I collect tales of parasites the way some people collect Star Trek plates. And having filled an entire book with them, I thought I had pretty much collected the whole set. But until now I had somehow missed the gruesome glory that is a wasp named Ampulex compressa.
As an adult, Ampulex compressa seems like your normal wasp, buzzing about and mating. But things get weird when it's time for a female to lay an egg. She finds a cockroach to make her egg's host, and proceeds to deliver two precise stings. The first she delivers to the roach's mid-section, causing its front legs buckle. The brief paralysis caused by the first sting gives the wasp the luxury of time to deliver a more precise sting to the head.
The wasp slips her stinger through the roach's exoskeleton and directly into its brain. She apparently use ssensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach's brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears.
From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach's antennae and leads it--in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex--like a dog on a leash.
The zombie roach crawls where its master leads, which turns out to be the wasp's burrow. The roach creeps obediently into the burrow and sits there quietly, while the wasp plugs up the burrow with pebbles. Now the wasp turns to the roach once more and lays an egg on its underside. The roach does not resist. The egg hatches, and the larva chews a hole in the side of the roach. In it goes.
The larva grows inside the roach, devouring the organs of its host, for about eight days. It is then ready to weave itself a cocoon--which it makes within the roach as well. After four more weeks, the wasp grows to an adult. It breaks out of its cocoon, and out of the roach as well. Seeing a full-grown wasp crawl out of a roach suddenly makes those Alien movies look pretty derivative.
I find this wasp fascinating for a lot of reasons. For one thing, it represents an evolutionary transition. Over and over again, free-living organisms have become parasites, adapting to hosts with exquisite precision. If you consider a full-blown parasite, it can be hard to conceive of how it could have evolved from anything else. Ampulex offers some clues, because it exists in between the free-living and parasitic worlds.
Amuplex is not technically a parasite, but something known as an exoparasitoid. In other words, a free-living adult lays an egg outside a host, and then the larva crawls into the host. One could easily imagine the ancestors of Ampulex as wasps that laid their eggs near dead insects--as some species do today. These corpse-feeding ancestors then evolved into wasps that attacked living hosts. Likewise, it's not hard to envision an Ampulex-like wasp evolving into full-blown parasitoids that inject their eggs directly into their hosts, as many species do today.
And then there's the sting. Ampulex does not want to kill cockroaches. It doesn't even want to paralyze them the way spiders and snakes do, since it is too small to drag a big paralyzed roach into its burrow. So instead it just delicately retools the roach's neural network to take away its motivation. Its venom does more than make roaches zombies. It also alters their metabolism, so that their intake of oxygen drops by a third. The Israeli researchers found that they could also drop oxygen consumption in cockroaches by injecting paralyzing drugs or by removing the neurons that the wasps disable with their sting. But they can manage only a crude imitation; the manipulated cockroaches quickly dehydrated and were dead within six days. The wasp venom somehow puts the roaches into suspended animation while keeping them in good health, even as a wasp larva is devouring it from the inside
Scientists don't yet understand how Ampulex manages either of these feats. Part of the reason for their ignorance is the fact that scientists have much left to learn about nervous systems and metabolism. But millions of years of natural selection has allowed Ampulex to reverse engineer its host. We would do well to follow its lead, and gain the wisdom of parasites.
Update 2/4/06 4 pm: Greetings to visitors from Slashdot and Boing Boing and other kind linkers. Apologies for the slow load that comes with a surge in traffic. One nice thing about books is that you don't need a server to turn the pages for you. So if you want more tales of parasitic majesty, check out Parasite Rex.
Update 2/13/06 1 am: Be sure to check out comments from one of the scientists who studies these beasts.
Update 2/15: Gal Haspel is now fielding questions in the comment thread, discussing new research on matters such as how the wasp knows where in the brain to put its stinger. Fascinating stuff. Please post any relevant questions for him. Bear in mind, though, that he's a neuroscientist, not a theologian.
Many thanks, Gal.
Comments
Do you think the IDists and creationists will seize on the astonishing complexity of this story as one of their arguments? Seems hard to imagine it displacing the bacterial flagellum and mammalian blood clotting cascade.
Posted by: jackd | February 2, 2006 10:30 AM
That second sting is amazing- how many evolutionary failures must there have been before the first momma wasp hit those particular neurons?
Can the wasp take over any cockroach, or is it more a hummingbird-and-orchid kind of pair?
Posted by: gaw3 | February 2, 2006 11:37 AM
Creationists are positively allergic to parasitism stories. Heck, they have a hard time dealing with predator-prey relationships.
Why? Because it raises the question of whether a loving God would create such arbitrary animal misery, when alternatives are clearly possible. In a perfect world, old sheep would lay down and die, for wolves to eat. Nothing, it's safe to say, would be paralyzed, brain-hijacked, then eaten from inside out.
The usual dodge when it comes to human misery is to wave hands and mutter something about free will being so good that it outweighs all the suffering. It's terrible theology; but more importantly, it doesn't apply at all to animals, who (theologically speaking) don't have souls or free will.
On a side note, these types of parasitism stories contributed to Darwin's loss of faith -- in one of his notebooks, he argues along the lines I have here.
