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Michael Behe muses on design and COVID-19

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COVID-19
A coronavirus, by CDC/ Alissa Eckert, MS; Dan Higgins, MAM / Public domain.

He stands by what he wrote on Ebola virus six years ago:

The bottom line is that, while of course the virus is dangerous, the situation can be compared to a strong storm on the ocean. The waves may be huge and the surface roiling, but the deeper waters continue as they always have, essentially undisturbed. In a similar way, although superficially it changes very rapidly, some researchers think that the coronavirus and many other virus types have remained basically the same for tens of millions of years…

So, do I think viruses were designed? Yes, I most certainly do! The viruses of which we are aware — including the coronaviruses, Ebola, and HIV — are exquisitely, purposively arranged, which is the clear signature of intelligent design. Well, then does that mean the designer is evil and wants people to suffer? No, not necessarily. I’m a biochemist, not a philosopher. Nonetheless, I see no reason why a designer even of such things as viruses should be classified as bad on that basis alone.

I started this post with an analogy of a storm on the ocean. Certainly, if we were on a ship in a powerful storm, we might be excused for thinking storms are bad. But in calmer moments we understand that on balance the ocean is very good and that, given an ocean and the laws of nature, storms will arise from time to time. What’s more, we just might get caught in one. In the same way, most viruses do not affect humans and may well have a positive, necessary role to play in nature of which we are currently unaware. (I would bet on it.) From time to time a storm arises in the virosphere and affects humans. But that’s no reason to think either that viruses weren’t designed or that the designer of viruses isn’t good.

Michael Behe, “Evolution, Design, and COVID-19” at Evolution News and Science Today

Ebola six years ago? Ebola six years ago? Behe, M. J. 2014. Evolution and the Ebola virus: Pacing a small cage.

Comments
@Jim Thibodeau
Nobody could possibly base any kind of modern ethics on this kind of nonsense.
Says who? Your opinion is just that, your opinion. And not a very intelligent one. There is not an objective basis for 'morals', so your emotions and baseless assertions are useless.
There’s a reason that the fastest growing group in America is people leaving this absurd stuff behind.
Oh. The old appeal to numbers fallacy. Is this waste of time, 5-year-old level of reasoning all that you've got? Very sad.Truthfreedom
March 14, 2020
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You left out abortion. Why is that. P.S. Please spare us the smugness.john_a_designer
March 14, 2020
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@John_a_designer #43 Do you live in a cave or something? Is eugenics why liberals champion the poor, the lower class, the minorities, the uninsured sick? That's the opposite of eugenics, John boy. It's conservatives that seem to be into "winner take all".Pater Kimbridge
March 14, 2020
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There’s a rabbi in Israel who is saying this virus is God’s revenge for gay pride parades. https://deadstate.org/israeli-rabbi-coronavirus-is-gods-revenge-for-gay-pride-parades/ Nobody could possibly base any kind of modern ethics on this kind of nonsense. There’s a reason that the fastest growing group in America is people leaving this absurd stuff behind.Jim Thibodeau
March 14, 2020
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Sev
Egnor can believe what he wants...
Egnor May be a good surgeon but I stopped taking anything he says seriously when he claimed that all mass shootings are caused by Democrats.Ed George
March 14, 2020
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BA77
Jim Thibodeau and Ed George’s supposedly ‘scientific’ argument for the Darwinian origin of pathogenic viruses has this logical structure:
Don’t erect that strawman too night. It might hurt someone when BA(Don Quixote)77 knocks it down. The only claims I have made are that if viruses are designed it can’t be by a designer who has our best interests at heart, and that COVID-19 is not a particularly well designed virus.Ed George
March 14, 2020
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@Seversky #39 An inability (or unwillingness) to grasp a reductio-ad-absurdum argument seems to be a common feature of the theist mindset.Pater Kimbridge
March 14, 2020
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Notice how the Covid 19 virus seems to be targeting the infirm and elderly. Maybe viruses are just nature’s way of “culling the herd.” Maybe then we should just let nature take its course. The young and fit are going to survive and develop immunities. The elderly, sick and infirm-- well… That appears to be the view of bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel who has said he doesn’t to live beyond the age of 75:
Here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.
