Cross Hand Dominance – The Lefty Righty Conundrum

Why we need more sophisticated methodologies to analyze handedness in our children

By Walter Oden

Introduction

As I have started to wrap our summer of tennis camps, I have an observation about children.  The younger the child, the less obvious hand dominance is present.  On the other hand, there are some markers.  Why do we care?  Don’t children naturally gravitate to their genetic handedness?  Parents are often very sensitive to their child using the “correct” hand. My goal is to present some theory to help you understand handedness.

The Premise

I will argue that all human beings fall on a continuum of hand dominance.  Many of you know my obsession with brain dominance theory.  This premise is not that different. There are actually (2) handedness graphs for every person.  There will be one for FINE MOTOR skills and one for GROSS MOTOR skills.

| Left Handed —————— Gross Motor Skills ———————- Right Handed|

 | Left Handed ——————- Fine Motor Skills ———————– Right Handed|

 Throughout this article, we will firm up our evidence for this hypothesis.

The Signs

The best examples of our hand dominance confusion come straight from professional sports.  We will tell stories of handedness from Baseball, Golf & Tennis.

Maria Sharapova

The hard court season in tennis is in full swing.  Memories of Wimbledon & The French Open have long passed.  Yet, I started writing this article during the French Open!  So a little memory lane is needed.

The French Women’s Final had a Romanian newcomer Simona Halep. Her opponent was the veteran Russian Maria Sharapova.  Maria was serving at 4-3 in the third set.  Then, the double fault.  It was her 12th of the match.  For you non tennis players, that is essentially giving up (3) whole games.  Maria is a hall of fame caliber player.  So, this sheer volume in double faults is truly an enigma.  On the other hand, this has happened to Maria before!

We all know she plays tennis right handed.   Yet, her serve is a constant love hate relationship.  It is both a weapon and liability.  How can that be?  How could a world class athlete have a problem with a something as bio-mechanically natural as a serve?

Rumor has it that she is naturally a lefty.  In fact, she recently had a Facebook post playing ping pong.  Yes, she was playing lefty!  Want some evidence?  Check this video out with Ellen DeGeneres.

Maria Sharapova playing Ping Pong with Ellen

At some point, there was a decision to make her a right handed tennis player.  Clearly, it worked.  Yet, how can we get it right for other young athletes?

The Tarantula Test

We do a test with little kids.  I am shocked how often parents tell us “My child is right handed”.  Then, we lay out the premise.  “Place a tennis ball on the ground and pretend it is a giant tarantula.  The net is the rain forest.  When I say go pick up the tarantula and throw it as far as you can back into the rain forest!”  This always gets laughs.  It also gives us information.  We immediately learn what side the player THROWS a ball.  In addition, they have to use GROSS MOTOR skills to pick it up and throw it.  99% of the time, we can determine a child’s dominant throwing arm.  Every now and then, there is the 1% that seems to throw equally with both hands!  That 1% includes Luke Jensen!

The Public School Test

I am always in shock how public schools make an early determination on what hand a child should use to write.  The simplicity reminds me of how they used to cut off legs “just in case” it could go gangrene.  Their “classic” method is placing a pencil on the middle of a table.  Then they observe the child pick up the pencil.  Which ever hand they pick it up with, that is the hand they designate as their hand to write with for life!  I am not kidding either.  That is a typical preschool test.  Then, if the child is having writing problems, they simply assign them to occupational therapy.  Yes, you sense some sarcasm.  That is because there are so many reasons this methodology has a failure rate.  The major failure here is that writing is a FINE MOTOR SKILL.  Whereas, moving and grabbing have elements of GROSS MOTOR SKILLS.  Below, we will address that in even more detail

Throwing versus Writing

There are big differences in writing versus throwing.  Throwing is a BIG MUSCLE group skill set.  We call those GROSS MOTOR skills.  Anything that makes the body move as a whole is a GROSS MOTOR skill.  Running and jumping are also classified as GROSS MOTOR skills.  In tennis, forehands and backhands are in that classification as well.

A FINE MOTOR skill is generally use of the hands or feet independent of the body.  Writing is a classic FINE MOTOR SKILL.  You can also think about using the fingers independent of the body.  In tennis, a volley is often considered a FINE MOTOR skill even though you must use your body to get to the ball.