Posted by: theo | February 2, 2006 11:41 AM
As an engineer, sometimes engaged in reverse engineering, but with an interest in science, there is an easy comparison between science and reverse engineering. Not a formal definition, but engineers build things and scientists figure out how things work. The language isn't quite kind enough though. If engineers 'design' things, then scientists must 'sign' them - but of course that's a job for accountants.
Posted by: Stephen Uitti | February 2, 2006 1:12 PM
Carl said, "We would do well to follow its lead, and gain the wisdom of parasites".
I believe women of our species already have - and it's a story that sounds familiarly like my own marriage. Fortunately, they were unable to evolve to implant their babies in us, but lead us off to dungeons like zombies, they did.
Posted by: John | February 2, 2006 1:44 PM
When does the roach die? Sorry if this is a stupid question :)
Posted by: Chamaree | February 2, 2006 4:39 PM
That is one cool critter. It's common name is emerald cockroach wasp. Seems to me that laying it's eggs directly inside of the cockroach would have been more evolutionarily expediant than evolving the neurotoxin and method that creates zombie cockroach baby food. Ofcourse it's always a guess as to whether this may have evolved from that or vice versa etcetera.
Posted by: joe | February 2, 2006 6:09 PM
gaw3: No need to assume "evolutionary failure" in not stinging the right spot. For a handwaving just-so story, just assume the head sting started as a way to kill a roach to ensure a very fresh, plump corpse for the larvae. Then, a slightly less violent sting would sometimes paralyze - but not outright kill - the host, making for even better conditions. And so, gradually, improvements in accuracy and specificity of the venom would make for better and better conditions for the larvae.
Posted by: Janne | February 2, 2006 8:12 PM
Once again Carl demonstrates that an incredible imagination is vastly more important than any actual science background when hypothesizing evolutionary scenarios.
There are actually a number of books and DVD's with amazing creatures that, in the eye's of the creationist, defy evolution. I would not be surprised if this particular wasp - roach relationship were included in one of them.
Actually the common response is something regarding original sin and a fallen world. Creationists are generally Bible-believing Christians and regard the fall of Adam as an actual event that dramatically altered the world and all of God's creatures.
Your claim demonstrates what is so often the case, that non-creationists haven't the foggiest idea what creationists actually believe.
Posted by: Creationist | February 2, 2006 9:28 PM
Which was caused by free will, correct? I can assure you I'm quite familiar with creationist beliefs, and it seems to me that theo was absolutely correct.
You'd better tell that to these guys:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/02/davescot_steps_in_it_again_ort.php#more
Posted by: Lee | February 2, 2006 9:46 PM
The death issue always made me wonder why ID proponents would want their theory taught as science to a broad audience. Of course as Christians they can say Adam and Eve ate from the wrong tree and God punished everything, but they cannot teach that in science class. Without the Fall ID logically leads to a Designer who purposely set His creations up to kill each other, which hardly sounds like a benevolent deity who should be worshiped.
Posted by: Irrational Entity | February 2, 2006 10:05 PM
I will hold to my original claim regarding Theo and if you are backing him I would apply the same criticism to you. Of course you can decide for yourself whether the claim is true...its your free will. A similar criticism is often directed at me regarding my understanding of evolution. I'm sure you, like myself, dismiss the claim out-of-hand regardless of its merit.
I know nobody believes this but ID and creationism are not equals. Creationism is a sub-category of ID. Islamic creationists would certainly take issue with being equated to their Christian counterparts. It is possible to be an ID'er that doesn't subscribe to any of the major religions. For example, the raelians or Francis Crick himself (co-discoverer of DNA) credit aliens as the solution to the complexity of life.If you separate the God of the Bible from ID, its possible to imagine any number of personalities for a god. How many of us played with a magnifying glass and burnt some ants. Movies about destruction and annihilation are immensely popular. That being said, is it really hard to imagine a designer that would enjoy a world with so much pain and suffering? In fact doesn't that seem even more likely? Which world would you rather watch: the one with a lamb and a lion playing leap frog or the alternative with the lion whipping out his AK-47 and tearing the lamb to shreds. The argument about a good designer and an evil world is easily defended by the creationist - straight from the Bible, and it's completely irrelevant if the creator is not the God of the Bible.
Th "good designer - bad creation" argument is basically meant as a distraction from the actual subject. Once satisfied, someone will bring up the flat-earth myth as another distraction. Finally exasperated someone will fall back on the "mountains of evidence" without providing anything presently observable or demonstrable. When pressed, they'll decline to answer and claim that providing any rebuttal would only fuel the "illusion" that the debate actually exists. Evolutionists should isolate the DNA responsible for this behavior and compare it with that responsible for the ostrich response to fear.
Now i've seen the way this works and the remainder of this blog entry will likely focus on the ostrich :)
Posted by: Creationist | February 2, 2006 11:28 PM
"Once again Carl demonstrates that an incredible imagination is vastly more important than any actual science background when hypothesizing evolutionary scenarios."
Does anyone know what Carl's educational background is? Out of curiosity, I tried looking for it and only found honors and accolades for his writing but nothing about education.
Posted by: azcat | February 2, 2006 11:31 PM
Creationist, Francis Crick changed his mind about directed panspermia. See, for example, his Wikipedia entry. This is the kind of cherry-picking of facts that helps give IDists and creationists their terrible reputations.
