Predators and Parasites
From the Q&A session at end of the Michael Behe / Michael Reiss discussion of 26 November 2010:
Audience member Marilyn Watson: Why did God intelligently design predators and parasites? Which leads to the deeper question [that] intelligent design doesn’t actually tell us anything about what God is like. So it doesn’t bring us any further forward theologically. Neither does it bring us any further forward scientifically. So what’s the point?
Behe: Well, I’m a scientist. I’m not a theologian. And I think the problem you’re referring to comes under the topic of the problem of evil; why are there evil things in the world. And happily, that’s not a biochemical topic. I would refer you to the theologians in the group. But just as a layman in the area: I do think malaria was designed — as a matter of fact, I said so specifically in my second book — because it’s got very sophisticated machinery for invading human red blood cells, and so on. With all of these things, like tiger fangs, which can cause people trouble — some organisms might damage humans, but they may do a whole range of other tasks in the biosphere. And overall, they may be necessary for life in the world. Malaria does not just live to infect people. Tigers don’t live to eat people. So it may be that, on balance, we are ignorant of many of the relationships, many of the roles of things that can sometimes do us harm. As an analogy, we know that plate tectonics is overall good, but it can cause earthquakes and tsunamis and so on, but there’s no reason to think the processes causing plate tectonics were specifically put in place in order to hurt us. But that’s just a layman’s view of it.
Not really. It sounds like a superbly scientific view of it. It is empirical observation of tigers that leads us to believe that tiger fangs are used almost exclusively for killing non-human animals. It is empirical study of plate tectonics that leads us to believe that they are on the whole very good for life on Earth (including humanity) — occasional quake deaths not withstanding.
Compare this to William Dembski’s theodicy, and you can appreciate just how scientific Behe’s analysis really is.
The host, Justin Brierley, commented immediately after Behe’s explanation above:
I’d like to ask Michael [Reiss] the same question, in the sense that the problem of suffering in the world we live in isn’t just a problem for intelligent design ... on any Christian worldview, it’s an issue.
No, it’s a problem for any Christian worldview, but it’s not a problem at all for intelligent design, as Behe just explained.
Reiss addressed the question at first with a presumptive evolutionary explanation, but then (being a Christian and therefore wanting to say something about the “problem of evil”) offered this:
In one sense God is omnipotent, and it’s fine to say that. But you can’t have God who starts making circles square, or the classic, silly example of bachelors who are married. There are certain things that are just not possible. It is, therefore, possible to conceive that if you are to have a universe with wonderful diversity, and sentient creatures such as ourselves and many others, and organisms who have a possibility eventually to respond to a creator, then that world, that universe is going to be a world which also has unpleasant things within it. And therefore, roughly speaking, if you are a deity, you have a choice: You either have such a world, or you do not.
Compare that to Dembski’s original-sin theodicy. The contrast is extreme. Bravo, Reiss. You and Behe are getting awfully close to the truth.
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