Man 1.1: Woman
2014-10-05
A not-very-serious thought on the implications of Creationism for sexism.
In the Bible creation story (Part II), God creates Adam (the first man) first, then waits a bit, and then creates Eve (the first woman). This, unfortunately, has been used to argue that men are innately superior to women, which is a bad thing. It has also been used to argue for a lot of other things, although you hear about those less. What I am interested in here is the idea that being made second automatically makes you lesser.
I think I can see the initial reasoning here: Eve was made later, and was thus an afterthought instead of part of the original plan. Now, science tells us that all men carry around the complete DNA needed to specify both men and women (women only have the DNA for more women), and so God would have had to be anticipating Eve when He was working on Adam. It's an important point, but not relevant to this thought.
Instead, I want to think about what the modern economy shows. We now live in a world where lots of things are repeatedly redesigned. Smartphones are a good example; I think Apple is up to iPhone 6 now. These things are based on an iterative design theory: They release a version, they see what happens, and they use that information to design the next version. The thing is, each successive version is not only different, but better than the version before (possible exception: Windows Vista). The second is an improvement over the first.
Now lets compare this to Adam and Eve. God first makes Adam and then waits until something goes wrong. In this case, Adam gets lonely. Then God makes Eve, who is slightly different. Then He stops making people. Based on the analogy to technological progress. Eve should basically be Adam with the bugs fixed. Admittedly God seems to have made a few other changes for synergy's sake, but you get the idea.
As an illustration, let's imagine God is out to promote His new redesigned human. I can image Him making a advertising poster that reads something like this (all claims scientifically verified):
Introducing
MAN 1.1: WOMAN
The new, compact man!
Women come with the new Womb module, allowing them to internally manufacture new men of both the Original Man and Woman types. These Children are guaranteed fully functional, with all capabilities of the standard, God-made men. Children are small and require constant care at birth, but should reach full size and ability in about 15 years. (Note: An Original Man is required for this ability).
Other notable changes from version 1.0:
- The Brain module has been re-engineered, giving increased emotional and social intelligence, language skills, and multitasking ability, at the expense of spacial reasoning and motor skills. Multitasking support has also been significantly improved, and the new Brain is predicted to be better able to benefit from high-technology societies.
- All genes now exist in duplicate, fixing the outstanding XY problem in Original Men and increasing life expectancy.
- Flexibility has been increased, at the expense of strength.
- Women have an increased physiological response to danger, beginning at a lower threshold, allowing them a longer opportunity to escape to safety. They also are more aware of damage to their extremities, increasing the chance they will heal successfully.
- Food requirements have been decreased by 15%. Alcohol absorption rate has been increased by 30%.
All this, in a body 8% shorter and 15% lighter.
Note: The effect of Woman on the forthcoming Man II project has not been finalized. Man II may keep the dual-form paradigm or move to a single form incorporating elements of both Original Man and Woman. Heaven remains committed to offering free upgrades for all Man 1.x models when the new version is complete. For details, see your local church.
Admittedly there a good reasons to think it never happened this way. The DNA thing is one. For another, the male form is still in use (and is conceived at a rate higher than the female one), and does not appear to be obviously inferior. For a third, I doubt God needs trial runs for his design work.
But it's still a fun idea.
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