Was this just an "accident"?

[Jose Fly]

Malaria is caused by the protozoan parasite Plasmodium. The disease has cost countless lives and caused indescribable suffering across much of human history. The parasite exploits Anopheles mosquitoes and humans to complete its fairly complex life cycle.

Now surely such an intricate, complex life history could not have arise merely "by chance", as an "accident", or "without intelligence", correct?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Since we observe many such complex parasitism in many, many species besides humans, it would follow that such complex cycles have occurred spontaneously via evolution. Adding a deity into the process is unnecessary.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

To lack an understanding of complexity in nature, and simply crossing your arms and saying "It's too hard....so....God did that"....
1 - is a clear indication that you don't have a working knowledge of the subject of evolutionary biology, along with a myriad of other complex interactions that are going on around and within you as you read this.
and
2 - probably would not put you in good standing with any worthwhile diety who went through the trouble of providing you with a brain that could be used to figure it out with at least a little research: a brain which sets you apart from all other life in the known universe, but which you refused to use because "it's too hard."

 

[Polymath257]

On the contrary, such parasitic cycles are produced spontaneously in our computer models of the evolutionary process. While it seems difficult to imagine a step-by-step process, they do, in fact, happen in the (which are randomized and use a form of natural selection).

Such models go all the way back to the tierra program in the 80's and have become much more sophisticated over time. ALL are based on having genetics, reproduction, mutation, and some sort of selection pressure (usually computer memory).

 

[shmogie]

Malaria is caused by the protozoan parasite Plasmodium. The disease has cost countless lives and caused indescribable suffering across much of human history. The parasite exploits Anopheles mosquitoes and humans to complete its fairly complex life cycle.

Now surely such an intricate, complex life history could not have arise merely "by chance", as an "accident", or "without intelligence", correct?

Who would claim that ? Most who believe in ID believe in micro evolution, adaption of a species that can be extreme but it remains the same species or type. This may be an example that a biologist who leans toward ID might have more specific idea's, but I am not a biologist. Show the micro organism turning in to one that say, causes a flu, or show the mosquito turning into, say, a beetle, then you'll have something

 

[Twilight Hue]

Malaria is caused by the protozoan parasite Plasmodium. The disease has cost countless lives and caused indescribable suffering across much of human history. The parasite exploits Anopheles mosquitoes and humans to complete its fairly complex life cycle.

Now surely such an intricate, complex life history could not have arise merely "by chance", as an "accident", or "without intelligence", correct?

That's where adaptation comes in

 

[Brickjectivity]

I think Scientific arguments get dismissed. Biblical questions are more conclusive.

• Why does Day precede the Sun.
• Why does it say that the Earth comes from water and is surrounded by water on all sides including underneath? In what way does that align with natural reality?
• Why is Eve made from a rib instead of from red clay like Adam is? If there is a Biblical reason what is it?
• Where is Eden?
• Where is the Tree of Life?
• Where does Cain get a wife from? Is she from his rib or is she from somewhere else?
• Why is the Hebrew tabernacle set up like its the garden of Eden with the Ark and the Torah where the Tree of Life would be?
• Why is a flaming sword used to guard the Tree of Life instead of a different kind of sword? This matters. If it doesn't matter and you can't answer the question, then please don't try to tell me that you understand what Genesis is about. Its ridiculous for you to claim that.
• Why is Noah's ship called an Ark, just like the thing that the Torah is kept in? Coincidence? I don't think its a coincidence.
• What is a Seraphim, exactly? What is a Cherabim, exactly? What creature guards the way to the Tree of Life, exactly? Why does nobody seem to care about that and is willing to accept ignorance about that yet regards themselves as experts on Genesis and that it absolutely must apply to the beginning of Natural History?
• In short who even understands Genesis enough that they can claim it definitely applies to Natural History?

 

[shunyadragon]

Malaria is caused by the protozoan parasite Plasmodium. The disease has cost countless lives and caused indescribable suffering across much of human history. The parasite exploits Anopheles mosquitoes and humans to complete its fairly complex life cycle.

Now surely such an intricate, complex life history could not have arise merely "by chance", as an "accident", or "without intelligence", correct?

Nothing happens by 'accident' or 'by chance' in nature, these are not causative factors in nature by definition, and there is no evidence that an intelligence outside the Natural Laws and the nature of our physical existence. There are different possible outcomes of every cause and effect event in nature, but all possible outcomes are determined by natural law, and not accident.

The hypothesis of Intelligent Design (ID) requires Theological assumptions for which there is no objective verifiable evidence.

