FlamingText

The Case For Intelligent Design

  This is a virus. Its name is Variola Major, and it’s the virus responsible for the more deadly strain of smallpox. (The less deadly version is called Variola Minor.) It is a living organism and therefore one of God’s creatures. Like all of His creations, it is a miracle of perfect design. Behold!

  Prior to its eradication it was one of the deadliest diseases known to man. It has proven extremely adaptable, and over the course of millenia has wiped out millions upon millions of victims on every populated continent on Earth. The mortality rate for smallpox is approximately 30%, although in some cases rates in previously unexposed populations run much higher. The last known "wild" case was reported in 1977, following an intensive international campaign of containment and vaccination overseen by the World Health Organization.

  There are deadlier viruses than smallpox. For example, ebola virus outbreaks have been known to have mortality rates as high as 90%. Such high mortality rates tend to limit a disease’s spread because viruses that kill off their host populations die out with the host population (ebola has the additional limitation that it is not spread through casual contact.) Viruses that leave victims alive long enough to infect others insure that they will reach a broader population of hosts, and viruses that leave a portion of victims alive long enough to spawn the next generation of hosts live longer still. When a pathogen with the right combination of high virulence, sufficiently long gestation to insure broad transmission, and less-than-total mortality meets a mobile population capable of carrying the disease to uninfected populations, the conditions for a potential pandemic are created.

  Obviously there is a delicate balance of qualities that a pathogen must possess to make it a good candidate to be a Scourge of Mankind. The common cold infects a lot of people but kills very few of them, whereas Ebola kills most of its victims but remains extremely rare. Smallpox, as plagues go, is perfect. Surely the chance of such a finely-tuned self-replicating microscopic killing machine coming about by pure chance is too much to be believed, akin to a tornado whipping through an auto-parts store and producing a 1968 Thunderbird. Or something. No, none but the most blinkered and closed-minded secularist could possibly gaze upon the elegant fusion of form and function represented in Variola Major and fail to see the hand of a divine Architect of Life.

Glossary of important science-type terms:
Pandemic: A global epidemic. See also “scourge” or “wrath of G_d.”
Zoonosis: Cross-species transmission of infectious agents. All modern diseases of this type can be traced to Noah's Ark.

Mutation: A peculiar belief often associated with Darwinism which states that organisms "change" or "adapt" over successive generations through random variations in genes that result in "adaptive" or "maladaptive" traits, with those traits that increase an organism's survival chances being more likely to be passed on to subsequent generations, thus over time becoming the new norm. Like all science of a counter-biblical nature, it is based on a theory in crisis, namely that species "change", "evolve", or "go extinct."

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The Appendix: Useless 'Evolutionary Leftover' or misunderstood Organic Prayer Antenna?

Posted by flamingbanjo at October 22, 2005 01:42 PM