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Paul Gosselin (June 2004)
In Canada hordes of mosquitoes, black flies and horse flies which, in the summer, take turns making life out of doors difficult, if not miserable. In the far north, the situation can be worse than unpleasant as Davidson and Rugg, in The Complete Wilderness Paddler (1975/83 Vintage Books New York) attest:
"Bugs. Believe us, the itch to head north is nothing compared with the itch of being there. If you're a veteran wilderness paddler, you know what we mean; if you're not, listen to Horace Kephart, who wrote a guidebook in 1916. "In Alaska", he says,
All animals leave to the snow-line as soon as the mosquito pest appears, but the enemy follows them even to the mountain tops above timber-line. Deer and moose are killed by mosquitoes, which settle upon them in such amazing swarms that the unfortunate beasts succumb from literally having the blood sucked out of their bodies. Bears are driven frantic, are totally blinded, mire in the mud, and starve to death. Animals that survive have their flesh discolored all through, and even their marrow is reduced to the consistency of blood and water. The men who penetrate such regions are not the kind that would allow toil or privation to break their spirit, but they become so unstrung... that they become savage, desperate, and sometimes even weep in sheer helpless anger.
It is a subject to be taken seriously." (p. 188)
From a Christian or creationist point of view one might envisage the question "Is God some sort of sadist taking pleasure in inventing convoluted torments for his children ??" If not, then why create such irritating and perverse critters ??
Point 1: (VERY IMPORTANT) We live in a fallen world so organisms are no longer what they used to be. They may be degraded in longevity, in capabilities, in size, etc.
Point 2: Considering point 1, it may be posited that parasite - host relationships may well be degraded too, That is, formerly they may have been symbiotic relationships (where BOTH organisms benefited) instead of parasitic relationships as we find them now (where ONLY ONE organism benefits).
Point 3: It is possible that animals were created originally with recessive genetic information to generate defense-attack structures and this information was switched on after the Fall, either by direct intervention, by environmental triggers as part of the curse, or by natural processes of recombination and selection.
Examples of parasitic relations which one can think of: viruses, mosquitoes, tape worms, etc.
The american geneticist Kevin Anderson notes (2004): "Parasitic bacteria can fairly easily be understood in terms of "loss of function." As the ability of the organism became genetically depleted, it was forced to depend upon other biological systems to greater and greater degree, until it finally became fully parasitic, hence pathogenic to the host. Such transformation may apply to non-microorganisms also."
Potential to pharmaceuticals:
If we take the mosquito for example, it is known to inject an anticoagulant substance before beginning to extract the host's blood. If we look at the present host - mosquito relationship in the perspective that it was formerly symbiotic, then there is a possibility that one of the substances injected would have been beneficial to it's host. Perhaps the anticoagulant or perhaps some other unknown substance. There is then the possibility that an unknown substance injected by the mosquito (perhaps the anticoagulant isn't the only substance injected) may be of some use to men. As an example, an article by Matt Kaplan, in the July issue of New Scientist explores how certain parastic worms could be used as therapy to combat allergies in humans.
Pitfalls and Traps for this line of inquiry.
There are plentyof traps to fall into however in following such a line of thought. On has to consider that not all present host - parasite relationships may represent former symbiotic relationships. That is, before the Fall mosquitos may not have targetted humans, in which case searching for substances beneficial to humans in mosquitoes may be futile. In other cases there may be a possibility (from a biblical perspective) of determining if there was a previous symbiotic relationship or not. For example, in the case of worms picked up by humans after eating unproperly cooked pork. We don't even have to back up to the Fall to figure out this one as the Bible tells us that predator - prey relations appeared after the Flood (Man became a predator -> Gen. 9: 2-4). From biblical information then, we would know that these worms, picked up by humans eating pork, introduced an unintended relationship. We could then establish that this particular predator - prey relationship is then accidental (unintented in the original creation) and so looking for beneficial substances for humans in the pork worms is futile. These worms, however, may have been formerly beneficial to herbivores (such as pigs or sheep). One may also speculate that before the Flood one of the forms of wickedness found among the antedeluvials may have been bestiality, which would have introduced parasitic organisms to hosts they were never supposed to encounter. This in turn would explain in part the forbidding of sex between humans and other species[1] in Leviticus 20: 15.
