

The other Greek word that gets translated into English as "time" is καιρός (kairos). While you could put kairos down on a calendar, it doesn't refer to a specific time. It refers to the right or opportune time. A comedian telling a joke has to time it right to make people laugh. Comedic timing isn't a chronos, thing, it's a kairos. When growing food in a garden you don't follow an exact schedule. You plant the garden when the time and weather conditions are right, and you harvest the food when it is ripe. If it's not ripe, you just have to wait. It's not something you can sit down with the plants and work out a day when they will be ready. This is a case of kairos.

The Apostles who recorded the words of Jesus used the word kairos to talk about the time of the "harvest". There wasn't a chronos for the time of harvest, there was a kairos. The time wasn't set. It depended on the conditions of the wheat. At times the apostles would call the saints to action saying that now was the kairos to act, now was the right time. It wasn't because they had reached the correct date set in heaven for it. The conditions were right to preach and convert many people. They had to take advantage of that moment before it passed.

When it came to the second coming, Jesus and the apostles never spoke of the chronos of the second coming. They only spoke of the kairos, the unknown time that it would be the right moment for it to happen.

32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time (kairos) will come. (Mark 13:32-33)

Even speaking of the "time of the gentiles" it was not a specific set period of time. There would be a beginning and end to the time of the gentiles. But those times were not, and are not set.

And importantly some of the critical "times" used by people to try to predict the chronos of the second coming, are not chronos at all, but kairos.

14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to her place where she is nourished for a time (kairos), and times (kairos plural), and half a time (half a kairos). (Revelation 12:14)

These times are not set times (chronos). They are movable times (kairos) that depend on certain conditions.

With this view, God does not have a "millennial" planner that He keeps hidden so that no one will know when He has scheduled the second coming. God is waiting and watching for the correct moment of the second coming. It is not a set time, and Jesus warned us against those who thought they knew the chronos or even the kairos of the second coming. God is not bound by any timetable. There is only one who knows the correct conditions (kairos) for the second coming, and that is God, and he will act when the conditions are right.

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Additional materials/reading:

Here's all the times chronos appears in the Bible (New Testament). You can check out how it is used and how it is translated.

https://biblehub.com/str/greek/5550.htm

When you separate the two concepts some things in the Bible start making a lot more sense.

Evidence in Science Requires Context

Suppose someone approached you and said, "There is a volcano close by." And when you ask them how they know that, they show you a piece of volcanic rock. Is that evidence that a volcano is nearby? It depends.

Where was the rock found? Was it close by? Are there other volcanic rocks in the area? Or did someone bring it into the area?

By itself a piece of volcanic rock is not evidence of a volcano. The rock has to be placed in context for it to be evidence of a volcano nearby.

This idea is easy to understand, but sometimes very hard to apply. Here I will give a few real examples of observations that when taken out of context can be considered evidence for a particular conclusion, but when put back into context do not support the conclusion.

In an article entitled Paleoindian ochre mines in the submerged caves of the Yucatán Peninsula, Quintana Roo, Mexico published recently in Science Advances, the authors were describing their work in a system of caves in Mexico. They found evidence of humans using the caves to mine ochre for pigment and paint. One of the things they had to determine was how long ago humans were using the caves.

They found charcoal in the caves near where the mining had taken place. If the charcoal was left there by the people who were mining the ochre then all they would have to do is use carbon dating to determine the age of the charcoal. The age of the charcoal should tell us when the mining took place. It would be easy to assume that the charcoal came from the people who were mining the ochre, but the full context must be taken into account before we can accept that conclusion. The age of the charcoal may not be evidence for the time when there was mining.

As the authors noted,

"Charcoal is a difficult medium for dating in the submerged caves of Quintana Roo because it may be produced by forest fires, then deposited by wind and rain, and remobilized repeatedly by floods during major storm events or, ultimately, by rising sea level. Archaeologists have often interpreted instances where charcoal concentrates in small catchment basins and litters cave floors as prima facie evidence of human activity. However, the mere presence of charcoal concentrations is insufficient to make this inference. Before submerged-cave charcoal can be interpreted as anthropogenic, it is necessary to establish that the sample materials are artifacts, that is, that they are representative of human activity and distinct from the products of natural processes."

In other words, the presence of charcoal is not automatically evidence for human activity. The charcoal must be considered in context.