You seem to think that the Earth was created as an entertainment for a deity with the morals of an eight-year-old burning ants, is that right? Or possibly Alfred "Actors are Cattle" Hitchcock. Eh, as a theology, it doesn't seem to have a lot going for it. I hope you're not suggesting that we should overturn rationalism just to worship your cruel god.
Posted by: NelC | February 3, 2006 5:00 AM
"Creationist", to be honest, I don't care what creationists believe. I'm a lot more concerned with the dangers of holding up ignorance as pride in a complex world.
Posted by: Gary R Boodhoo | February 3, 2006 6:38 AM
Are these wasps found in NYC? Every once in a while, I would see black wasps that I never saw anywhere else, in my apartment in NYC. Needless to say, we had a decent sized waterbug (what we would call the big roaches) population in the basement.
Posted by: ray | February 3, 2006 8:11 AM
I've done some parasitology work and it is so facinating to see how closely the parasitoid is adapted to its host. The work I did focused on a fruit fly and a pteromalid. Two tiny critters but the wasp had no trouble finding its host, even when the host was transported and introduced to a new location. As a side note, the first picture looks like the roach and wasp are having a tickle fight. The roach looks like its grinning!
Posted by: jordan | February 3, 2006 9:29 AM
As long as you don't make claims, or anaylze creationist beliefs, theology or doctrine, it makes little difference to the debate, if you understand our point of view. Its just that before one starts speaking for, or attacking the creationist, one should first take some time to learn our side.
Regarding Crick, I don't know what he believes now about the origin of life on Earth. At one point, he published a book about panspermia and attributed some alien intelligence to the origin of complex life on Earth. Whether he changed his mind, or simply crumbled under the pressure of ridicule, or caught flak for giving fuel to the creationist, I can't say. What is certain is that since the discovery of DNA and advances in the field of molecular biology, the complexity, that was such a hurdle to his believing in a completely naturalistic orgin for life on earth, has not been overcome, in fact, I believe its gone from a hurdle to a high jump. Besides Crick, there are certainly well respected scientists that entertain the possibilty that life originated first outside our own world. This is a direct reaction to the complexity of even the simplest fathomable life, combined with the miniscule amount of time (by evolutionary standards) for it to develop on Earth. And its not science by any definition.
I don't believe I'm hiding the fact that I'm a creationist. I believe in the God of the Bible and His saving grace. That he sent His Son Jesus to die and atone for our sins...but I digress.I was simply pointing out that its easily possible to conceptualize a creator that doesn't fit the benevolent mold into which he is always forced. Take away the bible, its explanation for death and suffering, and there is no reason to think a creator is good. Therefore, using this argument against ID holds no weight. There is no ID tenet that we should be worshiping the supposed intelligent designer, only that said designer was required to construct the complex life and universe. ID doesn't seek to explain anything about the designer, that would be left to philosophy and religious discussions.
Posted by: Creationist | February 3, 2006 12:16 PM
As long as you don't make claims, or anaylze creationist beliefs, theology or doctrine, it makes little difference to the debate, if you understand our point of view. Its just that before one starts speaking for, or attacking the creationist, one should first take some time to learn our side.
Regarding Crick, I don't know what he believes now about the origin of life on Earth. At one point, he published a book about panspermia and attributed some alien intelligence to the origin of complex life on Earth. Whether he changed his mind, or simply crumbled under the pressure of ridicule, or caught flak for giving fuel to the creationist, I can't say. What is certain is that since the discovery of DNA and advances in the field of molecular biology, the complexity, that was such a hurdle to his believing in a completely naturalistic orgin for life on earth, has not been overcome, in fact, I believe its gone from a hurdle to a high jump. Besides Crick, there are certainly well respected scientists that entertain the possibilty that life originated first outside our own world. This is a direct reaction to the complexity of even the simplest fathomable life, combined with the miniscule amount of time (by evolutionary standards) for it to develop on Earth. And its not science by any definition.
I don't believe I'm hiding the fact that I'm a creationist. I believe in the God of the Bible and His saving grace. That he sent His Son Jesus to die and atone for our sins...but I digress.I was simply pointing out that its easily possible to conceptualize a creator that doesn't fit the benevolent mold into which he is always forced. Take away the bible, its explanation for death and suffering, and there is no reason to think a creator is good. Therefore, using this argument against ID holds no weight. There is no ID tenet that we should be worshiping the supposed intelligent designer, only that said designer was required to construct the complex life and universe. ID doesn't seek to explain anything about the designer, that would be left to philosophy and religious discussions.
Posted by: Creationist | February 3, 2006 12:17 PM
As long as you don't make claims, or anaylze creationist beliefs, theology or doctrine, it makes little difference to the debate, if you understand our point of view. Its just that before one starts speaking for, or attacking the creationist, one should first take some time to learn our side.
Regarding Crick, I don't know what he believes now about the origin of life on Earth. At one point, he published a book about panspermia and attributed some alien intelligence to the origin of complex life on Earth. Whether he changed his mind, or simply crumbled under the pressure of ridicule, or caught flak for giving fuel to the creationist, I can't say. What is certain is that since the discovery of DNA and advances in the field of molecular biology, the complexity, that was such a hurdle to his believing in a completely naturalistic orgin for life on earth, has not been overcome, in fact, I believe its gone from a hurdle to a high jump. Besides Crick, there are certainly well respected scientists that entertain the possibilty that life originated first outside our own world. This is a direct reaction to the complexity of even the simplest fathomable life, combined with the miniscule amount of time (by evolutionary standards) for it to develop on Earth. And its not science by any definition.
