The Trap of Some ‘Logic’
I keep finding this account from some websites. It is a good one used mainly to counter Evolutionists. I believe the application could be broaden up considerably. Here goes:
An experiment was conducted in which six bees and six flies were placed inside a bottle. The bottle was turned on its side with its base facing the light coming through the window. At the other end, the mouth of the bottle was open. In that situation it was discovered that bees will persist in trying to find their way to freedom through the base-until they die of hunger or exhaustion. It seems that the bees’ attraction to light is their undoing in this experiment. The light shining through the base seems to convince them that there is no other way out. And so they press up against the bottom of the bottle closing themselves off from all other possibilities. Consequently, they cannot discover the opening at the other end of the bottle. The feather brained flies, on the other hand, all get out of the bottle within two minutes. Seemingly unconcerned, they just keep buzzing all around inside until they venture out to freedom through the neck and out the opening. Thus, the bees remain prisoners of their own logic while the flies meet the good fortune that often awaits the simple.
As in all illustrations, it is usually there to make “a” point. It is folly to try to stretch the illustration more than what it is capable of giving. Consider the one just quoted, it basically warns the readers that we can be so transfixed on something, to the extent where we lose the context of the situation (thereby drawing a wrong conclusion).
We have to be very careful that we do not hem ourselves by our own ‘boxes’. I used to conduct a module/class entitled “Business Creativity and Innovation” while I was still lecturing full time in a local private university. In one of the sessions, I would employ the ‘think out of the box’ test on my students. It basically begins by putting on the board, 9 well & even spaced dots. The challenge given to the student is to ‘cover all 9 dots using 4 lines without lifting the pen off the paper’. The conclusion: Nearly every student would find this an impossibility because they perceive that the lines drawn must be bounded by the outline of the box which the dots form. That is the problem for us; we build box outlines in our minds that prevents us from breaking out of it, when the answer requires no such limitations.
Same lesson here. Be thinking. Be humble. In all things, perceive the world from the Creator’s point of view and may God be merciful to us all.
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