Though he wrote this back in October of 2014 he was thinking of how we should respond to pandemics like we’re in the midst of now
What about simple stuff? Flu shots are out. Certainly if there were to be a flu pandemic, a younger person who has yet to live a complete life ought to get the vaccine or any antiviral drugs. A big challenge is antibiotics for pneumonia or skin and urinary infections. Antibiotics are cheap and largely effective in curing infections. It is really hard for us to say no. Indeed, even people who are sure they don’t want life-extending treatments find it hard to refuse antibiotics. But, as Osler reminds us, unlike the decays associated with chronic conditions, death from these infections is quick and relatively painless. So, no to antibiotics.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/joe-biden-coronavirus-adviser-ezekiel-emanuel-wants-to-die-at-75/ Sounds a lot like eugenics, doesn’t it? Indeed, the fact is that eugenics never went away. It just got relabeled-- something the secular progressive left is good at doing.john_a_designer
March 14, 2020
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^^^^^^^^^^ For instance, is response to the fact that "Darwinists simply have no evidence that unguided material processes can create even a single protein,", Seversky, without a hint of embarrassment, states for all the world to see,
Not yet. A hundred years ago we had no inkling that billions of neutrinos are passing through every square centimeter of our bodies every second. Now we do. Who knows what science might uncover in another hundred years, let alone another million years?
Yet neutrinos, in and of themselves, have been used to falsify 'realism', which is the materialistic belief that a physical reality can exist completely separate from our measurement and/or conscious observation of it.
Massive neutrino experiment undermines our sense of reality - Adrian Cho - Jul. 12, 2016 Excerpt: The researchers observed the strong correlations predicted by Leggett and Garg, as they report in a paper in press at Physical Review Letters. "As we expected, it's a very obvious effect," Formaggio says. The data underscore that the neutrino has no flavor until it's actually measured, he says. The result is not surprising, Garg says, as neutrino oscillations are inherently quantum mechanical. Still, he says, it "probes the conflict between the quantum and classical worlds in a new regime." https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/07/massive-neutrino-experiment-undermines-our-sense-reality
Thus, contrary to what Seversky seems to believe, experiments with neutrinos have actually falsified Seversky's materialistic worldview. Moreover, neutrinos play into the fine-tuning of Big Bang nucleosynthesis
What would happen if neutrinos did not exist? That depends. What else are you changing? If you’re not changing anything else, then that would have a huge impact on particle stability (e.g., muons and free neutrons would both be stable). Oh, and there would be the small matter of the CNO cycle and Proton–proton chain reaction no longer working, which means there wouldn’t be stars like the Sun. Which is actually moot, because if free neutrons were stable, Big Bang nucleosynthesis would have resulted in the Universe being made almost entirely of Helium-4, which is largely inert. So, basically, the Universe today would be a bunch of hot, dense, glowing clouds of ionized Helium-4, with sparse, cold, ionized Helium-4 interspersed between them. Not very interesting, but then again, there wouldn’t be anyone around to complain. https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-neutrinos-did-not-exist
Thus we should rightly thank God for neutrinos since if they weren't around we would not be around. But I guess Seversky thanking God for neutrinos would kind of defeat Seversky's entire purpose for mentioning neutrinos in the first place. :)bornagain77
March 14, 2020
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Martin_r at 40, Seversky's irrational hostility towards God has made him incapable of being embarrassed by the gargantuan scientific shortcomings of his Darwinian worldview. Case in point, his replies in post 38 and 39.bornagain77
March 14, 2020
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Seversky, i got a simple question, will you reply ? isn't it embarrassing, that your atheistic evolutionary theory can't explain the evolutionary origin of the MOST ABUNDANT organism on Earth (viruses) ?martin_r
March 14, 2020
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>Bornagain77@ 12
Of supplemental note, in keeping with the Christian’s presupposition that we live in a ‘fallen world’, there are now reason to believe that viruses. (and bacteria), and contrary to popular belief, start out as being beneficial and then, from time to time, degrade into being pathogenic.
You know you should really give up on this nonsense about the "Fall". It's a fatally-flawed argument. If God is the all-knowing, all-powerful perfect being Christians claim He is then He designed Adam and Eve in full knowledge of what they were and how they would behave. Yet He punishes them for being how He designed them to be and doing what He designed them to do. If what happened in the Garden of Eden was wrong then it was His fault not theirs. Yet they carry the can for it and so do their descendants in perpetuity. Now tell me how that is just or fair.Seversky
March 13, 2020
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Bornagain77 @ 11
As Martin_r alluded to, Seversky simply has no evidence that viruses could arise by evolutionary processes.