I don't believe I'm hiding the fact that I'm a creationist. I believe in the God of the Bible and His saving grace. That he sent His Son Jesus to die and atone for our sins...but I digress.I was simply pointing out that its easily possible to conceptualize a creator that doesn't fit the benevolent mold into which he is always forced. Take away the bible, its explanation for death and suffering, and there is no reason to think a creator is good. Therefore, using this argument against ID holds no weight. There is no ID tenet that we should be worshiping the supposed intelligent designer, only that said designer was required to construct the complex life and universe. ID doesn't seek to explain anything about the designer, that would be left to philosophy and religious discussions.
Posted by: Creationist | February 3, 2006 12:21 PM
Creationist, are you familiar with what a troll is? In regards to online discussions, you strike me as a troll. Or Tucker Carlson. Or both.
Posted by: Lamb | February 3, 2006 2:01 PM
Creationist: Positing a mysterious Designer (a God if I ever heard of one) prevents people from having to address the question of origins at all - God just is, and was, and ever shall be. This setting of questions outside the realm of reasonable discourse is the essence of religion. ANY philosophy or religion that does this does not belong in a science class, even if that philosophy is called science.
Maybe we should try to get the students philosophy and religious discussion classes, which would encourage them to think and argue reasonably, rather than to emulate passive containers for teachers to fill with whatever they wish without question or protest.
Posted by: Great Omnipotent Tigger | February 3, 2006 3:23 PM
Creationist:
Regarding Crick, I don't know what he believes now about the origin of life on Earth.
Francis Crick is deceased. Now that I've told you, maybe you should tell your friends in the Creationist movement. They don't seem to be getting the message.
Anyway, I am amused that you find the claim "Why would a good God make a world with death and suffering" "tired." It is the fundamental paradox in all monotheistic religions, has given rise to more "heresies" than any other bit of Christian theology, and has given pause to theologians far more subtle than you.
The "handwaving" argument I described is exactly "Augustine's theodicy" -- the dominant theological response, within Christianity, to the problem of evil.
It doesn't work. The idea that a "freely willed" choice made by Adam in the garden of Eden could lead to a "fallen world," in which endless parasitism and suffering plagues innocent animals, is absurdly unjust.
If you want to defend your position by dropping the idea of a just God, as you seem to be doing, that's fine, although it would seem incompatible with your professed Christianity.
And, let's face it, it doesn't matter whether it's technically possible to believe that the world was designed by an unjust God. All the Intelligent Design advocates that matter in America are Christian, if not Moonie, and they want to have it both ways: just God, and suffering as a designed-in feature of life.
Oh, and by the way, I admit I was a bit sloppy about the technical aspects of Edenic biology, and whether old sheep lay down to die for wolves (as CS Lewis portrayed, I believe, in the unfallen planets of his Space Trilogy) or "there would be no death at all (not including plants and probably bacteria maybe even insects etc." That's because couldn't really care less. It's a sterile theological question, the kind that substitutes for a scientific research program among Creationists.
Posted by: theo | February 3, 2006 4:53 PM
A commentator of "Parasite Rex" on Amazon posted this:
"...another species of trypanosome causes Chagas disease in South America, a disease that may have afflicted Charles Darwin."
Perhaps the parasites directed Darwin to develop his theory, which was eventually passed down to Carl Zimmer, which promoted him to write the book, which tells us who is -really- in charge!
If memes are more like multi-celluar parasites than like viruses, then the creationist meme has been shedding its religionist appendages to better invade the intermediate host of science in an effort to be carried into the next intermediate host, schools, from whence it can infect human brains and make them more pliable to infusions of dogma!
Oh! The humanity!
Posted by: Spike | February 3, 2006 5:07 PM
I AM a classroom teacher. I teach my kids Evolution--the scientifically based kind. (AKA the only kind.) Kids' beliefs belong to themselves, not to me, and I tell them this.
Anyone who wants to believe that a god-figure created all of this is welcome to do so--however, in the classroom or in public presentation, it's pointless. Science can say nothing about unprovable postulates! No respectable--or respectful--scientist will leap off into a realm where they do not belong and say that god does not exist. There is no way to prove such a statement. Nor can you "prove" that mythical figures did not engineer everything so that it LOOKS like evolution occurred. (I do love Flying Spaghetti Monsterism ... www.venganza.org)
In case you're wondering, there's no doubt in any well-educated scientist's mind that it does, in fact, "look" like evolution occurred. The reason you hear that there's mounds of evidence which is not then provided to you (the Creationist) is that ... the evidence is housed in this top-secret facility named "Any Accredited Biology Class of any University in the World". When you first learn about the Theory of Gravity, all you learn is that things fall down. When you get to college you learn about the orbital motion of planets and galaxies and the Big Bang and ... so much more about the Theory that you realize that you never understood it before.
In a mutual gesture of respect, religion has every right to speak to unprovable postulates such as the existence of souls and gods and an afterlife, but it should not dictate to science what conclusions to draw from the facts.
