WEBVTT - Crab Bag, Part 1: The Crabs are Back In Town 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:14.680 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.560 My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:20.520 and it is Crab Season on Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:24.200 That's not really a season corresponding to anything on the calendar, 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:26.480 but every now and then we just kind of get 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:29.400 crab fever. We have to let the decapods take over 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.360 the show, and that's what we are doing today. We're 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:36.479 kicking off the first in a series of crab Bag episodes, 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:38.879 the sort of a grab bag of various topics that 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.839 caught our fancy related to crabs. And this was in 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.960 part a listeners suggestion, so encouragement to all you listeners 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:49.040 out there to send in topics you would like to 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:52.400 hear more about. Obviously we can't always promise to cover them, 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:56.120 but we do sometimes take inspiration on our show calendar 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:59.120 from listener requests. So in our. 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:00.840 Specially if you asked, he has to do something we 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:03.760 were going to do anyway, like more crab content. I 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.800 think when that question came, we ran that listener mail 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:08.920 episode and I was like, oh yeah, actually tomorrow's episode 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:11.920 is Crabs. The Crabs will always return. 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.000 But a shout out to listener Hannah who asked very 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:19.320 politely for new Crab content, and here we are too oblige. 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.600 Yeah, so if you are new to the show, we're 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:25.560 stuffed to blow your mind. We've been around as an 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:30.080 audio podcast forever and we've done video in the past. 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:31.840 You can find we have a YouTube channel with some 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:34.479 old content on it, but for the most part here 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:38.000 on Netflix. If you're watching us on Netflix, it's a 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:41.680 new effort. We're figuring things out, trying new things every day. 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:44.400 We probably look a little everything looks a little bit 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:46.920 different compared to the way it looked in the last episode. 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:49.720 So we're constantly trying to improve. But if you'll hear 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.160 us reference episodes that are only in the audio archives, 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:55.920 and you can find those wherever you get your audio podcasts. 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.120 And just to clarify so nobody's confused out there, the 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:03.280 video version of the show now available on Netflix. If 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:05.160 you are watching on Netflix, or if you would like 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.800 to check it out on Netflix, the video version is 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:10.080 the same content. It's the same show we're running in 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:12.600 our audio feed. It's just with the cameras turned on 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:15.600 so you can see us while we're talking. But it's 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:17.840 the same show, same kind of thing we've been doing 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.440 for many, many years. But now you can see our heads. 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.760 Yeah, see our heads, and I think there are fewer ads. 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.240 So yeah, if that your deal, this is just another 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.480 way to consume the show. All right, Well, Joe, should 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.720 we go ahead and dig into the crab grab bag 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:38.440 or crab bag or crab grab bag? What do we have? 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:39.680 What have you got for us? 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.080 So the first thing I wanted to talk about today 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.160 is a miracle crab, a holy crab. I'm going to 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.080 begin by reading a passage from a book called The 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:54.400 Life and Letters of Saint Francis Xavier. This book is 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:58.640 by Henry James Coleridge from eighteen seventy two. The author 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:02.000 of this book, Henry James Coleridge, was a nineteenth century 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:05.360 English Jesuit priest and writer and a bit of trivia. 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.320 The grand nephew or I don't know if it's called 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:13.000 great nephew. His grandfather's brother was Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:18.240 English Roman Romantic era poet and the author of Rhyme 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.399 and the ancient mariner Kubla Khan, that sort of thing. 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:25.480 So this is a decidedly less psychedelic and monstrous work 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.720 than Rhyme and the Ancient Mariner. This is a biography 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:34.400 of a Catholic saint of the sixteenth century Navarrees, Catholic 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:38.760 priest and missionary, Saint Francis Xavier, who was one of 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.280 the founders of the Society of jesus Aka the Jesuits. 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:45.840 You've probably heard of them, major Catholic order. He was 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.120 one of its founders, and a big part of Saint 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:54.040 Francis Xavier's legacy in the Church is missionary work, efforts 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:57.840 to spread Christianity in parts of what is now India, Japan, 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:03.240 and Indonesia. So the context of this biographical section in 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:07.360 the book is that Francis Xavior is in the middle 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.520 of his mission in the Molucca Islands. So he's traveling 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:14.320 between small ports on a kind of outrigor vessel and 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.400 stopping to preach in different places, and I think also 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.480 to visit communities of Christians, like in the Philippines and 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:26.039 in Indonesia. And Coleridge says that we get the following 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:31.080 story from a source called the Relatio, which is based 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:36.560 on the alleged eyewitness testimony of a man named Fausto Rodriguez, 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.440 a Portuguese soldier who had been traveling along with Saint 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.680 Francis Xavior on his journeys. So here I'm going to 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:47.640 begin to read from Coleridge. They were sailing to Baranura 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:50.680 when a sudden storm came on, and to appease it, 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:55.520 Francis Xavier took from his neck a crucifix one finger long. 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.960 Rodriguez says, so it was the small crucifix that he 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.000 wore on his heart and dipped it into the sea, 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:05.760 leaning over the boat's side. And I've read about this 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.720 encounter in other sources. There are different tellings of this 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.360 story where the details vary somewhat, but the idea is 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:15.880 it's a terrible storm, the ship is being tossed by 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.320 the waves. In some of these other tellings it's even 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:20.800 more dramatic, like people are being washed out of the 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:24.640 boat into the sea. Somehow they get rescued. And in 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:28.040 the midst of this madness, the priest decides to invoke 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:30.960 the power of the Cross to beg for safe passage, 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.360 and he sort of uses the principle of blessing by touch, 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:37.159 so he reaches out and he dips the crucifix into 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:41.320 the water, and while he is dunking the cross in 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.840 the waves. In the version of the story told by Coleridge, quote, 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:48.200 it chanced that it slipped from his hand into the sea, 