In this case the authors could argue that the charcoal most likely came from human activity, and human activity at the time the ochre was being mined. To make this case they considered the broader context to see if there were other ways that the charcoal could get there, or if the cave formations showed that the charcoal had been there for a long time. Some of the charcoal was covered over by flowstone, which allowed the authors to get a rough date for when it was left there. This dating agreed with the carbon dating.

Only after all this could they use the carbon dating as evidence for when the mining took place. Before it was evidence for their conclusion they had to consider the evidence in context.

Now a second example. In a recent meeting at work we were discussing ways of detecting starburst driven galactic outflows using X-ray observations of galaxies. These outflows should produce strong X-rays which are easy to detect. The problem is that the things we were looking for are not thew only things that produce X-rays in galaxies. Just detecting a strong X-ray source is not evidence of a galactic outflow.

Before we could consider it to be evidence for what we were looking for we had to look at the context and see if other things could produce the X-rays and rule those out first. Only then we could use the X-ray detections as evidence for our conclusions. Just like the archaeologists with the charcoal in the caves, we had to consider the context.

Now a final example. In a discussion I had about the age of the earth, the person I was talking to brought up polonium halos as evidence of a young earth.

Polonium is a radioactive element and if polonium is mixed with melted rock it will collect inside micro-zircon crystals inside the rock. As the polonium decays the released radiation will "burn" the rock around it. This leaves a "halo" of scorched rock around the zircon crystal that held the polonium. These halos are very small and can only be seen under a microscope.

Young earth creationists argue that these scorched halos around zircon crystals are evidence of the rapid formation of the rock instead of the rock slowly cooling to its present state over thousands or millions of years. Their reasoning is that polonium has a very short half life (138 days) so the only way it can be in the zircon crystals is if the rock formed and cooled into its solid state in a matter of days. This fast formation would allow for the polonium to last long enough to freeze in the rock, and then burn the halo as it decayed.

There are a few problems with this, and all involve the context of these halos. First, assuming the source of these scorched halos is polonium, that would only show that the rock formed quickly, but it would not tell you how old the rock was. In order for the halos to be used as evidence for a young earth they have to show that the rocks are young, not just that they formed quickly.

Second, while polonium is highly radioactive, it isn't the only radioactive element. There are other elements with much longer half lives that can still do just as much damage to the surrounding rock. Most notably, uranium. Uranium is also found in zircon crystals. There is no proof that the scorched halos around zircon crystals were caused exclusively by polonium.

Third, even if the halos were caused exclusively by polonium there is more than one way to get polonium in the crystals without rapid formation. It turns out that polonium is a daughter product of uranium. In fact the only source of naturally occurring polonium is in rocks and ores with uranium content. So if the damage was done by polonium it could still have been done over millions and billions of years as uranium slowly decayed into polonium, and polonium quickly decayed into lead.

Young earth creationists argue that these halos around zircon crystals are evidence of a young earth. But when considered in context they cannot be used as evidence of rapid formation or especially young rock ages. In this it fails to be evidence for a young earth.

In these three real examples, before something can be considered evidence for a certain conclusion, it must be considered in context and scientists must ask the questions,

• How did it get here?
• Is there another possible source for it?
• Does its presence make sense in its environment?
• Does it actually support my conclusion?

If we do not ask these basic questions then we cannot claim that something is evidence for our conclusions.

We Missed Our Window of Opportunity with COVID-19

There is no way to sugar coat this. The US blew their opportunity to have a successful lock down. The failure point came in early to mid May. Lock downs across the country were ended too soon basically nullifying most of the benefits of the lock down. It was like running a marathon only to quit one mile from the end because "we've come a long way and we don't see the point in running anymore because the end is far away."

I will illustrate what happened with graphs. All graphs come from the Coronavirus information page maintained by John's Hopkins University. Data was accessed on June 7th, with the latest data being from June 6th.

Here is a graph of the number of confirmed cases of Coronavirus in the US from the first detected case in January to today (June 6). The period from February to early April showed exponential growth, as is expected for an unconstrained virus.

In mid April the effects of the lock down took over and stopped the exponential growth. It was on the way to flattening out, but in early to mid May the curve shifted and we lost the opportunity to suppress and contain the virus.

Below is a graph over the same time period but showing the number of new cases per day.

