The Cuddly Hyrax and the Two-Headed Rhino
Following taking Torah-in-Motion's 2019 African Adventure group to Zimbabwe and Botswana, where we saw astonishing elephants, hippos and monster crocodiles, we went down to Capetown in South Africa. There, we took the cable car up to the top of Table Mountain. This is one of my favorite places, because it is pretty much the only place outside of Israel where you will see an important Biblical creature: the hyrax. I posted the following photo to Facebook:
Now to my mind this looks like I bought a cuddly toy hyrax and put it on the mountain for a photo. Which is indeed exactly what I did; the real hyraxes were (unlike in other years) too far away to get a good picture of them. But, much to my surprise, a number of people on Facebook thought that it was a photo of a real hyrax!
Okay, I guess most people are not as intimately familiar with hyraxes as I am. But then yesterday, I was able to post a truly extraordinary photo:
As I wrote on Facebook, this is "Possibly the most extraordinary wildlife photo that I have ever taken. A two-headed rhino!"
This photo got an enormous amount of attention! Many people were marveling at the incredible phenomenon of a two-headed rhinoceros. But others were wondering: could such a thing really exist?
The answer is that it's certainly possible for such a creature to exist. The phenomenon of a creature possessing two heads (or perhaps it should be phrased as twins possessing a single body) has been documented with numerous species. Two-headed snakes appear to be particularly common; there was one exhibited for many years at a reptile zoo near Eilat. I've also seen two-headed turtles. And at the Biblical Museum of Natural History, we have the skull of a two-faced cow.
Most remarkable of all are Abigail and Brittany Hensel. They are adult twins who possess a single body, with Abigail controlling the arm and leg on one side, and Brittany controlling the arm and leg on the other side. The Hensel twins are fully functional, and can even drive!
What about a two-headed rhinoceros? In fact, there is a webpage, titled "Five Bizarre (Yet Real) Two-Headed Animals," which features photos not only of a two-headed snake, turtle, kitten and piglet, but also of a two-headed rhino!
Yet at the same time, one should ask oneself: What is more likely? Is it more likely that I saw a two-headed rhino, or is it more likely that there is some other trickery involved? For example, it's possible that the photo was digitally manipulated on Photoshop. Or that there were two rhinos which were standing with their legs perfectly lined up, giving the impression that there was a single four-legged body - which would still make for a fabulous photo, albeit not quite as fabulous as a two-headed rhino!
(For the record, I hereby attest that I did not alter my photo in any way! But as for the photo of the two-headed rhino on the aforementioned webpage of "Five Bizarre (Yet Real) Two-Headed Animals," shown here, I am convinced that it is digitally manipulated.)
Many people focus on what is theoretically possible, rather than on what is likely. This is something that I encounter quite often in arguing various topics surrounding Rationalist Judaism. To give but one example: Is it theoretically possible that when the Gemara said that the atalef lays eggs, that it was not referring to a bat, but rather to a duck-billed platypus from Australia, and just happened to describe it with the exact name that everyone has always understood to refer to the bat, which is a creature that is birdlike and often mistakenly thought to lay eggs? Yes, it's theoretically possible. But is it likely? Not in the slightest!
When evaluating claims, it's always important to think about what is most likely and reasonable, not what is theoretically possible. And to be aware of all the different possibilities to exist - and their probabilities. Of course, different people will have different ways of weighing up various probabilities. But the first step is to at least be aware that that is what should be done.