All the little six-legs

 kw: book reviews, nonfiction, natural history, insects, surveys

Let's get some technical stuff out of the way first. There are 28 orders of insects. After the graphic, I'll explain a bit:

We all are familiar with most of the kinds of critters in the upper third of the diagram, and some of those in the left half. The "big four", that encompass about 80% of all insect species are the beetles, the butterflies and moths (butterflies are specialized moths), the true flies (including mosquitoes), and the wasps and bees and ants (bees and ants are specialized wasps).

What is an order? An order is a broad classification in the middle of the scale of taxonomy, which is the hierarchical "tree" of relationships. In brief, according to a structure first set in place by Carl Linné (Linnaeus) in 1758, the primary categories are these:

• Kingdom (the main ones in our experience: plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria. There are others)
• Phylum (all vertebrates are a phylum. Insects are in the phylum of arthropods, or "joint-legged")
• Class (major categories within a phylum. Insects are a Class. So are all the mammals, among the vertebrates)
• Order (mid-level categories within a class; differentiated by broad similarity of form and lifestyle. So all the beetles are in one class, Coleoptera)
• Family (lower-level categories within an order)
• Genus (a category for one or more similar species. One genus of butterflies is Danaus, and one genus of human-like apes is Homo)
• Species (the lowest category. A species is always appended to its genus, and such a binomial is always italicized. A human is Homo sapiens, and the monarch butterfly is Danaus plexippus. You probably know Tyrannosaurus rex, the big meat-eating dinosaur)

Now to the book: In 2918 the American Museum of Natural History published Innumerable Insects: The Story of the Most Diverse and Myriad Animals on Earth, by Michael S. Engel, a Research Affiliate of the Museum. It's a kind of coffee-table book, not quite as large as the usual coffee-table book. While there are lots of illustrations, there is plenty of explanatory text. The pictures are a treasure. The American Museum also houses one of the great collections of rare books on natural history, and this volume is illustrated with a few hundred selections from the past few hundred years of "insect literature".

For example, the artist Jacob Hoefnagel illustrated one of the first books devoted to insects, Diversae Insectarum by Claes Jansz, published in 1630 (The book's full title is very much longer).

This image is from the frontispiece of that book, showing just a hint of insect diversity. You can see about half the currently-known orders of insects represented here.

Innumerable Insects begins with a brief history of entomology, the study of insects. "Entomology" is sometimes used to cover related small many-legged things like ticks, spiders and scorpions, but they actually have their own fields of study.

There are about 1.6 million species of insects so far described. Depending on what is known about a species, the "description" is anything from a one- or two-page "letter" in a journal such as Nature to a many-page monograph that describes not only the morphology of the animal but its life stages and habits. It takes me about a minute to read the abstract on the first page of a journal article or letter. Just reading 1.6 million abstracts, so as to familiarize myself with all the known species, would take every waking moment (assuming 14 hours so I have time for meals and pit stops: 840 minutes/day) for 1,905 days, or 5 years and 11 weeks. I wonder how much I would retain… And this would only be possible if I had an army of assistants to run hither and yon, finding all of the descriptive letters and articles!

More than a third of insect species are beetles (the numbers in the tree above are a few years out of date). This illustration of sand beetles is part of a page from Biologia Centrali-Americana (An electronic version is available at the Smithsonian Institution). The volume on Insecta:Coleoptera was published in two parts in 1884 and 1887. The second chapter of Innumerable Insects puts this immense diversity in perspective. 

Moths/butterflies, flies, and wasps/bees/ants make up another third. Several chapters are used to introduce us to all the 28 insecct orders, one after another, grouped roughly by ecology and habit.

I was forcibly reminded upon seeing all the amazing illustrations that, prior to photography, a naturalist had to be an artist. The tradition continues, and it is still true that the best illustrations are drawn or painted rather than photographed. I particularly appreciate the Roger Tory Peterson Field Guides, with drawings that bring out the important features of every creature in a way a photograph cannot match.

The latter chapters introduce some special topics: social insects (ants, bees, termites, etc.); insect "languages", whether by sound or dance; camouflage; and pollination. It's well accepted now that pollinating insects—not just butterflies but also certain beetles, flies, and several others—co-evolved with flowering plants, and that this "collaboration" led to the very great diversity of both.

I had not expected so much fascinating information to be packed into a 200-page book that is about one-third pictures. Author Engel did a great job, presenting this all to us in such a digestible way. I am reminded of a much older book, Broadsides From the Other Orders by Sue Hubbell (1994), also about the insect orders. It has a bit of a different emphasis. The two books make great companion volumes.

