Malevolent Design
The Death of a Loving God
Biological
Intelligent Design, the clever Trojan Horse designed expressly as a method to get creationism past the constitutional principal of the separation of church and state, focuses very narrowly on the alleged “intelligence” the theist sees in nature. They target rather benign examples, which they believe are designed by the unnamed creator (though a single question will divulge its identity), such as the human eye or the bacterial flagellum. Very wisely, they completely avoid implicating design in pathogenic organisms in public discourse, or even amongst themselves, as it would shine a light on an aspect of their designer the usual theist doesn’t like. There are exceptions to this, of course, the “fire and brimstone” Christians come to mind, but this book is not aimed at them. They already believe in an evil god, though I know for a fact that they would contest this!
Malevolent Design, simply put, is the
secondary negative quality that one should see if one first sees intelligence.
If there be a master designer then one should be able to gauge how it feels
about its creations by the interaction between them. Their various body parts
should spell out its intentions. What we see in nature becomes a moral
issue. It goes far beyond this, though. There are four more very large
categories that I will discuss, at length, in the proceeding sections:
environmental, cosmological, mythological and finally,
chronological.
Let’s first look at a leading killer in
the world of people in general, but specifically children under five, malaria.
There are four species that affect humans, the first being the most deadly:
Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, P. ovale, and P.
malariae. It’s a prolific reproducer, targets an essential organ and our
very blood cells, all the while evading our immune response. Within six days
after invading a liver cell, a single sporozoite will produce 30,000 to 40,000
merozoites! When ready, they burst forth, killing their host cell. Once in the
blood, they invade red blood cells and within 48 hours this cell ruptures and
releases 8 – 24 more daughter cells. It’s easy to see how, after losing the
liver and so much blood; one can succumb to this sickness. 
In addition to small children, pregnant women are also at a very high risk as the parasite easily passes into the fetus:
In sub-Saharan Africa, the region of the world hardest hit by malaria, malaria infection is estimated to cause 400,000 cases of severe maternal anemia and from 75,000-200,000 infant deaths annually. Maternal anemia contributes significantly to maternal mortality and causes an estimated 10,000 deaths per year.
Low birth weight is the greatest risk factor for neonatal mortality and a major contributor to infant mortality. Although many factors contribute to low birth weight, malaria is a major factor and one of the few, along with poor nutrition, anemia, and other infections that is amenable to intervention once a woman becomes pregnant. 1
You
would think that fetuses, babies, children and pregnant women would be high on
the list of favored individuals for a deity’s protection. I
know that my personal idea of what makes a
good
parent,
on a basic level, would be simply to care about its children. 
Designing
pathogens to infect, torture
and kill them doesn’t qualify.
The World Health Organization estimates “that each year 300-500 million cases of malaria occur and more than 1 million people die of malaria. About 1,300 cases of malaria are diagnosed in the United States each year.” Considering how advanced we are as a species, with all our technology, we still have not eradicated this parasite. That’s great design!
It’s not that we haven’t tried.
With the success of DDT, the advent of less toxic, more effective synthetic antimalarials, and the enthusiastic and urgent belief that time and money were of the essence, the World Health Organization (WHO) submitted at the World Health Assembly in 1955 an ambitious proposal for the eradication of malaria worldwide. Eradication efforts began and focused on house spraying with residual insecticides, antimalarial drug treatment, and surveillance, and would be carried out in 4 successive steps: preparation, attack, consolidation, and maintenance. Successes included eradication in nations with temperate climates and seasonal malaria transmission. Some countries such as India and Sri Lanka had sharp reductions in the number of cases, followed by increases to substantial levels after efforts ceased. Other nations had negligible progress (such as Indonesia, Afghanistan, Haiti, and Nicaragua). Some nations were excluded completely from the eradication campaign (most of sub-Saharan Africa). The emergence of drug resistance, widespread resistance to available insecticides, wars and massive population movements, difficulties in obtaining sustained funding from donor countries, and lack of community participation made the long-term maintenance of the effort untenable. Completion of the eradication campaign was eventually abandoned to one of control. (emphasis mine) 2
In other words, despite our best efforts, we’ve failed. It’s a failure that is compounded by the number of years we’ve been trying. With every year that passes that’s another million dead, most of them children.
Look at some of the problems they’ve encountered. With both the mosquito and the malaria parasite, the biggest problem was one of an evolved resistance. Natural selection, of course, was responsible. As any student of biological evolution knows, those with even the slightest resistance will be favored for reproduction, as all the rest will have been killed off. This resistance will be amplified through further generations.
This type of evolution, by the way, is not denied by Intelligent Design Creationists. There’s no controversy there. They accept microevolution, or evolution within a species. It’s macroevolution, or speciation, that they deny is possible.
Do they realize, though, the implications of such an acknowledgement? It would mean that these beings, within their mythology, would be designed to withstand our best efforts against them. Evolution would simply be a part of MD. Not only would the creator have designed an organism meant intentionally to harm us, but would have also built in ways in which the organism could continue to thrive -- no matter what we do!