Cross Hand Dominance Defined

I invented the term to describe people that have GROSS MOTOR dominance on one side and FINE MOTOR dominance on the other side.  For example, a person might throw very well with their RIGHT HAND, but write effectively with their LEFT HAND.  I will now present a perfect example of this argument.  He is Mallorca’s own, Rafael Nadal.

Rafael Nadal

Rafa was hitting with two hands on forehands and backhands early in his junior career.  At some point, his coach “Uncle Toni” told Rafa to “pick a hand”.  Uncle Toni recommended Rafa become a lefty for tennis.  I think we can say this experiment was a big success.  Want to see the discussion? Click on this link. It is a whole interview with Rafa and Uncle Toni on his handedness!!

Interview with Uncle Toni

Can you imagine Rafa NOT being a lefty?  Would he have even excelled?  How many athletes start with the “wrong” hand?

Phil Mickelson

Even other sports have signs of left – right hand confusion.  Phil Mickelson is a natural right hander.  Yet, he is a left handed golfer.  Thanks to my PGA Professional friend Jim Beers, I know he warms up throwing a baseball with his caddie in the parking lot!  Yes, he throws with his right hand.

Golf Technique

The technique in golf is not that different than baseball.  In fact, hand dominance issues are the same.  This is why Phil Mickelson is such and outstanding left handed golfer.  He uses his dominant RIGHT HAND to PULL the club through.

The Relationship between Golf and Tennis

In 2010, my great friend and PGA professional Jim Beers and I presented at the Midwest USPTA Convention.  Our presentation, the Relationship between Golf and Tennis, was a full technical comparison between the two sports.  One of the largest conclusions we made was that the technique of a golf shot is more of a PULL than a PUSH.  Therefore, a GROSS MOTOR skill right hander should play golf LEFTY and tennis RIGHTY

Guess who else figured that out?

Ivan Lendl was famous for winning (7) majors.  He later became famous again for coaching Andy Murray to a Wimbledon victory.  He never won Wimbledon himself.  His joke was always “I am allergic to grass”.  One year, he refused to play Wimbledon and played golf during the fortnight.  Yes, he figured out the left – right golf conundrum.

How about the endless array of hall of fame baseball players?  How many of them threw right handed, but bat left handed?

Baseball

I grew up playing more baseball than tennis.  As a young Southern California youth, I probably played baseball (7) days a week.  I picked up tennis as an add-on game.  I always batted left handed.  Or maybe I didn’t.  I remember being a huge fan of Fred Lynn.  Fred Lynn was an awesome player with the Boston Redsox.  He threw left handed and bat left handed.  So, since he batted lefty I did too.  Yet, I couldn’t throw lefty.

It turns out there are tons of Hall of Fame caliber players that threw right handed and bat left handed.  One example was the great Rod Carew.  He was a fantastic hitter.  He bat left handed, but threw right handed.  He is in that amazing 3,000/1,000 club.  He had over 3,000 hits and 1,000 RBI’s lifetime.

George Brett was one of the best hitters in that era.  I never really rooted for him since he played for the Kansas City Royals. Although, the famous charge of Billy Martin in the “Pine Tar Incident” goes down as one of my favorites!

What a hitter.  He also threw right handed and bat left handed.

So what is with all this right handed throwers batting left handed?  It is all in the technique.

In baseball, the dominant hand (like Golf described above) is actually the bottom hand.  You ever see how modern hitting technique includes letting go of the top hand?  So, the dominant GROSS MOTOR hand should be in charge!  That means that the term batting “righty” is not really accurate.  A Right handed batter is in fact using their LEFT hand much more.

The Curious Case of Alison Biltz

You know how they say teachers learn much more from their students?  Alison Biltz is a highly talented Pre Med student at Fordham University.  I met her when she was about 11.  I was teaching her mom (Beth) tennis.  Beth asked if Alison could tag along.  Alison was definitely being “pushed” to try tennis.  Seven years later, she was a STATE OF OHIO high school tennis runner-up.  Alison was always an interesting student to teach because she had so many non-traditional talents.

She would describe how she wrote.  One hand was for the chalk board and another was for pencils!  She naturally threw a ball lefty.  We made sure she played tennis lefty for the serve relationship to throwing.  On the other hand (pun intended), she had a much better backhand.  She also could play right handed with no problem.  In fact, during her senior year, she had so many injuries in her left arm (wrist, arm and shoulder) she played right handed until the post season!  Luckily, she was advanced enough academically that no one stopped her from changing hands regularly.

