Reese thought for a moment, then said, “Well, eliminating all of the other numbers and going up the number line to the next number that had only 0’s or 1’s, it would be 10.”
“Exactly. Then 3 would be 11. And 4 would be…?”
“100.”
“Right. And so on. It gets quite cumbersome for a computer, but it’s the only way that they can think. Beyond binary, there can be a number set for any grouping. So, a base 3 number set would only have 0, 1, and 2, et cetera.”
“All right. I’m with you. So why do we use a base 10 number set?”
Penfield smiled at him. “You know, I’m a physicist and mathematician. I’ve been crunching numbers in more ways than I would have thought possible, and I’ve never asked myself that question. I guess we use that set because we just do. Ten fingers, ten toes, you know. I mean, there are a lot of good reasons. Working in multiples of ten provides us with the ability to extend and extrapolate out to phenomenal numbers fairly effortlessly. It’s intuitive. Our metric system works the same way.” He paused again, thinking. “You know, that all sounds like a load of crap as I’m saying it.”
Reese said, “Whatever base set we were raised with would probably be as natural to use.”
“Yes, it probably would.” Turning back to Elohim, Penfield commented, “I guess I’m missing the point. There isn’t a single value that can’t be shown in any base set.”
Elohim smiled as if he were talking to a child, and said, “Is that true, Walt?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
“Very well.” As Elohim spoke, he picked up a pen and wrote on a notepad:
base 17 number set - 0.1
Handing the pen to Penfield, he asked, “Could you please write the base 10 number set equivalent of that number, and please, not an approximate number.”
Not bothering to take the pen from Elohim, Penfield muttered, “Shit!”
“What’s wrong?” Reese asked.
“When you are dealing with integers, whole numbers, there is an equivalent number in any base number set, as I explained a minute ago. When you step over to the right side of the decimal point, it becomes a different ball game. What is the value of 0.1?”
“One-tenth,” Reese answered, already understanding. “But 0.1 in base 17 number set is….”
“Right. It’s one 1/17. The base 10 equivalent would be 0.058823529411765… extending to infinity.”
“So there is no way to convert that value to our number set without approximation.”
“No, but it can obviously be represented by a formula, 1/17. And that would be an exact number, not an approximate value.”
Elohim said, “You can only provide the formula because you already know what it is. If you were starting with the infinite number that you described, could you, with certainty, provide the formula?”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“You mentioned pi earlier. Mathematicians have struggled for centuries to extend that number out to greater and greater extremes. Has it ever occurred to you that in a different base number set, both alpha and pi would be simple numbers?”
Realization dawned on Penfield’s face. “That’s a clue, isn’t it. Find the base number set that those two values fit within comfortably, and I’ll find the value for each?”
Elohim nodded, then added, “Unless you would like me to just give you the answer?”
Penfield agonized for only a moment before saying, “No. This is much better.”
Turning to Reese, Elohim said, “Remember in our previous talks, I mentioned that, as scientists have gotten closer to answers, additional layers of complexity have been added?”
“Yes, I recall that.”
“Well, you can see why it’s needed. Walt isn’t nearly as interested in the answer as he is in the process.”
Penfield broke in, “Could you two not talk about me as if I weren’t here. Elohim, you’re saying that layers have been added…essentially right in front of us?”
“Yes, whether it has been at the micro or macro levels. Mankind needs stimulation.”
“You make it sound as though we’re children in preschool. If we don’t have a steady stream of blocks or finger painting, we’ll get cranky?”
“Basically.”
“And the other reason for that is to distract us or sidetrack us?”
Elohim laughed. “The Divinity as a conspiracy theory? I have never needed to distract or sidetrack. I have never needed to conceal or disguise. The ego of scientists has taken care of that for me. The answers have always been available. Whenever any scientist in the past – be that scientist a biologist or physicist, cosmologist or mathematician – has gotten too close to uncovering the truth, he or she has backed away from that avenue, discounting that line of research as a waste of time and resources.”
“You seem to have a real problem with scientists.”
“Scientists seem to have a real problem with me.”
“Science has a problem with the mentality of the religious.”
“In what way?”
“By chalking off everything in nature as being created by God. If that’s the answer, then what’s the point of exploring, examining, and researching?”
“Walt, before I respond to that, let us both agree to dispense with the fanatics at both ends of the spectrum. There are ministers who believe that evolution should not be taught in schools, and there are scientists who believe that anyone with a belief in me has a mental defect.”
