Seeking out the Crustaceous Stigmata.

(Originally published in Animus Animalium Volume 27, Number 3, 1977)

Jack Haldane apparently once quipped to a group of theologians that his study of biology had taught him that any creator thereof must have ‘an inordinate fondness for beetles’. The fact that Haldane may never have actually said this appears to have deterred no one, in favour or against. Nevertheless, I’ll go one better than the old Cantabrigian and say this: if there is any sort of spiritual overseer of this planet (and there may well be) he is not only fond of coleopterans, he is an arthropod.

Consider the godly effort put into the stocking of this planet with suitable denizens. Given that arthropods comprise by far the majority of described animals – doubtless even more undescribed – what other conclusion can we draw but that this was the model that most interested the creator? Let’s say you enter a craftsman’s workshop; a wood turner or a shoemaker, and after seeing that 80% of their output comprised endless variations of the one theme, would you then point to an aberrant, one-off novelty and declare that this was his favourite design, above all others? Of course not! The breathtaking arrogance with which an obscure species of bipedal primate has erroneously declared that they and they alone were created in the great invertebrate’s image should be considered as evolutionarily excessive and unnecessary as their much vaunted intelligence*.

And yet this is what the ‘good’ books would have us accept. If ever proof was needed to show that the bible was an entirely man-made creation, it is surely the cavalier way its author refers to the creation of the bulk of metazoan life on this planet. The almighty, in his/her eternal creativity, and over a space of millions of years, creates infinite iterations of insects, countless classes of crustaceans, millions of makes of molluscs, and myriad other species of delightfully obscure and fascinating invertebrate phyla and how does the author of Genesis convey this? By describing the vast majority of life’s diversity as ‘creeping things’ and cramming them in amongst the equally uninspired groupings of ‘cattle’ and ‘beasts’ that were also apparently whipped up on the sixth day. It’s hard to imagine the creator’s hard work and artistic flair being described in such a pathetically understated and dismissive way if the book truly had any kind of authoritative input. The notion that cattle is a taxonomic division on par with the endlessly diverse creeping things of the invertebrata is an idea so obviously borne of ignorance; so obviously the product of a first-century mind bound to the immediate, prosaic concerns of an agronomic existence that it is astonishing to me that anyone ever reads past the first chapter of this mystic text at all!

Despite the celestial architect’s incontrovertible obsession with chitinous invertebrates, all we see of this in scripture is the woeful introduction in Genesis and then arthropods are barely ever mentioned again. Certainly, we are told that old man Leviticus warned us against eating shellfish (perhaps the only glimmer of real understanding of the almighty in the book?) but if we examine this verse we see that this is based on an instruction to avoid eating anything from the seas that ‘has not fins and scales’ – that is, anything aquatic that is not a fish. This is taxonomically lazy and theologically absurd. The eastern philosophies fare marginally better, but one still can’t shake the ever-growing understanding that organised religion is at best a comfortable refuge for those who would rather ignore the real details of the prime mover’s works. Go to the ant, o sluggards, and consider her ways!

So, why are these bookish aldermen pouring over dusty middle-eastern texts instead of scouring the beaches** for crustaceous stigmata, as I do? Why is it not considered blasphemy to remain so profoundly ignorant of the handiwork of a creator you claim to worship? These poseurs, on being invited to a comprehensive gallery of a master's life works, available for unlimited study, respond; No thanks – we'd rather read and reread a heavily edited biography of the artist's son written by men who never met him. For every Saint Francis, there are a million dreary Augustinians trying to achieve martyrdom by boring themselves to death through drudging catechism. These poor wretches will meet their maker in time of course, and when they gaze into his compound eyes, then will they realise their folly.

Only the ancient Egyptians (derisively dismissed by the monotheists as ‘pagans’) seemed to really grasp the empyrean nature of the beetles in their midst, stoically undertaking their Sisyphean task day after day. Where the vapid minds of today’s literalists see an insect rolling a ball of dung, the ancients saw rebirth and resurrection; sanctity and wisdom. We would be wise to emulate the Egyptians in their veneration of this dignified coprophage and its various family members; the insects, crustaceans, chelicerates, myriapods and the late trilobites. It is in their exoskeletal forms that you will truly see the face of god.

- Felix Ookean, 1977

                                                                                                      

*And, by the way, see how much that helps you if the cephalopods were ever to develop a colonial mentality. A slight rise in sea level (my friends in the Earth Science department inform me that this is inevitable) and we will all learn that while intelligence is a lovely thing, when coupled with eight arms and the physical flexibility that only comes with a lack of an internal skeleton, it’s nigh unstoppable.

** Another favoured design feature of the deities (particularly the native dreamtime gods of my adopted homeland) unforgivably and bafflingly underappreciated by organised religion.