And I could not close this review without showing at least one butterfly. This is Ornithoptera priamus, one of the bird-wing butterflies that enhance the beauty of the tropics. The illustration is from Natural History of Insects of India, by Edward Donovan, 1838.

Presenting CWWN v16 – Study on Revelation

 kw: book summaries, watchman nee, christian ministry

From the preface: "Prior to 1928 Brother Watchman Nee conducted a study with a few saints in the book of Revelation. The longhand notes of a brother who attended those meetings are published in this book. They have been briefly edited for the sake of clarity. The portion covering Revelation 2:19-3:22 is missing in the original manuscript."

Study on Revelation, which is volume 16 of The Collected Works of Watchman Nee is a companion volume to v15, the Study on Matthew. It is a verse-by-verse exegesis. Although a portion is missing, chapters two and three of Revelation were kind of a hobby to brother Nee, so there is plenty to be found in his other writings.

He placed great emphasis on discerning which portions of Revelation are signs and which are to be taken literally. Because of this emphasis, he stated at least twice, "Revelation is not a book of signs." Of course, the second clause of the first verse states that God "made it known by signs, sending it by His angel to His slave John". 

This gave me a lot of trouble at first. According to my own study and the ministry I have received, Revelation is primarily a book of signs, that is, of symbols that have spiritual significance. Many things do need to be taken literally. For example, I believe that Satan, the beast, and the false prophet will be literally cast into the lake of fire. If Satan and his leading tools are not done away with—very, very literally!—how will we ever be freed from sin?

On the other hand, is New Jerusalem a sign, or a literal city? In his discussion of Rev. 21:9, brother Nee delivers 17 points to prove that the New Jerusalem is a literal city. Yes, there is something literal about it. However, the description of the city is primarily symbolic. Let us suppose that its size is truly 12,000 stadia in length, width, and height. That length is close to 1,500 miles or 2,400 km. Certainly, God can create the new earth with a structure that can support a city, primarily composed of a block of gold about half the size of the Moon. Then we find that it has a surrounding wall that has a height of 144 cubits, or about 216 feet or 66 meters. When you are close to it, the wall is indeed "great and high." But stand far enough away to see the whole breadth and height of the city, and it is a thread, a filigree, limning the edge of a structure 36,000 times as high. Is it possible for this to be literal? Yes, it is, in the sense that "all things are possible with God," but I think it much more likely that the numbers are symbolic, being multiples of twelve and ten, which represent different kinds of perfection or completion in God's scheme of things.

Many, many of brother Nee's interpretations are buttressed by lists of reasons and references. In this sense, the book is polemical. This is understandable. In the 1920's the study of Revelation and of eschatology in general was quite a mess! A great many Bible teachers avoided the matter entirely, while others, particularly among the Brethren, became "specialists" in eschatology. Brother Nee mentions the names of numerous ones who taught various things, citing whom he agreed with, and detailing his reasons for considering that others were wrong.

Commenting on Rev. 22:10, brother Nee stated that there are only "about 28" signs, of which fourteen are explained, and the rest are on minor points, "easily understood". Characteristically, among the various "schools of interpretation," he takes a middle path. The existence of such a "school" indicates that the interpretation method is either extreme or too didactic. Like the clean animals in Leviticus, which were required to have both a cloven hoof and to chew the cud, he showed how neither extreme is to be trusted, and that either the two "schools" must be synthesized, or that trustworthy portions of each must be extracted and combined into a balanced view. This I heartily concur with, while recognizing that it tends to offend partisans of every such "school" of doctrine.

After nearly fifty years of following the middle path forged by Nee and developed by Lee, it is clear to me that most members of all the "schools" remain offended. The principal tragedy of Christianity is the enormous tendency for extremist views to prevail, leading to partisan bickering, and sometimes, to bitter conflict. This indicates that both "sides" are wrong.

This volume is a great introduction to interpreting Revelation. Revelation is a book of signs that symbolize events of immense import, and it is a book not of signs, in that nearly all the mysteries are explained or presented so as to be obvious. Yet, like all revelation from God, it does not allow us to predict things in any specific way; rather, once we know the contents of the revelation we will be able to recognize events once they begin to transpire all around us. Thus Jesus could say in Matthew 24:15-16, "…when you see the abomination of desolation, … let those in Judea flee to the mountains…" The day before it occurs, nobody will know it is imminent. When it happens, it will be unmistakable.