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.320 which accidents so greatly afflicted Xavier that he gave great 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:57.880 signs of grief. But fortunately for the travelers, they survive 0:05:57.960 --> 0:05:59.719 the storm, and they make it to the shore of 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:04.159 their destination, an island called Baranura in the Source, and 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.800 they're unharmed. So they pull the boat up onto the 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:10.160 beach and they start walking along the coast toward a 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.320 town called Tamlow. And here's where the miracle part had 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.239 Coleridge writes, quote when they had walked half a mile 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:19.920 and were now many miles away from where the crucifix 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.560 had been lost. And then here I think it begins 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:28.680 to quote from a direct translation of Fausto Rodriguez's account, quote, Behold, 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:32.080 a sea crab runs out of the sea onto the 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:36.680 shore with the aforesaid crucifix, holding it in his claws 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.840 on either side, upright, and lifted up, and so ran 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.159 to Xavier and stopped in his sight. And Xavier flung 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.680 himself on his knees, and the crab waited until he 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.680 had taken the crucifix from its claws, and then ran 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.039 back again into the sea whence it had come, and 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.840 Xavier kissed and embraced the crucifix, and, crossing his arms 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.360 on his breast, lay prostrate on the ground on for 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.320 half an hour, and his companion, who was by his side, 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:06.479 did the same, thanking the Lord Jesus Christ for so 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.960 strange a miracle. And so I love this story, and 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:14.240 I'm glad that the original alleged witness of the event 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:17.640 acknowledges that as far as miracles go, this has a 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:22.760 weird flavor like especially I think because it involves the 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:26.280 symbol of Christian salvation gripped in the claw of a crab, 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:27.760 or in both claws, I think it. 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:33.040 Says, yeah, yeah, I'm imagining it lifted over its head. Yeahs. 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:37.000 I don't know why this is. Crabs to me, are 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:43.000 not an image that naturally calls up thoughts of holiness 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:47.040 and Heaven and God. We see a lot of Christian 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:51.560 iconography that has especially mammals and birds and fishes, you know, 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.480 being you know fish, you know, Jesus' disciples being fishermen, 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:59.360 so they're fish, and Christian imagery we think of sheep, 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.440 of course, you know, being the flocks of Christ. Sometimes 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:06.360 there are deer, sometimes there are lions, things like that, 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.800 and then also you can think of birds like doves 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:14.400 getting into the arthropod realm just feels more removed from 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.720 the light of God than the other types of animals do. 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:18.480 I don't know why. 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:23.840 Well, I mean, within the context of the Christian faith 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:26.200 that God made all of these animals, so you should 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.000 be able to see some reflection of God and everything. 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.800 And I don't know, the crabs are hardly the most 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:37.280 problematic creature in which to look for some portion of God, 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.240 like you know, makes more sense than looking in some 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:42.640 sort of terrifying parasite. 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.720 Parasitoid wasp is the image of God. Yeah, and apparently 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:46.560 the crab is too. 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:51.560 Yeah. I mean, crabs do important work, absolutely the Lord's work. 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.520 They are the children of God. But yeah, you don't 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:56.920 see them, or at least you don't think of them 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.680 as being a standout and religions psychography. 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:03.360 I do think, Yeah, maybe this should help us think 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.600 more about the crabs role and say, the decomposition of 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.439 dead matter in the natural environment and helping to break 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.040 all that down and how that is quite a holy job. 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.440 Yeah, we have discussed in the past, how given how 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.640 into crabs we are and how into crabs I think 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.360 humans in general are, and crabs must be observed. I 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:27.720 was thinking about this earlier, like, if you were near crabs, 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.880 you must watch them like they are just amusing and 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.800 you want to see more of them. So it is 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.400 kind of surprising at times that you don't see more 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:40.840 crabs and crab like creatures in various mythologies. I mean, 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.120 they're there, but oh yeah, they at least to my eye, 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:46.200 they they often don't seem to play as large a 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.800 role as I would like. You know, there are fewer 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:51.320 crab gods than I would like. 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.640 I feel like maybe there are more crab gods outside 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:59.680 of Christianity. Maybe Christianity is particularly crab deficient religion. But 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:05.160 here's counter example. So despite the crabby weirdness of this story, 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:09.080 it is not like a totally obscure thing tucked away 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.319 that nobody's ever heard about. This is a widely discussed 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:16.440 and well known legend of Francis Xavior, and it was 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:20.839 one of the miracles discussed during his canonization in Rome. 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.760 It's even depicted in Renaissance art, and here I stumbled 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:28.600 across something that I thought was amazing. Rob, I have 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:31.400 a picture of a painting for you to look at 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.800 in our outline. This is an oil on canvas painting 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.920 from sixteen nineteen called Saint Francis Xavior and the Crab 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.760 Miracle at Sarum Island. This is by the Portuguese painter 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.560 Andre Reynoso and it is currently housed in the Church 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:51.439 of Saint Rock in Lisbon. This painting includes multiple parts 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:53.720 of the story all shown at once. So in the 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.160 upper right hand corner, in a kind of hazy cpia tone, 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.240 almost like it's a dream, we see a ship rolling 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.160 in the waves with thunderclouds above, so this shows the 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.960 earlier peril in the story. And the upper left we 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:10.640 see rays of light breaking through the clouds, almost like 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.600 the power of God coming down to intervene. And then 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:16.880 in the center of the frame you have Francis Xavier 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:21.160 and his companions gathered on the beach looking down in astonishment. 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:24.120 And then at the bottom right there is a crab 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:28.960 clutching the crucifix straight up above its body with both claws. 