Why It Took Scientists So Long to Figure Out Where Babies Come From

[Sunstone]

Why It Took Scientists So Long to Figure Out Where Babies Come From

Please discuss.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Now, let's see how long it takes babies to figure out where scientists come from.

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

"Da Vinci made the cutaway drawing shown above, of a couple having sex, in about 1492. The drawing has a host of peculiar features. He drew two distinct channels within the penis, though in fact there is only one."

Shut up! Only one channel? I guess if it went in the 'other' channel they thought a t*** was born? Well I better not say anything else, since this is a family deal....

; {>

 

[SabahTheLoner]

It's funny that the Ovarians were sort of right. It's scientifically a fact that a female, from the time she is born, has all the eggs that she will ever have in her life within her ovaries.

It's really funny that many people were fixated on the male contribution to conception and not really giving much thought to the girls, who were the ones having the kids in the first place. I guess that's what happens in a patriarchal society.

 

[Brickjectivity]

People used to believe (for thousands and thousands of years) that the power of regeneration was in some sort of seed, however instead of identifying it as sperm and invisible egg they tended to identify it with the bones of the sacrum. The reasoning (I guess) was that since the babies came from the sacrum area then that must be where the 'Seed' principle was. Trees had seeds to perpetuate themselves, and people had a sacrum.

Anyway, people are always willing to accept reasonable guesses when it comes to the miracle of life, because its just so amazing that people rarely conceive that they might have the wits to figure out how it works.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Why It Took Scientists So Long to Figure Out Where Babies Come From

Please discuss.

Quite a few gems from that article, and I really like the unbiased way it simply reports the information:

"Religious faith made matters all the more perplexing. In the early years of the modern age, science and religion were not rivals but allies. All the titans of the scientific revolution were devout."

Hmm... a good question might be "When has religious faith ever made matters LESS perplexing?"

"[God] was the only being with the power to create life. How could it be, then, that an ordinary couple huffing and puffing in the dark could create a new being? Thus was born the now-bizarre seeming doctrine that ... parents do not create their children. God created every living being ... at the beginning of time. That meant He must have stashed away every person who would ever live, all those destined to be born in the year 100, or in the 1200s, or 1500s, or some century still to come. They waited, like a series of ever-smaller Russian nesting dolls, one inside the other, in Adam’s testicles or in Eve’s ovaries."

Complete with historical drawings to substantiate the fact that people actually believed these things.

"The idea [of micro-organisms] made no sense, since it implied that God had lavished endless care on creatures destined never to be seen."

I like this one the best. God created trillions upon billions of the little buggers... none of them visible. Puts all those arguments of "Look at the beauty and art in creation! It had to have had an intelligent designer!" into a different light. Some people seem to think that the entirety of the Earth was made for their visual entertainment - or at least they don't understand that that's how they come off with arguments like that.

"Sperm cells had yet another strike against them. Why, if they were important, had God made hundreds of millions of them, when one would have sufficed? Surely the best of all possible designers would not have been so ludicrously wasteful."

Interesting how some of these arguments seem like things I might have tried to come up with to question blind devotion to theism. Why indeed? And certainly an excellent question given that people who are born are supposedly "destined" to have been the ones born according to a lot of people's philosophies.

"We can be sure that in centuries to come, our descendants will look back at us and quote our earnest beliefs and shake their heads in astonishment."

This one can be nothing if not true.

 

[Skwim]

Quite a few gems from that article, and I really like the unbiased way it simply reports the information:

"Religious faith made matters all the more perplexing. In the early years of the modern age, science and religion were not rivals but allies. All the titans of the scientific revolution were devout."

Hmm... a good question might be "When has religious faith ever made matters LESS perplexing?"

"[God] was the only being with the power to create life. How could it be, then, that an ordinary couple huffing and puffing in the dark could create a new being? Thus was born the now-bizarre seeming doctrine that ... parents do not create their children. God created every living being ... at the beginning of time. That meant He must have stashed away every person who would ever live, all those destined to be born in the year 100, or in the 1200s, or 1500s, or some century still to come. They waited, like a series of ever-smaller Russian nesting dolls, one inside the other, in Adam’s testicles or in Eve’s ovaries."

Complete with historical drawings to substantiate the fact that people actually believed these things.

"The idea [of micro-organisms] made no sense, since it implied that God had lavished endless care on creatures destined never to be seen."

