I have a collection of draft posts in various phases of completion, most of which will probably never see the light of day. I was browsing through them and discovered that I had two involving--of all things--Joseph Fielding Smith and milk. Why let an odd combination like that go to waste? I've dusted them off and polished them up a bit. The first can be found here. Below is the second post.
Several years ago I was reading a story on Slate.com about cheese and thought of Joseph Fielding Smith. Let me explain.
When I read Man, His Origin and Destiny years ago, I noted a passage that struck me as odd. People pushing back against science often point to things that are not understood in order to highlight its limits--sometimes with the implication that those things are a mystery beyond science, and therefore the work of divinity. It is a common form of the 'god-of-the-gaps' argument.
In his book, President Joseph Fielding Smith identified some mysteries.
A scientist is able to understand the structure of a brain and the nervous system but who is able to tell whence comes a thought? What makes the heart beat? Why will two rose bushes only two feet apart, drawing nourishment from the same soil bear roses one deep red and the other pure white? Where and how comes the delicate coloring of the pansy or violet out of the same soil? Why are snow crystals always formed in six-pointed stars or sides, never in five or seven? One scientist has said that, "Water and sugar and the complex minerals which make the granite rocks all follow laws which are utterly unchangeable, but which are, as far as we can see, without any special reason: it is as profitable to speculate why the chlorophyll of vegetation is green and why the blood of animals is red. . . . Science knows why snow is white, and why it is beneficent; but it cannot explain the law of six." A black hen will lay a white egg and another hen either white or black will lay a brown egg. The eggs of some birds are blue, some are brown, some are white and some are speckled. William J. Bryan once said: why can "a black cow eat green grass and then give white milk with yellow butter in it?" Who can explain why these things are so? [Man, His Origin and Destiny, p. 14-15, bolding added]
Viewed from today's perspective, most of these questions have good answers. Probably the only question still standing is "whence comes a thought?"
William Jennings Bryan's question about cows, grass, and milk is particularly silly, and here's where Slate.com comes in,
explaining why white milk becomes yellow cheese.
Beta carotene is a fat-soluble yellow pigment and antioxidant found in grass. After a cow chews the cud, beta-carotene dissolves into the animal’s fat stores and ends up in fat globules in its milk. However, protein clusters and the membranes that surround fat globules in milk conceal the pigment’s color, reflecting light in a way that makes milk appear white and opaque. But during the cheesemaking process, the pigment is released: After bacterial culture and rennet have been added to milk and the coagulated mixture is cooked, the fat membranes dissolve and the protein clusters loosen so they can’t reflect light anymore.
While the article addressed the color of cheese rather than butter, the answer is basically the same. And just for the sake of completeness, grass is green because it contains chlorophyll, which is a poor absorber of green light, and the cow is black because it produces light-absorbing melanin in the hair and skin.
Another mystery solved by science!
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