When the rock falls downward every time, and the planets orbit in regular patterns, we call it the Theory of Gravity and god and all the scientists and other human beings said "it is good." When natural selection yields new species on a regular basis, when every fossil find and genetic discovery opens up a new window on the processes of evolution, we call it the Theory of Evolution and it is not "just a theory" in the same way that I have a theory that my auto mechanic is gipping me.
Creationist, s/he of the ant-killing god; in the event you're looking for evidence that the "creator" is good, you have only to look at Descartes' writings of the 1600's - later rehashed, digested, and updated for the modern audience by C. S. Lewis - for an almost mathematical proof of the requisite "goodness" of any god of ours.
It is hard for people to grasp decentralized causation. In the human world, cause and effect implies Causer and Effected. I say read and my children do as I say. I hit the brakes and my car stops. Someone has to say what happens next. In the natural world, a thousand wasps in a field try to survive with very little neural network capacity, and once in a while an accident occurs that changes things. Accidents without causes, events without direction being able to shape the world is a concept beyond the grasp of many a scientist, much less laymen. It's no wonder that so many Americans do not understand Evolution sufficiently to even have a CHANCE to "believe".
Posted by: Wolf | February 3, 2006 5:49 PM
Anyway, it's important to notice that IDers always use the same examples -- clotting, eyes, flagellum (of nonthreatening bacteria) -- and never talk about really interesting parasitic specializations, anglerfish lures, the diversity of venoms, insanely septic Komodo dragon bacterial colonies, etc.
As we've seen from Creationist here, it's because they can't bring up these examples without committing to a malicious designer (or some version of multiple designers theory).
ID is and has always been a fig leaf for Christian Creationists, and the idea that a designer (who IDers always, always, read as "God") could be malicious is too cognitively dissonant for their audience to follow, which is why they try to ignore these problem cases as best they can.
However, as Carl points out in his book, you can't ignore parasitism. It's possibly the most successful ecological niche on the planet today. I suspect IDers would all be much happier with a more philosophically coherent viewpoint such as theistic evolutionism.
Posted by: theo | February 3, 2006 5:50 PM
That's one evil bugger. At least now if I see anyone walking round with a glazed look in their eyes for four weeks, then die and cockraches crawl out of their head, I'll know why.
Posted by: Echilon | February 3, 2006 5:55 PM
I gathered that. Theo: I have never seen you in action before, but if there was an annual blog award for being obstinate, sloppy, pompous, rude, and completely ignorant of what you're criticizing, you'd have clinched it with this comment thread. After years of research and writing on the subject, I feel comfortable saying that you wouldn't recognize what you describe as "Augustine's theodicy" if it came in the form of a wasp sting direct to the center of your cerebral cortex.
My recommendation: Stop pretending to understand things that you just noticed printed on the fronts of books, and actually take the time to open them.
As for this amazing little story, I think it shows us less about the nature of God, Eden, or the Fall of Man, but rather that such intricacies of nature truly reveal how very little we know or understand concerning the why and how of such activities, and what exactly (not theoretically) caused this creature to learn such a fascinating and deadly route to reproduction.
Posted by: Ben | February 3, 2006 5:56 PM
The roach is an outstanding survivalist. When the roach by it's own will, eh will is a funny word to use, but anyway, when the roach by it's own will eats all the wood in all the houses, it dies. Roaches of "evolutionary superiority", have accomodated themselves to the envasion of houses, and the reclimation to the natural wooded invironment results in the death of the roach. Thereby the Roach is dependant oh human housing. A resulting of experimentation project was undergone to combine the living quarters on city blocks. In an effort to conserve space all the houses recieved additions which extended one into the other. The benifit for the community was the provision of easier and cheeper living conditions, being that there was no more yard, the landlords found that tending these interconected communities was much easier after the project had gone underway. However the rapid multiplication of the cockroach spieces [they no longer had to travel from seperate houses] led to there inability to move to new invironments freely. Thusly the cockroaches lost the survival instinct allowing there migration to a natural habitat, aka there primary weakness.
Posted by: Anonymous | February 3, 2006 5:58 PM
The "Creationist" seems to wnat us to study the creationist side, when there clearly is none, since creation theory has never been formally proposed. Thus far, Creation theory is simply a bunch of "flaws" in evolution, such as the all too common bombadier beetle example. Almost all creationist arguements, the bombadier beetle included, are based on misrepresentations of the facts. All of this aside, creationism is based on a concept which non-christians do not share: If you can't explain it perfectly, it must be god. This is a rediculous logical leap. So "Creationist", you are only fooling yourself.
Posted by: GK | February 3, 2006 6:40 PM
Another comment: Creationist, your citation of Crick's beleif of alient design as proof is an appeal to authority. Saying that Crick thought so doens't proove your point. Besides, there are plenty of other scientists who don't beleive in ID.