In the absence of a Designer, what other explanation is there?
Furthermore, as has been pointed out time and again to the Darwinists here on UD and elsewhere, Darwinists simply have no evidence that unguided material processes can create even a single protein,
Not yet. A hundred years ago we had no inkling that billions of neutrinos are passing through every square centimeter of our bodies every second. Now we do. Who knows what science might uncover in another hundred years, let alone another million years?
In fact, as John Sanford has shown in his book Genetic Entropy, and as Michael Behe has shown in his book “Darwin Devolves”, Darwinian processes are far, far, more likely to degrade a preexisting function in order to gain an adaptive advantage than Darwinian processes are ever likely to create anything new, i.e. Behe’s “First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: “Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain.”
If any of that were true, we would not be here arguing about it. All life would have gone extinct long ago In fact, you'd have to ask how life ever got started in the first place if DNA is so prone to degradation.
Since Darwinists have no real time empirical evidence that Darwinian evolution is even remotely feasible, Darwinists, as Seversky has done here in this tread with his comment, i.e. “How far would he have to go before you began to suspect he (God) might not be as favorably disposed towards us as you like to think?”, Darwinists will often, as Seversky has done here, resort to theologically based arguments.
In case you hadn't noticed, my argument was not in support of evolution. It was highlighting the inconsistency of the popular notion of an infinitely good and benevolent God with the existence of deadly pathogens which He must have designed or allowed to come into existence through natural processes. Something you have great difficulty in explaining.
In short, Seversky is resorting to the theologically based “argument from evil”. Yet the ‘argument from evil’ is a blatantly self refuting argument for an atheist, such as Seversky, to make.
Calling it the argument of evil still doesn't get you off the hook as far as reconciling the existence of behavior we call evil with the existence of a loving God who could put a stop to it in an instant if He chose or explaining why He ever allowed it to happen in the first place.
For evil to even exist in the first place, as Seversky is presupposing in his argument from evil, then there necessarily must be an objective moral standard of good that has been departed from.
For evil to exist in a universe entirely created by a god, it was either directly created by that god or allowed to happen by him/her/it. And I don't need some objective moral standard to know that the rape and murder of a child is wrong. Neither should you. The Golden Rule or empathy is all you need.
And as David Wood puts it in the following article, By declaring that suffering is evil, atheists have admitted that there is an objective moral standard by which we distinguish good and evil.
Nonsense. All you need is to experience suffering and know that it is something you would prefer to avoid and would not wish on others.
In short, if good and evil exist, as the atheist necessarily presupposes in his ‘argument from evil’, then it follows that God necessarily exists:
Good and evil are, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder. They don't entail a god or any mythical objective moral standards.
And as Michael Egnor states in the following article, Even to raise the problem of evil is to tacitly acknowledge transcendent standards, and thus to acknowledge God’s existence. From that starting point, theodicy begins. Theists have explored it profoundly. Atheists lack the standing even to ask the question.
Egnor can believe what he wants but discussing the problem of evil does not entail acknowledging transcendent moral standards or that the notion of such standards necessarily entails the existence of the Christian God. They simply don't follow. As for theodicy, theologians have made good livings out of concocting ingenious explanations for the inconsistencies, discrepancies and outright contradictions that riddle the faith. Neither atheists nor anyone else needs "standing" to see that.Seversky
March 13, 2020
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@26 Ed George
... with respect to biological life.
Of course there is abiological life in the non-sensical world of the darwinist.Truthfreedom
March 13, 2020
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ED Goerge @34 you wrote "Designed for what? If it is for the long term survival and proliferation of the virus then COVID-19 isn’t particularly well designed." it is pretty clear, that viruses were made to regulate/control a population (e.g. a population of bacteria, or a population of bats, or, humans). e.g. the often mentioned T4 bacteriophage regulates the population of bacteria. And i agree with those scientists who say that viruses are not alive. Yes, i agree, viruses are not alive, they are just another type of a nano-machine, in this case, to regulate a population. In biology, we see various types of nano-machines all the time (not alive too).martin_r
March 13, 2020
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Jim Thibodeau and Ed George's supposedly 'scientific' argument for the Darwinian origin of pathogenic viruses has this logical structure:
1. If God exists He would not allow pathogenic viruses to exist. 2. Pathogenic viruses do exist. Conclusion: Therefore God does not exist and Darwinian evolution must be true.
