WWSD

Can IDers explain away parasitism without resorting to "the fall of man" or some other godly based, unverifiable answer? Not that ID isn't godly anyway, but I think this is yet another strong argument against ID.

IDers, especially those who claim that irreducible complexity proves ID, seem to have forgotten about the highly complex organisms which cause much pain and death in the world today.

If an intelligent designer is responsible for all complexity, than it must be responsible for the seemingly irreducible complexity of such parasites as Plasmodium and Trypanosoma.

I like to refer especially to the species Trypanosoma bruceii spp, the causitive agent of African sleeping sickness. Here is the WHO <a href="http://www.who.int/inf-fs/en/fact259.html" target="_blank">fact sheet</a> for African sleeping sickness in case anyone wants to see its effects in sub-Saharan Africa.

Trypanosoma is a protozoan that has the amazing ability to shift its antigenic identity and outwit the human adaptable immune system (another seemingly designed system), thus resulting in a cylce of infection that may play out for months before leading to death. The system utilized by our friend Trypanosoma is quite fascinating and I am not sure I can do it justice but I will try.

In addition to its main complement of chromosomes, Trypanosoma has a number of minichromosomes that are transcriptionally inactive but contain coding sequence.

At certain times during its life cycle, Trypanosoma splices a new minichromosome into a transcriptionally active splice site on one of its normal chromosomes. This changes the identity of the macromolecules which cover its surface and thus renders it unrecognizeable to the human immune system.

There are other aspects of this organism that fascinate me and are fantastically complex.

<a href="http://www.dbbm.fiocruz.br/tropical/chagas/chapter3.html" target="_blank">Here</a> is a great link with some detailes about the parasite's kinetoplastid and morphology.

Dig the DNA minicircles!!
Dig the parasite's morphology! It has a beautiful undulating membrane.

You may also do simple web search for Trypanosoma which will provide a lot more information regarding this fascinating little beast, including a rundown of its various life stages and host ranges.


So, looking over the information, it does seem that this parasite is fantastically complex. And we know that it causes a great deal of suffering and death in the world today.

Without resorting to "the fall" which is entirely out of the range of scientific inquiry, can an IDer explain the following?

Why would a creator create such a nasty little bug?
What would that creator's intentions be?
How does one reconcile the "created" appearance of these bugs with the notion of a nice, benevolent creator?


Let us assume that one does refer to the fall of man. We can find evidence of parasitism in the remains of humans dating back to before the fall was supposed to occcur, and evidence of parasitism dates back to before humans were even around.
See

<a href="http://www.bondy.ird.fr/pleins_textes/pleins_textes_5/pt5/nemato/15616.pdf" target="_blank">this article</a>. It requires a Adobe reader but was interesting to read.

Thus, why did parasites exist so long before man had even been created in order to fall?

Can one reconcile this with theistic evolution?
Again, similar questions arise.
Why did a god allow these parasites to evolve right along side humans if he/she/it is benevolent and good?

While this may seem like an god non-existence argument (argument from evil) it is not, it is simply an argument against creationism and specifically irreducible complexity and ID.

If anyone else has any questions that arise from the above or has any additional points to add/detract, feel free to ask/suggest away as I am sure I have not thought of everything. I am fallable you know!

Have fun!!

Doubting Didymus

I think its a perfectly good non existence of god argument from evil as well.

Why do you distance yourself from that? Its not a fallacy or anything. The only theistic answer is that 'we mere humans cannot know gods mysterious plan', which is definitely a fallacy (argument from ignorace).

WWSD

Well, there are a couple of reasons that I distance myself from the argument from evil. One is that I don't want this thread to become an EoG thread and two is
<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/aeanb.html" target="_blank">this.</a>


I'm really very interested in how disease, especially parasitism (since it is so higly complex), is reconciled by IDers.

I don't believe they can reconcile it with thier belief in a benevolant diety unless they hide behind "the fall" or resort to the argument from ignorance.

I've used the "argument from nasty parasites" before and I've either been ignored or been given the standard theist hand waving.

So, the cards are on the table, can an IDer do it?

I think one of the main purposes of this argument is to draw out who the creator is in the creationist's argument.

If it's anything but an impersonal creator or a strange, sinister diety, they cannot claim that the xtian god, or whatever personal diety they choose to believe in, created everything. Not without resorting to hand waving anyway. And we all know where hand waving gets them.

I think the issue of parasites forces IDers to take a stand on the nature of thier designer. Once the designer takes shape, ID becomes even more vulnerable. IMO, of course.

Furthermore, IDers want ID to be taught in schools. How are they going to explain a creator who builds clever parasites to students?

Would not a student, realizing that a creator must also have created my friend the trypanosome, not doubt the validity of the ID argument? Unless, of course, you also teach that Adam and Eve caused the whole debacle.

And I'm more of an argument from nonbelief guy anyway.