flat worm
(Tœnia solium)
Another line of thought about pitfalls for this type of research is that even if we have identified a proper parasite - host relationship (previously symbiotic[2]), parasitic organisms, being fallen creatures too, the substances presently injected will not necessarily be identical to those formerly injected (by the mosquito for example). One would have to start by doing an inventory of the various substances presently injected and then look for chemical "cousins" (perhaps larger molecules or molecules related in some way to those presently found ?) in order to find the original beneficial substance. I would not expect discovering beneficial substances this way to be a easy process. There may be too many changes in the vector organism (presently a parasite) itself (metabolism, chemical processes, etc.) and it's relations with other organisms to enable us to identify the original beneficial substances. There is an additional problem. The host organism's metabolism may no longer be capable of using the original beneficial substance (even if we did manage to find it). Nonetheless, creationist pharmaceutical researchers may well find this perspective useful in exploring our world for new medecines for humans or for veterinary purposes. Perhaps someone will "get lucky".
Further speculations
Reflecting on symbiotic relations in an unfallen world, the creationist David Bump throws out the following ideas:
Some people say that we were created with perfect bodies, and that that means that they would last forever by purely self-contained mechanisms and repair systems. I'm not so sure -- I think it is possible that our bodies were perfectly designed to fit in and be a part of the perfect original environment, and that may have included receiving "tune-ups" and "check-ups" via nanobots (very very tiny robots) otherwise known as micro-organisms (and viruses), injected by an occasional visit from one of these little blood-suckers. Some of the chemicals they use, such as anticoagulants, might also have been helpful.
Jonathan Bartlett adds:
One thing to keep in mind is that it is indeed possible from a Creationary perspective for a symbiosis to have evolved. The Darwinists can't do this because of the multiple mechanisms -- it isn't randomness that can account for its generation. However, in a design framework, the creation of symbioses is not problematic -- it just means that the mechanisms to establish a symbiosis was precoded into animals. The specific symbioses that occur are probably due to both the environment and the other organisms available for symbiosis. But the capability to establish numerous types of symbioses is probably pre-coded into organisms.
After the original Creation, Genesis seems to mention genetic changes to living organisms on two occasions (though another possiblity is switching on dormant genes deep in the so-called "junk DNA"). Once at the Fall itself (thorns are mentioned as new) and also immediately after the Flood when "carnivory" (eating meat) is mentioned for the first time as well as the fact that animals would now fear humans from then on (Gen 9: 2-3). This implies that there was no such thing as a "wild animal" before the Flood. It is also implied by prophets discussing the restoration of all things that predation is actually an abnormal state of affairs, which will eventually be put an end to when things will be returned to their normal state in Messianic Times:
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD. (Is 65: 25)
But let's get back to "carnivory" after the Flood. One hypothesis I've heard is that certain plant foods available before the Flood became extinct and thus many organisms had to become carnivores to get their allotment of protein. On the other hand, perhaps carnivory was not due to species of plants going extinct, but rather ecosystems disappearing. For example, in our world Clover lives in a symbiotic relation with a particular bacteria species (called Bacillus radicicola) which produces nitrogen which clover needs. Now suppose that the bacteria had a genetic modification, which no longer enabled it to produce a certain enzyme essential to its relation with clover. Perhaps clover and the bacteria would still exist, but repercussions to the biosphere would still be important nevertheless...
Perhaps after the Flood similar symbiotic inter-species relationships as well as ecosystems were destroyed, and as a result many animals had to change their feeding habits. When this change occurred, they were not necessarily genetically modified, but perhaps this environmental change was a trigger to switch on what evolutionists still call "Junk DNA" allowing these animals (now carnivores) to adapt to this new situation and perhaps switch on a "new" phenotype (that is, not previously observed).
Post-Scriptum: On reading this note a friend of mine with a background in mircobiology and doing cardic research commented that one would have to have some explanation for immunological systems in humans (and other organisms) as basically what I'm saying here is that originally there wouldn't have been any need for immunological systems at all as everything would have been perfect to begin with. While it is quite true that from a Biblical point of view everything would have been perfect to begin with, I think it is quite logical to assume that in the same way that the Creator had foreseen the possibility of the Fall and already thought of the possibility of our needing a Savior, He had also foreseen the physical consequences of the Fall and provided organisms with immunological systems "just in case". In engineering terms this is called "overdesign" and provides a mechanism with back-up systems in case of "unforseen" problems. I don't think this requires any further explanation.
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the wasp and its parasite |