Jurassic Pork

 Sorry, I just came across this research paper and I thought it was pretty awesome. I have a strong love for the weird people that you find in scientific communities, in part because one of the things to get a doctorate is to write up a thesis on something in their subject and defend it. Since they, at least most of the time, have to come up with a new idea and new study/experiment, it can lead to some very weird things as they attempt to study a new aspect of the world. One such example is the guy who spent a decade studying the physics of pouring honey. A lot of their research is interesting, a bunch of could be considered amusing, and some of it...some of it is just awesome. 

This particular paper is one of those where, even if you're not scientifically minded, you have to love it. 

Roy E. Plotnick, Jessica M. Theodor and Thomas R. Holtz Jr. created a detailed and well discussed paper titled "Jurassic Pork: What Could A Jewish Time Traveler Eat?"

This paper discusses the rules of Kosher and what kind of animals could be found in the past. Reading this is both a lesson on what animals count as Kosher, along with a discussion about what kinds of animals fit those rules. I kind of love that this paper comes from people actually asking if various types of extinct animals are kosher. It's all purely hypothetical, of course, but amusing nonetheless. 

Some things are easier than others to figure out from fossil records. Cud-chewing is hard, if not impossible, to figure out from bones, whereas the presence of scales and fins on fish can be found a bit more easily. 

The first rule discussed is that kosher mammals chew cud and have hooves. Paws are apparently unclean. Part of me is glad that my pup isn't kosher, but I'm not sure I like calling her unclean either, even if she hasn't had a bath in forever. For fish, they are required to have fins and scales, specifically scales that can be seen with the naked eye and removed without tearing the skin. Birds are listed specifically to one side or the other, but there are some guidelines for that. Strangely, bats are birds according to the Torah, and Ostriches are labelled as not ok. It's not in the Torah, but discussions among rabbis say that birds aren't kosher if they are predators, or if they are flightless, and they are kosher if they have a gizzard that can be peeled, a crop, and an extra toe. Both the crop and the peelable gizzard are pretty impossible to check through the fossils, but they do their best. 

The authors then discussed past creatures and how the differing applications of the Kosher rules might apply to the creatures paleontologists find. The point of the paper, as they say in the end, is that they want to shift the discussion from being that science and religion don't work because evolution v creationism have problems, to how they can make the other more interesting to people. 

I'll leave the rest for you to read in the report if you're interested, or to ignore if you're not. 

I think it's a pretty awesome and I hope you have fun with it. Let me know what you think.