Lizard

Me:
The IDers' answer is a non-answer: Who said anything about God? The "intelligent designer" could be anything, even space aliens. It isn't necessary to say who or what the ID is. All that's necessary is to admit that some "irreducibly complex" structures or things exhibiting "specified complexity" cannot have evolved.

If you can get an IDer to identify the intelligent designer and His or its plan, you will be the first.

If they get specific about their claims, they are easily countered. If they get specific about the age of the earth and other details, they risk rending asunder the big tent into which they've gathered a bunch of anti-evolutionists, including YECs, OECs, and even fundamentalist Muslims.

Also, if they propose a testable hypothesis, then the next logical question will be, "Hey, why don't you go ahead and test that hypothesis?" And that's the last thing they want.

They've had since approximately 1991 to come up with specifics about their "theory," "inference," or whtever they're calling it today. So far, nada.

excreationist

Here's some creationist articles:
<a href="http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-340.htm" target="_blank">ICR - Genome decay in the Mycoplasmas (Pathogenicity may be an indirect consequence of loss of genetic information, e.g. for amino acid synthesis)</a>

<a href="http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-345.htm" target="_blank">ICR - The terror of anthrax in a degrading creation (The deadly anthrax germ may have arisen after the Fall when a benign bacterium acquired a degraded plasmid)</a>

<a href="http://www.trueorigin.org/virus.asp" target="_blank">From CEN Technical Journal - Did God Make Pathogenic Viruses?</a>

Basically it's saying that bacteria and viruses had useful functions but they later mutated or absorbed some DNA from something else. The last link talks about how viruses are used today for gene therapy and other possible advantages they have.

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: excreationist ]</p>

lpetrich

Actually, that would be good evidence for multiple designers, one for the parasites and one for their hosts, anti-parasite defense mechanisms and all. With more than one designer for each not excluded.

WWSD

Originally posted by Lizard:

Me:
The IDers' answer is a non-answer: Who said anything about God? The "intelligent designer" could be anything, even space aliens. It isn't necessary to say who or what the ID is. All that's necessary is to admit that some "irreducibly complex" structures or things exhibiting "specified complexity" cannot have evolved.


As you well know, that is a nice bit of hand waving. It's something that I think is useful to keep this theory out of biology classes. When students ask who is responsible for creation, especially that of disease, they're going to have to be told something. Its going to have to be space aliens, or some crazy designer. But it can't, IMO, be the xtian diety or any other benevolant diety.


If you can get an IDer to identify the intelligent designer and His or its plan, you will be the first.

If they get specific about their claims, they are easily countered. If they get specific about the age of the earth and other details, they risk rending asunder the big tent into which they've gathered a bunch of anti-evolutionists, including YECs, OECs, and even fundamentalist Muslims.

I was hoping someone would have made some claim as to who was the designer. But I can see how that would weaken thier position.

However, I wonder how thier congragation of anti-evolutionists would respond to the claim that something other than a benevolant diety created evrything. There would go thier big tent!

I think that parasitism, or disease processes, can force the ID camp away from the YECs and anyone else who posits the creator must have been the xtian god, or Allah or whoever.

It seems to me that ID is the last champion of creation, as the YECs and others have nothing really to grasp on to except thier fantastic claims.

Also, if they propose a testable hypothesis, then the next logical question will be, "Hey, why don't you go ahead and test that hypothesis?" And that's the last thing they want.

Wouldn't that be great? But then, how does one test for design?


They've had since approximately 1991 to come up with specifics about their "theory," "inference," or whtever they're calling it today. So far, nada.

I'm just afraid that this whole ID thing seems to be gaining steam. It's so very vague, which is obviosuly a problem.

Anyway, good points.


You hit it straight on the head.
Its an issue to sause confusion over their own theory, and to back them into a corner over exactly what the designer was doing when it designed these things. They can posit whatever they want as a designer so long as it isn't some wonderful all loving diety.

WWSD

The YECs are a fantastic bunch. Everything revolves around the fall and the young earth. My argument doens't count in thier bizarre lavender colored universe. They will refer to the fall and the young earth as solutions to everything, though there is no evidence at all for the fall and the young earth model has been shredded.

As for thier articles:

They've got thier facts straight about the genome reduction in mycoplasma. But this was a result of the fall, and they have left the field of scientific inquiry behind. Blaming things on the fall just doesn't cut it.

from the article:
n the evolutionary model, pathogenicity and parasitism is thought to progress from very virulent (aggressive) forms to harmless or even mutually beneficial relationships. Advocates claim that natural selection will favor hosts that are resistant to the parasite and parasites that are not rapid killers of their own host environments. Thus, as time progresses, the parasites evolve to less virulent forms, and the hosts become tolerant of the more benign forms of the parasites.20 In the case of the mycoplasmas, I propose the opposite interpretation. Rather than starting out as a virulent relationship, the human/mycoplasma relationship may have been harmless or beneficial at creation. In this interpretation, important genes were lost from the mycoplasma as time progressed, rendering the mycoplasmas increasingly dependent on their hosts for survival. Thus, the pathogenicity of these organisms may be an indirect consequence of the loss of important genetic information. This interpretation is remarkably consistent with the traditional creationist understanding of a now degenerating world.