Posted by: GK | February 3, 2006 6:43 PM
CREATIONIST'S "NO DEATH" CONJECTURE
"No death...before 'the Fall?'" What about accidental death? Was the movement of every "pre-Fall" creature finely choreographed? Did monkeys swing wildly in trees but never crush an insect on a branch nor upset an insect egg nor bird egg in the process? Did a curious monkey never pick up an insect or egg out of curiosity and accidentally crush or drop it. No large herbivore ever tried to take a bite out of a much tiner critter that looked green enough to eat, nor accidentally ingested it because it was on the leaf it was already chewing and swallowing? Did sharks hunger solely for seaweed and carefully spit out even the tiniest fish that might inhabit the seaweed out of which the shark bit an enormous mouthful? No mistaken swallowing of any tiny live fish at all by much larger fish? What about a large animal galloping along and breathing heavy and accidentally inhaling an insect? Did Brontosauruses dodge every breathing thing underfoot with each gargantuan step, including ants, beetles, worms, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals? Did spiders assist in the release of any insect that flew haphazardly into their webs?
I guess the deaths of plant cells (that every breathing creature in Genesis 1 was commanded to eat "for food") does not count, just the deaths of animal cells. But plant and animal cells both have a nucleus, cytoplasm and cell wall. (Never mind about the question of whether or not single celled "plant-i-mals" like the Euglena--that have both plant chlorophyll and a flagellar "tail" on the end with which to move around like an animal--lived or died.)
Also..."without death" a single bacterial cell that divides every twenty minutes would multiply to a mass four thousand times greater than the earth's in just two days.
A single oyster, left to its own devices, produces more than one-hundred-twenty-five million eggs in a season. That's more than enough oysters, if none died in eight years, [10 to the 89th power number of oysters] to crowd the water out of the oceans and make it cover the earth.
If all the eggs from one mother housefly lived, she would produce more than five trillion offspring in just one season.
A sunfish sometimes lays three hundred million eggs.
A female sea turtle lays a hundred or more eggs.
About one hundred million sperm cells are found in each cubic centimeter of human ejaculate.
There are equally bountiful numbers from the world of seed-bearing plants.
Speaking of death, how about decay, no decay either? I want to know, did Adam and Eve digest their vegetarian dinners? I once read a debate between two young-earth creationists in which one said that Adam had to break down his food and that meant that the second law of thermodynamics (breakdown, hence decay) had to have already been in effect because without it chemical reactions that involved breaking down molecules would not follow. In fact not even the existence of "friction" would follow without the second law already being in effect. Talk about a slippery world.
And if Adam and Eve digested their green plant dinners did they also fart as vegetarians do today? Did they defecate? Did their feces stink? How about their armpits? Did God feel the least bit obliged to give Adam and Eve the recipe for soap? In other words, wouldn’t Adam and Eve have been “ashamed” of any number of things long before they were “ashamed” to discover they were “naked?” Or, as Adam once put it, “Eve, pick some of those soft leaves next time, I’m getting chaffed!”
So if creationists insist that the original creation was so perfect there was “no decay.” One might retort with, "No decay my ass!" Or should I say, “Adam’s ass?”
Feel free to visit my website sometime, and read my testimony about leaving the creationist fold, and why geologists saw no reason in the rocks left to continue to support the idea of "Flood geology" before Darwin was even born.
Sincerely,
Edward T. Babinski
Posted by: Edward T. Babinski | February 3, 2006 7:34 PM
Ben @ RedState --
I'd like to return the favor with an award for excessive ad hominem argumentation by a "prominent right-wing blogger," but I'm afraid that, as usual, Powerline and Hindrocket have you beat.
Perhaps my summary of Augustine's "On Free Choice of the Will" isn't nuanced enough for your taste. That's fine. This obviously isn't the place for that discussion.
Posted by: theo | February 3, 2006 7:34 PM
So why do IDers rarely address parasitism? ID advocate Georgia Purdom points out that one of ID theory's biggest deficits (relative to old-school Creationism) is that it emphasizes the Designer, not man's sin, as the author of evil.
This is where an ID advocate can lose their crypto-Creationist audience.
So what does top ID advocate William Dembski do? In "Intelligent Design is not Optimal Design" he attempts to evade that problem by, essentially, revealing his Creationist roots and blaming designed evil ("dysteleology") on the fallen world.
But at this point, Dembski's argument is just another link in the long, sad history of Creationist apologetics for dysteleology, because animals must have been designed in an unfallen, non-evil state. And what does an unfallen mosquito do with its stinger? What did unfallen cats do with their carnivorous teeth and hunting instincts? What about unfallen anglerfish? Unfallen Bacteria and their Type III injection systems? Not to mention all of Edward Babinski's examples in comment #32? When it comes to parasitism, ID has no answers to give.
Posted by: theo | February 3, 2006 7:54 PM
Very interesting! I already have the book "Parasite Rex" in my "to read" pile - this may move it closer to the top! I saw an interesting documentary in which Snails became Zombies in a similar way.
Posted by: Leopardesse | February 3, 2006 9:13 PM
Hi, just to say that this is a tremendous cruelity. These are sentient beings...
Posted by: alex | February 3, 2006 9:36 PM
This article raises a tantalizing question in my mind. Is there more than romantic flapdoodle in the 19th century idea that disease and creativity are linked? Could it be triggered as an unintended side effect of parasite manipulation?
Several controversial books investigate the idea of such a link, The Great Pox and The Great Plague. I'm reading Thomas Mann right now and he also explores the theme through the characters of Hans Castorp and Adrian Leverkuhn.
Does a new story need to be written, this time from the point of view of Treponema pallidum and Mycobacterium tuberculosis? Also why does treponoma continue to wreak havoc when it is no longer infective and presumabley an evolutionary dead end?
