Am I, or are you an Atheist or an Agnostic?

I have been interested in numbers since my student days (definitely not in my school days!) when reading “On Growth and Form” by D’Arcy Thompson. It had a profound effect on my numerical interests as, at school, I was so incompetent at anything mathematical; this inability followed me into my university years where I was forced to overcome the problem. This book helped me.

“Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson CB FRS^[1] FRSE (2 May 1860 – 21 June 1948) was a Scottish biologist, mathematician, and classics scholar. He was a pioneer of mathematical biology.^[2] He went on collecting expeditions to the Bering Straits and held the position of Professor of Natural History at St Andrews for 31 years.

Thompson is mainly remembered as the author of the distinctive 1917 book On Growth and Form, written largely in Dundee in 1915. Peter Medawar, the 1960 Nobel Laureate in Medicine, called it "the finest work of literature in all the annals of science that have been recorded in the English tongue".^[3] The book led the way for the scientific explanation of morphogenesis, the process by which patterns are formed in plants and animals. Thompson recognised, however, that the book was descriptive, and did not present experimental hypotheses.

Thompson's description of the mathematical beauty of nature stimulated thinkers such as Alan Turing and artists including Henry Moore and Jackson Pollock. The Zoology Museum in Dundee, named for Thompson, displays a collection of artworks inspired by his ideas. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society, was knighted, and received the Darwin Medal and the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal.” (Wikipedia, 2015).

In the 1^st chapter of Growth and Form (that I am currently rereading) he says, “Roger Bacon had shewn how easy it is, and how vain, to survey the operations of Nature and idly refer her wondrous works to chance or accident, or to the immediate interposition of God”.

I started to look for number patterns in nature as part of my biological studies and counted whorls on pine cones, pineapples and sunflowers. There seemed to be an indication of intelligent or at least consistent design here.

I became an enthusiastic member of the Creation Research Society (formerly the Evolution Protest Movement), I gave a lecture to 200 evolutionist teachers titled “Alternatives to Evolution”, (it was convincing enough to shift the thinking of the President who was the author of most standard school biology texts in those days) and later made out an accepted case in our Biology Department for giving the undergraduate lectures on evolution as I claimed to be the only member of staff who would present a balanced view of both sides of the coin. I continue to address and challenge both sides.

On graduation I worked in Israel for a while and was forced to confront the question of why a loving and compassionate God, would allow his own people to suffer for centuries and face the ‘final extermination’ in the holocaust as a judgement for what a few of their ancestors might have done 2,000 years previously. I remember coming out of the holocaust museum and bursting into tears. In theological thinking it made no sense at all. However, in an evolutionary pattern of thought it is understandable, although revolting. In an era when a massive explosion in the human population is causing societies to be competing heavily for the increasingly limited resources of space, food and water, survival of the fittest applies. Richard Dawkins explains in his book (The Greatest Show on Earth) that if humans wish to look forward to a time of peace and non violence, they will have to move towards a non-Darwinian Society. He also quotes, “’Well-educated’ reminds me of Peter Medawar’s wickedly astute observation that “the spread of secondary and latterly tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought”.(!)

I continued to ponder why the use of Fibonacci numbers in nature convinces me of an intelligent designer. If a sequence of numbers is constructed by the addition of earlier ones in the series – the outcome must form a pattern. As molecular structure is based upon digital numbers as we know them, molecules must influence biochemistry and this in turn can be reflected in nature. However, my interest moved towards those plants and animals that do not manifest Fibonacci numbers. Try counting whorls on cacti. Some conform: others do not!

Moreover, many number series are not patterned in nature. Prime numbers are an example.

“Future Abel prizewinners may also benefit from Tate's theories, as his doctoral thesis supplies the techniques needed to attack one of the hardest problems in mathematics: the origin of prime numbers.

Mathematicians have known for thousands of years that there are an infinite number of primes, but they don't have an obvious pattern – some are clumped together, while others sit isolated on the number line.” (Wikipedia, 2015).