US Virus Cases per Day

Here you can see the exponential growth from February to early April. The growth curve flattens due to the lock down. But it does not continue its downward trend. Here is the same graph but for Germany, which did have a successful lock down.

Germany Virus Cases per Day

Germany had one advantage, they got the virus a little later than the US (about a week), and then they started their lock down earlier. This curve shows what a successful lock down looks like. Germany can now return to a more normal state with some precautions in place.

Italy had a much more painful experience but they too had a successful lock down, as shown by their graph below.

Italy Cases per Day

There are some countries where lock downs were not implemented or they had no effect. Here is Brazil (note the difference in the scale on the y axis).

Brazil Cases per Day

And India.

India Cases per Day

If a lock down is not successful and no preventive measures are taken then you get a second hump. This happened in Iran. Iran is also a case where tests were not done or intentionally not reported. The first hump has a piece missing from the left half. There are also indications that there was significant under reporting in general.

Iran Cases per Day

If you want to see actual data manipulation then Belarus is the best example. Mysteriously positive cases stay under 1,000 per day (except for one day where reports doubled up from the day before).

Belarus Cases per Day

If you want to see a lack of testing, under reporting and data manipulation all in one country, look no further than Russia. You have natural exponential growth, then in the middle of April a chunk is missing showing a lack of testing, followed by a period of under reporting in the first half of May. Finishing off with data manipulation after that.

Russia Cases per Day

Then you have Singapore which had a successful lock down, but then lost control when new cases were imported at the beginning of April/end of March, and now they are trying to bring it under control.

Singapore Cases per Day

The gold standard of lock downs was done by New Zealand (also Iceland). They had significant advantages of being an island where they can greatly control incoming people, and they were not along any major travel routes. But they did take advantage of that and managed to eliminate cases of coronavirus from the country.

New Zealand Cases per Day

Sweden tried a different approach with a "soft" lock down. It only kinda worked, and it may get worse now that they are opening up slightly.

Sweden Cases per Day

Compare that to Denmark right next door who tried a hard lock down. Again, note the difference in the scale on the y axis.

Denmark Cases per Day

So how did individual states in the US do? It's a mixed bag.

New York had a successful lock down. States next to New York (New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc.) had similar success.

New York Cases per Day

California not so much. It did have an effect, but then people gave up too early and lost all the benefits of a hard lock down like New York had.

California Cases per Day

It's a similar story with Texas.

Texas Cases per Day

And North Carolina.

North Carolina Cases per Day

In some sates it wasn't bad... until 1-2 weeks after Memorial Day. They have a very clear Memorial Day spike. Utah and Arizona are the best examples. You can also make out a Memorial Day spike in North Carolina and a few other states.

First Utah.

Utah Cases per Day

Then Arizona.

Arizona Cases per Day

Minnesota is a case where the virus came, got slowed down early by a lock down, but then the lock down ended and... well let's just say it found plenty of hosts.

Minnesota Cases per Day

From here on out the US does not have the option of suppression, control, and elimination as happened in New Zealand and Iceland, or the suppression done in Germany, Italy, Spain, South Korea, and many other countries.

We blew our chances of having a successful lock down. If we had waited 2-3 more weeks we could now be seriously planning on opening up the country again for normal business. But we blew it. Now we can only work on mitigation and maintaining good health practices so that we are not overwhelmed all at once. Because of this we will go through maximum economic pain. Even if everything opens up there will not be enough people that will return to normal to keep businesses afloat. A short 3-4 month shock could have been handled. But this will now drag on for over a year, possibly more.

Without any significant changes we are looking at more than 100,000 more deaths by the end of the year, assuming it doesn't get any worse, or significantly better. I don't know where it will end up, only what direction it's going right now.

Letter to My Congressman

Dear Representative Allen,

I was shocked at the news yesterday that U.S. Park Police and National Guard troops cleared Lafayette Park of people for the sole purpose of providing President Trump the opportunity of having his picture taken in front of St. John's Church while holding the Holy Bible. The use of St. John's Church as a backdrop for his picture was not authorized by the Episcopal bishop of Washington, Right Rev. Budde, or any other church leader. Other church members providing Christian service on the steps of the church were forcefully removed by U.S. Park Police employing tear gas.

