Post by auntym on Dec 26, 2013 10:37:44 GMT -6
www.unknowncountry.com/news/christmas-special-virgin-birth-scientifically-possible
Christmas Special: Is a Virgin Birth Scientifically Possible?
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
As around 45% of the world prepares to celebrate Christmas and the birth of Jesus Christ, there are those who will question the truth behind the world's most famous legend.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was allegedly born to the virgin Mary, though she had never had a relationship with a man. There have been many other virgin births reported both in the Bible and in other religious traditions. Although there is no scripture to support it, Catholic tradition holds that Mary was herself conceived after an angel visited her parents, St. Anne and St. Joachim. Whether the angel caused the pregnancy or enabled St. Anne to conceive normally despite her age it is not made clear in the legend. Legend also has it that St. John the Baptist was conceived in the same way that Mary was.
Miraculous births were a commonplace of pre-Christian mythology. Heroes created by contact between a god and a mortal include Ion by Apollo and Creusa, Romulus by Mars and Aemila, Asclepius by Apollo and Coronis, and Helen by Zeus and Leda. Egyptian and Babylonian traditions also include such stories, and the Roman emperor Augustus was said to have been conceived by cohabitation between his mother Atia and a serpent that was actually the god Apollo.
Could there be any truth in these stories? It turns out that there is some scientific support for spontaneous conception.
The scientific term for reproduction requiring only one gender is "parthenogenesis", derived from the Greek παρθένος, parthenos, meaning "virgin" and γένεσις, genesis, meaning "birth". This type of procreation is a form of asexual reproduction which is common in the plant kingdom, but can also occur in many animal and insect species, including water fleas, some types of bees and scorpions, aphids, parasitic wasps and even in some larger creatures such as certain kinds of fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds. In fact, one species of reptile, the whiptail lizard, is entirely female.
In larger animals, parthenogenesis is regarded as the development of an embryo from an ovum, or egg cell, which has not been fertilized by a male mate; it is similar to Gynogenesis and pseudogamy in which a sperm or pollen triggers the development of the egg cell into an embryo but makes no genetic contribution to the embryo, though different to the type of independent reproduction that can occur in hermaphrodites when both male and female genitalia and reproductive organs are present.
So, "virgin births" are both possible and prevalent in nature, but can such a phenomenon actually happen in human women?
The question has intrigued scientists for decades, with some convinced of the authenticity of the concept. In his book, Mysteries of Human Reproduction, Raymond Bernard described how, in 1933, Dr. Walter Timme presented a lecture entitled " Immaculate Conception - a Scientific Possibility" to the New York Academy of Medicine, in which he outlined evidence to prove that the concept was physiologically possible. He explained that the parovarium of the female reproductive organs could spontaneously produce living spermatozoa to fertilize the egg cell and create an embryo, making parthenogenesis possible.
CONTINUE READING: www.unknowncountry.com/news/christmas-special-virgin-birth-scientifically-possible#ixzz2obFOyDdL
Christmas Special: Is a Virgin Birth Scientifically Possible?
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
As around 45% of the world prepares to celebrate Christmas and the birth of Jesus Christ, there are those who will question the truth behind the world's most famous legend.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was allegedly born to the virgin Mary, though she had never had a relationship with a man. There have been many other virgin births reported both in the Bible and in other religious traditions. Although there is no scripture to support it, Catholic tradition holds that Mary was herself conceived after an angel visited her parents, St. Anne and St. Joachim. Whether the angel caused the pregnancy or enabled St. Anne to conceive normally despite her age it is not made clear in the legend. Legend also has it that St. John the Baptist was conceived in the same way that Mary was.
Miraculous births were a commonplace of pre-Christian mythology. Heroes created by contact between a god and a mortal include Ion by Apollo and Creusa, Romulus by Mars and Aemila, Asclepius by Apollo and Coronis, and Helen by Zeus and Leda. Egyptian and Babylonian traditions also include such stories, and the Roman emperor Augustus was said to have been conceived by cohabitation between his mother Atia and a serpent that was actually the god Apollo.
Could there be any truth in these stories? It turns out that there is some scientific support for spontaneous conception.
The scientific term for reproduction requiring only one gender is "parthenogenesis", derived from the Greek παρθένος, parthenos, meaning "virgin" and γένεσις, genesis, meaning "birth". This type of procreation is a form of asexual reproduction which is common in the plant kingdom, but can also occur in many animal and insect species, including water fleas, some types of bees and scorpions, aphids, parasitic wasps and even in some larger creatures such as certain kinds of fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds. In fact, one species of reptile, the whiptail lizard, is entirely female.
In larger animals, parthenogenesis is regarded as the development of an embryo from an ovum, or egg cell, which has not been fertilized by a male mate; it is similar to Gynogenesis and pseudogamy in which a sperm or pollen triggers the development of the egg cell into an embryo but makes no genetic contribution to the embryo, though different to the type of independent reproduction that can occur in hermaphrodites when both male and female genitalia and reproductive organs are present.
So, "virgin births" are both possible and prevalent in nature, but can such a phenomenon actually happen in human women?
The question has intrigued scientists for decades, with some convinced of the authenticity of the concept. In his book, Mysteries of Human Reproduction, Raymond Bernard described how, in 1933, Dr. Walter Timme presented a lecture entitled " Immaculate Conception - a Scientific Possibility" to the New York Academy of Medicine, in which he outlined evidence to prove that the concept was physiologically possible. He explained that the parovarium of the female reproductive organs could spontaneously produce living spermatozoa to fertilize the egg cell and create an embryo, making parthenogenesis possible.
CONTINUE READING: www.unknowncountry.com/news/christmas-special-virgin-birth-scientifically-possible#ixzz2obFOyDdL