A Bean Is Not Just A Bean

I have been curious about beans ever since Pythagoras named the blog. What is the story? I'm afraid I don't know enough to tell it properly. It seems to twist on the idea that a bean is not just a bean; it literally embodies what it resembles. Many people, most famously Pythagoras, have noticed that a bean looks a lot like a human body or certain parts of a body. Perhaps a bean is a fetal human? Pythagoras forbade his followers (yes, he had a small flock, not all of them mathematicians) to eat the bean or even to touch the plant, which, being without joints or segments, seems to connect heaven and hell.
[This is not an isolated eccentrism: plants have often been related to what they resemble. This has resulted in, for instance, the name of an herbaceous spring flowering plant with curious, three-lobed leaves (see http://ivycreekfoundation.org/Hepatica.html). Hepatica ( from Gr. hepar) was believed to cure liver problems because it looked like one.]
There are some other interesting bean personnae to explore, if you care to. One relates beans to politics. I read about beans by Googling bean Pythagoras.
Here's skin off your bean.