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.800 And I was looking at the image of this crab 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.560 and thinking, why does this pose look so familiar? It's 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.880 pinging something that's like that I have seen and thought 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.480 about many times, and it took me a minute to 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:45.120 figure out what it was, and then I realized, Oh 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:49.920 my god, this crab is Luke Skywalker in the original 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:54.079 handpainted poster for Star Wars from nineteen seventy seven. If 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:56.720 you look up both paintings, I think you will see it. 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:02.719 The resemblance is uncanny, especially because the crabs ribbed underside 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:07.120 kind of resembles the like absurd and non representative muscles 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:08.600 they give Mark Hamill's chest. 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:12.480 Yeah, yeah, you're talking about the original theatrical poster by 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:17.600 Tom Young. Yeah, iconic, And you're absolutely right, it's the 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:22.880 same pose like this. This either Luke Skywalker is channeling 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:26.560 the Holy Crab or the Holy Crab is giving us 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:28.800 a taste of what's wants it to come. I mean, 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:30.480 it would sci fi cinema. 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.120 The Holy Crab is obviously hundreds of years earlier, so 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:34.960 it would have to be inspired by I mean, I 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.440 think it's just a coincidence. It would be bizarre to 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:39.800 me if this truly were inspired by the crab painting, 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:45.520 but it is the resemblance is unbelievable to me. Also 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:49.240 because the lightsaber in the original Star Wars poster for 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:51.480 some reason takes the shape of a cross. I don't 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:53.960 know why it does that, that it's never cross shaped 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:54.600 in the movies. 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:56.480 Yeah, I guess it's supposed to be just like the 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.480 gleam the glare of the of the lightsaber here. But 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:04.880 you're right, it even also forms a crucifix shape. Yeah. Wow, 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:09.760 I mean he is unable. So it is true some direct, 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:12.880 kind of direct comparison to be made between Luke Skywalker 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:14.040 and Jesus Christ as well. 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.600 That's true, though I don't know if that comparison goes 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.240 to the crab, excepted just sort of by general association, 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.160 because I don't get any idea that the crab in 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:25.000 the story is a metaphor for Jesus. 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:28.680 I don't know the crab ties it all together, I think. Yeah, 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:33.520 So the nature of the miracle is thought provoking, right, 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:37.680 because I would be tempted to think, well, maybe the 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.960 real miracle was that they were saved from dangerous seas, 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.480 and that's kind of a mine. This is a minor 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.000 miracle on top of that, because in and of itself, 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.439 like a crab saved your crucifix, like I would I 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:53.160 don't know. I would think maybe we should have saved 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:57.239 that miracle juice for for something a little more substantial. 0:13:57.320 --> 0:13:59.680 But you know, I'm not going to question in the 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:00.880 ways of the divine here. 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:03.760 Well, if something like this actually happened, I think it 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.320 would be astonishing, Like, given the magnitude of the sea, 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.520 if it truly happened that you dropped a crucifix into 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.640 the ocean and then you know, days later, many miles later, 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.320 you come ashore and you find a crab clutching the 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.240 exact same crucifix, I don't know, that would be pretty 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.240 remarkable to me, Like, what are the odds? 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:28.720 Yeah? Yeah, And it raises significant questions about about whether 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:31.840 any variety of crab would be potentially carrying around something 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:36.120 like this, a non organic morsel that's main value would 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:36.920 be that it's shiny. 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.240 I mean, crabs do sometimes just like clutch things and 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.120 carry them around non a food thing. We've talked about 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.000 examples of this before, and in fact, maybe we can 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.160 even come back to this question later in the series. 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:50.720 Just the idea of crabs carrying things around that are 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.280 not food didn't prepare notes on that for today, but 0:14:54.520 --> 0:15:06.160 that is something we could return to. So are you 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:08.680 okay if I talked a little bit more about the 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:10.840 crab in religious art? 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:12.360 Yeah, let's do it, okay. 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.640 So I was looking for more detail on this painting 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.280 on the Xavier crab in art, and I found some 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:23.480 discussion in a book called Jesuit Art Brill's Research Perspectives 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.560 in Jesuit Studies. This is by an art scholar named 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:30.840 Mia Mochizuki, put out by the academic publisher Brill. And 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.920 in this book, in this section of the book, Mochizuki 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:39.920 gives a retelling of the story, emphasizing the most fantastical 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:44.280 and embellished version of the miracle legend, in which Xavier 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:48.360 not just gets the crucifix back later, but in this 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:53.240 version he intentionally throws his crucifix into the sea and 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:57.520 this successfully calms the storm and saves the ship. So 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:01.680 this is this version of the story has direct, intentional 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:03.920 and successful command of the weather. 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:06.280 Do you think that the crucifix in this case does 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:08.480 not have a little vial of oil in it? Right? 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:11.280 To call back to a previous episode that we. 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:13.720 Did, Yeah, dropping oil in the water to calm the. 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:18.280 Waves also sometimes practiced by members of the clergy. 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:22.360 So the yeah, I've forgotten some of the details on that, 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:24.240 but yeah, we go back and check that out in 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.120 our archives if you want. But anyway, so in this 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:31.120 version of the story, he intentionally does calm the storm, 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:33.040 and then also you get the same detail we talked 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.200 about earlier, the crucifix is returned by the crab on 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.080 the beach. I'll have a bit more to say about 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:41.520 the different versions of the story in a minute, But 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.360 regarding the art and the legend here, Motchizuki adds a 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:49.720 few notes. One is that a Xavier scholar named Gaeorg Schurhammer, 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:53.520 who lived eighteen eighty two to nineteen seventy one, argued 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:57.560 that this story may have introduced devotion to the image 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:02.040 of the crucifix within Japan, and also that it may 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:07.080 have been based on actually a local Buddhist legend that 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:12.160 Xavier or his traveling companions encountered during their time in Asia. 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.560 Here I'm going to read from Mochizuki's footnote quote the 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:18.359 miracle of the Crab bears a number of similarities with 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.920 the legend of the ninth century Buddhist priest Jikaku who 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:25.680 used an image of a god of wisdom, Yakushi Yorai 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.359 to calm the sea, one that was returned to him 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:31.800 three years later by an octopus. 