They've got the evolutionary arms race wrong. The tendancy for pathogenicity does not always go downwards. Consider a pathogen that develops a trait for fast transmission.
Its host range becomes larger due to its ability to be transmitted quickly and host mortality becomes less and less a concern. If you can get out fast enough, it matters not if the host lives long and your pathogenicity can go up.
The pathogens virulence may have to do with its mechanism of evading the host immune system, thus, if it can be transmited fast enough, it can inrease its pathogenicity and its host mortality. It can maximize its virulence within those parameters.


Loss of genomic information is not new, many parasitologists will point to this as the reason for the small and odd genome of mycoplasma.

However, once again we run into the wall of "the fall" which can never be resolved by science.

The anthrax article:
Presently, the molecular mechanism underlying anthrax disease is poorly understood.


So poorly that he goes on to explain the mechanisms quite well.

Each B. anthracis toxin consists of two parts, the binding component (BC) and the active component (AC). Both edema and lethal toxin contain the same BC, a protein called protective antigen (PA), which specifically binds to mammalian cell membranes.7,8 After binding, PA is cleaved into two pieces, one of which dissociates into the blood. The other part, PA63, forms a heptamer on the surface of the host cell. The heptamer then binds one AC, either edema factor (EF) or lethal factor (LF). The cell then internalizes the PA63 heptamer and the EF or LF via phagocytosis. Inside the internalized membrane vesicle, PA63 somehow facilitates the injection of LF and EF into the cytoplasm.9

In the cytoplasm, EF and LF begin their damaging work. EF is a special protein that produces a cellular signaling molecule, but how EF actually induces cellular damage is presently unknown. LF is a type of protein called a protease and requires zinc ions to function. LF cuts the "tail" off a protein called MEK2, an important component of the cell's signaling pathways. Somehow, the action of LF induces the cell to begin producing unusually large amounts of tumor necrosis factor (TNF), a molecule that induces other cells to die. Once the infected cell dies, its contents, including the TNF, enter the bloodstream causing massive tissue death. Victims do not survive this stage.

Although this mechanism sounds terrifically complicated, we can readily explain its presence in B. anthracis. All virulent strains of B. anthracis possess two plasmids, small circles of DNA that replicate independently of the main bacterial chromosome. One plasmid, pXO1, carries the genes necessary to produce all three components of the anthrax toxins. The other plasmid, pXO2, contains the genes required to generate the bacterial capsule. Without either of these plasmids, B. anthracis becomes harmless and difficult to distinguish from other strains of B. cereus. Since members of the B. cereus group readily accept foreign pieces of DNA including plasmids, we see how an originally benign bacterium could become the deadly anthrax by the acquisition of both pXO1 and pXO2.


Yes, very poorly understood indeed.

And then this fantastically scientific statement:

As a reminder to the reader, creationists endorse a model of creation degrading under the effects of sin.

Hmm.....

Skeptics often cite biological imperfections as evidence against a designer, but close examination of imperfections often supports the creationist's assertion that man's sin brought about a degradation of creation.


Oh I get it, that explains everything.

sadly, he does not mention much about lateral gene transfer, but I suppose that would not have much to do with degredation by sin would it?

Are all YEC articles this daft? He gets a lot of his facts straight, but then he does that bit of magical hand waving and proclaims the fall explains everything!

The last article is a good one, it covers a lot of basic virology. It doesn't make a lot of silly claims, though it seems to want to put a positive spin on viruses, almost as if god put them here for us to play with, but forgot to put the safety on.

Most pathogenic viruses are often more of a bother than a threat. Of the tailed bacteriophages, only 1% are virulent,
and the only known viruses that are fatal in virtually every case where infection is established (in unprotected persons) are rabies and AIDS.

Really? Ebola, Marbug, any Equine encephalitis, polio, smallpox, CMV, what else? I would not refer to the prvious list of viruses as simple bothers!
What about hman tumor viruses? HPV, EBV?

The last article is a difficult one to counter. But it still does nothing to explain the high level of complexity seen in so many larger parasites.
I should include some fungi, and some plants, and, if I can find a reference, "the cell from hell."

I'll go looking tommorow since its getting late.

Anyway, interesting links excreationist, fun, if disturbing, reading.

WWSD

Multiple, imperfect designers if you want.

I wonder how the xtian creationists would handle that one? Demons maybe?

Principia

The semi-official ID stance is <a href="http://www.arn.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000197" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.arn.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000187" target="_blank">here</a>. They have caught on not to associate ID with anything theistic, especially Christian myths.

[ July 19, 2002: Message edited by: Scientiae ]</p>