Do I need to say to those who have read the Left Behind series, as I have, that it contains a little correct interpretation larded (leavened?) with a lot of nonsense? It takes much time to read all 12 volumes. The same time devoted to studying Revelation, Daniel and Zechariah will afford much more profit. A little extra time devoted to reading this commentary will facilitate your study.

DNA is part of a feedback loop

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, science, genetics, dna, history, stories

As I mentioned a couple of reviews back I bought an eBook bundle, three by Sam Kean. This is the third, The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written in Our Genetic Code.

Firstly, a remark on the cover art:

The cover designs for the first two books are by Will Staehle. Some might call them "busy", but I really like them. Keith Hayes designed the third cover, and I think it matches the subject very well. Kudos to some folks who are seldom recognized.

The violinist in question is Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840), who was probably the most accomplished virtuoso ever. His astonishing ability is typically attributed to the freakish flexibility of his hand and finger joints (and all the other joints also). It is worth mentioning that he worked very hard, practicing endlessly. We find that such flexibility is both a blessing and a curse, a product of a handful of rare snippets of DNA, alleles (a better word than "mutations") that together affect the ligaments. The "curse" part is that such loose joints are frequently painful. However, the times being what they were, and the fact that Paganini also contracted both tuberculosis and syphilis, make his case hard to diagnose two centuries after the fact. Furthermore, the thumb of Paganini was notable not mainly for flexibility, but incredible strength. He could hold a saucer in one hand, press with the thumb, and break it.

Sam Kean likes his books to progress from the micro- to the macro-scale (In Disappearing Spoon, about the elements, each chapter had to have its own structure). The micro-scale of DNA is small indeed, and so many other authors have "gone into the weeds" with ribose sugars, bases, and hydrogen bonds, that there is little need to dwell on them yet again. The lower level stuff we'll find in this book is more about transcription, translation, and gene editing (I'd like to have seen more about gene editing, but in 2012 the details of intron removal and the various ways 20,000 "genes" can produce a few million proteins were little known, and much is still opaque on that subject).

As was brought out even more forcibly in Dueling Neurosurgeons, we learn a lot from the ways things go wrong. Paganini was one who turned a genetic handicap into a career. But when we say that a certain disorder is "in the genes", it is not always so clear-cut. Cystic fibrosis results when the cftr gene doesn't work right, allowing salt transport to fail and thin mucus in the lungs to thicken. Other syndromes such as diabetes and cancer do not result from faulty genes, per se, but from mis-regulation: a genetic sequence may be either over-stimulated (most cancers) or under-stimulated (hypoglycemia or certain kinds of diabetes). One tragic case in Chapter 8 showed that the placenta does not prevent all possible genetic transfer between mother and child, for example.

The actual number of human genes is still disputed. So is the definition of "gene". The prior dogma was DNA→RNA→protein. This is, like, dinosaur-level out of date! One article by M. Pertea and others counts 21,306 protein-coding genes and 21,856 non-coding genes. At one time, the only first group would have been called "genes". The non-coding genes carry on regulatory functions, such as directly triggering or halting the activity of a coding gene or producing RNA that does so less directly; or they affect how introns are removed and the bits of RNA are stitched together. Some proteins can only be produced after more than 100 strings of RNA are connected (and in the right order!) from a transcription that may be much, much larger than the final, edited transcript. There are tons of things going on that we don't yet understand. 

Those 43,000+ "genes" still comprise only a few percent of our DNA. About 8% (at least twice as much!) is made up of various broken virus genomes, and perhaps some that aren't so broken. Retroviruses leave workable copies of their genome in every cell they infect. We all carry many such.

How does all this go together to produce a human? or, for that matter, a fruit fly, a tiny worm, or a blue whale? The book takes a step in this direction with Chapter 8: "Love and Atavisms; what makes a mammal a mammal?" Somehow, a line of reptiles developed the placenta, using lots of virus DNA to do so. Many details are found in this chapter. The placenta has a heck of a job. It has to protect a growing baby from the immune system of its mother, and it must also protect the mother from the developing immune system of this "new resident", all the while allowing the baby to conscript a large proportion of the mother's nutrition for its own use. Many viruses are adept at avoiding or even silencing immune system counterattacks, and these capabilities are built into cells that face both ways, outward from the baby/mother boundary. But the placenta is not bullet-proof, to mix a simile. A mother who has many sons may notice that the older ones are typically more "manly" and the younger ones less so, if not effeminate (Bible readers will recall that King David, though called "mighty", was the youngest, and smallest, of eight sons). This may be due to the mother's immune system getting better at influencing the environment of the developing baby within.