“Fair enough.”
“Science has a tendency to confuse the understanding of a mechanism with the explanation of how it came to be. Saying that as genes recombine, mutations occur, and the result of those mutations will be further mutations until you have man…so this proves that there is no Creator…is akin to saying that Luther Burbank never existed. Do you believe that the Burbank plum, the russet Burbank potato, or the nectarine would have ever come into existence as a result of random natural selection?”
Penfield responded, “To use the uniqueness of man as a sole justification for intelligent design is flawed. Of course, starting at the beginning, when we are contemplating the first bit of life, the odds are astronomical of Reese Johnson eventually coming into existence. But that argument is like the water in a pond marveling at the incredible coincidence it is that the shape of the pond bottom fits it so well.”
“Walt, that is not the point. The uniqueness or complexity of mankind is not the sole justification for the belief in a Creator. The point is this: science has a propensity for extrapolating the minute up to the magnificent. You can send up a satellite that measures the temperature of the upper atmosphere for the first time in history, and after ten or twenty years of measurements believe that you can predict weather trends which span thousands of years. From the time Galileo first peered at the planets through a telescope until today has only been hundreds of years, yet your cosmologists state with undeserved certainty that they understand processes that take billions of years.
“Scientists have long maintained that the rigors of your discipline require verifiable facts and replicable experiments. How can science, if it is to be faithful to these stated standards, take the position that life can spring into existence on this planet unaided and that the number of years which have passed since the first life appeared have been sufficient to allow for the number of genetic mutations to create your current living matrix? Where are your verifiable facts? Where are the replications of the experiments that led you to this conclusion? That position cannot seriously be taken until you have had the opportunity to test it on another planet.”
“Please, wait,” protested Penfield, holding up his hands. “I’m a physicist and mathematician, not an evolutionary biologist.”
“That’s your excuse. If you see a fellow scientist breaking the rules, not following the protocols, you keep silent unless it is in your field? Science is science. Too many have watched this abomination and been silent.”
“The fossil record presents
a strong argument for the progression of life.”
“The fossil record presents a history of the stages of life. It no more proves the validity of evolution as the sole engine behind the design than finding a trash heap of old computers, including the XT, AT, 386, 486, and Pentium, and claiming it as proof that computers evolved on their own.”
“Are you saying that you tinkered, experimented, and had failures along the way?”
“As I described to Reese in earlier discussions, there was a foundation of life that I created on this planet and that I allowed to develop on its own for millions of years. The epoch of the dinosaur, which lasted far longer than mankind has walked the Earth, serves a purpose today, as do the periods before the dinosaur, and those after. However, when each phase had fulfilled its need, it was removed, clearing the way for the next stage, until the planet was a suitable habitat for mankind. When it was time, I created man and woman. I do not know the future with certainty, as I have explained, so there was a time when I intervened and created a sufficient genetic diversity to ensure that man would not be wiped out by a new virus.”
“The races?”
“Yes.”
“I would very much prefer to discuss the mechanics of the universe rather than this, but I do have one question. If you created man, why are there chimps – which are so similar to us genetically?”
“There are, at a minimum, two answers to that question. Your friends in the field of genetics, because they have sequenced the genome, now claim to have an understanding of how that particular system works. Sadly, their true understanding barely rises to the level of perceptible. The genetic sequence is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. That, of course, doesn’t prevent them from declaring that they understand it. Each individual gene is capable of a multitude of expressions. To better explain – I’ll direct this explanation toward your field – there are approximately three billion chemical base pairs in the human genome. The percentage of those that humans share with the chimp is approximately ninety-eight percent, correct?”
“I believe so.”
“How much is two percent of three billion?”
“Sixty million.”
“And, assuming that the only differences we need to be concerned with are sequence variations, if each base pair has the capacity for, let’s say, one thousand different protein expressions…?”
“The variation level between us and the chimps would be sixty billion expressions.”
“Wouldn’t there exist a genetic basis for breathing, digestion, production of hair follicles, eyesight, hearing, the nerve structure required for the sensation of touch, as well as the processing of those impulses? In fact, there is a vast, genetic commonality between man and animals that substantially differ from you. This is a result of the necessary genetic blueprint for these and a multitude of other common functions required for living on this planet. Add to that the shared physical traits between man and chimp, and isn’t it common sense that two different species that share as many physical characteristics would share a large percentage of the blueprint?”
“Sure.”
“Now, to proceed with the second answer to your question, the reason there are chimps is due to evolution.”
