Well, call it all off. Forget the whole Virgin birth thing. Totally didn’t happen. Science says so.
Pop Sci reports:
Virgin birth, known to scientists as parthenogenesis, appears to be rather common in the animal kingdom. Many insects and other invertebrates are capable of switching between sexual and clonal reproduction. Among the vertebrates, virgin births have been documented in at least 80 taxonomic groups, including fish, amphibians, and reptiles. But humans and our fellow mammals provide a notable exception. So far as anyone can say—and there are a few gaps in the data, notably the platypus—no mammalian species is capable of giving birth without a father.
So what stands in the way? First, a mammal’s egg cell usually won’t divide until it receives a signal from the sperm. Second, most mammalian eggs have only half the number of chromosomes necessary for development. If there isn’t any sperm, the embryo will end up with only half the DNA it needs to survive.
Both of those barriers could potentially be overcome in the lab or through random mutation, but there is a third obstacle that probably can’t be. Under normal conditions, the DNA in both egg and sperm cells is altered such that some genes will be more active while others are suppressed. When the egg and sperm join to form an embryo, these imprints work in tandem, ensuring that all the necessary proteins are produced in the right amounts. If an egg cell starts reproducing on its own, without the sperm-cell imprint, the offspring won’t survive for very long.
Scientists estimate that imprinting affects about 200 different genes. For parthenogenesis to occur, many of these changes would have to occur through random mutation. “I just think it’s too complex and you’d need too many things to happen accidentally,” says Marisa Bartolomei, a molecular geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania
You’ve got to love the fact that Pop Sci is just saying the Virgin birth is just too complex to happen. Say, isn’t that irreducible complexity the same argument some make for the existence of God which you mock them for?
I love this kind of thing because it’s just so condescending. As if we didn’t understand that a virgin birth would be a pretty rare event. Because us dopey Christians needed to be told that a virgin birth is highly unlikely.
hey geniuses, that’s kind of the point guys.
Hey look, they’re science geeks. It’s understandable that virginity is a major topic of conversation.
November 21, 2013 at 12:31 pm
I always love it when scientists point out that miracles are scientifically impossible as though this were some kind of shocking revelation.
Yeah, we know they're impossible. That's kind of the point!
November 21, 2013 at 12:38 pm
Your last line is classic!
November 21, 2013 at 1:19 pm
Last line made me laugh…
From Wikipedia: "A miracle is an event not ascribable to human power or the laws of nature and consequently attributed to a supernatural, especially divine, agency." Note, dear geeks, the part where it's not ascribable to laws of nature.
November 21, 2013 at 2:10 pm
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November 21, 2013 at 2:11 pm
Joseph was, in fact, quite aware of that; freaking read the Gospel! "Where babies come from" is a thing like agriculture, it predates all historic civilizations by several thousand years, it's taken for granted as common knowledge by the very earliest records we have.
I can actually name you exactly one society on Earth that doesn't know where babies come from, and I think they've been assimilated into the Western culture that colonized their territory. Namely, the Tiwi, in Australia, who married their daughters off at birth in case they spontaneously became pregnant.
November 21, 2013 at 2:15 pm
Where in the article does it explain how the Immaculate Conception didn't happen? It doesn't. There's not a single dig on Christianity save for (possibly) the cover picture. Did you ever consider that the article could have been a subtle affirmation that the Virgin Mary could not have been a biological phenomena and thus, conceived through God? the Pop Sci article doesn't make us Christians look dopey…this paranoid post does.
November 21, 2013 at 2:40 pm
@mcg03: Nothing makes anyone look as dopey as your confusing the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth does.
November 21, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Speaking as a scientist who is surrounded by scientists I have observed the following. Many are atheists who ascribe their identity to what they do not believe. This requires constant mockery and pseudo scientific validation. I do the same thing as a Catholic. I strengthen myself with bible study, reading encyclicals, etc. so when you define yourself on what you don't believe you must strengthen your non belief by various means. Ironic, the atheists are now starting a church. A silly group, but mainly exhibit a severe form of intellectual laziness.
November 21, 2013 at 3:54 pm
I also came away concluding, similarly to mcg03, that science is on our side. The fact that the virgin birth is not naturally possible simply opens the way for a supernatural cause… "the Holy Spirit will come upon [the virgin], and the power of the Most High will overshadow [the virgin]."