“The primes are the atoms of the arithmetic. The hydrogen and oxygen of the world of numbers.

But despite their fundamental character they also represent one of the greatest enigmas in mathematics. Because as you count through the universe of numbers it is almost impossible to spot a pattern that will help you to predict where the next prime will be found.

We know primes go on for ever but finding a pattern in the primes is one of the biggest mysteries in mathematics. A million-dollar prize has been offered to anyone who can reveal the secret of these numbers.” (BBC.CO.UK.,2011).

(Actually I can think of one example of prime numbers in the world of biology: the life cycle of some cicadas is 17 years - as I recall from 1964!)

Another example, much studied, is Pi which we learned at school was 22/7. Now mathematicians, for reasons I do not understand, tell us that 22/7 is actually larger than Pi. Computers have calculated 22/7 for millions of decimal places and no pattern emerges - to the fascination of mathematicians. There are many mathematical biologists who see no ‘intelligence’ behind patterns in nature although others do.

Anyway, let me turn to the God of the Bible. In the following sections I will assume he does exist and I will try, briefly, to examine his philosophy and practice. The book of Genesis contains the account of the creation (I also rationalised this for the first 50 years of my life). So –

1. “God saw everything that he had made and, behold it was very good”

As an emergency humanitarian worker I found that this was far from the truth. I have just Googled “Recent earthquakes” and found the following:

Earthquake Facts and Statistics

The USGS estimates that several million earthquakes occur in the world each year. Many go undetected because they hit remote areas or have very small magnitudes. The NEIC now locates about 50 earthquakes each day, or about 20,000 a year.

Number of Earthquakes Worldwide for 2000 - 2012
Located by the US Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center
(M4.5+ for most of the world; doesn't include US regional network contributions)

Year	Estimated number of deaths
2000	231
2001	21,357
2002	1,685
2003	33,819
2004	228,802
2005	88,003
2006	6,605
2007	712
2008	88,011
2009	1,790
2010	320,120
2011	21,953
2012	768

Then I looked at the BBC news (13^th Jan) that reported as follows:

Floods kill scores in Malawi and Mozambique

Thousands displaced across east African neighbours as Malawi president declares nearly third of country disaster zone.

Heavy flooding has killed scores of people in the east African country of Malawi, where nearly a third of the country was declared to be in a state of disaster. Malawi's President Peter Mutharika said on Tuesday that at least 48 people were killed and 23,000 others displaced in flash floods that have wreaked havoc in 10 out of 23 districts in his country. Some of the victims died when villages were flooded in Malawi's southern Mangoche district, about 100 kilometres south of the commercial capital, Blantyre, according to Grey Mkwanda, a district planning officer. Livestock, crops and homes were swept away by floodwaters, with some homes completely submerged. "People have fled into schools and churches on the higher ground, others are in the open because there is not enough space," Mkwanda said. Others died in Blantyre when their homes collapsed, according to Mkwanda. "In some cases you cannot believe there was a house here," said Allan Ngumya, a member of parliament who represents the area. Police are also looking for two children who went missing in Blantyre, police spokesman Elizabeth Divala said. International aid appeal Mutharika has appealed to the international community for assistance for the impoverished country. "Government alone cannot afford to help so I appeal to the international community for urgent assistance," he said. Flooding began last month and heavy rain is expected to continue, especially in the north and central parts of the country, according to Elina Kululanga, Malawi's director of meteorological services and climate change. In neighbouring Mozambique, where some waters have risen to over double flood thresholds, a group of 25 school children was swept away by torrents on Monday, and 18 others have been reported missing. Flooding in the two east African neighbours has left much of Malawi's centre and western border region under water, and large eastern swathes of neighbouring Mozambique swamped. The region is likely to face at least two more days of torrential rain carried by late summer storms, according to meteorologists. Look at the number of deaths in the table above. Then repeat this simple Google search exercise for other events, called by Insurance Companies, “Acts of God”: landslides, volcanoes, lightening strikes (100/second!), avalanches, droughts, forest fires, tsunamis and any other non-human emergencies (infectious diseases) you can think of. Then add to these horrific figures the number of wounded people as well as the destruction of homes and property. Following these events are periods of trauma, starvation, water shortage and disease. In addition, you might conclude that God hates poor people because these are always the ones who suffer most in such situations. The rich in their cement buildings are hardly affected.