Some final thoughts on Tennis

As we come full circle back to tennis, I would argue that it is one of the few sports where both hands are critical.  A GROSS MOTOR right hander should play tennis right handed.  Why?  So they can serve with the hand they throw.  Yet, a player with a two handed backhand will be using a TON of their left hand in this scenario.  Two handed backhands in tennis tend to USE their TOP hand much more than GOLF and BASEBALL!

Terminology & Teaching

Is the major problem in this discussion labeling?  Should we really call a right handed batter a righty?  Here is the funny part too.  A right handed batter stands on the left side of the plate!

I think the key to success is to have knowledge.  People need knowledge in sports too.  Be careful in labeling people right handed or left handed too quickly!  Also, be careful on labels that may not describe a technique.  People are all individuals.  You can have different hands to do different things.  I might even go out on a limb.

Out on a Limb

Dominant Right Hand throwers (GROSS MOTOR SKILL) should consider playing TENNIS right handed.  On the other hand, they should also consider playing GOLF and hitting a BASEBALL left handed.  This “dangling limb” theory is based on coaching technique.

David W. Smith

My old friend from Utah is used to be most known for his writings in tennis.  On the other hand, he is currently coaching a future LPGA player!  He was the Senior Editor at the highly acclaimed TennisOne.com tennis instructional website.  He is also a national proponent of teaching a two handed forehand.  His first tennis book, TENNIS MASTERY, goes into detail on this theory.  His premise allows children to develop bilateral handedness early in their career.

Carla Hannaford

I was tipped off to a real genius in teaching.  Carla Hannaford is well known in education circles.  On the other hand, I am surprised by how many supposed “neuroscience” people have never heard of her!

Carla has written quite a few ground breaking books.

Two that are fantastic are THE DOMINANCE FACTOR and SMART MOVES.  These are not books you have to read cover to cover.  Rather, you can read sections of chapters randomly.  Her premise in the DOMINANCE FACTOR was that all human beings have a DOMINANT side, but they don’t always synchronize well.  In other words, you might have a person with a DOMINANT right arm and DOMINANT left foot.  In most circumstances, these differences don’t matter. Yet, add elements of STRESS and there can be a FAILURE rate to these differences.  I am painfully paraphrasing.  I highly recommend these books.  I am fairly certain she has not received enough “acclaim” for her work.

What we might take away

I think my biggest conclusion is that we need to develop more human beings to use:

• BOTH hands
• BOTH feet
• BOTH eyes
• BOTH ears
• And BOTH hemispheres of their BRAIN!

That means allowing our children to practice all sorts of GROSS and FINE MOTOR skills using both sides of their body.  Long term, they will gravitate towards certain dominant traits.  Yet, as pointed out with my “Cross Hand Dominance Theory”, this may allow for our children to work out all their unique differences without too much influence.

As always, I really appreciate your time and energy you took to read this!

Copyright Walter Oden, July 2014, all rights reserved.  Please review global copyright notice on sidebar on home page.

Fixed versus Growth Mindset – Missing Something?

by Walter Oden

How work ethic improves all psychology

Background:

One of my favorite movies of all time is Forrest Gump  The first time I saw this movie, I was so drawn into “rooting” for Forrest.  It seemed that with every turn, good fortune followed Forrest.  The movie implies that a “feather” touched Forrest when he was young and that provided him with the “luck” he needed to overcome his cognitive challenges.

I have a completely different take on the movie.  I have seen the movie over 10 times.  I now see Forrest as a very talented human being.  Forrest has a higher “work ethic” than all people around him.  In fact, he was physically and mentally more capable of sticking to a process than other more cognitively capable peers.  The ongoing “joke” in the movie was that Forrest just kept working and trying “not know any better”.  His hard work and determination ALONE resulted in success in spite of what he knew or believed!

What is this all about?

During the fall of 2013, I attended a presentation at Laurel School of Shaker Heights, Ohio by Dr. Lisa Damour.  She is a high profile school psychologist and specializes in learning styles.  She is a colleague of Stanford psychologist Dr. Carol Dweck.

In the last year, the theory of Fixed versus Growth Mindsets has been published and touted as a positive approach to teaching students to be their best.  Dr. Damour’s presentation was nice enough to summarize the theory as follows:

Fixed Mindset:  How you are born is what you believe is your final place in the world.  You are threatened by feedback.  You are also threatened by others that are doing better than you.