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.440 Oh wow. So, first of all, I love the idea 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.560 of the octopus bringing the holy emblem back as well. 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:40.960 But then also so we're looking at the possibility that 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:43.919 this whole story was just appropriated, It was just co 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.240 opted from existing traditions. 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:52.280 Potentially totally possible. Yeah, that the companions of Xavier to 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:54.600 whom this story is traced back and again I'll talk 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.080 about the versions of the story in a minute, may 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:01.359 have been half remembering or somehow just co opting a 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:04.199 folk tale that they heard from the lands that they 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.240 were traveling to. And in fact, there are some other 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:11.200 cases where this could be what's happening as well. Mochizuki 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.679 points out quote other legends of Xavier could also have 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.600 been appropriations of local folklore encountered on their travels, like 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:23.480 the miracle of Xavier turning salt water into freshwater from 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:27.080 a Malaysian legend. So there are other cases where it's 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.440 like places he traveled to had folk tales that are 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:34.640 remarkably similar to miracles that are later attributed to him 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:39.200 after his death. Okay, so regardless of where the story 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.480 came from, Mochizuki notes that images of crabs became a 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:47.600 standard part of the iconography of Xavier. And another example 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:49.520 I've got for you to look at in the outline here, Rob, 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.600 is this seventeenth century silver cross held by a crab. 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:56.720 This is now in the Portuguese city of Coimbra. But 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:58.919 it's like a silver crab. I don't know if it 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.080 has the right number of legs. This looks like a 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.520 crab with four legs and two claws, or maybe I'm 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.359 missing something here, but anyway, it's a silver crab holding 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:09.920 up across The cross is bigger than the crab itself, 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:11.760 so it's a mighty feet of strength. 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:15.960 This is amazing. I had never seen this before. 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:18.280 There's another thing I've got for you to look at 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:22.720 in the outline, Rob. This is a painting that Mochizuki 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:26.720 is talking about. It is a seventeenth century Japanese portrait 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:31.159 of Saint Francis Xavier from Kobe, which depicts Xavier with 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:34.679 a flaming red heart gripped against his breast, so he's 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.040 got his hands up in his chest like this and 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:41.119 he's holding this red heart with almost kind of i 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:44.000 don't know, kind of beams of little red tails coming 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:45.680 out of it. That looks sort of like the way 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.160 you might represent the sun with rays coming out, except 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.680 it's all pink and red, and like, oh, that's a 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:54.879 kind of strange and interesting image. But then speaking about 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:59.240 this heart in the image, Mochizuki writes, quote, it's stylized 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:05.320 flames formed double duty as both fiery organ and miraculous crab. 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.240 And I realized, oh my god, yes it's a heart, 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:10.560 but it really looks like a crab. It's a crab 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:11.520 and a heart. 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.120 Crab heart. And I'll add that the saint here looks 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:17.840 a little bit like coffin Joe. So there are a number 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:18.680 of things coming for it. 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:23.080 Absolutely, But the story of the Miraculous Crab does not 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.640 end there, because it turns out the legend of Saint 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:30.840 Francis Xavier has some connection, it seems, at least a 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:34.439 llegened and a few sources, some connection to not just 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:38.840 one individual miracle crab in the story, but to a 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:44.239 fully extant species of decapod crustacean, known sometimes as the 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.760 Holy crab or the crucifix Crab and Rob, I've got 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:49.560 a picture of the Crucifix crab for you to look 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:53.080 at here in the outline. It's a kind of flat, 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.080 wide crab like. It's large, it has big swimming legs 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:58.919 in the back. It's kind of flat, and then you 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.199 can see the the imagery on the top of it. 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:03.359 I'll describe that for the listeners in just a second, 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.040 but I should flag I found this photo along with 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.480 a blog post for the Western Australian Museum by Andrew 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:16.040 Josey called Holy Crab, the Crucifix crab caaribdis feriata and 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:21.560 a bit of detail Yeah now, yeah, that's the genus name. 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:25.000 So a bit of detail from this postcaribdis feriata is 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:28.080 found in the Indian and West Pacific Oceans and it 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:31.280 ranges pretty far from as far west as the eastern 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:35.359 coast of Africa to as far east as Japan and Australia. 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:39.440 Generally living in shallow waters with a rocky or sandy bottom. 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.919 It is eaten. Sometimes it is fished commercially and recreationally 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:47.679 in some parts of I think India and Indonesia. But 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:49.840 I was reading other sources saying that some people I 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:52.960 think probably especially some Christians do not eat it for 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:56.880 reasons you might imagine because it has a crucifix on it, 0:21:57.240 --> 0:22:00.920 So the name crucifix crab comes from a cross shaped 0:22:01.040 --> 0:22:04.600 pattern on the crab's carapace. On top of the crab, 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:08.520 just behind its face, you will typically see a sort 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:12.280 of cone or bullhorn shaped band of a darker orange 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.800 or red set against a lighter background, and then within 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:19.679 that red cone there is a pale hollow that is 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:22.720 often in the shape of a cross or crucifix, though 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.040 I think you could also easily read it as Zelda's 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:29.280 master sword, as a kind of winged what do you 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:33.920 call it hilt and cross hilt like that crossguard. I 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:36.600 don't know my sword terms, but from what I've read, 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:41.040 different populations of this crab have somewhat different marking, so 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:44.640 I think they are not all as clearly cruciform as 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:46.359 the pictures I've got for you to look at, Rob. 0:22:46.920 --> 0:22:49.320 Yeah, because the crab I'm seeing in this image. I 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:51.560 don't know about you, Joe, but I would not feel 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:54.359 confident trying to repel a vampire with this crab. 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:58.080 Yeah, it is a little weird. Like the crucifix, the 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:02.040 beams of the fix do not feel like wooden planks. 