2. Infectious Disease and Parasites.

What sick mind would consciously create HIV/AIDS viruses that have affected 40 million people? What sick mind would create the Ebola virus, Swine flu’? And the Black Death that wiped out 200 million people? And thousands of other diseases such trachoma or River Blindness (the vector is appropriately called Simuliam damnosum). And TB, the greatest infectious killer today of adults and children. If that is not enough, add in mosquitoes that carry about 30 different infections that are transmitted to humans and other animals. Tsetse flies and fleas!

A bigger ethical problem arises when we consider that all animals and plants are subject to infections and parasites. Most British frogs have lung worms. A colleague who used to teach parasitology in my department would shoot a grey squirrel (when the government put a bounty on their tails) and demonstrate that almost every organ in its body was infected with worms of one sort or another and other parasites. Why should the animal and plant kingdom suffer from fungal, bacterial, virus and parasitic disorders? All because of Adam’s transgression? If so, that is a totally unjust justice.

3. Nature red in tooth and claw

Here is a short section that deserves expansion. I find it increasingly difficult to watch wild life films that illustrate so much hunting and killing of prey species and the shocking sadness of those prey relatives that are left behind. Watch a cat with a mouse, or a large cat chase, kill and eat a deer. See the baby elephant or buffalo driven from the herd and killed, then watch the reaction in the mother.

I hate to see the way an orca catches a seal and throws it about playfully before eventually killing and devouring it. And the way a seal does similarly with a penguin. The idyllic prophetic vision in Isaiah (Old Testament) of predators living comfortably with prey cannot work because the teeth and digestive tracts would not function; and if they are to be changed, a lion would no longer be a lion!

A better model for humans would have been to have an animal creation totally devoid of suffering and for suffering humans to be told, “You could be like that if you behave yourselves”.

4.Congenital disorders

While directing the Birth Research Unit in Sri Lanka, my team recorded 25,000 births and their social backgrounds. An extensive study of world literature was also undertaken. We showed that 2% of our births were stillborn, a distressing experience for the parents, and that about 5% of surviving babies had birth defects. (In the west, the number of still births is about 1% but the number of birth defects is comparable). As the child grows and develops, other defects, especially psychological ones, become apparent e.g. dyslexia, dyscalculia, attention deficient disorders, autism etc. My post-mortem studies on the still births showed that there were present about three times more defects than in the living: perhaps nature’s way of getting rid of mistakes.

So I was more concerned with identifying the congenital abnormalities than reducing still births. A revised catalogue of birth defects identified about 6,000 different errors in development – a single eye, multiple appendages, incomplete formation of the spinal cord (spina bifida), hare lip and cleft palate, defects in blood vessels and internal organs. To my surprise there was no mention of Down syndrome babies or other chromosomal abnormalities in my book. I reread the introduction to find that the book only covered errors of development and not inadequacies of chromosomes and genes for which a further huge and increasing volume was needed. To see mothers go through pregnancy only to give birth to a baby whose brain developed outside the head still gives me sleepless nights. (I have a photographic record of all these defective babies and will share them if you can cope with seeing them).

Earlier experiences in my career in the veterinary world were repeated in the human population and I inevitably pondered the possibility of a creator making such a mess of things. I wanted to call in such an incompetent architect to answer for the actions although the variation and errors only made any sense in an evolutionary philosophy. Much of modern medicine and medical science is directed to repairing these aberrant individuals.