And what of our immense brains? In two places, the book discusses two genes, microcephalin and aspm, that are related to brain size. Certain alleles of these genes lead to babies with no brain or a very small one, a tragic circumstance. Still more fascinating, checking the DNA clock on these genes shows that the modern form of microcephalin arose about 37,000 years ago and soon swept through the entire population of humans, and aspm did the same thing about 6,000 years ago (Bible readers who happen to accept evolution will find that intriguing, because the Biblical story of God molding Adam's body and then putting a spirit of life into him is thought to date to just 6,000 years ago).

A big lesson of the book is the author's growing realization that DNA is not destiny. Or, not usually. There is seldom a single-point "thing" that causes a trait. Even blue eyes/brown eyes are more complicated than that, and eye color is a rather simple system. The author had a DNA test done, but initially asked that the gene(s) "for" Parkinson's Disease be hidden from him, because of family history. Months or years later he reports that he realized that DNA is probabilistic, not causative. So he unlocked the locked section, and found that there was apparently no problem, but then a revision a few days later showed a "slight chance" that he might develop Parkinson's. By then he had the mental fortitude to accept the news.

I've had similar worries, because one line of my family carries Alzheimer's Disease, and another line (this is very recent news to us) carries Lewy Body Dementia. Two arrows pointed at my brain. Considering my age and general health, Alzheimer's is a no-show (Mom was afflicted beginning in her fifties), but Lewy Body shows up later, so who knows? Probability is not destiny.

It will take a long time, may be a really, really long time, to know enough about DNA to begin to "take control". From time to time a sci-fi novel gets into this territory, and posits a future of people "engineered" to live on Mars without a spacesuit, or people with gills who can live under the sea, and so forth. We are a long, long way from learning if this is even possible without screwing up something else that underlies our humanity.

The last chapter introduces DNA as a computing mechanism. The stuff is very, very good at pattern matching. Some tests have been made, and the author describes a DNA algorithm to solve the "traveling salesman" problem, something your GPS unit has to do, and it usually does it pretty well. DNA has the potential to solve huge problems, like the salesman routing problem with 500 stops; we're talking age-of-the-universe time scales for today's supercomputers to deal with that one. However, once the "problem" is solved—it takes about a minute—you have a vat of DNA soup with "the answer" and billions or trillions of partial answers, and you are faced with winnowing out the longest chain in the whole bowl from all the others. That may also be an age-of-the-universe sized problem!

A side note: sorting has been studied more than any other kind of computer operation. The most optimized sort method can still take a long time if you need to sort billions of items. By contrast, the "spaghetti sort" is very fast. Just produce strands of spaghetti (or a more robust sort of rigid rod), cut to length, with the key value written on each one. For a modest size sort, a few hundred strands, you can hold it in your hand and stand it on the table. Then remove the strands, longest first, and read off the key numbers on each. Now, making the strands, and reading the results can be time consuming, but the sorting operation takes a fraction of a second. To sort billions or even trillions of "strands" (presumably of very long pieces of welding rod or something), the actual sorting operation would be almost instant, but the construction of the rods, and reading the results, are still incredibly time-consuming! That's my analogy to DNA calculation.

The book is incredibly fun to read. I like Sam Kean's writing. After catching up on books for other subjects, I may just snarf up another triple-pack of his books.

Presenting CWWN v15 – Study on Matthew

kw: book summaries, watchman nee, christian ministry

Watchman Nee had completed The Spiritual Man, contained in The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, volumes 12-14, in June, 1927. He was not quite 24 years old. Although he felt he might soon die of tuberculosis while he was writing that book, soon after it was finished he experienced divine healing and was not troubled by tuberculosis after that.

The editors of CWWN chose to follow with Study on Matthew, which is based on notes taken by participants in a Bible study with the church in Shanghai that he conducted beginning in 1931, and continued for a few years. The study is a verse-by-verse exposition of chapters one through 25; he did not complete the Gospel. However, the 361 pages of this exposition are full of light and practical instruction.

His exposition has two underlying themes: dispensational doctrine and eschatology. At this point in his life, he had been reading great numbers of books by leading Christian authors, with quite an emphasis on books by the Plymouth Brethren and others of the Brethren more generally. Sadly, "the Brethren" having begun a new turn in God's work with great anointing and much light in 1828, became divided within no more than a couple of decades. They disagreed over various interpretations of prophecies, particularly regarding "the Rapture" and the Great Tribulation.

