Science & Scripture · Biology

Everything that exists in nature — including parasitic worms, tumors, and plague bacteria — is inherently beautiful.

Biology 59 passages in this field

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The cited passage

What current science says

The bot fly larva burrows into human skin and feeds on living flesh for weeks. The filarial worm Wuchereria bancrofti blocks lymphatic drainage and causes elephantiasis, swelling limbs to several times their normal size. Cancerous tumors hijack your body's own cell-division machinery to grow uncontrollably. The bubonic plague bacterium (Yersinia pestis) killed roughly 50 million Europeans — about 60% of the continent's population — in the 14th century. 'Beautiful' is a choice, and it's a bold one.

What the text says

This comes from Ecclesiastes 3:11. 'He hath made every thing beautiful in his time' — a blanket aesthetic endorsement of all creation, which logically includes every parasite, pathogen, and predator.

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