5. The cruelty of the Law of Moses

The barbaric practices of stoning and lashing, still evident in some societies today, are openly decried by decent and ethical people. I have seen photos of slaves who were lashed. They are too horrible to recall. Yet Luke (New Testament) tells us that few and many stripes will still be applied in the future!

How could any family engage in stoning? Your neighbour gathers wood on the Sabbath to cook food for his kids. Who did the work of stoning? Whole families? “Come on kids, there is a stoning. My son, you are strong. Get some stones. Aim for his legs so he is immobile, then we can aim for the head. Keep your distance in case you get splattered with blood”

"In the Old Testament, the law allowed for divorce because of infertility and Israelite men could divorce their wives for reasons far more vague than infertility. (Wives couldn't divorce their husbands for any reason.) If, for instance, 'she fails to please him because he finds something obnoxious about her,' there's no need to hire a pricey lawyer. He simply 'writes her a bill of divorcement, hands it to her and sends her away from his house.' He'd better be sure this is what he wants, because he can't have her back again. ...

"The Bible, leaving nothing to chance, provides soldiers with a lesson on the fine art of taking enemy women to wife after the enemy has been vanquished. ... You don't just throw her to the ground and have your way with her then and there.  You don't throw her on the ground at all. And you don't have your way with her for an entire month. No, 'you shall bring her into your house, and she shall trim her hair, pare her nails, and discard her captive's garb. She shall spend a month's time in your house, lamenting her father and mother; after that you may come to her and possess her, and she shall be your wife.' The lesson includes instruction on how to get rid of her, too. No bill of divorcement is required, but restrictions do apply: 'Then, should you no longer want her, you must release her outright. You must not sell her for money; since you had your will of her, you must not enslave her.' "

(Be truthful to yourself.  What is your reaction to this? “God’s ways are not man’s ways?”)

The world is horrified by the recent slaughter of 134 school children in Pakistan. Yet that was normal practice for Israelite soldiers.

The following response is an open letter to Dr Laura and
posted on the Internet. From: Michael Doyle <michael@moretti.me.uk>
> To: undisclosed-recipients
> Sent: Sun, 12 Jan 2014

Dear Dr Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's
Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to
share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When
someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to
be an abomination ... End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other
elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.
 
1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are from neighboring nations. A
friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not
Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
 
2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as
sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you
think would be a fair price for her?
 
 3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24.
The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most
women take offense.
 
4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it
creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is
my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them.
Should I smite them?
 
5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath.
Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I
morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the
police to do it?
 
6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is
an abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than
homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there
'degrees' of abomination?
 
7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God
if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear
reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there
some wiggle-room here?
 
8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including
the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly
forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?
 
9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead
pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear
gloves?
 
10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two
different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing
garments made of two different kinds of thread
(cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme
a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of
getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16.
Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family
affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws?
(Lev. 20:14) I know you have studied these things extensively
and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I'm
confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal
and unchanging.
 
Your adoring fan.
 
James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus,
Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education, University of Virginia

6. Animal sacrifices

Sacrificial acts were instituted early in Biblical history. Much of the Law of Moses is devoted to defining the ritual details. Hundreds of thousands of animals were to be sacrificed in the next 2,000 years, sometimes to include dabbing blood on various parts of the officiating priest in what would now be considered to be barbaric practices. (I have seen animals sacrificed on two occasions in the absence of humanitarian stunning or anaesthesia. It is horrible in the extreme and I will not disclose the details that I am trying to forget).

The importance of sacrifice was emphasised to Abraham when commanded to kill his son although he was reprieved at the last minute. All these appalling deaths were intended to point to the sacrifice of Christ. Then in New Testament times, Paul announces that it was “not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins”! What a dreadful waste of life that ended in indescribable misery. And sacrifices are to be reintroduced in the Millennium when Christ returns to set up God’s Kingdom!