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.120 They're not of a consistent thickness. It's kind of thicker 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:07.720 further away from the eyes, and then as it goes 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:11.440 toward the face of the crab it narrows. But yeah, 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:13.320 I don't know. I think I can see the cross 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:13.960 or the sword. 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:17.520 Yeah, I think I'm more likely to see presence of 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:21.080 the divine by looking into the crab's eyes here. Yeah, 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:24.520 this is we've already established. I think by this point 0:23:24.560 --> 0:23:28.840 that crabs are clearly God's chosen and if one actually 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:31.920 ascends to Paradise, there will mostly be crabs there. 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:35.640 I think that's quite possible. But also, if you rotate 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:38.000 this around, do you kind of see an ant face 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:40.679 if you look at it upside down the eyes and 0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:41.520 the mouth parts. 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:44.080 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can see it. 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:49.280 So anyway, Hosey says that some Catholics regard this crab 0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:52.560 as holy or lucky, and its shells are sometimes used 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:55.399 for religious reasons or possibly as good luck charms. I 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:58.080 was also reading a bit more about the species in 0:23:58.119 --> 0:24:02.679 a twenty eleven unsigned article in Asian Scientist magazine called 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:06.879 Crucifix Crab caaribdis feriatas spotted in the Straits of Malacca. 0:24:08.000 --> 0:24:10.840 So the thing that spurred this article is that in 0:24:10.880 --> 0:24:15.280 twenty eleven, about a dozen crucifix crabs were caught by 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:18.879 a fisherman in the Malaysian state of Malacca, after having 0:24:19.200 --> 0:24:22.760 not been found there since the nineteen sixties, and news 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:25.600 of this catch spread and the fishermen was, according to 0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:28.960 this reporting, flooded by offers to buy the crabs. I 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:32.280 think it's implied that local Catholics wanted them, but I'm 0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:34.720 not sure exactly who the buyers were. That's just kind 0:24:34.720 --> 0:24:40.240 of an inference. The article says, quote, only minimal quantities 0:24:40.280 --> 0:24:42.920 of the crabs were caught. Many locals don't buy them 0:24:42.960 --> 0:24:46.080 to eat, but preserve the shell as it is considered sacred, 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:50.040 he told the Malaysian newspaper The Star. And this article 0:24:50.080 --> 0:24:53.320 goes on to explain the fact that crucifix crabs have 0:24:53.920 --> 0:24:58.120 mostly disappeared from the area around Malacca in recent decades, 0:24:58.560 --> 0:25:02.160 and it interviews They interview a local marine biologist who 0:25:02.680 --> 0:25:05.880 I think doesn't know for sure, but speculates that coastal 0:25:05.920 --> 0:25:09.640 development has destroyed or degraded the mangrove swamps where these 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:13.040 crabs usually live, and so their numbers have been diminished 0:25:13.040 --> 0:25:16.480 in the area. But the article also reports on how 0:25:16.600 --> 0:25:20.200 some Catholics in Goa, India believe that the Crucifix crab 0:25:20.280 --> 0:25:24.359 is a descendant of the crab from Francis Xavier's miracle story. 0:25:25.800 --> 0:25:28.439 And then the article cites a scientist at the National 0:25:28.480 --> 0:25:34.440 Institute of Oceanography in India named Anil Chatterjee who disregards 0:25:34.480 --> 0:25:37.120 this legend and says that the pigmentation on the shell 0:25:37.160 --> 0:25:39.760 has a natural cause. It helps the crab survive in 0:25:39.800 --> 0:25:44.080 its environment. So I actually wanted to find I was 0:25:44.200 --> 0:25:48.719 looking is there a scientific paper that gets into studying 0:25:48.800 --> 0:25:52.679 the adaptive value of the cross shape on the Crucifix crab. 0:25:53.480 --> 0:25:56.480 Has anybody looked into what it actually does? I did 0:25:56.520 --> 0:25:59.560 not find any such research, so I don't think there 0:25:59.680 --> 0:26:03.840 is a specific scientific paper that digs into the cross 0:26:03.920 --> 0:26:08.000 markings on this crab in particular. But I was reading 0:26:08.480 --> 0:26:13.160 in general about patterns of coloration on a crab's carapace 0:26:13.840 --> 0:26:18.360 and general body coloration patterns. So I'm no expert on this, 0:26:18.520 --> 0:26:21.960 but after my reading, my best guess is that the 0:26:22.040 --> 0:26:25.720 cross shape on this crab is part of a general 0:26:25.800 --> 0:26:29.959 design of spotting and modeling and striping that serves a 0:26:29.960 --> 0:26:35.399 function known as disruptive coloration. So color patterns on a 0:26:35.440 --> 0:26:39.480 crab's shell can help the crab hide from predators in 0:26:39.520 --> 0:26:43.880 its environment. And there are a couple of main strategies 0:26:43.920 --> 0:26:47.280 that researchers talk about here. One is called color matching 0:26:47.359 --> 0:26:50.760 and the other is called disruption. Color matching is when 0:26:50.800 --> 0:26:53.520 you try to make the top of your shell nearly 0:26:53.560 --> 0:26:56.840 a solid color that matches the solid color of the background. 0:26:57.080 --> 0:27:00.199 A big example would here be crabs that live on 0:27:00.359 --> 0:27:05.280 mud flats. They often have a fairly solid, muddy color 0:27:05.359 --> 0:27:09.120 on their carapas to camouflage themselves from predators looking down 0:27:09.119 --> 0:27:12.840 from above. And then other crabs like the crucifix crab, 0:27:13.840 --> 0:27:18.840 have these highly varied, sometimes high contrast patterns or patterns 0:27:18.880 --> 0:27:23.000 that sort of interrupt the edges of the top of 0:27:23.040 --> 0:27:27.120 the carapace, and these patterns are thought in many cases 0:27:27.160 --> 0:27:31.359 to protect the crab by disrupting the image of the 0:27:31.480 --> 0:27:35.960 crab's outline. So, in nature, a lot of predators and 0:27:36.080 --> 0:27:40.520 hunters hunt by a visual recognition pattern called edge detection, 0:27:41.040 --> 0:27:43.320 where what they're looking for is a certain kind of 0:27:43.440 --> 0:27:47.000 outline that looks like food to them. And so these 0:27:47.200 --> 0:27:51.320 spotted or striped color patterns kind of break up the 0:27:52.000 --> 0:27:55.959 predator's ability to notice the outline of the animals, so 0:27:55.960 --> 0:27:59.320 they don't see an outline that recognize as crab. Instead, 0:27:59.320 --> 0:28:02.320 they see just a bunch of high contrasts, stripes and 0:28:02.400 --> 0:28:07.400 spots that probably blend in pretty easily with a heterogeneous 0:28:07.400 --> 0:28:12.119 substrate below, like maybe rocky tidal pools or gravel pebbles, 0:28:12.160 --> 0:28:12.760 things like that. 0:28:13.400 --> 0:28:16.720 Yeah, as we've discussed on the show before, one of 0:28:16.760 --> 0:28:20.280 the challenges with understanding how the camouflage of an organism 0:28:20.320 --> 0:28:23.680 like this actually works is that very often the images 0:28:23.720 --> 0:28:27.960 that you have of the organism are set against an 0:28:28.080 --> 0:28:32.399 unnatural background, or at least they's they're out of context, 0:28:32.760 --> 0:28:35.880 and so therefore it can be a little more challenging 0:28:35.880 --> 0:28:40.160 to imagine how well they're blending in, because certainly to 0:28:40.320 --> 0:28:43.280 our eye, when we get in the water with organisms 0:28:43.320 --> 0:28:48.240 like this or in their environment, their camouflage often just 0:28:48.280 --> 0:28:51.480 makes them completely invisible to us. Yeah, and of course 0:28:51.560 --> 0:28:54.680 we're you know, we're looking for them in a slightly 0:28:54.720 --> 0:28:58.400 different way and with different gear compared to their natural predators. 0:28:58.640 --> 0:29:02.120 But you put them in a just a glass aquarium 0:29:02.160 --> 0:29:04.760 tank or on top of a table in like a 0:29:04.800 --> 0:29:08.040 research lab. Instead, the pattern really makes them stand out. 0:29:08.080 --> 0:29:09.160 It has the opposite effect. 0:29:09.240 --> 0:29:11.640 Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you can imagine then if you 0:29:11.680 --> 0:29:15.440 have this this shell with this cross like form on it, 0:29:15.480 --> 0:29:19.560 and that is, say, on an altar somewhere or on 0:29:19.600 --> 0:29:23.800 a mantle piece, you're even further removed from the natural 0:29:23.840 --> 0:29:26.960 context in which that camouflage would be utilized, and therefore 0:29:26.960 --> 0:29:29.320 you might be more inclined to lean into these ideas 0:29:29.320 --> 0:29:33.160 that this is a divine marking, This is the Divine 0:29:33.200 --> 0:29:36.680 communicating to me through the shell of this organ. 0:29:36.960 --> 0:29:39.720 Yeah, a crab blessed by the Lord. But I just 0:29:39.720 --> 0:29:42.440 want to reiterate what I said at the beginning that 0:29:42.600 --> 0:29:47.120 was speculative about disruptive coloration being the reason, because again 0:29:47.160 --> 0:29:50.880 I could not find an authoritative scientific source that gives 0:29:50.880 --> 0:29:52.920 an answer on this. So really, I don't know. That's 0:29:53.000 --> 0:29:54.600 just my best guess, but. 0:29:54.600 --> 0:29:58.280 It would seem to work, or at least not work 0:29:59.040 --> 0:30:00.480 from an evolutionary perspective. 