As I mentioned, I am currently up to my eyeballs in geek at the moment so blogging will be sparse for a few weeks, but there's always time to give Canadian IDiot Denyse O'Leary a good paddling:
Natural selection: Mutation protects against malaria - at a steep cost
Malaria, caused by a mosquito-borne parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, is one of humanity's most serious diseases, causing 500 million infections annually worldwide, and about one million deaths. . A recent study once again underlined the steep cost of "natural" protection...
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However, the pyruvate kinase enzyme is needed to produce energy, so lacking it - or passing on a tendency to lack it - is not a very satisfactory solution. As Behe notes, it is "another example of a beneficial mutation turning out to be a degradative mutation."
See, I'll bet you never knew that biological evolution was somehow obligated to represent a perfect, monotonically-increasing progression to better and better life forms, did you? And the thought that some mutations might have both pros and cons? Inconceivable. Clearly an argument for a supreme designer.
Please, dear God, tell me it doesn't get any stupider than this. There's only so much I can take.
3 comments:
So if there is a supreme designer he/she/it is purposely making these "degradive mutations" for some reason?
Yeah, that will make me convert...only a god of love would do something like that.
And quoting Behe? Yes, she really is stupid.
God made an Edsel?
What we are mainly learning from the study of malaria is that waiting for evolution by natural selection to help us is not satisfactory because accidental mutations are usually bad in themselves.
Still with the 'most/all mutations are bad' fallacy.
I would say waiting for the Rt. Honourable Intelligent Designer doesn't seem to be expediting any purely beneficial mutations for a shitload of ills, including malaria, either.
Evolution by Natural Selection seems to have helped us just fucking fine, isn't that why there are >6 billion of us?
I mean, aren't flaws or imperfections incontrovertible evidence for natural, and against intelligent, selection? 'Course, that Plasmodium falciparum seems to have been designed pretty fucking well. Whos side is the ID on, anyways?
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