This is a gross violation of religious liberty and a crass disregard of respect for constitutional principles. As a man of faith I was dismayed at the sight of the President of the United States, who took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, so callously disregarding his oath of office and basic Christian charity for the inconsequential purpose of having his picture taken. To add to it he sought to use the Holy Word of God as a prop for his violation of a sacred space.

Throughout history church buildings have been used as sanctuaries in times of crisis, fear, and violence. Some of the worst atrocities in history have come when political leaders transgressed the sanctity of sacred spaces. While no church buildings were burned yesterday, or believers martyred, the President of the United States did violence to our religious liberty and assailed the wall of protection that provides safety to believers from the encroachments of Government power. The sacred space of a House of Worship should never be used as platform to proclaim violence on the children of God.

For my entire life, when I first came of age, I voted with a conviction that religious liberty must be preserved as a fundamental right. In the 2016 the Republican Party platform it states, "We believe in the Constitution as our founding document." If that was true then, surely the foundation of Republicanism has shifted like sand since then. I find no condemnation of the President's actions, nor of any defense of sacred spaces from those who proclaim the Constitution as their founding document. But as for me and my house, our principles are placed on a sure foundation that will not wash away with the changing tide of political expediency. I believe that constitutional freedoms must be protected and respected, not gassed and harassed.

Representative Allen, you proclaim to be a man of faith. Now is the time to live your religion and make good on your faith. The actions of the President must be condemned and not defended. I cannot in good conscience vote for anyone who provides cover and defense to someone who uses their office to violate the sanctity of a House of Worship. The rights written in our Constitution define the character of our government. How we treat those rights define who we are.

Sincerely,

[quantumleap42], PhD

What counts as evidence in science?

Recently a young earth creationist asked me if I had looked at the evidence for a young earth and I said that I had and did not find any of it to be credible evidence for a young earth. He challenged my assertion that there was no evidence for a young earth and said, "you should be ashamed of yourself ... to say there is NO evidence rather than you just disagree with the conclusions of the data." He then listed many things he thought were evidences for a young earth. The problem was his list of "evidence" didn't actually contain evidence. They were attacks on the theory of the old earth, or attempts at finding uncertainty in what we know. There was nothing there that hinted at positive evidence for a young earth.

So what counts as evidence in science and why did I say there was "NO evidence" for a young earth instead of saying that I disagree with how to interpret the evidence? For that we have to look at what was presented as evidence.

One thing usually presented as evidence for a young earth is the argument that there is massive uncertainty in radioisotope dating. One of the ways we date rocks and meteorites is by using the half-life of radioactive isotopes to find out when a rock first formed. This is the most direct evidence that we have for the age of the earth. This of course presents a problem to anyone insisting that the earth is only 6,000(-ish) years old.

Since this counts as strong evidence for an old earth this obstacle must be removed if a young earth is to be proved. Thus the need to call into question the reliability of radioisotope dating. It is true that if the earth really was 6,000 years old then our method of dating rock really is unreliable and cannot be used as evidence for an old earth.

Whether or not you accept the reliability of isotope dating does nothing to provide evidence for a young earth. Unreliable rock dating only removes evidence for an old earth, it does not create evidence for a young earth. Young earth creationists will have to argue persuasively that it is unreliable, but it also means they cannot then use it to argue for a young earth. Without radioisotope dating the age of the earth could just as well be 21 million years instead of 6,000 years.

This kind of argument is presented as "evidence" for a young earth, but it does not provide evidence, it only removes the evidence for an opposing theory. Additionally it does not provide an explanation for why radioisotope decay is the way it is, it only attempts to undermine the reliability of it.

This then gives us an example of what counts as evidence in science. For something to be evidence it must increase our confidence in a particular theory and not just introduce uncertainty into our understanding. Many of the arguments for a young earth are of a similar form and do not actually provide evidence. They only seek to decrease the certainty of the evidence for an opposing theory.

Sometimes it is necessary to argue that certain evidence is not as certain as we think it is, but for that to then count as evidence for a different theory the uncertainty must be resolved in favor of the other theory. The purpose of science is to increase our confidence in how we view the workings of the universe, thus for something to count as evidence it must decrease our uncertainty.

A New Christian Symbol

Last night President Russell M. Nelson announced a new symbol for the Church of Jesus Christ to use. The new symbol has a depiction of Jesus under an arch symbolically representing the tomb. He is standing upon a corner stone with the name of the Church on it. If we take the simplest form of this symbol there are many other meanings that we can give it. Like many symbols of religions through out the world it is very simple, but can contain intense meanings.