0:30:00.720 --> 0:30:11.520 Yeah. 0:30:11.560 --> 0:30:13.480 But anyway, I've got one more thing I want to 0:30:13.480 --> 0:30:18.600 get into about the legend of the Holy Crab. So 0:30:18.720 --> 0:30:22.080 I was curious about development in the history of this 0:30:22.160 --> 0:30:24.320 legend because I was reading about it and kept coming 0:30:24.360 --> 0:30:26.960 across these different versions of it, I'm like, so, okay, 0:30:27.160 --> 0:30:31.040 how did these versions emerge? And I went looking to 0:30:31.080 --> 0:30:33.840 see if any authors had gone into that subject in depth, 0:30:33.880 --> 0:30:37.200 and I found it discussed briefly in a famous book 0:30:37.240 --> 0:30:41.000 from eighteen ninety six called A History of the Warfare 0:30:41.120 --> 0:30:45.440 of Science with Theology in Christendom by the American historian 0:30:45.600 --> 0:30:50.480 Andrew Dixon White. So White is an interesting and controversial 0:30:50.520 --> 0:30:53.720 figure in the history of science and religion. He was 0:30:53.800 --> 0:30:56.920 one of the founders of Cornell University, and in this 0:30:56.960 --> 0:31:01.440 book he advances a very robust to defense of what 0:31:01.480 --> 0:31:05.000 would come to be known as the conflict thesis. You've 0:31:05.000 --> 0:31:08.200 probably heard versions of this idea before. In short, it 0:31:08.280 --> 0:31:11.480 is the claim that there is an unavoidable conflict between 0:31:11.520 --> 0:31:15.840 science and religion, and that across human history, scientific discovery 0:31:15.880 --> 0:31:21.600 has always been stifled by religious dogmatism. The conflict thesis, 0:31:21.640 --> 0:31:26.600 while clearly true in many particular instances, is not very 0:31:26.640 --> 0:31:30.800 popular among philosophers and historians of science today as a 0:31:31.000 --> 0:31:36.760 generalization about history. People who have looked into this subject 0:31:36.800 --> 0:31:40.280 tend to see it as overly simplistic and usually based 0:31:40.320 --> 0:31:43.960 on a cherry picked survey of history. So what I 0:31:43.960 --> 0:31:46.440 think a lot of these scholars would say White does 0:31:46.560 --> 0:31:51.360 is he goes through history and focuses on historical cases 0:31:51.360 --> 0:31:54.560 of conflict between science and religion, especially where religion has 0:31:54.960 --> 0:31:59.680 stifled or suppressed science, and then just ignores all the 0:31:59.680 --> 0:32:04.920 cases of neutral interactions or complementarity. Though in partial defense 0:32:04.960 --> 0:32:07.080 of the conflict thesis, I think it is wrong. But 0:32:07.200 --> 0:32:10.080 I think also the opposite view that like science and 0:32:10.120 --> 0:32:13.960 religion actually exist in perfect harmony, and you know, religion 0:32:14.000 --> 0:32:17.040 points towards scientific discoveries. Sometimes you hear this from certain 0:32:17.040 --> 0:32:20.440 religious apologists. I think that would be equally incorrect. 0:32:21.360 --> 0:32:23.440 Yeah. Yeah, and then this, of course, this is a 0:32:23.520 --> 0:32:27.120 much larger topic, but you can certainly get into the 0:32:27.200 --> 0:32:30.080 nooks and Cranny's obit and talk about like, at the 0:32:30.200 --> 0:32:34.360 very basis, religion and science are attempting are often attempting 0:32:34.400 --> 0:32:36.400 to do totally different things. Yeah. 0:32:36.640 --> 0:32:39.000 Sometimes they're attempting to do the same thing, but sometimes 0:32:39.000 --> 0:32:43.000 different things. Yeah. So it's just a complex relationship. And 0:32:43.240 --> 0:32:45.840 that seems to be the historical consensus now among most 0:32:45.880 --> 0:32:49.719 people who study this, that it's just a complex relationship 0:32:49.760 --> 0:32:54.600 with different dynamics depending on time, place, and situation. However, 0:32:54.720 --> 0:32:58.720 despite not going for White's overall thesis, his section on 0:32:58.760 --> 0:33:02.480 the history of the miracle craft legend couched within a 0:33:02.880 --> 0:33:06.400 general discussion of the miracles of Francis Xavior. I thought 0:33:06.520 --> 0:33:10.520 was interesting. So the major theme of this section of 0:33:10.520 --> 0:33:14.440 his book is the tendency for the legends of miracles 0:33:14.920 --> 0:33:18.880 to evolve and to become more numerous and more miraculous 0:33:18.920 --> 0:33:21.560 over time. And I think this part is pretty much 0:33:21.640 --> 0:33:25.360 undeniably true, though it's certainly not unique to the miracles 0:33:25.360 --> 0:33:28.080 of Francis Xavior and not unique to the miracles of 0:33:28.120 --> 0:33:31.720 Catholic saints. I would say in pretty much all contexts, 0:33:32.400 --> 0:33:37.520 amazing unverifiable stories tend to become more amazing as the 0:33:37.600 --> 0:33:38.960 years and the tellings go by. 0:33:39.760 --> 0:33:42.320 Yeah. I think that matches up even with recent episodes 0:33:42.360 --> 0:33:46.880 that we've done about different saints and the supposed miracles 0:33:46.920 --> 0:33:48.000 that they were involved in. 0:33:48.400 --> 0:33:52.000 Yeah. But in the specific case of Francis Xavier, White 0:33:52.040 --> 0:33:57.600 documents numerous specific miracle stories where the earliest accounts are 0:33:57.720 --> 0:34:00.880 much more modest, Sometimes the earliest acount are not even 0:34:00.960 --> 0:34:04.240 miraculous at all, and then later accounts of the same 0:34:04.280 --> 0:34:10.040 events become more and more supernatural and more embellished. So 0:34:10.440 --> 0:34:14.440 White sets this scene by talking about Xavier's canonization proceedings 0:34:14.480 --> 0:34:18.439 in Rome in sixteen twenty two. I think that's the year. 0:34:18.960 --> 0:34:22.040 This would have been roughly seventy years after Xavier's death 0:34:22.600 --> 0:34:26.280 and leading up to this. Part of the canonization process 0:34:26.480 --> 0:34:30.120 is that you have advocates for a person's sainthood, which 0:34:30.160 --> 0:34:32.200 can only you can only get saintthood after you're dead. 0:34:32.400 --> 0:34:35.759 So a dead person's sainthood advocates get up and make 0:34:35.800 --> 0:34:38.880 a case for that, in part by giving testimony about 0:34:38.920 --> 0:34:42.759 miracles the person is alleged to have performed. So at 0:34:42.800 --> 0:34:46.800 Saint Francis Xavier's proceedings, there's a guy named Cardinal Monte 0:34:46.960 --> 0:34:50.400 who gets up and gives a speech claiming that Francis 0:34:50.480 --> 0:34:53.200 turned seawater into fresh water so that people could drink it. 0:34:54.040 --> 0:34:56.360 That came up earlier. That was one of the legends 0:34:56.760 --> 0:35:00.719 that Mochizuki said may have actually been taken from a 0:35:00.760 --> 0:35:02.040 local Malaysian legend. 0:35:02.239 --> 0:35:04.080 Okay, miraculous desalination. 0:35:04.239 --> 0:35:07.319 I like, yeah, then you get some very standard ones. 0:35:07.360 --> 0:35:10.879 Healing the sick, raising the dead. White talks about how 0:35:10.880 --> 0:35:15.040 the number of instances of these miracles keep multiplying over time. 0:35:16.040 --> 0:35:19.200 There's a claim that he was levitated while praying, and 0:35:19.200 --> 0:35:22.759 then was transformed before a crowd of witnesses, and then 0:35:22.800 --> 0:35:26.560 finally Quote and that to punish a blaspheming town, he 0:35:26.640 --> 0:35:29.920 caused an earthquake and buried the offenders in cinders from 0:35:29.920 --> 0:35:32.240 a volcano. Oh, is that a miracle? 0:35:32.400 --> 0:35:35.480 I don't know. That doesn't feel like a miracle to me. 0:35:35.560 --> 0:35:38.960 Then that I don't know if that should qualify one. 0:35:40.040 --> 0:35:43.680 However, White says that the most curious of the miracle 0:35:43.760 --> 0:35:45.800 stories here is the one we've been talking about, the 0:35:45.800 --> 0:35:49.600 crucifix in the crab. And this story does show the 0:35:49.640 --> 0:35:53.080 same pattern of development over time that illustrates with other 0:35:53.120 --> 0:35:57.920 miracle stories about Xavier. Quote. In its first form, Xavier 0:35:58.160 --> 0:36:01.799 lost the crucifix in the sea, and the earlier biographers 0:36:01.880 --> 0:36:05.200 dwell on the sorrow which he showed in consequence. But 0:36:05.239 --> 0:36:08.680 the later historians declared that the saint threw the crucifix 0:36:08.680 --> 0:36:11.480 into the sea in order to steal a tempest, and 0:36:11.520 --> 0:36:14.800 that after his safe getting to land, a crab brought 0:36:14.800 --> 0:36:18.440 it to him on the shore. So I was looking 0:36:18.560 --> 0:36:20.840 at this, and then I went digging in other sources 0:36:20.840 --> 0:36:24.080 to try to piece together the evolution of this story. 0:36:24.120 --> 0:36:27.879 I think it's complicated, so I can't get every detail right, 0:36:27.920 --> 0:36:31.239 but I think there are basically three layers of development 0:36:31.280 --> 0:36:37.560 to the legend. You've got first Xavier's contemporary account preserved 0:36:37.560 --> 0:36:42.000 in his letters, which does not mention any supernatural events 0:36:42.000 --> 0:36:45.319 at all. There's no stilling of a storm with a crucifix, 0:36:45.320 --> 0:36:49.120 there's no miracle crab. This early account, directly from the 0:36:49.200 --> 0:36:51.879 letter is just says there's a storm while he's at sea, 0:36:52.320 --> 0:36:56.359 and Xavier clutches his crucifix and he prays fervently. And 0:36:56.400 --> 0:37:00.400 then later you get testimony from the eyewitness that the 0:37:00.400 --> 0:37:04.279 Portuguese soldier Fausto Rodriguez, and this is several years later, 0:37:04.360 --> 0:37:06.919 and it adds new details. This is where we get 0:37:06.960 --> 0:37:10.680 that Xavier accidentally loses the crucifix while trying to still 0:37:10.760 --> 0:37:14.720 the storm, and the crucifix is returned by a crab. 0:37:15.239 --> 0:37:18.799 And then later still you have biographers playing up the 0:37:18.840 --> 0:37:23.040 weather control aspects and making that more stupendous. The later 0:37:23.120 --> 0:37:28.120 biographers say that Xavier successfully calms the storm by intentionally 0:37:28.200 --> 0:37:31.720 throwing the crucifix into the sea, and then same detail, 0:37:31.719 --> 0:37:34.480 it is later returned by the crab. So the crab 0:37:34.520 --> 0:37:37.560 element seems to come out in a middle stage of development, 0:37:37.640 --> 0:37:41.000 you know, in this early eyewitness account by Fausto Rodriguez, 0:37:41.040 --> 0:37:44.200 but it's not in the earliest account from the letters. 0:37:45.120 --> 0:37:47.880 And then later on we get the really playing up 0:37:47.920 --> 0:37:52.000 of the intentional effective weather control by way of crucifix bomb. 0:37:53.520 --> 0:37:55.480 Yeah, I mean then the mere fact that he doesn't 0:37:55.520 --> 0:37:59.200 mention it himself. I mean a granted, you know, busy guy, 0:37:59.320 --> 0:38:01.120 maybe he didn't have time to write everything down. But 0:38:01.160 --> 0:38:03.959 if a crab ever brought you a crucifix, I feel 0:38:03.960 --> 0:38:06.759 like that would be one of the most noteworthy things 0:38:06.800 --> 0:38:08.800 that ever happened in your life. Like, if it happened 0:38:08.840 --> 0:38:11.680 to me, I would never stop talking about. 0:38:11.440 --> 0:38:13.880 It your diary. Yeah, going straight to the journals for 0:38:13.960 --> 0:38:15.520 this one, telling everybody I know. 0:38:15.880 --> 0:38:18.600 Like, even if you were a complete atheist and this happened, 0:38:18.640 --> 0:38:20.839 you would still talk about it all the time. Yeah. 0:38:20.920 --> 0:38:23.840 Oh yeah, it wouldn't be you wouldn't think it was supernatural. 0:38:23.880 --> 0:38:27.000 You'd just be like, that's really amazing. Yeah, yeah, what. 0:38:27.080 --> 0:38:28.280 Were the chances, et cetera. 