{"id":25177,"date":"2014-10-24T07:37:02","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T11:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=25177"},"modified":"2014-10-23T18:47:34","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T22:47:34","slug":"left-behind-classic-fridays-no-5-weird-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/10\/24\/left-behind-classic-fridays-no-5-weird-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Left Behind Classic Fridays, No. 5: ‘Weird Science’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This was originally published Oct. 22, 2003. (Even then, the Dukakis joke was a bit dated, I think.)<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Left Behind,<\/i>\u00a0pp. 6-8<\/b><\/p>\n

Buck Williams is, as mentioned, the Greatest Investigative Reporter of All Time:<\/p>\n

At thirty, Cameron Williams was the youngest ever senior writer for the prestigious\u00a0Global Weekly.<\/em>\u00a0The envy of the rest of the veteran staff, he either scooped them on or was assigned to the best stories in the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cGlobal Weekly\u201d<\/i>\u00a0is, apparently, like\u00a0TIME<\/i>\u00a0or\u00a0Newsweek<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 except with a reputation for top-notch journalism. As the GIRAT, Williams is assigned to write\u00a0GW\u2019s<\/i>\u00a0story on the \u201cNewsmaker of the Year,\u201d an Israeli botanist and chemical engineer named Chaim Rosenzweig. (Oddly, he\u2019s played in the movie by Colin Fox. Reading the book, I always picture\u00a0Fyvush Finkel<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Rosenzweig has already been honored with the Nobel Prize in chemistry, and as\u00a0TIME\u2019s<\/i>\u00a0\u201cMan of the Year\u201d for discovering\/inventing:<\/p>\n

\u2026 a synthetic fertilizer that caused the desert sands of Israel to bloom like a greenhouse. \u2026<\/p>\n

Rosenzweig\u2019s formula was fast making Israel the richest nation on earth, far more profitable than its oil-laden neighbors. Every inch of ground blossomed with flowers and grains, including produce never before conceivable in Israel. The Holy Land became an export capital, the envy of the world, with virtually zero unemployment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, prosperity and full employment through\u00a0agriculture.<\/i>\u00a0Thus fulfilling the biblical prophecy \u201cYea, and in that day I the Lord shall make the land like unto Iowa, and the heathen shall tremble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel is about the size of New Jersey \u2014 you know, the\u00a0Garden<\/i>\u00a0State \u2014 so let\u2019s just consider this in terms of acreage.<\/p>\n

Right now, only about 17 percent of Israel is arable land \u2014 about 854,000 acres. But, with Rosenzweig\u2019s miracle formula, it\u00a0all<\/i>\u00a0becomes arable. So make that 5,024,000 acres. Plus, in the world of\u00a0Left Behind,<\/i>\u00a0the occupied West Bank has been absorbed into L&J\u2019s Greater Israel (don\u2019t ask how \u2014 they don\u2019t really explain this). That adds another, roughly, 1,500,000 acres. (Only a negligible amount of which was arable before Rosenzweig.)<\/p>\n

\"Weird\"<\/a>So, okay, we\u2019re looking at 6,524,000 acres of fertile farmland. Not just fertile, mind you, but super-duper fertile. Let\u2019s guess (L&J don\u2019t say) that it\u2019s sooo very fertile that the industrious Israeli farmers (can you call farmers \u201cindustrious?\u201d) are able to plant 4 crops a year on every acre of this land \u2014 a miraculous harvest every season. That would further leverage Israel\u2019s agricultural might to the equivalent of\u00a026,096,000 acres!<\/i><\/p>\n

Or, to put it another way, their agricultural output would be slightly less than the current output of China\u2019s peasant farmers. (Source for all the above is the invaluable\u00a0CIA World Factbook<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

And, anyway, this idea that exotic new produce is the path to economic development \u2014 wasn\u2019t that part of the Dukakis campaign? Something about\u00a0Belgian endive?<\/em><\/p>\n

A more convincing plot development would have had Israel finding envy-of-the-world prosperity through, say, cold fusion in a jar, or through some miracle mineral discovered in the poisonous depths of the Dead Sea. But L&J were constrained to have the miracle be agricultural prosperity because they see this as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. (It\u2019s hard to say\u00a0which<\/i>\u00a0prophecy, specifically \u2014 the whole desert-blooming, flowing with milk and honey motif is really a pretty boilerplate blessing throughout scripture.)<\/p>\n

What\u2019s really interesting here, though, is the science. There isn\u2019t any. The writers of\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>\u00a0recognize that a sci-fi explanation doesn\u2019t necessarily have to be detailed and highly plausible, but you\u2019ve got to give us\u00a0something.<\/i>\u00a0Let Geordi LaForge mumble some gobbledygook about \u201ctachyon pulses\u201d and I\u2019m in \u2014 disbelief willingly, happily suspended. But L&J feel no compunction to provide even the slightest scientific pretense.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to tell from their description whether Rosenzweig\u2019s potion works by science, or by magic. It sounds like magic. They are, after all, growing crops not from soil, but from\u00a0sand<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 producing organic material out of inorganic rock. (What\u2019s next? Fishing in the Dead Sea?)<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s telling is that LaHaye and Jenkins can\u2019t seem to make a distinction between science and magic. When you\u2019re afraid to engage anything that might challenge your belief that the earth is only 10,000 years old, you don\u2019t end up reading a lot of science. This keeps you clueless enough about biology to think it\u2019s perfectly plausible that a few drops of Dr. Rosenzweig\u2019s Miracle Gro can turn sand into soil. And clueless enough about economics to think that agriculture would be more lucrative than Israel\u2019s existing high-tech industrial economy.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“What’s telling is that LaHaye and Jenkins can’t seem to make a distinction between science and magic. When you’re afraid to engage anything that might challenge your belief that the earth is only 10,000 years old, you don’t end up reading a lot of science. This keeps you clueless enough about biology to think it’s perfectly plausible that a few drops of Dr. Rosenzweig’s Miracle Gro can turn sand into soil. And clueless enough about economics to think that agriculture would be more lucrative than Israel’s existing high-tech industrial economy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[238],"class_list":["post-25177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-left-behind"],"yoast_head":"\nLeft Behind Classic Fridays, No. 5: 'Weird Science'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""What's telling is that LaHaye and Jenkins can't seem to make a distinction between science and magic. When you're afraid to engage anything that might challenge your belief that the earth is only 10,000 years old, you don't end up reading a lot of science. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Left Behind Classic Fridays, No. 5: 'Weird Science'","description":"\"What's telling is that LaHaye and Jenkins can't seem to make a distinction between science and magic. When you're afraid to engage anything that might challenge your belief that the earth is only 10,000 years old, you don't end up reading a lot of science. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}