“What is quite clear in this animal is that it is hardwired to find the poison, it is hardwired to chew it and it is hardwired to apply it to the small area of hairs,” Kingdon said. The animals apply the poisonous spit only to the specialized hairs on a small strip along its back. When threatened, the rat arches its back and uses specially adapted muscles to slick back its hair and expose the strip of poison.

“Hardwired,” he said.

A distant ancestor of these rats happened to evolve an immunity to this tree’s poison. Then one of its descendants happened to evolve a compulsion to eat the bark of the arrow-poison plant. Then a later descendant happened to evolve special hairs on its back that can store the poison.

“There is no other hair that is known to science that is remotely structured like these hairs,” Kingdon said.

Well, that explains the “Evolutionary marvel” section heading. Evolution is bound to produce all kinds of fully formed, functional, and completely novel features with nothing remotely similar in other closely-related species. Isn’t evolution clever!?

What is quite clear in this story is that evolution by random mutation and natural selection (and genetic drift, gene flow, and whatever other supposedly purposeless processes one might choose to add) is the least likely mechanism for the development of remarkable features like this one.

Listen, kids. X-Men is fantasy. It is not even science fiction, let alone science. Even if a mutation might rarely allow an organism to survive longer than its peers in very specific and abnormal circumstances, mutations are almost always immediately debilitating and always make an organism generally less fit. Accumulated mutations kill.

The symbiotic relationship between the African crested rat and the arrow-poison plant was designed. Engineered. Hardwired. It exists because someone wanted it to exist, and not because it just “happened.”

According to Maslow and common sense, a person needs some things more than others. Food and water are at the top of the list, and if you don’t have those, the rest won’t do you much good. A connection to God is important too, although it’s not as intellectually obvious to the natural man where in the hierarchy of needs that relationship should fall. As you will see, the mere existence of these needs for food and religion are not their only commonality.

When we don’t eat, we get hungry. When we don’t have the right balance of nutrients in our diet, we experience cravings or illness, and we fulfill those needs by eating more quantity and variety of foods. Our feelings of need are usually satisfied in the short term by just about anything we can stuff in our mouths that meets the minimum requirements. If our bodies need calories, then a candy bar will suffice. That’s not necessarily the best source of nutrition, however. Certainly, the sugar and fat will supply calories, but usually in the wrong proportions or in undesirable forms. An apple or handful of nuts would be better because it satisfies the immediate craving without overkill and provides for longer-term nutrition needs as well. Our understanding of nutrition and the body’s biosphere is still far from complete. As our science progresses, we will come to understand more of why the Designer’s instructions tell us to eat this and not that.

God didn’t say anything to Moses about candy bars because the ancient Israelites didn’t have access to them, but he wasn’t silent about diet. For example, he told us not to eat blood and he even told us why (because the life of an animal is in its blood) even if his reasoning is incomprehensible to many medicine. Contrary to some recent diet fads, he told us that bread is perfectly acceptable so long as it isn’t the only thing we eat. He told us that some animals are good to eat and others aren’t and that we shouldn’t eat certain parts of animals (e.g. the spleen and adrenal glands, aka the fatty lobe attached to the kidney). Those things might meet the body’s basic nutritional needs–in fact, they might be excellent sources of some nutrients–but, just as a nutritionist might say that many edible substances aren’t food, so does God. Pigs might be perfectly edible and provide perfectly usable nutrition, but there is something else about them that makes them non-food. Our Designer and theirs has said that we shouldn’t eat them whether we understand why or not.

Our need for spiritual connection with God is very similar. Voltaire wasn’t so far off when he said that “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” We have a deep need to worship and serve something greater than ourselves. Every human society throughout history has worshiped and theologized. Not even alcohol has been as widespread as religion. But for the most part, we follow our urges without knowledge. We know instinctively that prayer, singing, dancing, and offerings are all good and necessary, but like children in a grocery store, we don’t necessarily know to take more of the green stuff and less of the pink and gooey. Like candy, there are religious practices that sooth our cravings, but don’t provide good spiritual nutrition. With that in mind, it’s not too surprising to find McDonalds “restaurants” in churches. There is a right way and a wrong way to relate to God, to worship and serve him, and just as with food, he gave us some substantial direction in his Torah.

God linked food and religion, and Moses made that link clear. In this week’s Torah portion, Moses said, “You will not worship like the pagans do. You will destroy the places the pagans used for their worship, and you will wipe out the names of their gods. You will not offer sacrifices just anywhere you want, but only in that place that God chooses for his name. You will not eat blood, and you will only eat those animals that God has declared food. And, don’t forget, you will worship God in his way, not in your way nor in the ways of the pagans.” God left a lot to our tastes and aesthetics, but there are important ingredients to a healthy spiritual life that we ignore to our own detriment.

“(It’s the Eighties, So Where’s Our) Rocket Packs”
from the album Vox Humana
Words and Music by Terry Taylor
©1984 Twitchen Vibes Music (ASCAP)

It’s the eighties
It’s the eighties so where’s our rocket packs?
It’s the eighties so where’s our rocket packs?
Go anywhere, we strap them on our backs
1. (It’s the eighties so where’s our rocket packs?)
I thought by now I’d walk the moon
And ride a car without no tires
And have a robot run the vacuum
And date a girl made out of wires
No thing’s don’t change that much, do they?
We are still out of touch, by now we should discover
Just how to love each other, like Klattus’ robot man
Your looks have killed again

2. (It’s the eighties so where’s our rocket packs?)
I thought by now we’d live in space
And eat a pill instead of dinner
And wear a gas mask on our face
A President of female gender
Though progress marches on, (new day)
Our troubles will grow strong
And my expectancies, become my fantasies
You turn my blood to sand, the earth stands still again

My hopes are running low
things moving much too slow
No space men up above
And we’re still so very far from love

3. (It’s the eighties so where’s our rocket packs?)
I thought by now we’d build a dome
Around the world, control the weather
In every house, a picture phone; communicate a little better
But some things never change (replay!)
You are still acting strange
No way that I can see, this way we will be free
La la la la la la,la la la la la 7,6,5,4,3,2,1 Lift off!

(It’s the eighties so where’s our rocket packs?)
Repeat 1, 2, 3
(It’s the eighties)

George Orwell? 1984? The real thing could be so much worse.

• Initial Results Show Pregnant Women Mount Strong Immune Response To 1 Dose Of 2009 H1N1 Vaccine
• Pregnant Women At ‘Serious Risk’ from Flu
• Mother’s Flu Shot Protects Newborns
• Flu Vaccine Given To Women During Pregnancy Keeps Infants Out Of The Hospital, Study Suggests
• Pregnant women should get flu shot as winter bites
• Pregnant women need H1N1 shots
• H1N1 contributed to pregnant woman’s death
• Pregnancy a Key Risk Factor for H1N1 Flu
• Swine flu shot may ease pregnant mom’s worries
• Pregnant? It`s Time for a Flu Shot, Says Miami OB-GYN Specialist

I am certain that the people who wrote these articles and most of their sources truly believe that pregnant women need to get a flu shot and especially need to be vaccinated against H1N1. Maybe they’re right.

But it smells like brainwashed lemmings trying to hose down the rest of us.

“The venom is essentially an overactivation of the original digestive enzyme, amplifying its effects,” Yael T. Aminetzach said. “What had been a mild anticoagulant in the salivary glands of both species has become a much more extreme compound that causes paralysis and death in prey that is bitten.”

Side note: Evolutionary psychology is almost as big a waste of time and money as xenobiology. Almost.