Reese joined in, “Now you’ve lost me.”
“Evolution doesn’t care which direction it goes. There is no ‘up’ or ‘down,’ no ‘progress’; all that matters is change. The changes occur randomly. If the changes are too extreme, the animal is never born. If the changes are milder, there is a chance for survival. If the changes bestow a benefit, a new branch of the tree is created. The mistake made by Charles Darwin was that he got it backward. Man did not descend from the ape; the ape descended from man.”
“There was a devolution?” asked Walt.
“Again, there is no devolution. That is a man-made, egocentric concept. A transition from man to ape is as much evolution as the reverse would be. Biologists have often pointed out how ‘expensive’ many of your traits are, from the point of view of survival. When I first created man and completed the changes which resulted in the creation of races, I returned to a ‘hands-off’ mode, allowing the natural forces to take their course. The product of my creation was scattered over several areas, some rich in resources and comfortable in climate, some not. The groups who faced a struggle for survival continued to progress by developing greater intelligence and many of the other attributes which are considered today to be uniquely human. The groups who lived in a comfortable climate and had plentiful food disposed of the ‘expensive’ aspects of ‘humanness,’ shortening the period that the offspring was dependent on the mother, reducing cranium and brain size since they weren’t required for survival, and made many other smaller adjustments. This discarding of unneeded traits continued until the animals that you call the ape and the chimpanzee came to be. If you pause to think about this, you’ll realize that these beasts still can thrive only in areas that continue to be resource rich and climatically comfortable. They, evolutionarily, chose a path of least resistance and are now so dependent upon these environments that as mankind encroaches, their survival as a species is endangered. Remember, there are no chimpanzees or apes in the fossil record that predate man – yet another fact scientists ignore.
“I gave the group that eventually became the ape a sophisticated brain which it chose to discard, remaining within comfort zones. Mankind, on the other hand, adapted to live anywhere on Earth and, because of the human brain, can survive in the desert or the arctic. To return to your point about the similarity of the DNA…frequently, as traits are lost as a result of evolution, the genes for those traits remain present in the genome and are simply switched off. That is why they are so genetically close to man.”
“Wait,” Reese said excitedly. “This all sounds a little bit like the story of Adam and Eve.”
Elohim grinned. “Like organisms, the story of history also evolves. The original story has mutated to its current form. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and were banished from Eden, the land of plentiful resources and comfortable climate. Adapting as they moved away from Eden, they became more and more differentiated from the animals…became more and more human.”
Penfield, silent during this explanation, now asked, “This is all fascinating. You’ve created our planet, created the original life, created us, and you’re here today…how old are you?”
Chapter Fifteen
William Stavros’ eyes swept the faces of the people gathered around his conference table. It was early morning, still dark outside, and it showed in their dull eyes and blank faces as they sipped their coffee, hoping to wake up. Stavros was irritated at them for their weakness. This was his core team of activists, the cream of his crop, and they all looked like so many pins waiting to be knocked down at the end of a bowling alley lane.
His voice, louder than was needed to be heard, boomed out, “So what are we dealing with?”
No one answered, each hoping that someone else would take the lead. Impatient, he directed his question, “Gentry, what do we have?”
Shelby Gentry, startled, nearly spilled her coffee. “Well, sir,” she began, clearing her throat, “they’re playing it pretty cagily. The President is sticking to this ‘arm’s length’ position on Elohim.”
“Has he met with this Elohim yet?”
“Not that we know of…of course, it’s possible.”
“Has he met with anyone from the Catholic Church?”
“No. As you know, he isn’t Catholic, so I don’t think that’s the connection.”
“Has anyone figured out what’s going on with Bill Burke?”
Willy “Wonka” Montgomery, Stavros’ Washington, D.C. team leader, answered, “He went home. I mean, that’s it. We’ve been keeping an eye on him, as best we can, and he’s at home with his wife. Other than taking walks together, they have stayed inside their house. It’s almost like he believes this Judgment Day stuff and is trying to spend as much time as he can with her.”
&
nbsp; Stavros snorted. “Or that’s just part of the plan, to make it look like that!”
Shelby spoke up, “Chief, do you really think the administration would give up one of their top guys during something like this just to create an illusion?”
“I wouldn’t put anything past that sonofabitch!” Turning back to Montgomery, he asked, “Is that cardinal still in town?”
“Yes, sir. He’s taken up residence at the local diocese.”
The Harvest Page 22