WinAce

Organisms That Look Designed

This is my (massively rewritten) takeoff on the design argument for God's existence that I've been promising to finish for months. It's basically one big reductio ad absurdum. The underlying running gag is that all these organisms are staggeringly complex, hence designed--but they're all creatures that give Hollywood horror movies a good run for their money. Stuff like eye-parasitizing worms and zombie-mind-control barnacles. Things that, if truly designed, should make us very scared of ever encountering the designer.

This article is one of the oldest things I've written, first dating to 2002 (I think). In the latest incarnation, I add a huge number of new (really horrendous) organisms, add a large number of colorful pictures, take many more stabs at Behe and his ilk's logic, and so on and so forth.

WARNING: DO NOT read this if you're even remotely squeamish, as indicated above.

Suggestions, critiques and comments are still welcome. Thanks to everyone who sent ideas and links and such in the past--unfortunately, I lost my list of contributors in a reformatting, but you know who you are.

Jet Black

Excellent stuff, you could also add Bothriomyrmex regicidus or Bothriomyrmex decapitans if you can find much about them - to me at least they are one of the most startlingly cunning methods of killing and parasitism in nature, rolled into one. (I think I would have been an ant or spider specialist if I hadn't done physics) They are ant queens that sneak into another ant nest, murder the queen (or get the queens own offspring to murder her) and then they take over the colony themselves. obviously this cannot evolve either, since

(1) if the ant cannot get into the hive without being killed, it will never breed
(2) if the ant cannot identify the queen, it will never breed
(3) if the ant cannot kill the queen, it will never breed.
(4) if the ant cannot convince the workers of the freshly dead queen that she is really the queen, she will never breed.

(3) consists of more parts than that, dependent on whether one is talking about regicidus or decapitans.

Oolon Colluphid

Very nice WinAce! I'll be linking to your site from mine at the next update (sorry I've not done so sooner ), I think your's is rather complimentary to my take on things.

One question: what happened to the Argentine lake duck?

Cheers, Oolon

Duvenoy

Well done!

Parasites are a fascination of mine, having been unwilling hearth and home some few, and you've done some of them very well.

Might I suggest, for the next update, Dengue Fever? Called 'Breakbone Fever', it's a right bastard and clearly designed to punish us. Also, the amoeba that causes a form of dysentary (don't recall the name of it) might be good. And jawless fishes such as the Lamprey and Hagfish.... Damn. The list of God's Demented Design is endless!

Thanks!

doov

SEF

If you are not sticking just to human parasites, how about a snail/bird one: Leucochloridium paradoxum. It makes the snail's eyestalks swell and throb with colour as tempting targets and even messes with the snail's behaviour so that it comes out of hiding where the birds will be more tempted to eat it.

Oolon Colluphid

Hi WinAce

I’ve spotted a couple of typos for your next update. Under the Dracula ants, the blood is called [I]hemolymph[I] (not “-th�?). And under Borrellia, the mag is called The Scientist -- New Scientist being a different publication. You also need italics for the Latin names of species, and Loa loa needs an initial capital.

You might want to add to the blowfly bit with bot-flies too. IIRC (please check first!), the females don’t lay their eggs on a victim directly, but rather grab a passing fly species, stick the eggs onto it, and let them do the delivering.

And schistosomes deserve a mention, since they affect about 200 million people. See eg:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasi...tosomiasis.htm
http://martin.parasitology.mcgill.ca...ol/SCHISTO.HTM
and
www.tulane.edu/~dmsander/WWW/224/Schisto.html

And I’m nicking the barbirusa for my list. I’m unclear as to the intelligence of a design where the tusks keep growing until they kill their owner. There’s another ref to this here... but does anyone have anything more concrete / reputable? Like, does it actually ever kill them?

Oolon

Oolon Colluphid

Wow, thanks SEF!
http://members.lycos.co.uk/Mollusks/...hloridium.html
I'm sooo having that one too!

Oolon

Naruto

Heh, when I first saw this thread, I thought the title was "Orgasms That Look Designed."

Very nice, WinAce.

Jet Black

I prefer Dicrocoelium dendriticum personally, a fluke found in sheep and other grass eaters. First of all the fluke lays eggs which land on the ground to be eaten by passing snails, where they live through several intermediate larval stages before being expelled in the snail's mucus. Then an ant comes along and eats the larvae in the mucus. It then reproduces asexually in the ant, and finally one of them digs into the brain (dying in the process) altering the ant's behaviour, so that rather than running to the ground when something is about, it climbs to the top of the grass stalk and bites its way into the blade of grass in the hope that it will be eaten by a passing sheep and start the cycle again. Other clever features include the ant moving down to the cooler ground level when in direct sunlight so the ant and larvae do not die. all rather cunning and contrived, I am sure the creator had fun with that one.

I just had a look round and here is a much better description than the one above:

http://martin.parasitology.mcgill.ca...biol/dicro.htm

Oolon Colluphid

You're a strange, strange chap
<backs away slowly, smiling slightly manically >

I think Zimmer mentions that one in Parasite Rex (certainly something to do with ants trying to get eaten by sheep, at least), and I like it too, but with Leucochloridium you get nice pictures of deformed snails

Oolon