November 21, 2013 at 3:55 pm
I actually was interested in this article and thought it was well written. As pointed out above in comments, we Christians have been saying for 2,000 years that the virgin birth was a miraculous event. This understanding, that it was either miraculous or fictional, was stable until the 20th century, when the mechanics of animal parthenogenesis began to be understood. We've sort of been waiting for this news for several decades now, to see whether anyone could make a case for a 3rd possibility, that the virgin birth was a rare, but natural event.
This now appears to be an impossibility, and we're back on the well-known ground of miracle or fiction.
So…what was the problem with this article again?
November 21, 2013 at 4:19 pm
Jesus Christ is the Word of God. The hypostatic union is the union of Christ's human nature and His divine nature. As God, Jesus Christ has a Father in heaven and therefore, Jesus Christ did not need a human father. In the economy salvation, God provides only what is necessary. In the virgin birth, God came to live in Mary's womb at conception. God is virgin. God created the Immaculate Conception, Mary, a virgin, conceived without sin and preserved from sin, pure love, the Mother of God, God, Who is pure love.
Science is the study of nature. Theology is the study of the metaphysical realm, the kingdom of God. When was the last time science defined free will, or even virginity, innocence or even the virtues of Justice and charity and most especially, when was the last time science defined the human, immortal, rational soul?
November 21, 2013 at 4:20 pm
Get a grip guys, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
November 21, 2013 at 4:26 pm
Who should 'get a grip', exactly…and about what?
I often imagine non-Catholics cruising by and looking at pages like this, and then leaving saying 'wow, I'm glad I'm not mixed up with THAT bunch…"
November 21, 2013 at 5:06 pm
The problem with the article is the strawman conflation of "virgin birth" with natural parthenogenesis. Obviously.
And do you anywhere in that article get the impression that the writer actually knows what a miracle is? The only interpretation that actually fits what is written in that article, is that it's saying the Virgin Birth didn't happen, because the author arbitrarily chose to assume that it was 100% coterminous with parthenogenesis as observed in, say, Cnemidophorus sonorae, and then discussed the facts relating to how rare that phenomenon is (it's wholly unknown in mammals and the only archosaurs it happens in are incredibly overbred domestic strains of chickens and turkeys, where it's very rarely viable).
He was not saying "what is observed in the Virgin Birth must be a miracle because parthenogenesis is not possible in mammals", he was saying "nothing was actually observed, because of all these facts about something wholly unrelated that I am bringing up because I am unaware that the Virgin Birth is considered to be a miracle—a concept with which I show no signs of being acquainted".
November 21, 2013 at 11:55 pm
The point you make is true, though perhaps some don't understand it.
November 21, 2013 at 5:48 pm
Sophia's Favorite, I think that's a pretty tortured analysis. I'm reading a 4 paragraph simple story on why mammals can't reproduce via parthenogenesis. I welcome it, for the reasons I mention above. If some of you want conspiracies, you can find them everywhere. All I see is some web editor who decided a picture of the most famous claimed virgin birth in history was appropriate for this story. I don't know how anyone can determine what these people's position on the Virgin Birth is from this…except to say that they don't believe it was a natural phenomenon, which, again, I welcome.
November 21, 2013 at 5:50 pm
I have to agree with others here, I didn't see a single line in that article that even hinted at consideration of supernatural realities. It was looking at merely natural ones. it was an interesting article, nothing to be concerned with.
November 21, 2013 at 5:50 pm
I also think that 'scientism' is far too much a bogeyman on the Catholic internet. We do a very good job of looking like idiots, throwing feces and shaking clubs at 'scientism' and those wascally atheistic scientists, so much of the time. In point of fact, we pretty much confirm people's worst prejudices against us when we comment on scientific things.
November 21, 2013 at 6:02 pm
…But nobody does call parthenogenesis Virgin Birth (even though that's the literal meaning of the Greek—although not, I believe, the Greek term for Christ's being born of a virgin), unless they are deliberately trying to equate it to the Nativity of Christ.
It is not "tortured analysis" to note that two terms only occur in juxtaposition among people who want to make a certain point. Nobody calls the state of Israel "the Zionist entity"—although it is an entity that can obviously be described in some sense as "Zionist"—except people who deny that state's legitimacy.
Words have connotations as well as denotations, and connotations are highly context sensitive.
November 21, 2013 at 6:33 pm
..and nobody uses words like 'parthenogenesis' when common terms like 'virgin birth' are available.
Aren't we as Catholics supposed to presume good intentions on the part of others when possible?
November 22, 2013 at 12:01 am
"Scientism" does not mean scientific. It's most often used meaning is one involving an adverse judgment on the faulty logic of a person.