Let’s
now look at the mosquito. It is responsible for more human death than any other
creature on earth. This is, of course, because of the wide variety of diseases
it carries and injects into its victims using its specialized appendage, known
as a proboscis. In addition to malaria, this flying syringe can carry West Nile
virus and the organisms that cause Dengue fever, viral encephalitis and yellow
fever. Its visual system is infrared and it homes in on the carbon dioxide that
its prey exhales. The female can lay up to 200 eggs at a time and they can
survive up to five years! If there be a designer, then it obviously loves these
insects as there are over 2,500 species! To be fair, though, not all of them
attack humans, some attack birds or horses or even turtles. But that leads to
another question. Are non-human animals not worthy of consideration? Or are
they mere property as the leading popular mythology suggests? Modern morality,
in many instances, dictates otherwise.
What kind
of deity would create such a creature? What kind of creator would expressly
make an animal such an effective vector of disease? The mosquito speaks volumes
on the character of any god or goddess that would be responsible for its
genesis. Think of it another way. Let’s replace “god” with something easier to
put the blame on. Let’s use the commonly demonized stereotype, the “mad
scientist.” What if this scientist created an army of very small flying robots
that would inject pregnant women and young children with a poison that slowly
killed them? How would such a scientist be viewed? What do you think would
happen to this person? He would be viewed, that’s right, as evil and punished
to the full extent of the law.
Look at the spitting cobra, a member of the Elapidae family, of which there are ten species which span two continents. Some of them include the black-necked spitting cobra (Naja nigricollis), the red spitting cobra (Naja pallida) and the Burmese spitting cobra (Naja manadalayensis). They can spit their neurotoxic venom, depending on the species, from four to eight feet. It has been shown, according to a study carried out by Katja Tzschätzsch, a research student at the University of Bonn in Germany, that they actually aim for the eyes. This extremely potent venom can, if left untreated, cause permanent blindness.
Why, according to popular religious mythology, does such a creature exist? What does the existence of such an animal say about the morality of any deity responsible for creation? This animal would have to have been hardwired for this particular behavior. Hatchlings, just coming out of the egg, have been documented as exercising their spitting ability with great accuracy. Its fangs would also have to have been specially crafted, as they differ from the ordinary venom injecting type. The orifice at the end of the fang is smaller and the venom duct, instead of heading straight down, turns forward abruptly at a right angle toward the tip. All of these modifications would have been done with precise knowledge of the impact these snakes would have on the surrounding human populations. I guess blind men, women and children just don’t matter to the Great Sky Daddy. In fact, it would seem if this being was real, it was what he wanted all along.
The
great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, is another great example. It
is an awesome predator. Its teeth are three inches long, serrated, razor sharp
-- like any good meat cutting knife -- and rotate toward the front to replace
any that are lost. They have 3,000 teeth in their mouth at any one time, which
is six rows for each tooth. It has a cartilaginous skeleton, which makes it
extremely flexible. This is part of the reason this predatory fish is so fast,
attaining speeds of up to 43 mph. In order to find prey they actually use five
out of a total of seven senses! They can smell as little as one part
blood per million of sea water using the olfactory sacs under their snout. They
have the ability to sense the slight electric field produced by all living
things using special sense organs called the ampullae of Lorenzini. This
has a very limited range, however, and is why they often attack the metal cages
that divers like hiding in. The lateral line system, often called the sixth
sense, detects pressure differences in the water on both sides of the animal.
Their sight is actually very good and well adapted for low light conditions.
This is due to the Tapetram Lucidi, a mirror like structure, which sits
behind the retina and acts as a light amplifier. Its hearing is good and is
adapted for picking up low range sounds. Sharks have two internal ears known as
the macula neglecta which are fed by two cartilaginous tubes that channel
sound waves downward from the top of the skull. They can hear in a range of 10
HZ to 800 HZ. The last two are taste and touch, but by the time these come into
play, you’ve been found. With all these senses they are able to home in on
bleeding, thrashing prey like a guided missile.
Only July 30, 1945 the USS Indianapolis, while in the Philippine Sea, was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine. The ship sank in 12 minutes leaving about 900 crew members in shark infested waters. By the time the men were spotted, 316 were left. They found out first hand the brutal efficiency at which sharks operate. Hundreds of men, that night, found out that nothing fails like prayer.
If there be a god, who
designed these beasts in the first place, why would it interfere with their
operation? You would think it would enjoy such a large testing ground. It
would have created both organisms, after all. In this corner, we have the
human, a placental mammal with a very large brain, capable of amazing feats
because of this organ within our skull. It tends to outweigh our other
shortcomings. Our “claws” have devolved to the point of being mere shadows of
themselves. Our strength, while it varies between human to human, is nothing
like it was in our ancestors. Contrast the strength of the chimpanzee, a mere
evolutionary cousin, versus the average man. In an experiment carried out in
1924 at the Bronx Zoo, the chimpanzee was shown to be 5 times stronger! Our
eyes are, while not the best to be found in nature (eagles and hawks, with their
telescopic vision, can spot a rabbit 1,000 feet below them and so hold that
position), are still very good. Our ears are pretty good, again not the best
though, with a range between 20 Hz to 15-20 kHz. A bat can hear between 9 kHz to
200 kHz. What does this all mean? Well, within the testing ground of the ocean,
it doesn’t offer the human much advantage. Without our tools, our brains do
little good against hungry sharks, especially in an environment we’re not
adapted to. The great white can swim eight times faster than our best
Olympian! It can sense our electrical activity, which only increases while
trying to stay afloat and well, if you shed even a tiny amount of blood,
something common after your ship is torpedoed, you smell as good as a hot, juicy
steak! The numbers tell who won.