Here are possible interpretations of this symbol:

• It is the door of the empty tomb after the resurrection of Jesus.
• It is an open door to the Church, inviting others to enter.
• It is gateway leading us into the path of Eternal Life. The gateway is baptism, which is symbolic of the grave and of resurrection.
• It is the windows of heaven.
• It is a doorway to a new life.
• It is an open door of fellowship and friendship. Our door is always open.
• The stone is the corner stone representing Christ.
• The stone is the Rock upon which we should build.
• It is the foundation of the Church and the Gospel.
• It is the welcome mat to our homes.
• It contains the steps to the doorway to heaven.

It's a very simple symbol but can have many meanings.

What stays the same when science changes?

"Science always changes so there's really no way know what is correct. Years from now everything we think we know could be wrong." -- Anonymous Internet Philosopher

That statement is so generic and I have seen so many countless permutations of it that I have no practical way of counting them. Every single time I have seen statements like that it is a subtle way for the person to say, "I don't want to talk about this anymore and no matter what you say I won't listen to you." This post is not for people like the anonymous commenter, but for people who have sincerely asked the question, "If everything in science can change, then what can we trust?"

So in the midst of the constant change of science what stays the same? Or does anything stay the same?

Let me give an example (I may have shared this story a few years ago). One day I was talking to an acquaintance and he asked me "What if it turns out that gravity isn't real?"

My response was simple, "Rocks still fall down. The Earth continues going around the sun. Gravity doesn't change."

What he was really trying to ask was, "What if gravity doesn't turn out to work the way we think it does?"

There is a difference between the two questions. One deals with what we observe, the other deals with our explanation of why it happened, and how we can predict future events. The former never changes, the latter can change.

One of the earliest explanations of gravity (that we know of) came from Aristotle. His explanation was standard explanation for almost 2,000 years. When Galileo first measured how objects accelerate due to gravity, and Riccioli confirmed his theory and made refinements to his measurement, the universe did not suddenly snap to conform to the new understanding. Things fell towards the Earth as they always had. Their motion remained the same. If you dropped a stone one day and then dropped another the next day the same thing would happen.

These basic observations are the things that do not change when science changes. Over 2,000 years ago Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the earth and also proved that it was a sphere. Since then our understanding of the shape of the Earth has not changed drastically. We still call it a sphere or a globe, but we have also found that it is not perfectly spherical. It bulges slightly at the equator. Our understanding of the shape of the Earth will change and grow as we make more observations, but our new observations will not change our previous observations. We will still view the Earth as roughly spherical.

What will NOT happen is we will wake up one morning and find that the Earth has been a flat disk all along. It won't suddenly become a doughnut shaped object. So when we say that science will change it means that our previous observations will only become more refined.

This brings us to the age of the Earth, which is almost always the topic that prompts the comments like the one I started with. In the years to come there will be changes and refinements to our understanding of the age and formation of the Earth, but just like the globe, we won't suddenly wake up one morning and find that scientists have figured out that they were wrong all along and that the Earth is actually 6,000 years old.

When changes in science come the changes must explain and agree with our previous observations. If we change the way we view the formation of the Earth, or how life evolved, what won't change is the rocks and fossils we analyzed previously. There are plenty of ways that our understanding of evolution may change in radical ways, but what won't change is the fact that it took millions of years, and that we have a part in it. Any new explanations we have must explain the evidence we have and what we currently observe.

Our explanations will become more refined and there may even be major shifts in our understanding, but the evidence will stay the same. Too often we fall into the trap of wanting the evidence to fit our worldview, but we must first make sure our worldview can accommodate the evidence.

The sentiment expressed by the quote at the beginning is a wish that in the future evidence will be found that makes everyone else conform to the worldview of anonymous, rather than a desire to find a worldview that accommodates all the evidence.

Science Requires Positive Evidence

Finding explanations to what we observe is the essence of what science is. At the simplest level is it looking at the world and making sense of why we see what we see.

The science comes when we seek explanations in a systematic way. We take what we have observed, find an explanation that fits what we have observed and then, and this is the hardest part, question our assumptions to see if we should change our explanation, or more likely, expand our explanation.

