The Creation Story—a Biologist's View

THE CREATION STORY—A BIOLOGIST'S VIEW ELIZABETH BABBOTT CONANT* The Seeker said to the Spirit of the Universe, "What of creation?" The Spirit of the Universe answered, "The story of creation is a story without end. And it rests on three great mysteries of matter: creation is synergistic, reciprocal, and additive." And the Seeker said, "Speak in words that I can understand." The Spirit of the Universe answered, "You know how your people build their houses. You take clay from the river's edge and mix it with straw from wild grasses, and you fashion bricks, baked by the sun. The brick is stronger than either the clay or the straw alone, stronger than their combined, separate strengths. That is synergism, when the product is more than the sum of its components—and it is part of the story of creation. "With bricks you make your houses, which give you shelter and community and sometimes privacy. You have moulded your house, but your house also moulds you and the life you lead. That is reciprocity, when that which is made works back upon the maker, when the stuff of creation itself affects the process—and it is part of the story of creation. "Your village is larger than that of your forefathers, and your buildings more complex. Your children and your children's children will use your houses as models and will change them in new and useful ways. That is the additive quality of creation, when change is built upon structures ofthe past like a vast and ever more intricate pyramid rising higher on its expanding foundations. And it is part of the story of creation." "But the world is not as simple as a house," the Seeker said. "What of the universe and the earth and its myriad living things?" The Spirit of the Universe answered, "No, the world is not as simple as a house. But the earth spinning around the sun and you fashioning your bricks are both part of the same creative stream. "When the cosmic dust was first hurled into the void, it coalesced into wheeling islands of matter—and the galaxies were born. In the long breaths of time, the infinite specks of matter assumed an ordered relationship : stars and their planets, comets in their long orbits, spheres in rotation. *Department of Biology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903. 76 I Elizabeth Babbott Conanl · The Creation Story "As the earth settled in its path, there were great spasms—so the seas and the continents were formed. The seas lapped new shorelines, dissolved the earth's substance, and, in the long breaths of time, became a sort of broth. Like links in a chain, matter tied to matter in solution: an infinite variety of products, often building on prior stable forms, each, in turn, changing the nature of the primal fluid. After many more long breaths of time, substance coalesced into self-sustaining units, and life began. With life came the ultimate gift to the earth, the ultimate reciprocity , oxygen, and this evoked an explosion of breathing things. Over not so many long breaths of time, the earth was crowded with living forms." The Seeker asked, "And what of man?" "Like the bricks in your village, man is more than the sum of his parts; like the house which affects its builder, man affects his earth and makes creation reciprocal; like the changes wrought by your children, man builds upon the past like a great growing pyramid. He has an inward eye as well as an outer one and so is partner as well as product of creation. You ask me, 'What of creation?' And I say to you, 'You are its product; look into yourself and see.' " HOLD FAST, OLD MAN Old man, the latter years are brief, small fragments of a longer past, and Time steals slyly as a thief— hold fast, old man, hold fast! Samuel Stearns, M.D. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Autumn 1976 | 77 ...