Then Paul adds, “Was it not necessary that Christ should suffer?” Of course not. I can forgive anybody who sins against me by changing my attitude. I do not have to say, “Of course I will forgive you but only after you have killed your cat. Or only after I have killed my son”.

7. Pain and anatomical errors

Just a small section here although this topic also justifies expansion.

Pain has a function in conscious animals. It teaches sentient beings to avoid or evade unpleasant circumstances. It makes sense in evolutionary thought. Why then did God introduce the extreme pain associated with kidney or bile stones that teach us nothing except that suffering is unavoidable? I have experienced kidney stones on several occasions: the pain is enough to unbalance your mind – and you can do nothing about it in the short term.

A chapter needs to be written on the design faults of animate systems. (Again the variety makes sense in evolutionary terms). Yet I would fail any student of mine who placed the opening of the birth canal so near the anus. Examples can be multiplied.

What justice is there in causing every woman untold suffering in childbirth, and thousands of women to die every year while bringing a baby into the world? (Google the facts on maternal deaths in child birth worldwide: the numbers are staggering.) And all this because Eve listened to the unwise chat of a snake in her garden! And who put those thoughts (and vocal cords) into the snake for that purpose, and was the reptile also given freedom of choice in expressing such sentiments?

I must add a further problem here, although not directly relevant to this section, that evolution is significantly dependent on survival of the fittest. However medical heroics is now moving the human population to survival of the unfittest. E.g. many diseases that were self limiting, such as asthma and diabetes, are now treatable so that individuals survive long enough to get back into bed to produce the next generation with the same predisposition. Recently, Professor Auerbach said that the biggest problem facing humans is not the atom bomb but the degeneration of the gene pool. This raises massive problems for society and their medical professionals.

8. Human sins

Here is the basis of another book but I will just take one example: that of gender and sexuality. The Law of Moses is clear in its teaching about deviant sexual behaviour and this is copied in a few current societies although attitudes are changing. The fact remains that, among human and other animal babies, some are born hermaphrodite with both sets of organs. Others are born anatomically of one gender although the endocrinology of the individual is reversed. This can apply to males and females.

So some individuals are born with sexual tendencies that seem to counter the sociological perception of what they should be. That is how they were born, yet biblically they are sinners!

"When I was little I always said I'm a girl. I look like a girl. My heart is a girl heart," says 13-year-old Zoey, who was born a boy but who now identifies as a girl. Her doctor blocked her puberty and then prescribed cross-sex hormones to allow her to develop as a female.

"When I got older, I hid it so I would be accepted at schools, which was the hardest time of my life because I had to act like somebody that I was not."

A recent US study found that 41% of transgender respondents attempted suicide.

Zoey started identifying as a female from a very young age. As a toddler, she used to ask her mother, why "God make a mistake" and gave her the wrong body.

Few realise that the whole spectrum of human sexual behaviour, including so called deviant extremes, is to be found in the rest of the animal kingdom. Of course, in evolution, all have a common origin and so may be expected to show the same traits. There can be no basis to label some behaviour as deviant or sinful. (I would like to add, “unless harmful to others.” However in the non- human species can be found many examples of either male or female suffering, even mortally, during sexual behaviour. E.g. spiders and preying mantids). Yet the creationist believes that God endued humans with a strong sexual urge, at the same time commanding its control, and in other historical circumstances ruling it to be a cause of death! (If you are not aware of the range of sexual behaviours to which I am referring, I am attaching at the end of this essay, an article from the BBC that was recently published.

9. The resurrection

A small minority of Christians (including the strict fundamental group into which I was born), a miniscule percentage of the world’s population (perhaps approximating to the percentage of the then population saved in the ark!), believe that Jesus will return to the earth, raise the responsible dead (those who knew of God and his intentions whether they rejected or accepted them), establish a judgement system and reward the recipients according to their beliefs and actions. If hopes are to have a rational basis, some fundamental questions need to be addressed although Bible answers may not exist.