The argument for ID is a fallacy based on a false 'arguing from ignorance,' hypothesis, that complexity cannot have happened naturally, which fails, because there are reasonable Natural explanations for the evolution of complexity from simple forms through evolution, including your example. The argument of 'gaps' lies at the heart of the fallacy of ID.

You would be required to falsify the negative that complexity in life could not come about naturally by evolution, which is impossible.

More on this in the next post.

 

[metis]

Now surely such an intricate, complex life history could not have arise merely "by chance", as an "accident", or "without intelligence", correct?

There should not be an assumption that things were always so complex going way back when.

 

[Jose Fly]

Who would claim that ? Most who believe in ID believe in micro evolution, adaption of a species that can be extreme but it remains the same species or type. This may be an example that a biologist who leans toward ID might have more specific idea's, but I am not a biologist. Show the micro organism turning in to one that say, causes a flu, or show the mosquito turning into, say, a beetle, then you'll have something

So ID creationists do not argue that evolutionary mechanisms are insufficient to produce complexity?

That's probably news to creationists like @Deeje and @Guy Threepwood .

 

[Brickjectivity]

On the contrary, such parasitic cycles are produced spontaneously in our computer models of the evolutionary process. While it seems difficult to imagine a step-by-step process, they do, in fact, happen in the (which are randomized and use a form of natural selection).

Such models go all the way back to the tierra program in the 80's and have become much more sophisticated over time. ALL are based on having genetics, reproduction, mutation, and some sort of selection pressure (usually computer memory).

That is too complicated for me to imagine at the moment. It seems like you'd have to set it up to work right. I don't know if I could trust that without reading up on it or having a Billy Nuy episode on it.

 

[shunyadragon]

So ID creationists do not argue that evolutionary mechanisms are insufficient to produce complexity?

That's probably news to creationists like @Deeje and @Guy Threepwood .

The ID argument is that 'evolutionary mechanisms are insufficient to produce complexity,' which is an 'argument from ignorance,' because it would be required to falsify the negative that complexity in life could not come about naturally by evolution, which is impossible.

 

[gnostic]

Who would claim that ? Most who believe in ID believe in micro evolution, adaption of a species that can be extreme but it remains the same species or type. This may be an example that a biologist who leans toward ID might have more specific idea's, but I am not a biologist. Show the micro organism turning in to one that say, causes a flu, or show the mosquito turning into, say, a beetle, then you'll have something

It is clear from your post that you indeed don't understand biology, especially relating to evolutionary mechanisms.

A species of animal cannot produce offspring of another species of different family and genus. Evolution don't work in the way you suggested.

A mosquito cannot give birth to beetle, because they do not belong in the same genus and family. In fact, they don't belong even in the same order of insect (class).

The order of insect for the mosquito family (Culicidae) is Diperta. Diperta include other "fly" families. So the flies and mosquitoes are more closely to related to each other, they would to any of the beetle families.

Beetle families are too many to list, but that those families all belonged order called Coleoptera.

I don't know enough other about the palaeontology of insect world to tell you when the split occurred, but Genesis make no mention of insects in the creation, but they existed long before any land vertebrae animals, including the dinosaurs.

In Genesis 1:20-23, on the fifth day, god created both sea creatures and birds at the same time.

But there are no evidences of birds existing before any land vertebrae that walk or crawl on earth, which make it false. Dinosaurs flourished millions of years before mammals and birds. And the first reptiles existed even before the dinosaurs, and hence before the birds.

But according to 1:24-25 (6th day) cattle and wild animals were created after the birds, and reptiles would be included among the "wild animals".

Yes, sea creature existed first, but invertebrates existed before vertebrate creatures. And insects are not vertebrae creatures, having exoskeleton instead of vertebrae.

The order of land animals in the order of their earliest appearances are this:

1. Insect (396 million years old, Devonian period)
2. Amphibians (370 million years)
3. Reptiles (312 million years)
4. Dinosaurs (231 million years)
5. Mammals (225 million years, but only began flourishing after extinction of dinosaurs about 66 million years ago)
6. Birds (160 million years)

As stated in point 5, mammals only began to flourish after the Mesozoic era, in the Cenozoic era, where they were more diverse, but they weren't the first mammals.

Yes, cattle and humans appeared and flourished later, birds definitely didn't appear before the insects, reptiles, the earliest mammals and the dinosaurs; all these land animals did exist first before the birds.

 

[Deeje]

Now surely such an intricate, complex life history could not have arise merely "by chance", as an "accident", or "without intelligence", correct?

You are correct. Nothing that complex could have arisen by chance...like every other complicated lifeform on this planet....they exhibit design.

Check it out....you think a living thing like this just 'poofed' itself into existence?