Growth Mindset:  Wherever you are born is the starting point of your journey.  Your end game is after all the work has been done.  You see feedback as a positive piece in the puzzle.  You also look to others doing better than you as a model for your work pathway.

The link below goes directly to a site that summarizes the theory:

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/

A theory leap that “feels good”

The Growth Mindset Theory makes a Utopian leap in that it implies that by changing psychology from Fixed to Growth, a person will naturally be willing to work hard.  I think for some of the population this is potentially true.  Yet, that population was likely on the “bubble” as a hard worker.  I wish everyone was willing to work hard once they felt good about their prospects.  As we explore below, that situation may not fit the whole population.

The unpopular truth:

No one feels comfortable having the “Nurture versus Nature” discussion.  Yet, there are certain realities to genetics and traits.  Although no one has successfully isolated the “work gene”, I would argue it exists.  It doesn’t take a scientist to observe society and notice the difference between WORKERS and NON-WORKERS.  This trait is generally unrelated to socioeconomic conditions.  In fact, human resource studies have consistently shown that what a person is paid is unrelated to how good or bad an employee they are.  Yes, a good environment and solid upbringing helps.  Yet, we can all cite examples of people that are just darn “lazy” even if they are from solid families.  Therefore, we have to realistically rate people by their inclination to DO WORK.  This could be called a WORK INCLINATION CONTINUUM or WORK ETHIC INDEX.

I challenge you as a reader to rank your co-workers based on WORK ETHIC only.  How about the students we teach?

How to score WORK ETHIC

There are two ways of looking at this continuum.  First, how do you rate yourself?  Clearly, few people will rate themselves as LAZY.  On the other hand, you might rate yourself as a procrastinator.  Procrastination does not always equate with LOW WORK ETHIC.  It simply implies TIMING of WORK.  Yet, perpetual procrastinators will be addressed in our analysis later.

The most important observations would be how am I perceived by others?  Perception of others is an important aspect of reality.

The Work Ethic Index

A real work ethic index would be some combination a SELF rating and PERCEPTION of the PUBLIC rating.  The highest index would be someone with a LOW SELF RATING and HIGH RATING from OTHERS.  This person is always looking to work HARDER because they don’t believe they are working hard enough.

The worst rating would be where I rate myself as a HARD WORKER and others see me as a LAZY BUM!

Impact on Fixed versus Growth Mindset Theory

The “Mindset Theory” is a good one, but it may need to account for a WORK ETHIC INDEX to address certain realities.  In an effort to include it, I have created a matrix that may attempt to merge the theories.  The reason this matters is that addressing WORK ETHIC may be more important than addressing mindset!

You will note in my matrix below, you are much better off having a FIXED MINDSET and HIGH WORK ETHIC INDEX than both of the LOW WORK ETHIC INDEX quadrants.  Since I am a full time tennis professional, I make some professional tennis player references.

The Oden Mindset Matrix

Fixed Mindset/High Work Ethic Index (Upper Left Quadrant – RED)

These people just work hard.  They overcome any limitations created by their lack of belief.  Often, this person is very error averse and hates mistakes.  Yet, because of their HIGH WORK ETHIC marker, they address their belief limitations by simply “going to work every day”.  The results simply come as a result of work.

Tennis Athletes:  Chris Evert and Steffi Graf.  Steffi was well known for her love practice much more than competition!

Fixed Mindset/Low Work Ethic Index (Lower Left Quadrant – BLUE)

This person says “I can’t because of” a lot.  This person also claims to “try hard” with very little evidence of this reality.  It is generally “someone else’s fault” for their plight.

This person simply sees their situation as stuck and there is no use in trying.  Improvement is futile.  Pushing this person into the GROWTH mindset might help.  On the other hand, this plan will likely fail due to a lack of WORK ETHIC.

Growth Mindset/High Work Ethic Index (Upper Right Quadrant – GREEN)

This person is very END GAME oriented.  They see the “what if” and are willing to “get to work” to achieve this vision.  These people take mistakes in stride and see them as all a part of the “bigger picture”.  They will likely take losses and immediately get back to work!

Tennis Athletes:  Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova.  Listen to their post match interviews.  You will immediately hear their approach.  They are “learning” from their losses and have BIGGER goals to achieve!

Growth Mindset/Low Work Ethic Index (Lower Right Quadrant – YELLOW)

I like to call this quadrant the DREAMER.  They like to talk about all their big plans, with little evidence of action.  This person can have some great ideas and may appear to have a GOOD ATTITUDE.  On the other hand, without an injection of good old fashioned WORK, there will never be any movement.  This person is commonly called a PROCRASTINATOR!