         - What is the age of the raised person? Age at baptism, age at death?

        - What is the state of health? That of a teenager, or the infirmity of old age

        - What is the memory of the arrival? I would be searching among the millions in the queue to try to find Julie, my late wonderful wife.

        - If the righteous are rewarded and the remainder rejected, what will be the lasting memory of those granted eternity? Will Julie spend her millions of years ahead pining for Bryan who is not there? Or will she have no memory of Bryan? If so, she will not be Julie.

        - What will the ‘saints’ do after a few billion years? They will know everything from the start. Will they create yet more worlds, or will they just devote their time to showing obeisance to the rewarder, and the originator of past pain and suffering? They will have nothing further to learn and be capable of doing anything they wish: an existence of total dissatisfaction.

A hard part for me to understand is the raising of those who are going to be rejected. They will be raised to be told that the judgement is correct, “Go away and die again”. God knows the end from the beginning so why bother to raise an individual to die again? This is a level of cruelty that has no counterpart in human behaviour. Perhaps the closest approximation is water boarding during which an individual is almost drowned, ‘raised again’ to be water boarded once more.

10. My conclusions

“Behold it was very good.”  In my opinion, it is very bad. If there really is such an incompetent architect, he must be called to answer for the terrible acts of inhumanity conducted by the whole team (“Let us…”). For once the ‘eye for an eye principle’ has my support so that the team may know the awful suffering that has been experienced by humans and animals for thousands of years.

“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision”. Imagine the outcome if all Honda cars had brake failure and the CEO was found in his office guffawing with laughter. He had made the cars and 100% went wrong. There were crashes, deaths and injuries. And he thought it hilarious! Questions would be asked. Legal proceedings would be held; heads would roll. Yet the work of the ‘creation team’ in making humanity with supposed freedom of choice led to “all” sinning (with but one exception). If there really was freedom of choice then there must be a 50% chance of half the population doing right!

I have so much more to say about the story of the Garden of Eden. Perhaps just a thought about Noah’s flood that follows the creation story. Imagine the waters rising and destroying humankind. At the same time, billions of innocent animals starting to swim, from mammals and birds to insects and others, until they succumbed to exhaustion before drowning. The unfairness and evil treatment is indescribable. Why was such suffering forced on them? Imagine the discomfort to the marine creatures as the salinity fell, and to the freshwater livestock as the salinity rose!

Even if Christ returns to establish a new and peaceful order, it will not undo the terrible and awful suffering that has been experienced by millions in the past who have lived, suffered and died. At one stage during my change of mind, I really became confused between concepts of devil and god – they seemed to be one and the same.

I am forced to parody the riddle of Epicurus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?

So, in summary, I am an atheist in relation to the God of the Bible. During my bereavement from Julie’s terrible death, I spent some weeks in a Benedictine Monastery and debated at the length with my mentors the account of Job. That is a matter for yet another book.

However, I still ponder the origin of matter, energy, the laws of chemistry, physics and mathematics, and gravitational forces as well as motion. Events relating to the Big Bang, before and after, leave me an agnostic. I will continue to search for truth and continue to challenge my current views, because I do not wish to live with and in a delusion however comfortable it may seem.

Bryan

19.01.2015

A BBC News Article 15.01.2015.

“Romantic relationships are complicated, and so is sex. Relationships can be fraught with the potential for miscommunication or misunderstanding at the best of times, so imagine how troublesome it is to admit, out loud, to your partner, that you've got a sexual interest or fantasy that sits far outside the cultural norms.

But here’s a secret. For just about any fantasy between consenting adults that might be thought of as beyond conventional sexual practices or decency as dictated by society, you can bet that there's a non-human species for whom that particular behaviour is commonplace. Sure, there are plenty of examples of creative role-playing, food in the bedroom, or unusual places to do the deed, but even when you push the boundaries much further the chances are you’ll find it happening in the animal world.