0:38:28.960 --> 0:38:32.680 But anyway, so this story got me thinking about why 0:38:32.719 --> 0:38:36.680 there is such a strong tendency for hagiographic details, you know, 0:38:36.760 --> 0:38:41.080 details about the miracles of saints to develop like this. 0:38:41.880 --> 0:38:44.560 And I was wondering if it's sort of two different 0:38:44.640 --> 0:38:50.600 tendencies coming together. One is an omnipresent natural tendency to 0:38:50.719 --> 0:38:54.040 make amazing stories more and more amazing over time when 0:38:54.040 --> 0:38:56.440 you retell them. You know, would we started with that 0:38:56.520 --> 0:38:58.719 like I went fishing. The fish gets bigger, bigger every 0:38:58.719 --> 0:39:01.560 time you tell the story. But then I wonder whether 0:39:01.760 --> 0:39:05.480 the other half of this is that there's a normal 0:39:05.840 --> 0:39:11.040 limiting principle on this tendency to keep exaggerating stories over time, 0:39:11.520 --> 0:39:15.120 and that limiting principle is a type of conscience, a 0:39:15.200 --> 0:39:19.200 kind of sense of honesty or moral obligation to be accurate. 0:39:19.600 --> 0:39:22.359 You feel bad, you know, you might feel bad if 0:39:22.400 --> 0:39:25.319 you realize you're exaggerating at all. You might do so, 0:39:25.480 --> 0:39:28.440 you might exaggerate unconsciously, but you might feel bad if 0:39:28.480 --> 0:39:30.080 you're doing it at all, Or you might feel bad 0:39:30.120 --> 0:39:33.440 if you exaggerate too much. And I wonder if this 0:39:33.719 --> 0:39:38.200 moral limiting principle is largely removed when we feel like 0:39:38.280 --> 0:39:42.680 we're doing something morally good by telling an amazing story. 0:39:43.360 --> 0:39:47.160 So if you're, say a Christian recounting the good deeds 0:39:47.239 --> 0:39:51.520 or miracles of a saint, these stories provide evidence of 0:39:51.560 --> 0:39:54.000 the power of God from your point of view, or 0:39:54.040 --> 0:39:57.319 they help spread the Gospel and convert the unconverted. So 0:39:57.600 --> 0:40:01.080 from your point of view, the amazing of the miracle 0:40:01.120 --> 0:40:05.360 story contributes directly to a good cause. So I wonder 0:40:05.400 --> 0:40:08.600 if the sense of goodness that you feel is accomplished 0:40:08.680 --> 0:40:13.000 by allowing the story to grow in amazingness can kind 0:40:13.040 --> 0:40:16.600 of overwhelm the moral limits we normally feel on exaggeration. 0:40:17.560 --> 0:40:19.560 Yeah, I could see that being part of it. Certainly, 0:40:19.880 --> 0:40:23.400 you can also tie in various other things we've discussed before, 0:40:23.560 --> 0:40:27.960 like how memory retrieval can lead to the change of 0:40:28.000 --> 0:40:31.640 the memory and alteration of the memory. And then like 0:40:32.080 --> 0:40:35.160 even just the telling of the thing. You know, certainly 0:40:35.160 --> 0:40:37.879 you can embellish it each time on purpose, but also 0:40:38.120 --> 0:40:41.360 as we tell and retell stories, those stories do change, 0:40:41.600 --> 0:40:43.800 and maybe they do become a little we punch it 0:40:43.920 --> 0:40:44.840 up a little bit as we go. 0:40:45.920 --> 0:40:48.920 Yeah. Absolutely, I think it's undeniable that there are some 0:40:49.520 --> 0:40:54.560 types and degrees of embellishment and exaggeration that occur unconsciously. 0:40:55.120 --> 0:40:57.919 But I do wonder about some big leaps, like when 0:40:58.719 --> 0:41:02.680 new concrete details of a story emerge, like when an 0:41:02.760 --> 0:41:05.800 earlier version of the story doesn't have a crab bringing 0:41:05.800 --> 0:41:08.800 across out of the ocean, and a later version does. 0:41:09.400 --> 0:41:12.520 At that point, I start to wonder where does that 0:41:12.640 --> 0:41:15.759 detail come from, because that it seems hard for me 0:41:15.840 --> 0:41:20.759 to imagine that that is just an unintentional exaggeration or embellishment, 0:41:21.000 --> 0:41:23.600 because the concrete image of the crab has to come 0:41:23.640 --> 0:41:27.120 from somewhere. I wonder if it could be unintentional if 0:41:27.239 --> 0:41:31.040 years later you are mixing up different stories in your head, 0:41:31.200 --> 0:41:34.719 maybe something like that, Like this comes back to the 0:41:34.760 --> 0:41:38.000 idea of the uh you know, the legend of the 0:41:38.040 --> 0:41:42.799 Buddhist the Buddhist figure who gets the the icon back 0:41:42.840 --> 0:41:46.279 from the ocean from an octopus. Like maybe having heard 0:41:46.320 --> 0:41:49.560 a version of that story and then having had this experience, 0:41:49.600 --> 0:41:52.680 you kind of accidentally combine them in your brain. Yeah. 0:41:52.760 --> 0:41:56.920 Yeah, Like I can imagine a scenario where Xavior finds 0:41:56.960 --> 0:41:59.560 the cross that he lost washed up on the shore, 0:41:59.600 --> 0:42:03.800 which in of itself would be miraculous luck, but then 0:42:04.200 --> 0:42:07.239 recollection of this gets combined with a local folk tale 0:42:07.360 --> 0:42:12.800 about another sea creature, you know, restoring ownership of a 0:42:12.840 --> 0:42:15.799 particular holy icon. Yeah, you can see how these things 0:42:15.840 --> 0:42:18.880 could come together and merge. I feel like the crab 0:42:19.120 --> 0:42:23.440 is is a slightly more believable choice though, right, I mean, 0:42:23.480 --> 0:42:27.240 because we do see crabs coming out of the ocean 0:42:27.880 --> 0:42:30.560 with more regularity as compared to the octopus. 0:42:31.520 --> 0:42:35.120 That okay, So I have different thoughts, and this set 0:42:35.120 --> 0:42:37.120 of thoughts may bring us back to a topic I 0:42:37.280 --> 0:42:40.719 mentioned earlier. I feel like, just based on what I 0:42:40.719 --> 0:42:44.680 know about crabs versus octopuses, you'd be more likely to 0:42:44.760 --> 0:42:49.799 have an octopus carrying around a strange human artifact because 0:42:49.840 --> 0:42:52.440 octopuses are very curious, they like to play. 0:42:53.160 --> 0:42:56.560 You know, some do do some form of possible tool 0:42:56.640 --> 0:42:58.359 use as well. I don't know that they would be 0:42:58.640 --> 0:43:03.520 using a silvery crucifix for anything, but it's not impossible. 0:43:03.560 --> 0:43:04.560 They're very tactile. 0:43:04.920 --> 0:43:06.920 Yeah, whether or not the octopus is using it for 0:43:06.920 --> 0:43:09.840 any that would be amazing. If they saw the octopus 0:43:09.960 --> 0:43:14.480 crying open clamshells with the crucifix, I mean, that's wonderful. 0:43:14.520 --> 0:43:18.080 But no, like if it just brought up and I 0:43:18.080 --> 0:43:20.120 guess in the octopus version of the story, it wasn't 0:43:20.160 --> 0:43:23.360 a crucifix. It was it was an image of this god, 0:43:24.200 --> 0:43:28.480 this the Buddhist figure. But yeah, you know, a human 0:43:28.480 --> 0:43:32.680 made artifact is unusual in the octopus's environment, and the 0:43:32.760 --> 0:43:34.680 curiosity might just lead it to kind of want to 0:43:34.680 --> 0:43:36.520 play with it and manipulate it. We see that in 0:43:36.719 --> 0:43:40.440 octopuses in captivity certainly, So yeah, I wonder about that. 0:43:40.480 --> 0:43:42.720 But then again, we do sometimes see crabs just grip 0:43:42.800 --> 0:43:44.799 something in the claw and carry it around. We've all 0:43:44.800 --> 0:43:48.360 seen the picture of the crab holding a knife. 0:43:48.600 --> 0:43:49.120 That's true. 0:43:50.320 --> 0:43:53.520 But maybe this should cause us to come back to 0:43:53.719 --> 0:43:56.640 crabs carrying objects in a subsequent part of the series 0:43:56.680 --> 0:43:58.520 to get to the bottom of what's going on there. 0:43:58.920 --> 0:44:11.799 All right, sounds good? All right? Before we close up 0:44:11.800 --> 0:44:13.480 the episode, I think I'm going to move on to 0:44:13.880 --> 0:44:17.080 a single topic here we're going to deal with. This 0:44:17.120 --> 0:44:20.440 is going to be a much shorter exploration, but I 0:44:20.480 --> 0:44:23.480 want to talk briefly about something that is sometimes referred 0:44:23.480 --> 0:44:27.040 to as crab theory. I don't know about you, Joe, 0:44:27.040 --> 0:44:29.640 This is some I somehow missed out on this concept 0:44:29.800 --> 0:44:33.480 entirely until I was looking around for crab related topics 0:44:33.719 --> 0:44:37.120 to discuss in these episodes. So we might have to 0:44:37.120 --> 0:44:40.200 come back to this one in greater detail much later on, 0:44:40.239 --> 0:44:44.000 because the psychology of it gets a bit complicated. The 0:44:44.040 --> 0:44:46.319 cultural aspects of it getting a bit complicated, and it 0:44:46.360 --> 0:44:49.120 spreads out in a number of directions. I'm also a 0:44:49.160 --> 0:44:52.480 little uncertain about the origin of the idea of crab theory. 0:44:52.800 --> 0:44:55.520 I've seen it suggested that the term has origins in 0:44:55.560 --> 0:45:01.160 the Philippines. I've seen a Filipino feminist author, Notchka Rosca 0:45:01.239 --> 0:45:04.319 singled out as a possible originator. But I've also seen 0:45:04.360 --> 0:45:07.640 it sort of claimed culturally in other directions. Like I 0:45:07.680 --> 0:45:11.080 saw I believe it's a BBC article that briefly mentioned 0:45:11.080 --> 0:45:15.480 it as being a Scottish thing, you know, whether it originated. 0:45:15.520 --> 0:45:17.839 They didn't make the claim that the Scottish originated it, 0:45:17.840 --> 0:45:20.200 but it was like, like, hey, Scott's talk about this 0:45:20.280 --> 0:45:23.000 from time to time. I believe the term was also 0:45:23.120 --> 0:45:26.520 popularized by a twenty ten episode of The Boondocks, the 0:45:26.560 --> 0:45:29.520 animated series, but I couldn't find much in the way 0:45:29.560 --> 0:45:32.160 of clarity on any of this. But assuming an origin 0:45:32.200 --> 0:45:35.240 in the Philippines, it would seem that the metaphor travels 0:45:35.280 --> 0:45:38.840 easily because first of all, the behavior and attitudes it 0:45:38.840 --> 0:45:42.640 attempts to describe are universal, and number two, you just 0:45:42.760 --> 0:45:45.600 need some understanding of crabs for it to make sense. 0:45:45.719 --> 0:45:50.680 And again, crabs must be watched. We crabs are just fascinating. 0:45:50.719 --> 0:45:52.799 We can't help but watch what they're doing. You feel 0:45:52.800 --> 0:45:56.360 like you've got to decode the scuttling. Yeah, So what 0:45:56.520 --> 0:46:00.880 is this crab theory? Basically it boils down to this. 0:46:01.400 --> 0:46:03.960 If you have a bucket of crabs, any crab that 0:46:04.000 --> 0:46:06.760 attempts to climb too high and escape from that bucket 0:46:06.800 --> 0:46:09.799 will be pulled down by the other crabs. So the 0:46:09.880 --> 0:46:12.160 human situation here can be You can roll it out 0:46:12.200 --> 0:46:14.040 in a few different ways. So, first of all, there's 0:46:14.040 --> 0:46:17.640 the broad idea that humans are engaging in various forms 0:46:17.680 --> 0:46:24.520 of jealousy, gatekeeping, social boundary maintenance, and competition of different varieties, 0:46:24.800 --> 0:46:26.920 and therefore may act in a way like this, this 0:46:27.080 --> 0:46:29.480 kind of this kind of attitude. Well, if I can't win, 0:46:29.600 --> 0:46:33.680 nobody can win. If I can't climb, no one will climb. 