Conclusions:

The Growth Mindset Theory is a really POSITIVE theory for learning.  I am very drawn and committed to positive coaching as a philosophy.  On the other hand, I have strong opinions on utilizing certain realities to improve results.  Sometimes the “truth” is more powerful than a “theory”.  As a final note, writing this article is an attempt to move myself out of the GROWTH MINDSET/LOW WORK ETHIC INDEX quadrant!  At least, that is how I rate myself. Thank your so much for your time and energy reading this!

Copyright Walter Oden and “I Have and Idea”, August 2013, All Rights Reserved.  Please see global copyright information on sidebar of this blog.

 

 

 

Autism, Spectrum Disorders, ADHD and Brain Theory – Part III

A condition or change in humanity?

 

By Walter Oden

Introduction:

In Part I and Part II of this series, we explored a hypothesis.  The premise was that ALL human beings fall on a BRAIN DOMINANCE SPECTRUM.  If you have been diagnosed ADD/ADHD or ASD, you might also be on this spectrum as a more severe Right Brainer.

Society both hails and discriminates against Right Brainers.  This final piece in the series will explore another hypothesis.  We will attempt to answer the “why”.  The most recent data says that 1 in 60 children born today will be on the Autism Spectrum.  I would suspect the data is more extreme for ADD/ADHD.  So what is happening?  Is it a result of long term environmental poisons?  Or could something else be in play?

Evolution of Man

I must disclose that my step father was a Cultural Anthropologist.  This career got me some great baby pictures in Kenya.  I spent one full year in Kenya.  I never met Simba the Lion.  Yet, being a toddler in Kenya changes you.  Evolution of man as a topic was bred into me.

I watched my dad make the argument for the evolution of man many times.  He was always struggling trying to get people to “perceive” long period changes in human beings.

The earth is estimated to be 4.5 Billion Years Old.  The earliest known fossils of modern man are from about 200,000 years ago.  Yet, Homo sapiens have decedents that may have stood up nearly 1,000,000 years ago.

Why do we care?

I would claim that modern man went through multiple evolutions since we became Homo Sapiens.  I am referring to evolution of our brain.  Early man needed a brain that was predator aware.  This same brain was focused on ONLY holistic things like FOOD, SHELTER and SURVIVAL.  Later man formed society.  This led to the creation of towns and cities.  This allowed man to start to focus on the details because his “holistic needs” were met.  Our brain evolved from holistic to detail oriented.  We started as RIGHT BRAINERS.  We evolved into LEFT BRAINERS.

2001 – A Space Odyssey

Arthur C Clarke changed the world with his books.  His books predicted a lot of world technology.  His most famous book was 2001 – A Space Odyssey.  Watching it today is a little difficult because we are all “special effect snobs”.

The thing that comes to mind is his metaphors for evolution.  Early in the movie, the apes were gathered and a Monolith appeared.  We later learn what it meant.  The Monolith was a marker for a change in evolution.

The Dawn of Man

The famous scene where the apes were fighting and one ape was able to use a bone as a weapon was a “tipping point”.

Famous Ape Fight Scene

Use of tools is always considered as a marker for man’s evolution from other animals.  Then, all at once he threw the bone up into the air in a celebratory rage.  As it rotated, it turned into a spaceship in a blink of an eye.  What was that scene trying to tell us?

Perception of Time

How we perceive time is relative to the observers of time.  We perceive time in batches of about 100 years.  That is because we tend to live no more than 100 years.  Our ability to perceive time periods longer than that is difficult.  In other words, we can read about events that occurred 1,000 years ago.  On the other hand, we can’t perceive that time period.

This perception of time is a paradox.  It is even more pronounced when talking about 1,000,000 years.  We know how to count to 1,000,000, but we still don’t get what 1,000,000 years ago really means.  That is what Arthur C. Clarke was saying.  One second we were apes banging on bones.  The next second, we are traversing space.

My Hypothesis

Is it possible that we are witnessing a change in the evolution of mankind?  What would that look like to us in the present day?  My contention is that a moment in time wouldn’t be observable except for one factor; the error rate.

I am fascinated with Linear Regression Models.  Those are the graphs where you plot a lot of data points.  Then, you draw a line to closely match all the data.

