Did God Design a Disposable, Ah Hem . . . Appendage?

On 12 February 2013, Charles Darwin’s 204^th birthday anniversary, BBC science reporter Rebecca Morelle published a startling column entitled, “Sea slug’s ‘disposable penis’ surprises.” In response to her column that detailed observations made by researchers working with sea slugs among the shallow coral reefs around Japan, the head curator of the National Museums Northern Ireland made a classic understatement all-too-typical of scientists and academics: “I haven’t seen anything like this before.” Never seen anything like this before? Well golly. Let’s think about this. Has ANYONE?!

The disposable penis of a sea slug, and the fact that the little animal is also a true hermaphrodite, may all sound bizarre to us humans. But sea slugs are not the only animals that abandon their penises. Orb-weaving spiders do. So does the periwinkle and a land slug called Ariolimax. And don’t get me started on the rather common occurrence of hermaphroditism in nature. Most plants (lilies, tulips, magnolias, and such) are hermaphrodites. Worms, snails, and even some vertebrates demonstrate varying degrees of hermaphroditism. The extraordinary diversity of life on Earth, including its full spectrum of physical and behavioral sexual expression, demonstrates one clear tenet – Nature is continuous. In other words, the natural world is rarely “black and white” especially with something as complex as sex.

In the 19^th century, Western theology was often sorted into two complementary categories: sacred and natural. In its most basic sense, sacred theology was the study of divine revelation, specifically as found in texts such as the Holy Bible and the Noble Qur’an. On the other hand, natural theology was the knowledge of G-d based on observed facts and experiences apart from divine revelation. Those who employed natural theology believed they studied the Creator by observing nature and using reason. One website called CARM (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry) claims today that natural theology is the study of God that we can conduct by looking at the wonders and beauty of creation.

Would a disposable penis qualify as a wonder of creation? Would hermaphroditism? Would the fact that some male spiders voluntarily castrate themselves during sex to increase their chances of fathering offspring by permanently plugging the female’s genitalia? Would the less masculine “gamma” male stag beetles that seduce the “alpha” males into sodomizing them through a clever exudation of female pheromones, thereby wasting the aggressor’s sperm? In his post-sodomy afterglow, the gamma male – not the alpha male – then has his way with the female beetle without all the messy competition. Or would the euglossine bees in the Amazon rainforest tricked by orchids into mating with them like a fancy sex toy for the purposes of pollination? Would CARM consider these part of “the wonder and beauty of creation” from which we can extrapolate moral lessons for human society?

Of course not.

Unfortunately, the archaic perspective of natural theology is not limited to the 19^th century. As evidenced by the aforementioned website, influences remain today because of leading proponents such as Thomas Aquinas, John Ray and William Paley, Thomas Paine, Horace Mann (Antioch College), Edward Hitchcock (Amherst College), Karl Barth, and others. Too often we look lovingly at nature shows or calendar photographs that feature parenting among chimpanzees and think, “How wonderful is G-d’s creation.” Today we gaze at a sublimely beautiful sunset over a river valley and exclaim, “How splendid is G-d’s creation.” Yet, when we mine the details of those scenes, we find rape and cannibalism among the great apes and jarringly destructive earthquakes in that otherwise awe-inspiring riparian scene. The natural world is not a moral guidebook; it has no lessons whatsoever for us except that we – and 30 million other co-habiting species on Earth – are part of an ancient, ever-evolving web of life now under siege by humanity’s self-serving appetites.

Though tempted to link disposable penises to promising birth control measures for our own superabundant species, I will refrain and close instead with a reference to another 19^th century viewpoint that we might consider applicable today. “Know your place and speak only when spoken to.” In our case, the natural world is speaking to us daily (e.g., declining biodiversity and rising greenhouse gases). But, like any petulant child in the Victorian world, we seem not to care at all for our place in nature and choose instead to embrace our debilitating narcissism. The natural world simply doesn’t care about us – and rue the day when we will be overwhelmed by the monsters of our own making.

H. Bruce Rinker, Ph.D.

Ecologist, Educator, and Explorer

[email protected]