The problem with this supposedly 'scientific' argument for the Darwinian origin of pathogenic viruses is that it is not a scientific argument at all. It is, obviously, a Theological argument that presupposes to know the exact intentions and purposes of God. Ed George even went so far as to say that not knowing the exact intentions and nature of God "is the major thing keeping ID from being considered a serious scientific endeavour." Really Ed George??? Really???. The fact that Darwists themselves constantly confuse their Theological arguments as being scientific arguments is what in fact "is the major thing keeping Darwinian Evolution from being considered a serious scientific endeavour." Moreover, the theology that Darwinists employ to try to support Darwinian evolution is fundamentally flawed. As laid previously, in the logical structure of their theological argument, Darwinists presuppose that "If God exists He would not allow pathogenic viruses to exist." Yet, where do they get that Theological presupposition from? It certainly does not follow from the Bible. For instance, these verses say that God is control of it all, i.e. Both good and evil!
Haggai 2:17 I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail, yet you did not return to me,’ declares the Lord. Jeremiah 11:11 Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them. Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: Isaiah 45:7 “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.”
Shoot, God himself allowed Jesus Himself to die a horrid Crucifixion on a cross
The Silent Witness - Forensic Analysis (of the Shroud of Turin) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5QEsaNiMVc
Thus, wherever Darwinists got their particular theological presupposition of "If God exists He would not allow pathogenic viruses to exist", that Theological presupposition certainly does not come from the Bible in general or Christianity in particular. In their faulty theological presupposition, Darwinists are basically presupposing that there should not be any pain, suffering, or death, whatsoever in this world. Basically, Darwinists are presupposing that we ought to be living in a heavenly paradise already where there isn't any pain, suffering, or death. I don't know where they get their theological presupposition from. Again, it does not follow from Christianity,
Revelation 21:4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
In fact, I don't know of any religion on the face of the earth that presupposes that we ought to already be living in a heavenly paradise. Christianity certainly does not presuppose that. Christians have always held that we live in a fallen world that must be 'endured' and 'overcome'.
Matthew 24:13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. Revelation 3:21 To the one who overcomes, I will grant the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
Thus in conclusion, besides the fact that Darwinists have no 'scientific' clue where something as ingenuously designed as the bacteriophage virus came from,
Michael Behe - 2020 - Bacteriophage - 11:45 minute mark https://youtu.be/6Pi5UoZkn4g?t=700
,,, besides that, Darwinists also, in their theological argument, make a theological presupposition that no religion on the face of earth presupposes as being true. Namely, no religion on the face of earth presupposes that we already live in a heavenly paradise. In short, Darwinian evolution is devoid of any scientific evidence and is also devoid of a coherent Theological foundation. To needle Ed George for his incoherent phrase,
not knowing the exact intentions and nature of God "is the major thing keeping Darwinian Evolution from being considered a serious scientific endeavour."
bornagain77
March 13, 2020
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Martin
The corona virus. Where is your ‘bad design’ ?
Designed for what? If it is for the long term survival and proliferation of the virus then COVID-19 isn’t particularly well designed.Ed George
March 13, 2020
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Hi Martin
How much faith do i have to have to believe that T4 bacteriophage self-designed by some blind unguided natural process? I don’t have so much faith. Atheists obviously do have.
Although I think adaptive mutations are possible the virus sequence is almost certainly designed given that they can build the sophisticated protein capsules with their DNA using bacterial transcription translation equipment.bill cole
March 13, 2020
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a special message to Richard Dawkins and associates... The corona virus. Where is your 'bad design' ? in 21st century, we developed very advanced technologies, our robots fly to Mars, but, a tiny viral particle which can't be seen with naked eyes or a light microscope, that tiny particle just set the whole World up-side-down. What i see, is a very clever design ... and, what we humans can do against it, is only sit and wait how it ends :))))martin_r
March 13, 2020
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Bill Cole @30 i am a mechanical engineer, Biology is my hobby. How much faith do i have to have to believe that T4 bacteriophage self-designed by some blind unguided natural process? I don't have so much faith. Atheists obviously do have. Biologists will never show you how these things self-assembled from scratch. What biologists are good at, is story telling. Biologists - natural science graduates - believe in miracles, because biologists never made anything.martin_r
March 13, 2020
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And yes, that extends to viruses. Nature can’t produce them from scratch. Maybe as remnants of a once-living organism, though. So Dr. Behe may be wrong in that aspect.