I like this one the best. God created trillions upon billions of the little buggers... none of them visible. Puts all those arguments of "Look at the beauty and art in creation! It had to have had an intelligent designer!" into a different light. Some people seem to think that the entirety of the Earth was made for their visual entertainment - or at least they don't understand that that's how they come off with arguments like that.

"Sperm cells had yet another strike against them. Why, if they were important, had God made hundreds of millions of them, when one would have sufficed? Surely the best of all possible designers would not have been so ludicrously wasteful."

Interesting how some of these arguments seem like things I might have tried to come up with to question blind devotion to theism. Why indeed? And certainly an excellent question given that people who are born are supposedly "destined" to have been the ones born according to a lot of people's philosophies.

"We can be sure that in centuries to come, our descendants will look back at us and quote our earnest beliefs and shake their heads in astonishment."

This one can be nothing if not true.

You beat me to it by 13 minutes, but

And not to waste all the work I've done *sigh* I'm going to post my response anyway.

From the article.

"Religious faith made matters all the more perplexing. In the early years of the modern age, science and religion were not rivals but allies. All the titans of the scientific revolution were devout. All of them took for granted that, by studying God’s works, they were exalting his creation. But then came trouble.

For God was not simply the Creator who had shaped the stars and planets and made man in his own image. He was the only being with the power to create life. How could it be, then, that an ordinary couple huffing and puffing in the dark could create a new being?

Thus was born the now-bizarre seeming doctrine that eminent scientists espoused for more than a century. The idea was that parents do not create their children. God created every living being, and he had done so in one swoop, at the beginning of time.

That meant He must have stashed away every person who would ever live, all those destined to be born in the year 100, or in the 1200s, or 1500s, or some century still to come. They waited, like a series of ever-smaller Russian nesting dolls, one inside. the other, in Adam’s testicles or in Eve’s ovaries. When the time came, each one would have its turn on stage."
​

Kind of says it all, doesn't it.

.


.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Science could always be wrong, so maybe science is still wrong and god sends fairy dust into women's tummies to make new babies when she has approved sexual relations with her religiously-approved husband. Or, her boyfriend. Or, some dude who raped her.

 

[columbus]

Especially in anatomy’s early years, before microscopes, sexual riddles were almost beyond reach. Sperm and egg, even if you had known to look for them, were hidden and elusive. The human egg, though it is the largest cell in the body, is only the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Sperm cells, by contrast, are the smallest, far too little to see with the naked eye. (A human egg outweighs the sperm cell that fertilizes it by a million to one, the difference between a Thanksgiving turkey and a housefly.)

I realized something back in elementary school, and I can't be the only little critical thinker who did.

The ancient understanding of procreation was super primitive. They thought that a "person", male, planted his seed in a "vessel", female, where the seed grew. But it remained the chattel of the father, because it was his seed growing.
With that understanding, Jesus' Virgin Birth would make perfect sense.
Without it, not so much.
Tom

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

Quite a few gems from that article, and I really like the unbiased way it simply reports the information:

TV news could learn something from the unbiased reporting.

"Religious faith made matters all the more perplexing. In the early years of the modern age, science and religion were not rivals but allies. All the titans of the scientific revolution were devout."

Hmm... a good question might be "When has religious faith ever made matters LESS perplexing?"

The answer is in the paragraph you responded to. Most of us were taught and wrongly so that the church condemned science during the middle ages. The truth is the medieval Church required every student to study math and science in the new schools and universities. Maybe our children will be taught the truth; 'More people were exposed to these subjects than at any time in the past'.

"[God] was the only being with the power to create life. How could it be, then, that an ordinary couple huffing and puffing in the dark could create a new being? Thus was born the now-bizarre seeming doctrine that ... parents do not create their children. God created every living being ... at the beginning of time. That meant He must have stashed away every person who would ever live, all those destined to be born in the year 100, or in the 1200s, or 1500s, or some century still to come. They waited, like a series of ever-smaller Russian nesting dolls, one inside the other, in Adam’s testicles or in Eve’s ovaries."

Complete with historical drawings to substantiate the fact that people actually believed these things.

We have to remember never judge people of a bygone era with modern standards. Remember science still has not even with over a hundred years of trying created life, but that's a bit going off on a tangent. I have read accounts of claims and practices of medieval science that ranged from the horrific to the amusing. The early scientists didn't need God to come up with patently ridiculous and sometimes deadly experiments cures and theory. However, it was all a learning curve.