Posted by: Cayte | February 3, 2006 11:06 PM
As a biochemist and engineer, I've spent the last 5 years studying biological systems at a level that most of you I assume will never see. Suffice to say that anyone who honestly believes that random chance can generate the structures that I have studied is either purposely blinding himself or just plain stupid. I won't try to defend stuff like fallen creation and the changes wrought by the fall because I don't understand them and I figure I won't get the answers until I can ask the designer. I'm sure enough in my scientific method to say "I don't know" and be satisfied with continuing to look for answers. Ascribing everything I see to a random chance event though seems to be at least as nonproductive as ascribing everything I see to the unseen hand of a Creator and probably more unproductive, because if its wrong then you add a whole list of falsehoods to its creation. As for arguements in this list, well its pretty obvious that the two sides are pretty well set and both sides at least marginally "get" each other, but the evolutionists in the room really should get a handle on what ID really is before they go labeling it. Read some decent research papers. Especially the work into information theory.
-M.Wilson
P.S. theo "And what does an unfallen mosquito do with its stinger?" first off, a mosquito doesn't have a stinger it has a proboscis, and assuming that it looked exactly the same pre and post fall then it would use its proboscis for the same thing that male mosquitos do right now every day. Drink plant fluids from plants.
P.P.S. arguing on the internet is like running in the special olympics, even if you win you're still retarded. these discussion boards about creation and evolution do nothing but increase antagonism between the sides, because you don't change peoples minds with randomly quoted facts and papers and opinions, you change peoples minds by meeting and teaching them in person. so all of you have fun arguing on the internet!
Posted by: Biolchemical Engineer | February 4, 2006 1:14 AM
It's possible to believe in ID and not be religious. I am such a person. I don't necessarily believe in a divine Creator, but as far as I can see it's just silly to dismiss the idea of an intelligence at work in creation. Or put another way, who should have the burden of proof, the ID folks or the other side? It doesn't seem obvious to me.
Posted by: Ernie | February 4, 2006 1:55 AM
Just like to say, as a Biochemist myself (University of Manchester BSc Hons, 1998) I am dismayed by Biochemical engineer's comment that 'to say that anyone who honestly believes that random chance can generate the structures that I have studied is either purposely blinding himself or just plain stupid'.
Dude, Natural Selection is NOT just random chance - you should know that. Furthermore everytime you do an EMBL or BLAST search for DNA homologues, do you not find a sh*t load of evidence for common decent staring you in the face.
I worked with a fundamentalist christian PhD plant biochemist and he was the unhappiest guy I know. He ardently believed in the literal word of the bible, yet he couldn't reconcile his belief with what he saw every day in the lab
Posted by: Another biochemist | February 4, 2006 2:55 AM
biochemical engineer: It's not random chance. That's not what evolution proposes. Evolution involves causality, which is anything but random; a noodle will never evolve into a rock. Complexity does not logically prove or even imply design, nor does it even begin to disprove evolutionary theory.
creationist: It doesn't bother you that the idea of an omniscient god paired with free will is impossible? If God knows everything (ignoring for now that he'd have to also know ignorance and thus contradict himself,) then he logically knows the future. If he knows the future, while he may not have necessarily written the future himself, it is the one and only future. How can there be free will if all of your actions are set in stone before you've ever even been born?
Posted by: Chamberlin | February 4, 2006 3:00 AM
Such blithe assumptions about "natural selection". Please explain exactly how this stinger "evolves"? Does the first step in the process involve a stinger that does nothing, or is used for some other purpose? Why does that innovation succeed and get passed along, if it does not advance its possessor?
Or do the stinger and venom somehow arrive together, in an evolutionary leap? If the venom has to "evolve", then the venom that does nothing and the venom that kills are not passed along, and those wasp strains die off, right?
What about the leap in brain-surgery skills that allow the wasp to perform an operation which, as you say, even scientists don't understand? If the first generation of wasps prematurely kill their roaches, how do they reproduce to pass their imperfect skills along? Or do they all die off until that one wasp gets it right? That would be the "natural selection" claim - that millions of wasps keep at this until one succeeds and reproduces, and that this is all more or less accidental. It can only be chance selection since the wasps who fail are not around to teach the next generation what went wrong, are they? No, some superwasp has to have the venom, the stinger, and the right technique all fall into place at once, because she can't inherit unsuccessful skills from wasps that don't reproduce, and there are no wasp brain surgery schools.
How do the insects even know what a 'brain' is, where it is, and what to do when it finds it? (If you say "instinct" you're begging the question. We're talking "natural selection" here. These insects have to figure this out. No mysteries of nature allowed - this is science.) Do we have generations of wasps trying vainly to affect roaches through their thoraxes and dying off, allowing the brain surgeons to win out? Do we then have only the best brain surgeons surviving? That again seems to be the natural selection claim. But why don't we see such things all the time? Why don't we see species trying things they have no hope of accomplishing? Why don't we see apes attempting to copulate with gazelles to breed faster apes? Why don't we see other species attempting and failing at learning brain surgery, since it works so well for the wasps? Where are the documented cases of species trying to gain new skills, which is what we are talking about here? Natural selection tells us this must go on constantly for millions of years in countless instances. It must be happening all over the place.
