Rosa Rubicondior: Malevolent Designer - How Creationism's Divine Malevolence Is Actively Killing Children With Malaria

Tuesday, 19 August 2025

Malevolent Designer - How Creationism's Divine Malevolence Is Actively Killing Children With Malaria - If You Belive ID Creationists

Novel Maneuver Helps Malaria Parasite Dodge the Immune System | Newsroom | Weill Cornell Medicine

Here’s one of those discoveries in biological science that should have ID creationists jumping up and down yelling, "Told you so!". It’s news that the parasite that causes malaria shows both what they call 'irreducible complexity' and 'complex specified genetic information'. According to Discovery Institute fellows Michael J. Behe and William A. Dembski, that would mean it is intelligently designed and, by implication, designed to do exactly what it does — by the Christian God.

But, for reasons which can only be guessed at — and probably not a million miles from the fact that this conclusion would mean the Christian god is actively designing ways to kill people, particularly children, and especially in Africa — creationists tend to ignore it. After all, that’s the very antithesis of the compassionate, benevolent, loving god of the Bible.

Instead, they quietly sidestep the inconvenient reality that examples of their supposed 'proof of intelligent design' are found just as often in parasites and pathogens as in their hosts. This is precisely what evolutionary biology predicts: a host–parasite relationship invariably leads to an evolutionary arms race, producing sophisticated and complex systems that equip the parasite to survive in the host and to infect new victims.

And, true to form, we now have another such example in the major cause of malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, which killed some 569,000 people in Africa in 2023:

Key Facts:

Globally in 2023, there were an estimated 263 million malaria cases and 597,000 malaria deaths in 83 countries.
The WHO African Region carries a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden.
In 2023, the WHO African Region was home to 94% of malaria cases (246 million) and 95% (569,000) of malaria deaths (432,400 children under 5).
Children under 5 accounted for about 76% of all malaria deaths in the Region.

Plasmodium falciparum at a glance.

Dominant species: Of all six human-infecting Plasmodium species, P. falciparum is responsible for approximately 97% of malaria cases worldwide in 2023.
Geographical distribution:

Endemic in roughly 84 countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America—but almost eradicated from Europe.
Sub-Saharan Africa bears the brunt: ~95% of all malaria deaths and ~67% of infections occur there.

Genetic diversity: There is substantial strain and antigenic diversity within P. falciparum populations, with mixed-strain infections common. Different strains also vary in their transmissibility and severity.
Mortality (treated severe cases):

Adults: case-fatality rate ranges from ~9.7% to ~18.5%.
Children: though fewer sources explicitly break out under-5 vs older children, children under 5 accounted for ~76% of all malaria deaths in the WHO African Region.

The discovery is that P. falciparum has a molecular trick that enables it to 'hide' from our immune system by shutting down a key set of genes. Details of how it does this, and how this 'design' makes the parasite better able to infect and kill people, were published last May in Nature Microbiology. The research, conducted at Weill Cornell Medicine, was explained further in a Weill Cornell Medicine news item.

Novel Maneuver Helps Malaria Parasite Dodge the Immune System
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have discovered how a parasite that causes malaria when transmitted through a mosquito bite can hide from the body’s immune system, sometimes for years. It turns out that the parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, can shut down a key set of genes, rendering itself “immunologically invisible.”

This finding provides another piece of the puzzle as to why malaria has been so difficult to eradicate.

Dr. Francesca Florini, co-lead author
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA.

Malaria infects 300-500 million people yearly, resulting in nearly 600,000 deaths globally.

The preclinical results, published May 16 in Nature Microbiology, reveal that in regions where malaria is endemic, asymptomatic adults likely harbor undetectable parasites which mosquitos may pick up and transfer to the next person they bite.

Current campaigns to control malaria focus on treating people, usually children, who show symptoms. These findings suggest that we need to consider asymptomatic adults who can carry potentially transmissible parasites — which means eliminating malaria from any geographical region is going to be more complicated than anticipated.

Professor Kirk W. Deitsch, senior author
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA.