"The idea [of micro-organisms] made no sense, since it implied that God had lavished endless care on creatures destined never to be seen."

I like this one the best. God created trillions upon billions of the little buggers... none of them visible. Puts all those arguments of "Look at the beauty and art in creation! It had to have had an intelligent designer!" into a different light. Some people seem to think that the entirety of the Earth was made for their visual entertainment - or at least they don't understand that that's how they come off with arguments like that.

Again for some reason you are comparing claims and theory that scientists created hundreds of years ago with contemporary knowledge of today. (yes it was the science of the day). I am sure scientists of the future will look back on our science and compare it with quaint myth.

"Sperm cells had yet another strike against them. Why, if they were important, had God made hundreds of millions of them, when one would have sufficed? Surely the best of all possible designers would not have been so ludicrously wasteful."

Interesting how some of these arguments seem like things I might have tried to come up with to question blind devotion to theism. Why indeed? And certainly an excellent question given that people who are born are supposedly "destined" to have been the ones born according to a lot of people's philosophies.

Of course any Sunday school child knows there is no such thing as blind theism. Didn't you know that?

(yes it was the science of the day) "We can be sure that in centuries to come, our descendants will look back at us and quote our earnest beliefs and shake their heads in astonishment."

This one can be nothing if not true.

Indeed, and it goes to show those that devote themselves to blindly accept the claims of science, those claims etc are probably a falsehood. That is one reason I do not use science as a source of truth. It is at best a good guess. But its the best we have since we intentionally chose to delete metaphysics from our scientific disciplines.

; {>

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

Why It Took Scientists So Long to Figure Out Where Babies Come From

Please discuss.

I think those gaps knowledge are as Spock would say 'fascinating. By gaps I mean the time it took to discover the wheel, things like that.

; {>

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

"The idea [of micro-organisms] made no sense, since it implied that God had lavished endless care on creatures destined never to be seen."

I like this one the best. God created trillions upon billions of the little buggers... none of them visible. Puts all those arguments of "Look at the beauty and art in creation! It had to have had an intelligent designer!" into a different light. Some people seem to think that the entirety of the Earth was made for their visual entertainment - or at least they don't understand that that's how they come off with arguments like that.

Again for some reason you are comparing claims and theory that scientists created hundreds of years ago with contemporary knowledge of today. (yes it was the science of the day). I am sure scientists of the future will look back on our science and compare it with quaint myth.

You missed my point in your condemnation of my comparing those discoveries vs. "knowledge" of today. I didn't, at all, poke fun at those thinkers of old, but rather held up both their discovery and the questioning of the tenets of their faith based on that discovery, and applauded them both. I wish more of these moments of clarity were to be had, and by more people.

People these days STILL ignore fundamental issues with their statements and beliefs like that which is pointed out in the article (top quote). The article points out with this quote that even thinkers and theologians at the time contemplated these things and wondered at them - things that made no sense given their acceptance of religious doctrine. People today do, absolutely, without a doubt, make claims like I proposed: "that the entirety of the Earth was made for their visual entertainment.", and discoveries like this produce very good reason to see that line of thinking shaken to its core.

 

[MrMrdevincamus]

You missed my point in your condemnation of my comparing those discoveries vs. "knowledge" of today. I didn't, at all, poke fun at those thinkers of old, but rather held up both their discovery and the questioning of the tenets of their faith based on that discovery, and applauded them both. I wish more of these moments of clarity were to be had, and by more people.

People these days STILL ignore fundamental issues with their statements and beliefs like that which is pointed out in the article (top quote). The article points out with this quote that even thinkers and theologians at the time contemplated these things and wondered at them - things that made no sense given their acceptance of religious doctrine. People today do, absolutely, without a doubt, make claims like I proposed: "that the entirety of the Earth was made for their visual entertainment.", and discoveries like this produce very good reason to see that line of thinking shaken to its core.

Oops, sorry for that knee jerk reply! When I read a reply or anything else for that matter I kind of speed read which is good for covering a lot of reading material and getting a general idea of whats being said but it is easy to misconstrue meaning, especially when in a jungle where the natives have been hostile. As I was reading your piece I did have a faint misgiving, thinking something didn't seem right, in other words that little voice was telling me to 'slow down and read this one'. Instead I made a mental note to reread your reply before posting to make sure I did not do what I did do which was post a bad reply! Thanks for pointing out my mistake.

; { >