Imagine a linear regression graph with data points representing tendencies/traits of the human brain over time.  Then, add the line that most closely represents the scattering of all the data points.

Immediately, we would notice what we always notice on these types of graphs.  There are some data points that are WAY OFF the line.  In addition, at some point the data would have to start filling in points that ARE NOT WHERE THEY ARE PRESENTLY.  That means that some of the early data moving the linear regression would appear DIFFERENT from what is the current NORM.

What if humankind was going through a reemergence of RIGHT BRAIN dominance for its next role in the universe?  What if ASD’s and severe ADD’s were simply early data points on a longer period linear regression?

A possible explanation

One of my tennis students is named Justin Prindle.  He is a brilliant 8th grader that attends Solon Middle School.  Solon is a wonderful suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.  He and I have quite a few deep conversations.  He is a young theoretical physicist.  I am actually not kidding.  He has the sophistication of a college student majoring in Physics.  Justin is also a very talented tennis player.

I run a bus trip each year to the Western & Southern Financial Open in Mason, Ohio.  The trip from Cleveland is about 4.5 hours.  There is plenty of time to solve many of the world’s problems in the 9 hour round trip.  On the ride home I shared with Justin my theory connecting ASD’s and ADD’s to the Extreme Right Brain Spectrum.

His response to me was nothing short of miraculous.  He very simply put that if we wanted to start to solve BIGGER UNIVERSAL problems, we would need to stop worrying about each other.  In other words, our obsession with socializing and worrying about what other people think stalls our ability to create novel and new ideas.  He then went on to say that a typical person with ASD has a trait that is commonly described as anti-social.  If we all became anti-social, could we spend more time “thinking” and “solving” scientific unknowns?

By the way, Justin’s dream is to OWN a particle accelerator.  I also like to call him Sheldon.

Conclusion:

In my three part series, I have posed some theories.  They can be summarized as follows:

1) Traits common to Right Brain tendencies may intersect with traits common to ADD/ADHD and ASD individuals.

2) All human beings are on a brain hemisphere spectrum.  Some of those on the severe end of the spectrums may be diagnosed with “conditions” and or “disabilities”.

3) If there was an evolution in the human brain, we might only recognize the “error rate” or “new data” points.   That means that long period evolution can not be seen by the population that is evolving without a “monolith”.

4) As a species, we may need to have our entire population engage more right brain tendencies.  The human race has some gigantic planet scale problems.  These include hunger, disease, energy and climate.  We may need millions of right brain minds to creatively solve these problems.

5) Can we help those with extreme brain spectrum disorders today?  Perhaps with enough feedback from my readers, I will post a PART IV to this series and pose some ideas.

Thank you as always for your time!

Copyright Walter Oden & “I Have an Idea”

Original Copyright – September 2004

Publically presented on multiple occasions (Videotape record available)

Article prepared for “I Have an Idea” – April 17, 2014

Global Copyright Information on Sidebar

Noah, the Ark & the Science of the Bible

How current science could change our view of stories in the Bible

By Walter Oden

Introduction

 “Noah” is a current blockbuster in a theater near you.  Russell Crowe plays the biblical legend, while Hollywood provides the special effects.  Thanks to this epic, we can finally visualize what that flood looked like!

There have been some rumblings from religious conservatives that the movie has not done the story of Noah justice.  These rumblings include not giving enough credence to God’s role in the story.   Should we care?

How true is the myth of Noah’s Ark?  I remember watching a movie in the 1980’s called “In Search for Noah’s Ark”. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076182/

This movie was awesome.  I wanted them to find the Ark so badly!  Yet, the question remains.  How true is that story of Noah’s Ark?  In fact, how true are the stories of the Bible in general?

Extinction Events

There tends to be agreement with the premise of a comet or asteroid destroying the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago.  They think they found the crater off the Yucatan Peninsula.  On the other hand, we have not been able to confirm a single significant event in recent history.  Everything is a theory.  One such theory includes what we call Caldera Volcanoes.  Yellowstone Park is one such “Super Volcano”.  They believe it has erupted in the past.  Scientists think one of these events would cause extinctions.  Yet, we can’t pinpoint an exact time of this kind of event.

The Premise

Dr. Mishio Kaku, Professor at City College of New York (CCNY), hosted a great show on WNIR (Radio Station in Akron, Ohio) called Science Fantastic.  In the spring of 2009, he presented some recent findings about the history of the Earth.