While I have written this as a simple processes, understanding this process requires applying the process of science to the process of science itself. In the end you end up with a greatly expanded understanding of how not just science works but also how we interact with the universe.

Explaining this is not something that can be done in a single blog post, or even a single book, but it is a lifetime of learning. What I can do is provide examples of how science is either properly or improperly applied. Here I will give one example of a misapplication of science.

A few years ago an asteroid, that we named ʻOumuamua, from outside our solar system passed through our solar system. This was the first asteroid to be positively identified as having an unbound orbit. It was something that got a lot of attention and there were a few ideas proposed, such as gasses venting from the inside, or even we had measured its shape and mass incorrectly because it was spinning rapidly, or any number of possibilities.

Two astronomers at Harvard proposed the idea that ʻOumuamua was actually a spacecraft from an alien race. Their argument rested on the fact that as ʻOumuamua began its journey out of the solar system its velocity was not changing as we would expect. Its velocity was consistently too high. This would mean that there was something giving ʻOumuamua a push on its way out.

There is nothing wrong with proposing that something is evidence for extra-terrestrial life, it is after all an open question in science. But their motivation for their conclusion was flawed. Their argument rested on the fact that our measurements of ʻOumuamua's motion did not fit with our other measurements of its properties. Put simply, there was a difference between what was measured and what was calculated for its speed.

The problem with the alien spaceship theory was that there was no positive evidence pointing towards that idea. There only existed uncertainty in how it's motion could be explained by our other measurements of ʻOumuamua.

In the measurements of ʻOumuamua there was some uncertainty of its dimensions, spin, composition, and mass. ʻOumuamua's motion was not outside the possibility that it was just an asteroid and nothing else, just unlikely. Thus its motion did not constitute positive evidence for ʻOumuamua being an alien spacecraft.

Something is positive evidence iff its presence, or our knowledge of it, can only be explained by the proposed theory. That is, if the explanations needed to accommodate the new observations break our current understanding and theories at a fundamental level.

In the case of ʻOumuamua the difference between the measurements and calculations did not fundamentally break our understanding of physics. It didn't even make it exceptionally difficult to find other explanations that did not require it to be an alien spacecraft. Hence it could not count as positive evidence for it being an alien spacecraft.

If, for example, ʻOumuamua had been emitting regular radio signals with a defined pattern, then that would be positive evidence. In our understanding of physics there is no way for a hunk of space rock to make radio signals with a regular pattern. But to have its motion be slightly off from what we calculated, that is not positive evidence. Therefore not only is the idea not supported by the evidence, but proposing the idea was not supported by the evidence.

The critical thing that separates new scientific ideas from normal speculation is that there must be positive evidence first. This is a minimum bar to separate science from non-science. Finding evidence of aliens is perfectly within the realm of science, but we must be careful because not all things can be positive evidence for aliens.

The Body of the Church is a Temple

In the Church of Jesus Christ we quote 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 and 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 to show that we should be respectful to our bodies and not "defile" them. It is a scripture mastery scripture in Seminary, and some of us could quote them from memory. They are the basis of the teaching that our bodies are temples of God and you shouldn't "defile" them with tattoos, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, or fornication, an idea that is drilled into the heads of our youth.

But do we really understand these verses? Let's take a closer look at them.

In the King James Version 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 reads as,

"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."

And 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 reads,

"What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."

A simple reading of these supports the idea that our bodies are temples of God, but if we look at the original Greek we can see an entirely different meaning.

In English when we are talking to someone we use the pronoun "you". And if we are talking to more than one person we also use the pronoun "you". English does not have a formal way to differentiate 2nd person singular from 2nd person plural. In other languages there are two different words (for example, "usted" and "ustedes" in Spanish), or two different verb forms to differentiate singular from plural. Greek has different forms for singular and plural 2nd person.

When these verses are translated from Greek the difference between singular and plural pronouns, verbs, and nouns is lost. To clear this up here are the same verses again (using the NRSV translation), with pronouns, verbs, and nouns explicitly labeled as plural or singular.

Do you (plural) not know that you (p) are God’s temple (singular) and that God’s Spirit (s) dwells in you (p)? If anyone destroys God’s temple (s), God will destroy that person. For God’s temple (s) is holy, and you (p) are that temple (s).