According to one site....
"There are over 200 species of malaria. Humans are infected by five. But birds, bats, lizards and antelopes are also hosts for malaria parasites. Hawaiian birds become very sick and dozens of species have become extinct as a result of the introduction of malaria. Each species of malaria has a different life cycle and life history."

Malaria: affects animals as well as humans

So here is a little 'greebie' that has managed to adapt to many environments and produce many strains of itself that can infect a variety of hosts. All are species of malaria though. Is that evolution?...or adaptation? Where did the parasite come from in the first place? Was it always a nasty thing?

It is my belief that all life has its place in the scheme of things. Malaria is but one parasite that afflicts the human race and other creatures to their detriment, and has done so for thousands of years. There is no evidence that it has existed for millions of years, TMK.

So how do ID supporters explain existence and impact of this nasty little bug and others like it?

We would offer the explanation that after man's eviction from Eden, everything went belly up. Biologists who support ID believe that God created all microbes as "very good" forms of life, originally. The vast majority of bacteria, fungi, and protozoans are still beneficial to man and to the environment. We could not survive without them. In general, symbiosis in nature involves a larger host and a smaller creature that have a mutually beneficial relationship. So what if these originally beneficial bugs, in an environment that became abnormal, adapted themselves to become parasitic, which some biologists suggest is a secondary state in nature. What if they adapted in a way that was not beneficial to their host? Is that impossible?

Of all the creatures in nature, one insect appears to be the main villain in the spread of the infectious nasties.....the mosquito. Many see the mosquito as, not only the deadly carrier of malaria, but also West Nile encephalitis, yellow fever, dengue fever, elephantiasis and many more viral (and some parasitic) diseases. But we don't think that God created any of these creatures to afflict mankind or any other creature. There is a lot of evidence of intelligent design in their anatomy, physiology and purpose in the natural world. Like bees, they were probably designed as pollinators. Mosquitoes pollinate goldenrod, grasses, and different types of the large group of orchids even today. After the fall in Eden, it appears the nutritional needs of mosquitoes might have changed as the Genesis account suggests that there was a biological curse put on the very ground that supported these creature's lives. Nothing in this world is balanced anymore and it is becoming more unbalanced as man continues to impact negatively on his environment and the environment he shares with other creatures.

And just throwing another spanner in your little scenario here.....what if the human immune system was designed to keep out all foreign invaders and the fall in Eden created the 'breach' that allowed such invaders to enter and do their thing?

We too can speculate about many things that fit our favored scenario...just like evolutionary science does.

Making suggestions like you have in this thread, just shows that you are grasping at straws because you cannot backup your theory with anything substantial. Its all held together with speculation and educated guessing. You are not the only ones who can speculate.

 

[Jonathan Ainsley Bain]

Now surely such an intricate, complex life history could not have arise merely "by chance", as an "accident", or "without intelligence", correct?

As an African, I occasional venture into a 'malaria area'.
One is told in frantic paranoid terms to take the malaria drugs,
and this puts off many people from going at all.

Upon arriving, the locals whether indigenous or western
never take the malaria drugs, and after one vomits them up,
it becomes apparent that one has been suckered by a snake-water
salesman whose primary purpose is to scare away too many vacationers.

Then you see the real Africa.
Wild. Free. Devoid of paranoid masses.

Those are the best trips.
It is truly amazing how much fun it is to almost be
eaten by a crocodile and a hippo on the same day;
and then be escorted by a squadron of dragonflies
whose prime delicacy is the feared tsetse fly.

A simple citronella candle will keep away the mosquitoes,
but its FEAR that keeps away the bloody tourists!

 

[Polymath257]

That is too complicated for me to imagine at the moment. It seems like you'd have to set it up to work right. I don't know if I could trust that without reading up on it or having a Billy Nuy episode on it.

The basic idea is fairly simple. You have a bunch of 'critters' with 'genes' that determine various aspects of the critter--simple things like reproduction rate, or length of appendages, or types of 'food' it eats or produces. Start with a bunch of 'critters' with random genes and let them go.

Artificial life - Wikipedia


Read under 'soft' versions of alife (i.e, software).

 

[Jose Fly]

All are species of malaria though. Is that evolution?...or adaptation?

As we've been over, that is nothing more than a weak attempt at a semantics argument. Your own sources clearly stated that populations adapt by evolving.

So how do ID supporters explain existence and impact of this nasty little bug and others like it?

We would offer the explanation that after man's eviction from Eden, everything went belly up.

But how? By what mechanism(s) did Plasmodium go from a benign symbiont to a parasite with a very complex life history? Surely the parasitic life history requires specific "genetic information" and biochemical pathways, correct? And since ID creationists argue that evolutionary mechanisms cannot generate new "genetic information" or complex biochemistry, then the information and pathways that allow Plasmodium to propagate via this life history must have come from somewhere.

