Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Maximally random thought
Probably the randomest and trivialest thought I've ever written... but I don't recall reading it or hearing it anywhere.
We have four limbs with relatively equal first and second sections, then a hand/foot with five digits. This layout is the most common among LAND vertebrates. Most amphibians and reptiles share these proportions. Many other mammals share this pattern.
Observation: The animals we get along with, our domestic partners and our food, DON'T share this pattern. Ruminants have strangely distorted legs that are mostly one toe, with all the other stuff either absent or shortened. Dogs and cats have short first bone, long second bone, and modified paws with vestigial thumb. Birds have wings and talons. Fish have fins.
The animals that share our proportions and limb functions, the animals that hold and manipulate objects the same way we hold and manipulate, are NOT our partners. We don't get along with mice or raccoons or lizards or monkeys, and (at least in cultures descended from the Old Testament) we don't eat them.
Hypothesis: Was the OT rule about kosher/haram animals a hand-based avoidance of cannibalism? Were hands associated with intelligence?
Labels: Grand Blueprint
¶ 3:47 PM