70,000 years ago evidence suggests that a drought changed the course of human history.  Geneticists are able to determine that there is a severe “bottleneck” in the population of human beings.  We can tell that because DNA has a regular schedule of mutation.  Dr. Kaku pointed out that chimpanzees tend to show large DNA differences between them.  Scientists believe these differences exist because they have had millions of years to mutate.  Our expectations would suggest that humans should show a similar mutation schedule.  Yet, this is not what the data is showing. 

There is an indication that the human race may have shrunk to only 2,000 people at 70,000 years ago.  That means we reached near extinction.  After this global event, our 2,000 ancestors spread out between two main regions:  Europe and Asia.  These 2,000 people populated the earth.

What does this mean to our origins?  Can we derive a new theory that merges traditional theories of evolution and the religious tradition of creationism?  Could we finally merge biblical stories in Genesis with science?

The Stories of the Bible

I have always theorized that the bible had a lot of truth if you could decipher the metaphors.  You have to consider sophistication level of the humans at that time.  Their perception of the world is based on that sophistication level.  Therefore, the way they would record “fantastic” events would be different than today.

Many biblical scholars claim that the bible is one of the most preserved texts in human history.  This means that its words are fairly consistent with their original versions.  Even through translations, scholars agree that the bible may look today the way it looked 2,000 years ago.  If that is the case, the words need to be read within the light of man 2,000 years ago.  Most history was handed down from story tellers generation to generation.

Story Telling & Metaphors

Remember the movie “Beyond Thunderdome?”  Mad Max returned to the movies.  This story started with a small group of children living in an isolated rocky paradise.  They had no connection with the outside world.  During the evenings, they would have “story time”.  The elder of the clan would tell the stories that were told to him.  Their existence took on a mythical and magical existence.  After three generations, the stories became supernatural.  Then, Mel Gibson showed up.  He was able to decipher their stories as describing a jet liner crashing in the desert. 

The Story Game (Chinese Whispers or Telephone)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers

When we were kids, we all played the story game.  This was the camp game where kids sit in a circle and whisper something to the kid next to them.  Then that child whispers the same message to the kid next to them.  This continues until the message works its way   around the circle.  The fun begins when the last child announces the message out loud.  By the time the message gets to the last kid, the message has usually changed.  What does this tell us?  Could stories have a mutation rate?  If that is true, there is information lost and gained throughout time.  So, details in the Bible could have mutated too.  This is in spite of what scholars say about its consistency.

The Legend of Paul Revere

http://www.historynet.com/paul-reveres-true-account-of-the-midnight-ride.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/01/arts/television/01wuhl.html?_r=0

There was a brilliant show hosted by Robert Wuhl on cable some time ago.  He was the comedian that played Arliss.  It was called “Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl”.  He would go on to college campuses and talk history with students.  He used comedy to make it very interesting.  In one episode, he talked about was the legend of Paul Revere.  By the end of his story, you learn that Paul Revere’s famous ride was “concocted” as propaganda for the revolution.  Paul Revere may have only done a 2 mile ride.  The real Paul Revere may have been an unknown postal worker named Israel Bissell.  Why do we care?  We care because real history is only as good as the people recording it.  This story was only 200 years ago.  Now try to get in the heads of authors from 2,000 years ago.

Perception of Reality

Is perception 90% of reality?  If you are a creationist that believes in the literal translation of the bible, you might be partially correct.  The story of Noah’s Ark could be true for the people living it!  A natural disaster could seem like it engulfed the “whole world” if there were very few people in the world.  Let’s not forget that there were NO forms of communication other than those that were transported by people.  So, surviving a gigantic flood caused by some natural disaster might be perceived as a punishment from God.

Possible Conclusions

The first conclusion has to include a summary of how stories get changed throughout history.  This list may include:

1) The sophistication of the story teller (explanations of natural disasters)

2) The perception of reality of the story teller (their awareness of the world)

3) The motivations of the story teller (did they need the story to sell a certain message)

4) The built in “error rate” of story telling over time (like the story game)

Yet, as more data comes in about the genetic history of man, we may be able to merge some theories.  What if the science that Dr. Kaku talked about is true?  If the world population of human beings went to only 2,000 people, we might think we were “sole survivors”.  Now, add a flood to a localized settlement and you have the story of Noah’s Ark.  I have not concluded one way or another about the biblical history.  On the other hand, I must consider ALL data in making conclusions.  As for Noah and his Ark, we may never know.  On the other hand, we have a great movie to go see!

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