Of course, from the relative safety of a boat, armed with modern weaponry, nets and hooks, the shark becomes easy prey. As a matter of fact, as a species, we’re infamous for driving animals to extinction. Japanese fishermen like to catch sharks and cut only their fins off, then release them back into the water. From an article found in the Nation dated March 9, 2001:
SHARKS around the world, including those in Thai waters, are threatened with unsustainable exploitation due to increasing demand for sharkfin soup and indiscriminate fishing, a wildlife conservation group warned yesterday.
Tens of millions of sharks are killed every year, with at least 8,000 tonnes of sharkfins shipped to restaurants around the world, WildAid said.
WildAid spent two years surveying 12 countries, including the main consuming markets and major shark-fishing nations, to check the latest status of the shark.
"Fishermen in all countries confirmed that the shark is hardly found anymore and its size when caught is getting smaller," WildAid director Peter Knights said.
"In Costa Rica, the shark population has declined 80 per cent in the past 10 years, while the rate in North America is as high as 90 per cent in the past 15 years," WildAid co-director Steven Galster added. 3
It would seem that, if sharks could pray,
their prayers would go unanswered, as well. Again, I must bring up the
parent/child analogy. The shark, if created, would be the “child” of the
creator deity. Letting all your children die at the hands of another is simply
not good parenting. If I let my kids play with knives and one got hurt or
killed, whose fault would it be? Who would be blamed for what happened? That’s
right, the parents! A creator, if it existed, would be the one held responsible
for the actions of its “children.”
We see no such intervention, though. How many animals have been driven to extinction at the hands of man?
Species extinctions are very difficult to quantify. In the past the man caused extinctions have been primarily due to hunting. As man crossed over from Asia and entered the North American Continent, a series of extinctions occurred caused in part by man's predation of slow moving species like the mammoth and other mega-herbivores and perhaps, according to a new hypothesis, by the introduction of new diseases by man or his domesticated animals. The loss of these species caused other dependent species to go extinct like the giant vultures and the long nosed bear. A similar wave of extinctions happened as the Polynesians colonized the pacific islands. This time it was the flightless birds that were defenseless against the new predators. The Moa was the largest, but on many islands there is evidence that up to 50% of all species of birds were hunted to extinction including such remarkable species as the Hawaiian Eagle.
The cascade of current extinctions, however, is related mostly to destruction of habitat, and displacement by introduced species. Chemical pollutants, over harvesting and hybridization have played smaller but still significant role. While the actual extinction rate is difficult to pin down, there is no doubt that the planet is in the midst of a mass extinction of major proportions. The most conservative estimates place the extinction rate at 1000 times the background rate. These numbers are more easily accepted when placed in the context of habitat destruction. 4
According to Edward O. Wilson, a highly esteemed Harvard biologist (and Atheist), 27,000 species are currently driven to extinction by ours per year. If this trend continues, by 2022, 22% of all species will be gone. Plot this graph into the future and it just gets worse and worse.
In this light, humans, and
many an ecologist will agree with me here, are the worst disaster to ever hit
this planet! Our arrival, whether you believe the fact of evolution or the myth
of creation, was not a “blessing,” but closer to a “curse.” As was pointed out
by the character Agent Smith in the blockbuster film, The Matrix, when
speaking to an imprisoned Morpheus:
I’d like to share with you a revelation
I’ve had, during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your
species and I realized that you aren’t actually mammals. Every mammal on this
planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with its surrounding
environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and
multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive
is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that
follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a
disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we... are the cure.
5 
Why would a loving deity put us amongst its other creations if it cared, at all, about them? It’d be akin to setting a large snake amongst chickens – something that would be called animal cruelty in many of today’s societies. Everywhere we’ve gone we’ve destroyed the environment and wiped out its non-human inhabitants. Smith was right in his observation. We’ve acted like a plague.
Insects, though, have done well despite our best efforts to eradicate many of those we consider pests. Sure, the insects have suffered their extinctions. According to a study reported by National Geographic in September 20, 2005, "up to 44,000 bugs of all varieties could have been wiped off the face of the Earth during the last 600 years. And hundreds of thousands more insect species could be lost over the next 50 years.” Parasitic insects that feed on humans, however, laugh at these numbers. Our arrival, to them, would definitely count as a “blessing!” Fleas, flies, ticks, chiggers, bed bugs, lice, intestinal worms and single celled organisms like protozoans (ex. malaria); all have enjoyed our presence on this planet!