And

Or do you (p) not know that your (p) body (s) is a temple (s) of the Holy Spirit (s) within you (p), which you (p) have from God, and that you (p) are not your (p) own? For you (p) were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your (p) body (s).

In these verses Paul is addressing multiple people (plural "you") and calls multiple people to all together be a single temple. Also that multiple people have a single "body" which is a single "temple". In this sense he is not talking about everyone's physical body, but Paul is talking about the "body" of the church. The point that Paul was making is that the body of the congregation is a "temple" of God, and that the Holy Spirit dwells among the congregation, not within the physical bodies of the individual members.

Understanding these verses in this way changes how we interpret them and how we apply them to ourselves. This means that we are being exhorted to not defile the body of the church, not our own bodies. This means that the congregation of the church all together is the temple of God, and not our individual bodies. The difference comes from the fundamental rules of English and how the original Greek is translated.

Why the Theory of the Multiverse is Unscientific

Note: I wrote this in another place in response to someone's question. We were discussing this video about the theory of multiverses that was posted to YouTube a few days ago.

Sean Carroll explains that there are two possibilities, either the branching is infinite or finite (I think that covers just about everything).

With infinite branching there would have to be an infinite amount of energy and time, because with an infinite amount of branching drawing from a finite pool of energy, at some point the energy would be exhausted. So there would have to be an infinite amount of energy. I heard Sean Carroll make exactly this argument at a talk a few years ago.

By his own admission, if there were an infinite amount of energy and time then ALL possible universes will be seen. This includes our current universe, complete with 13+ billion years of existence, AND it would mean that an exact copy of this universe exists except in that universe Harry Potter, Hogwarts, and magic are all real and part of the universe. There also exists a universe that consists of ONLY the room you are currently in, complete with computer/phone/tablet that give the appearance of you interacting with the outside world, but the outside world doesn't exist. And whenever you leave the room that universe will cease to exist.

Again these are all arguments that Sean Carroll makes himself.

But this means that there exists a universe like our own where there is no such thing as the multiverse and it behaves as if there were only one timeline and absolutely no branching. There would also exist a universe that looks exactly like ours but the multiverse exists just as he describes it.

But how do we know which one we are in? Because if we go looking for evidence and don't find it then we don't know if we are in the universe with no multiverses, or if we could be in a universe where it is impossible to detect the multiverse. Either way we can never know until we find evidence to conclusively show it one way or the other. But that evidence does not exist. So by his own logic, if the branching is infinite, and there is an infinite amount of energy, then we can never know if multiverses don't exist, or if we just haven't seen them yet. Either way the universe remains the same and the concept of multiverses means nothing.

Next, the second possibility he brings up is a finite amount of branching. This solves the infinite energy problem, but without an infinite amount of energy there is only one universe, even if locally it functions like a multiverse. (By local, that can mean just on earth, or within the visible universe 13+ billion lightyears away. On these scales the room around you and all the galaxies 13+ billion lightyears away are all considered local.) A locally branching multiverse would go against our current understanding of physics, but it would still be possible if and only if the things making it possible are beyond our current ability to understand, calculate, or observe.

In the video he admits this (starting at time 14:40) where he says "but the details hinge on quantum gravity, cosmology, the theory of everything, and all that stuff." He is essentially saying that there exists something that we don't know about right now that makes the multiverse work. This is essentially a scientific variation of the God of the Gaps argument. It comes down to "there is no other way for this to work, so there is something, we don't know what it is, that makes it work." You can call it quantum gravity, cosmology, the theory of everything, God, Bob your neighbor, magic, a lazy dog, or anything you want it doesn't matter. It simply is a "thing" that makes it possible for his idea to be correct.

But again, we have nothing that specifically points to a multiverse, so it doesn't matter what you call the thing that makes it possible, because in the end it is something undefined to support something unproven. You could just as easily say, "The magic of Harry Potter is real but the details hinge on quantum gravity, cosmology, the theory of everything, and all that stuff" and be just a scientifically valid. Which means not at all.

"But! There is MATH behind it!"
That's nice. You can put math behind any idea. It doesn't make it real.

There is no evidence that points us specifically towards a multiverse. There is no physical motivation other than to resolve a paradox that we made for ourselves. The paradox does not come from the universe. It comes from how we think about the universe. We do not resolve a paradox that we made ourselves by insisting that the universe change to fit our ideas. Our ideas must change to fit reality.