I placed "the Rapture" in quotes because I don't like the term. It is derived from the Latin word raptus, meaning to carry off, snatch away, abduct, or seize, and even to rape. The naturalist's word for hawks and eagles and their kin is "raptor"; I have seen a red-shouldered hawk snatch a squirrel right off the ground. The word became popular to describe the "taking away" of living believers at the end of the age, first in the 1700's and even more in the 1800's, and then this use of the word mostly died away until about 1980, in the waning days of the Jesus movement, when eschatology (study of prophecy) became very popular. The term "rapture" has long also had an emotional meaning, synonymous with being "rapt", a feeling of being carried away by ecstasy.

Wranglings over this matter have divided Christians into numerous mutually hostile camps. Brother Nee read literature from writers in every sect, and drew his own conclusions. He uniformly used the term Rapture, and so, perforce, must I in the remainder of this presentation.

An example of a dispensational interpretation is seen in the latter part of Matthew 9. The events may be parsed thus:

• Called to raise a just-dead girl, Jesus heals a woman with an issue of blood (vv 18-22)
• Jesus raises up the girl (vv 23-26)
• Jesus gives sight to two blind men (vv 27-31)
• Jesus heals a mute man (vv 32-34)
• Traveling and seeing the great need, Jesus exhorts the disciples to pray for laborers (vv 35-38)

The first two items show a turn of the Gospel from the Jews, represented by the dead girl, to the Nations, represented by the bleeding woman. This was an acted-out prophecy of the turn that would take place in the book of Acts. The number 12 is significant. The dead girl was 12 (the age of accountability to the Jews), and the woman had been bleeding for 12 years. Jesus first heals the bleeding woman, then raises the dead girl. Thereafter he deals with blindness and muteness; those who cannot see the things of God cannot praise God. The gospel to the Nations results in many who do see and who do praise. 

The last item is transitional. We may infer that the disciples did pray as He asked. This is immediately followed by the beginning of Chapter 10: Jesus chose twelve disciples as His apostles and sent them out to preach.

When it comes to eschatology, there are points here and there in early chapters of Matthew, particularly chapter 13. The parables of Jesus, intended to conceal His teaching from the Jews who now adamantly opposed Him, while affording Him an opportunity to reveal their meaning to His disciples, have both prophetic and dispensational significance. Once we come to Chapters 24 and 25, it is all prophecy. Between expounding these two chapters, brother Nee had a special study of the Rapture and along with it, certain points regarding the Great Tribulation.

He shows definitely that the Rapture is not a single event. Rather, a minority of Christians who follow Him closely and diligently are blessed by being taken up first, before the Great Tribulation. The majority of Christians then living will endure the trials that follow, which are "shortened" to three-and-a-half years. His Return, a translation of parousia, meaning "presence", is simultaneous with the Rapture of the majority of the Christians at the end of the Great Tribulation, and also with the First Resurrection, which actually occurs just beforehand. The principle is of taking the first-ripe "firstfruits", followed by the general harvest.

Concerning the status of the slaves given the talents and the ten virgins, also those of whom it is said, "one is taken and one is left", brother Nee goes into detail, discussing dozens of Scripture passages which prove that all the slaves, all the virgins, and all those in the "taken/left" duos, are Christians. The early Rapture of a few is based not on regeneration, but on faithfulness, showed in three ways by these three matters. Many, perhaps most, Christian teachers consider that the slothful slave, the foolish virgins, and the workers left behind, are either (by Calvinists) not saved in the first place, or (by Arminians) have lost their salvation by their unfaithfulness. Neither is correct. Their discipline is not to perish in Hell (which is never described as "outer darkness"), but to be corrected during the millennial Kingdom. This is the most-opposed teaching of brother Nee and those of us who follow him and his co-workers including Witness Lee.

I will not go further into this matter here. Other publications by both brother Nee and Lee discuss it in detail. Simply take away this: Be warned, having your "fire insurance" does not mean you have no more problems with God. A newborn Christian needs to grow, to be spiritually educated, and to mature in spirit. If these things are neglected, God has a way to deal with His children after they are raptured or resurrected!

The book ends with encouragement. Whether we overcome to be taken up earlier, or must endure the Great Tribulation (I call it "becoming overcomers the hard way"), God cares for all His children, and has many provisions to ease their sufferings, at least in part; but He knows that some of the sufferings are like the bright sunlight that ripens the crops so they will be ready for harvest. The age of grace does not end until the end of the Great Tribulation. Learn to enjoy God as grace now, or learn it later, but be sure every child of God will learn this lesson well.