Take giraffes, for instance. Males, called bulls, make casual visits to various groups over time in search of a cow who might mate with him. In order to select the mating partner the bull literally finds the one that best suits his taste – by sampling their urine. Females co-operate in this "urine-testing" ritual, according to researchers David M. Pratt and Virginia H. Anderson. “When the bull nuzzles her rump, she must produce a stream of urine if he is to catch some in his mouth and savour it," they write. If a cow is particularly attracted to a visiting bull, she may simply decide to urinate as he walks past her, no prodding required. Urolagnia, or "golden showers" as it is more commonly known, is not a human invention, it seems.

While giraffes' social decisions are ruled by urine, hippos appear to rely on dung. The function and purpose of dung-showering is still only partially understood, according to biologist Richard Despard Estes. What’s clear is that dominant males defecate in order to mark the boundaries of their territories. University of Alberta scientists EL Karstad and RJ Hudson describe one dominant male backing up to the riverbank and "copiously defecating, scattering dung up to 2 metres in radius by flapping its tail vigorously." But there's more to hippo dung than simple territory demarcation. When territorial males approach females they respond in a manner known as "submissive defecation". In this impressive display, the female turns around, lowering her head while raising her rear, then slowly wags her tail while defecating. In situations like this, dung-showering is thought to serve as a sign of submission.

Sexual fantasies aren't limited to urine and faeces, of course. Some people prefer their sexual encounters a little more on the rough side, but this is nothing compared with the blacktip reef shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus) found in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans. For them, sex has an added bite.

Stanford biologist Douglas J McCauley and colleagues carefully described the mating habits of this toothy species in 2010. After being followed through the water at close distance by a group of males, a female was bitten on her tail by the lead male. While the tail bite slowed her down, she managed to briefly free herself before being bitten again, by the same male, on her body near her right pectoral fin. Having got hold of her, he guided her head into the sandy seafloor long enough to insert one of his two claspers into her cloaca, resulting in a sixty-eight second copulation. Shark scientist David Shiffman pointed out recently that biting may be a necessary consequence of mating in a three-dimensional – and slippery – environment. "It ensures that the male remains close enough to the female to copulate." Female sharks of many species may have evolved thicker, tougher skin than males for this very reason.

Group sex appears to be another evolutionary strategy. Every spring in southern Manitoba, tens of thousands of red-sided garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis) emerge from their underground hibernation dens and end up writhing in large “mating balls”. When a female garter snake emerges, she releases a pheromone that attracts hundreds of male snakes towards her. As if that isn't enough, scientists discovered that some male snakes “cross dress”; they release female-like pheromones to attract other males. One common assumption has been that pheromone-releasing males gain a reproductive advantage by diverting fellow male snakes attention from the female. But Australian and US researchers think this solves a more mundane purpose – male snakes pose as females to warm up quicker and to reduce their exposure to predators.

The mourning cuttlefish (Sepia plangon) takes its cross dressing even further. This cephalopod, found in the waters off the eastern coast of Australia, controls the appearance of its skin with exquisite precision. When a male cuttlefish attempts to seduce a nearby female, he offers her a courtship display by controlling the arrangement of pigments that appear on the surface of his skin. If a rival male approaches, he changes his skin on the side facing the rival to appear female. The female still sees the courtship display, the intruder, however, thinks there are two females – leaving the original male to complete his reproductive business in peace.

Our societies may look down upon certain sexual interests as odd, weird, gross, or just plain silly. But as with friendships, play, and even teenage kicks, investigating other species helps us to hold a magnifying glass of sorts – albeit one with a bit of distortion – up to our own behaviours. And if we squint real hard and tilt our heads to the side we might be able to catch a glimpse of the common threads connecting us with our non-human cousins. Even if it offends or challenges our norms.”