Given what Behe showed at the Texas A&M debate w/ Swamidass the bacteriophage looks designed as a stand alone structure. It is a purposely arranged set of parts that injects its genetic material into bacteria in order to self replicate 11:45 in he discusses the bacteriophage. https://youtu.be/6Pi5UoZkn4gbill cole
March 13, 2020
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It's very telling that evos are OK with separating abiogenesis from evolution, but when Intelligent DESIGN separates the DESIGN from the designer, they wet themselves in objection. We don't even ask about the intentions or nature of the designer until DESIGN is determined to exist. And we get to those by studying the DESIGN in question, along with all relevant evidence. And, according to "The Privileged Planet", one intention was to Create a universe that can be explored and discovered. That inference is based on the evidence laid out in the book. That said, it is more than nuts to think that blind, mindless and purposeless processes- those with no intention whatsoever, can produce coded systems from the bottom up. There is no way to test the claim. And it goes against our knowledge of cause-and-effect relationships. And yes, that extends to viruses. Nature can't produce them from scratch. Maybe as remnants of a once-living organism, though. So Dr. Behe may be wrong in that aspect.ET
March 13, 2020
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Acartia Eddie:
If there is a designer, it certainly has not demonstrated that it has our best interests at heart.
How do you know? You don't know what are best interests are.
Which is the major thing keeping ID from being considered a serious scientific endeavour.
That doesn't follow. We don't know the intentions of most ancient designers and yet we are fully able to detect and study their designs. Clearly you don't know anything about investigating.
Yet it has failed to do so with respect to biological life.
Only in the very limited minds of the willfully ignorant. And all you do is avoid discussing the evidence like it was lethal. Which is true as it would probably kill you to even attempt to discuss it.ET
March 13, 2020
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Jimbo the psychic.ET
March 13, 2020
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EricMH
No reason the designer of harmful viruses has to be benevolent.
I agree. If there is a designer, it certainly has not demonstrated that it has our best interests at heart.
Intelligent design is ambivalent about intentions and nature of said designer.
Which is the major thing keeping ID from being considered a serious scientific endeavour.
All ID can do is detect that design happened.
Yet it has failed to do so with respect to biological life.Ed George
March 13, 2020
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I see no reason why a designer even of such things as viruses should be classified as bad on that basis alone.
If the Designer of this virus turned out to be a US Army biologist working under the secret orders of Barack Obama, I suspect Behe would, with Lightning Speed, change his tune about seeing no reason the designer is bad.Jim Thibodeau
March 13, 2020
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Here is a possible stop gap measure that could be used to combat the coronavirus pandemic while we wait on the development of a vaccine, which is at least a year away.
When it comes to creating treatments for Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, the first line of defense may be a century-old technology: purified blood plasma. Medical literature published during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 includes case reports describing how transfusions of blood products obtained from survivors may have contributed to a 50% reduction in death among severely ill patients… More recently, plasma-derived therapy was used to treat patients during outbreaks of Ebola and avian flu. And on Wednesday the Japanese drug maker Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. said it was developing a new coronavirus drug derived from the blood plasma of people who have recovered from Covid-19. Its approach is based on the idea that antibodies developed by recovered patients might strengthen the immune system of new patients.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/05/how-blood-plasma-from-recovered-patients-could-help-treat-coronavirus/john_a_designer
March 13, 2020
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-Who are we to oppose 'Natural Selection'? 'Coronavirus has rights!' No rhyme, no reason, no purpose. Jim Thibodeau, nothing matters, remember? Stuff happens.Truthfreedom
March 13, 2020
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And as we all know, evil people in charge of evil societies all obey international law. Yeah, right.john_a_designer
March 13, 2020
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"Biological warfare is prohibited by the Geneva conventions because it was recognized as evil." What method do the Geneva conventions use to determine what's evil? Andrewasauber
March 13, 2020
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