Why did these insects keep puzzling out a procedure of which they have no understanding, when there are simpler and more reliable ways to survive and reproduce? Do they have "hopes" of eventual success, like doctors who develop difficult surgeries which seemed impossible to their predecessors? Is that what we are being asked to believe here? Or do we just need to have "faith" in science when we encounter things we do not understand and cannot explain?
"Faith" in science when it begs such indulgences is no more and no less credulous than "faith" in a creator who allows for evolutionary changes on an initial design.
Posted by: Mister Snitch! | February 4, 2006 4:40 AM
On the whole question of intelligent design, since we're way the hell off-topic, I'm going to quote a friend of mine with whom I had a passing conversation about the fact I'd seriously damaged the ACL in my knee.
He had a female friend who worked in a multi-use office building. Among the various folks renting space in this building was a dentist.
This dentist was a Fundamentalist. His belief was that his work was to repair the damage that sin had done to the world.
He did, however, offer free dentistry (or reduced cost, I honestly forget which) to the tenants of the building, as part of his rental agreement.
One afternoon, one of said female friend's coworkers came busting back into the office and said 'hide me'.
As it turns out, the dentist was going on about his Intelligent Design-like thesis regarding dentistry, and the patient, all unwitting, asked 'why then do the two tendons that hold your kneecap in place on your knee run parallel rather than crossing as an X across the patella, which would secure it against a far greater degree of shock?'
And the dentist lost his nut all over the place on that question.
In my humble opinion, this tale defines precisely where intelligent design and science meet.
Posted by: Turner | February 4, 2006 5:04 AM
So our choices are...what?
Believe that a succession of interconnected
events forced changes over (what we perceive as)
vast stretches of time...?
...or that the cozmik wizard said,"KAZAM!", and there it was.
While both explanations are mind-boggling, only one of them is for children.
Posted by: Scott | February 4, 2006 9:07 AM
So let's say that natural selection was not at work in the creation of this particular wasp, and that it was in fact the result of intelligent design.
Now please explain to me why I would worship an entity that would create such a wasp. Maybe a better term for this kind of creationism is 'fucking sadistic design'.
Posted by: Joy Ride | February 4, 2006 9:42 AM
Theo: only someone of a certain disposition would link to the blog of a former paid consultant for the Howard Dean campaign as unbiased proof of anything.
You, clearly, are of that disposition.
Posted by: Ben | February 4, 2006 10:47 AM
Does that mean that with the correct neuron injection, we can take over any human, any animal?
This is scary.
Posted by: Leion | February 4, 2006 12:09 PM
Congratulations Mister Snitch! Amidst the incredulous fog of your post, you've hit the crux of the matter: the essence of scientific study is understanding.
Creationism and intelligent design deserve no place in curricula of science because they have no interest in deepening our understanding of the natural world.
Posted by: David | February 4, 2006 12:14 PM
"Now please explain to me why I would worship an entity that would create such a wasp. Maybe a better term for this kind of creationism is 'fucking sadistic design'"
"why then do the two tendons that hold your kneecap in place on your knee run parallel rather than crossing as an X across the patella, which would secure it against a far greater degree of shock?"
This is always the response: We cannot have been created, because I see fault in the design. (Usually foul language is involved, as that always helps advance any position.)
There are two rebuttals: (1) Life is so complex that we cannot understand the higher purposes of its design. Indeed, human history is littered with examples of our hubristic belief that we had unlocked some puzzle, only to learn the answer was more complex still. Despite this, human arrogance persists (as demonstrated in many comments on this board).
Rebuttal two is far simpler: Let's see YOU do it.
Posted by: Mister Snitch! | February 4, 2006 12:14 PM
Congratulations Mister Snitch! Amidst the incredulous fog of your post, you've hit the crux of the matter: the essence of scientific study is understanding.
Creationism and intelligent design deserve no place in curricula of science because they have no interest in deepening our understanding of the natural world.
Posted by: David | February 4, 2006 12:14 PM
"Now please explain to me why I would worship an entity that would create such a wasp. Maybe a better term for this kind of creationism is 'fucking sadistic design'"
"why then do the two tendons that hold your kneecap in place on your knee run parallel rather than crossing as an X across the patella, which would secure it against a far greater degree of shock?"
This is always the response: We cannot have been created, because I see fault in the design. (Usually foul language is involved, as that always helps advance any position.)
There are two rebuttals: (1) Life is so complex that we cannot understand the higher purposes of its design. Indeed, human history is littered with examples of our hubristic belief that we had unlocked some puzzle, only to learn the answer was more complex still. Despite this, human arrogance persists (as demonstrated in many comments on this board).
Rebuttal two is far simpler: Let's see YOU do it.
Posted by: Mister Snitch! | February 4, 2006 12:15 PM
"Congratulations Mister Snitch! Amidst the incredulous fog of your post, you've hit the crux of the matter: the essence of scientific study is understanding."
I ask questions you cannot answer, so you resort to tired insults to stifle debate. This demonstrates beyond doubt that you are the sole party seeking greater understanding. What a credit to the scientific method.
Posted by: Mister Snitch! | February 4, 2006 12:42 PM
That is just creepy. Like smting out of alians. but it is strange how the wasp started to learn this in the first place.
Posted by: Roomba | February 4, 2006 1:34 PM