Thrown in ID creationists' argument that only "intelligence" can generate "genetic information" and complex biochemistry, then we must conclude that this "intelligence" was responsible for "designing" Plasmodium specifically to infect and kill humans. Then when we add in that the ID creationists' "designer" is God, there is only one conclusion to reach......

God intentionally and specifically created Plasmodium to infect and kill humans.

So what if these originally beneficial bugs, in an environment that became abnormal, adapted themselves to become parasitic, which some biologists suggest is a secondary state in nature. What if they adapted in a way that was not beneficial to their host? Is that impossible?

But how? Where did the "genetic information" and complex biochemistry come from that allowed them to go from benign symbiont to human parasite?

After the fall in Eden, it appears the nutritional needs of mosquitoes might have changed as the Genesis account suggests that there was a biological curse put on the very ground that supported these creature's lives.

That's an interesting story, but it doesn't explain how the necessary biological and genetic changes occurred.

And just throwing another spanner in your little scenario here.....what if the human immune system was designed to keep out all foreign invaders and the fall in Eden created the 'breach' that allowed such invaders to enter and do their thing?

So God deliberately creates human parasites and then creates humans with the ability to not be infected by them? God works against himself?

Do you even think these little stories through before you post them?

 

[Brickjectivity]

But how? By what mechanism(s) did Plasmodium go from a benign symbiont to a parasite with a very complex life history? Surely the parasitic life history requires specific "genetic information" and biochemical pathways, correct? And since ID creationists argue that evolutionary mechanisms cannot generate new "genetic information" or complex biochemistry, then the information and pathways that allows Plasmodium to propagate via this life history must have come from somewhere.

Thrown in ID creationists' argument that only "intelligence" can generate "genetic information" and complex biochemistry, then we must conclude that this "intelligence" was responsible for "designing" Plasmodium specifically to infect and kill humans. Then when we add in that the ID creationists' "designer" is God, there is only one conclusion to reach......

God intentionally and specifically created Plasmodium to infect and kill humans.

I realize you are attempting to support Science, however you do not understand the Bible and the culture behind the current ICR sort of creationism. You are presuming that nobody has thought of your argument before, but they have. Sin enters the world, bringing Death with it. Sin and death bring all kinds of problems, and so you have Malaria as a result of sin. It also fits in with the 'Kinds' concept that many ICR creationists stick slavishly to along with a sort of view that sin is like a 'Toxin'.

Go with a different argument I think.

 

[Jose Fly]

You are presuming that nobody has thought of your argument before, but they have.

Not in any detail.

Sin enters the world, bringing Death with it. Sin and death bring all kinds of problems, and so you have Malaria as a result of sin. It also fits in with the 'Kinds' concept that many ICR creationists stick slavishly to along with a sort of view that sin is like a 'Toxin'.

Go with a different argument I think.

You're not thinking this through either. You have to keep a few basic creationist arguments in mind. First, they argue that evolution cannot generate "new genetic information" or biological complexity. From there they argue that only "intelligence" (God) can do those things.

Now, we know for a fact that the Plasmodium life cycle is quite complex and requires very specific "genetic information".

That raises an obvious question.....how did Plasmodium come to acquire the necessary "genetic information" and complex biochemistry necessary to live out its life cycle? One would think to answer that, we'd refer back to the creationist argument that only God can create "genetic information" and complex biochemistry, and from there conclude that God must have deliberately designed Plasmodium to infect and kill humans.

But creationists don't like that conclusion for obvious reasons (who wants to worship a bioterrorist of a god). So now what? Do they conceded that yes, evolutionary mechanisms can indeed generate "new genetic information" and complex biochemistry, or do they conceded that yes, the God they believe in specifically created Plasmodium to infect and kill humans? By the terms of their own arguments, it has to be one or the other.

But as this thread will illustrate, they won't conceded either and will instead dance and dance and dance around the issue, while never actually resolving it.

 

[Brickjectivity]

That raises an obvious question.....how did Plasmodium come to acquire the necessary "genetic information" and complex biochemistry necessary to live out its life cycle? One would think to answer that, we'd refer back to the creationist argument that only God can create "genetic information" and complex biochemistry, and from there conclude that God must have deliberately designed Plasmodium to infect and kill humans.

Suppose that the mosquito infestation cycle must have originally been for a good purpose but that it has been corrupted by sin. So the mosquitoes originally must have bitten people for some beneficial symbiotic relationship before sin came. There you go, no new DNA needed. Man, I'd be an awesome creationist.