0:46:33.719 --> 0:46:37.279 If I can't escape, no one will escape. So that 0:46:37.400 --> 0:46:39.800 sort of thing. But then you also have this bucket 0:46:39.840 --> 0:46:43.880 element to it. The bucket is an imposed environment. So 0:46:43.920 --> 0:46:46.440 the crabs were put in this bucket, and so the 0:46:46.480 --> 0:46:51.640 bucket can represent all manner of groups, communities, industries, cultures, 0:46:51.960 --> 0:46:56.760 social constructs, and especially any of these influenced by colonialism. 0:46:57.040 --> 0:47:00.880 So especially this would apply in an artificialvironment that was 0:47:00.960 --> 0:47:03.839 not made for people to thrive in, but which into 0:47:03.840 --> 0:47:05.000 which they've been put. 0:47:05.560 --> 0:47:09.440 Right, Like, you could take the crab theory scenario and 0:47:09.520 --> 0:47:11.719 you could, you could you could roll it out for 0:47:11.760 --> 0:47:15.399 a workplace and say like, hey, our workplace has this 0:47:15.560 --> 0:47:19.160 like toxic environment. It is like a crab bucket where 0:47:19.239 --> 0:47:21.799 everybody that is in this crab bucket, we just won't 0:47:21.840 --> 0:47:25.319 let anybody rise up. We keep pulling them down. And 0:47:25.680 --> 0:47:28.960 it says it says as much about the environment that 0:47:29.000 --> 0:47:32.719 we've been placed in as as it does about human. 0:47:32.560 --> 0:47:36.280 Nature, right, because crabs don't naturally live in a bucket, 0:47:36.360 --> 0:47:39.920 and so the bucket environment maybe bringing out behaviors that 0:47:40.920 --> 0:47:43.640 are shown in the bucket, but wouldn't necessarily be shown 0:47:43.840 --> 0:47:47.120 if the crabs were just crawling around in their natural environment. 0:47:46.960 --> 0:47:51.000 Right right. So so yeah, this seems to have this metaphorse, 0:47:51.040 --> 0:47:53.839 seems to have traveled rather well and again has been 0:47:53.920 --> 0:47:56.200 kind of like picked up in different areas by different people. 0:47:56.800 --> 0:47:59.920 And again it ties in crabs, which everyone likes to watch. 0:48:00.920 --> 0:48:04.160 But it does raise the question our crabs really like this? 0:48:04.960 --> 0:48:08.680 And I think broadly you can say yes and no. 0:48:08.840 --> 0:48:13.319 So many crabs absolutely are solitary and competitive competitive. You know, 0:48:13.960 --> 0:48:17.359 individual humans can exhibit these qualities as well, but as 0:48:17.400 --> 0:48:20.760 a whole we are a highly social species and crabs 0:48:20.880 --> 0:48:25.440 are not. Still, some crabs species engage in various forms 0:48:25.480 --> 0:48:29.600 of at least limited cooperation, and we've talked about at 0:48:29.680 --> 0:48:31.399 least one of these before in the show, and that's 0:48:31.480 --> 0:48:37.280 the hermit crab vacancy chains. Hardly altruistic, but the process 0:48:37.400 --> 0:48:41.080 benefits other crabs. So, just to remind everyone, sometimes called 0:48:41.080 --> 0:48:44.799 the congo line cooperation, where you have hermit crabs who 0:48:44.840 --> 0:48:48.640 have these shells that are not created, not grown by 0:48:48.640 --> 0:48:53.000 their own bodies. These are pilfered from various mollusks and 0:48:53.280 --> 0:48:56.440 they eventually outgrow them. They have to molt and then 0:48:56.480 --> 0:48:59.520 they have to get a new shell. But all the 0:48:59.560 --> 0:49:02.200 other crab are doing this at the same time, and 0:49:02.280 --> 0:49:05.080 so it creates these situations where a crab leaves one 0:49:05.080 --> 0:49:07.720 shell and then that creates a vacancy for another crab 0:49:07.840 --> 0:49:11.879 to level up. And there's kind of a musical chair 0:49:11.920 --> 0:49:15.200 as that takes place, and you can you can certainly 0:49:15.360 --> 0:49:20.920 view this as a form of social cooperation, but you know, 0:49:20.960 --> 0:49:22.560 you have to strip away a lot of the human 0:49:24.000 --> 0:49:25.919 definitions of cooperation to get there. 0:49:26.960 --> 0:49:29.760 Yeah, I think some people claim that this is similar 0:49:29.800 --> 0:49:34.000 to what they think are the beneficial aspects of market economies, 0:49:34.080 --> 0:49:36.840 right where you can have like a you know, a 0:49:36.960 --> 0:49:41.480 vacancy created in some sense, either like housing vacancy or 0:49:41.600 --> 0:49:43.880 job vacancy or things like that. When a sort of 0:49:43.960 --> 0:49:48.319 spot opens up within an economic zone, somebody can move 0:49:48.320 --> 0:49:51.600 into that spot, and they create a vacancy when they 0:49:51.719 --> 0:49:53.759 leave their spot, so somebody else can move into that. 0:49:54.680 --> 0:49:57.840 And so even though the individual actors are just acting 0:49:57.880 --> 0:50:00.560 in their own best interest, it sort of creates a 0:50:00.600 --> 0:50:03.000 broad benefit for many different parties. 0:50:02.880 --> 0:50:06.400 Right right now. In addition to this example, studies have 0:50:06.440 --> 0:50:09.960 also found that male fiddler crabs will appear to help 0:50:10.040 --> 0:50:14.920 neighboring crabs defend against their territory against intruders, so not 0:50:15.239 --> 0:50:17.920 out of the goodness of their tiny crab hearts, but 0:50:18.239 --> 0:50:21.520 because it suits their interests as well. So it's kind 0:50:21.520 --> 0:50:26.000 of selective coalitions that are formed among these crabs. So, 0:50:26.480 --> 0:50:28.839 I don't know, it's interesting to think about that. There's 0:50:28.840 --> 0:50:33.200 certainly the case there's a very pessimistic view that you 0:50:33.239 --> 0:50:35.960 can take, and you can say, well, anytime humans engage 0:50:36.000 --> 0:50:39.239 in cooperation, they're still doing it for selfish interest and 0:50:39.640 --> 0:50:44.920 humans are essentially crabs. You can make that argument, but 0:50:45.080 --> 0:50:46.840 I think at at the end of the day, you 0:50:46.920 --> 0:50:50.440 still have to acknowledge that humans are a highly social creature. 0:50:50.719 --> 0:50:54.920 Crabs are not. But some forms of cooperation do emerge 0:50:55.760 --> 0:50:56.600 among crabs. 0:50:57.480 --> 0:50:59.800 Yeah, in the case of humans, I would not argue 0:50:59.840 --> 0:51:02.880 that everything is ultimately selfish, but it's also impossible to 0:51:02.920 --> 0:51:05.479 disprove that is, how can you ever proved that there's 0:51:05.520 --> 0:51:08.759 not secretly an underlying selfish motivation for some rout you know, 0:51:09.920 --> 0:51:12.960 So that's just kind of a yeah, a matter of interpretation, 0:51:13.080 --> 0:51:16.319 I think. Yeah, But similarly with crabs, Yeah, you can 0:51:16.360 --> 0:51:20.720 see these situations in which some type of mutual benefit 0:51:21.120 --> 0:51:24.560 occurs from cooperation. So in the crab world, it is 0:51:24.600 --> 0:51:30.160 in fact not always just just universal punishing chaos and 0:51:30.760 --> 0:51:35.360 destruction of your neighbors. There is some mutual benefit that 0:51:35.400 --> 0:51:36.719 occurs exactly. 0:51:36.840 --> 0:51:39.919 Yeah, but it does make you wonder if there were 0:51:40.000 --> 0:51:44.760 to be a situation where a crab rescued a silver 0:51:44.840 --> 0:51:48.799 crucifix from the bottom of the ocean and returned it 0:51:48.840 --> 0:51:52.440 to its human owner on a on a far flung shore. 0:51:53.440 --> 0:51:55.680 I mean that would what is in't it for the crab? 0:51:55.719 --> 0:51:58.520 There nothing in the story about the crab being rewarded with, 0:51:59.360 --> 0:52:01.920 you know, a fresh piece of rotting fish or anything 0:52:02.600 --> 0:52:05.240 of that nature. In this story, I guess the crab 0:52:05.320 --> 0:52:07.640 just did it out of the goodness of its heart 0:52:07.960 --> 0:52:12.279 and out of its devotion to the divine. So I'm 0:52:12.280 --> 0:52:14.680 not sure how we would beyond that. I'm not sure 0:52:14.719 --> 0:52:16.480 how we would really compare these two examples. 0:52:16.800 --> 0:52:20.160 The original story, I believe, does not say what kind 0:52:20.200 --> 0:52:22.960 of crab it is, so the later association with the 0:52:22.960 --> 0:52:29.200 crucifix crab species the charybdis feriatis, is a subsequent connection 0:52:29.320 --> 0:52:34.040 people have made. But if it were the crucifix crab 0:52:34.080 --> 0:52:36.640 that returned to the crucifix, people do say that the 0:52:36.640 --> 0:52:42.120 crucifix crab is an especially aggressive crab species, So maybe 0:52:42.280 --> 0:52:45.320 the returning of the crucifix is some kind of veiled threat. 0:52:45.719 --> 0:52:48.200 Oh yeah, or you know, in some of these tellings 0:52:48.880 --> 0:52:53.040 it did cause Xavier and his friend to lay upon 0:52:53.080 --> 0:52:55.759 the beach. Maybe that's when the crabs swarm and they're like, 0:52:55.840 --> 0:52:56.439 let's get them. 0:52:56.719 --> 0:52:59.240 It works. Oh that's right, Yes, you do a miracle, 0:52:59.320 --> 0:53:02.080 so you get them praying, and that's your opportunity to strike. 0:53:02.239 --> 0:53:03.759 The crabs are like you see a jess to it. 0:53:03.840 --> 0:53:05.719 You give them a crucifix, they'll lay down and then 0:53:05.760 --> 0:53:07.000 you can have whatever you want. 0:53:07.880 --> 0:53:09.799 So does that do it for part one of the 0:53:09.800 --> 0:53:10.400 Crab Bag? 0:53:10.680 --> 0:53:13.720 I think so. I think we've we've hit our time 0:53:13.760 --> 0:53:17.320 for today. But we have some other lovely crab related 0:53:17.840 --> 0:53:21.239 nuggets to pull out for tomorrow, some other specimens, some 0:53:21.360 --> 0:53:25.000 other scientific and cultural examples. Well, not for tomorrow, for 0:53:25.360 --> 0:53:26.240 the day after tomorrow. 0:53:26.239 --> 0:53:26.600 You get it. 0:53:26.680 --> 0:53:29.960 Yeah, So join us next time as we return to 0:53:30.040 --> 0:53:34.040 the Crab grab Bag. Just a reminder to everyone out 0:53:34.080 --> 0:53:36.440 there again, especially if you're new to the show. Stuff 0:53:36.440 --> 0:53:38.880 to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture 0:53:38.920 --> 0:53:42.719 podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on 0:53:42.760 --> 0:53:45.640 Wednesdays we do a short form episode, and on Fridays 0:53:45.719 --> 0:53:48.040 rather we do Weird House Cinema. That's our time to 0:53:48.080 --> 0:53:50.160 set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a 0:53:50.160 --> 0:53:50.760 weird film. 0:53:51.239 --> 0:53:55.120 Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. 0:53:55.400 --> 0:53:56.920 If you would like to get in touch with us 0:53:56.960 --> 0:53:59.440 with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest 0:53:59.480 --> 0:54:01.480 a topic for the future, or just to say hello. 0:54:01.640 --> 0:54:04.120 You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow 0:54:04.120 --> 0:54:13.560 your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is 0:54:13.640 --> 0:54:17.279 production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit 0:54:17.320 --> 0:54:20.279 the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:54:20.360 --> 0:54:35.400 your favorite shows.