Avoiding Elimination
Once inside the human body, the parasite enters red blood cells to replicate—but it must avoid alerting the immune system or being removed by the spleen, which filters out defective blood cells. Its solution to escaping these potential perils hinges on a suite of about 60 genes called var; each var gene encodes a protein that can insert itself onto the surface of red blood cells. When the parasite switches on one of these var genes, the protruding protein causes the red cell to adhere to the blood vessel wall, allowing the cell — and its resident parasites — to avoid a trip to the spleen. The only problem with this strategy is that, within about a week, the immune system can produce antibodies that recognize the adhesive protein. To get around this immune counterattack, the parasite shuts off that var gene and expresses a different one from its collection, thereby avoiding detection and prolonging the infection.

The paradigm has been that the parasite has a strict, mutually exclusive expression mechanism, meaning that it always expresses one—and only one—var gene at a time.

Professor Kirk W. Deitsch

But what happens after the parasite runs through the whole set? Reactivating one they used previously would trigger rapid immune elimination. Yet, a chronic malaria infection can persist for a decade or more.

To solve this riddle, Dr. Florini and graduate student Joseph Visone used single-cell sequencing technologies to assess how individual parasites manage var gene expression. They discovered that while many do activate only a single var gene at a time, some switch on two or three, while others don’t express any at all.

Shutting Down, Hiding Out
The parasites expressing a couple of var genes were likely caught in the act of switching between one and another.
There's a transient stage when both genes are on, and we happen to be capturing the moment of the switch.

Professor Kirk W. Deitsch

But the stealthy parasites that shut down all their var genes were a surprise.

This ‘null state,’ in which parasites display little or no var gene expression, would have been impossible to identify using population-based assays. It highlights a new aspect of how malaria escapes recognition by our immune system.

Dr. Francesca Florini.
However, without var gene expression the parasites also lose the ability to cling to blood vessel walls, so how are they avoiding the spleen’s filtration system?
We suspect that they hide in the bone marrow or in an expandable pocket of non-circulating red cells that pools in the center of the spleen. If a red cell can sit there for 24 hours, that’s long enough for the parasite to complete its life cycle.

Professor Kirk W. Deitsch

Dr. Deitsch plans to conduct fieldwork in West Africa to locate these hidden anatomical reservoirs. Finding them—and learning how malaria parasites exploit this newly discovered mechanism for escaping elimination—could provide novel strategies for addressing the problem of chronic malaria infections.

Publication:
Florini, F., Visone, J.E., Hadjimichael, E. et al.
scRNA-seq reveals transcriptional plasticity of var gene expression in Plasmodium falciparum for host immune avoidance. Nat Microbiol 10, 1417–1430 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-025-02008-5

Abstract
Plasmodium falciparum evades antibody recognition through transcriptional switching between members of the var gene family, which encodes the major virulence factor and surface antigen on infected red blood cells. Previous work with clonal P. falciparum populations revealed var gene expression profiles inconsistent with uniform single var gene expression. However, the mechanisms underpinning this and how it might contribute to chronic infections were unclear. Here, using single-cell transcriptomics employing enrichment probes and a portable microwell system, we analysed var gene expression in clonal 3D7 and IT4 parasite lines. We show that in addition to mono-allelic var gene expression, individual parasites can simultaneously express multiple var genes or enter a state in which little or no var gene expression is detectable. Reduced var gene expression resulted in greatly decreased antibody recognition of infected cells. This transcriptional flexibility provides parasites with greater adaptive capacity and could explain the antigenically ‘invisible’ parasites observed in chronic asymptomatic infections.

Florini, F., Visone, J.E., Hadjimichael, E. et al.
scRNA-seq reveals transcriptional plasticity of var gene expression in Plasmodium falciparum for host immune avoidance. Nat Microbiol 10, 1417–1430 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-025-02008-5

© 2025 Springer Nature Ltd.
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

So, what does this mean for the ID claims? Far from being evidence for a benevolent designer, the malaria parasite illustrates the ruthless efficiency of natural selection. When survival depends on evading the host’s immune defences, any genetic change that makes the parasite harder to detect will be favoured and passed on. Over countless generations, this process produces the kind of sophisticated genetic regulation that ID proponents mislabel as “design”.

The theological dilemma is obvious: if creationists insist malaria’s genetic ingenuity is the direct handiwork of a designer, then they must also accept that the designer deliberately crafted a parasite whose specialisation is killing children. If not, then they are abandoning their own 'proof' of an intelligent designer.

Most creationists are understandably reluctant to follow their own logic to that conclusion.

In reality, what we see is exactly what evolutionary theory predicts — a classic example of an evolutionary arms race that has produced deadly efficiency in the parasite and counter-adaptations in the host. The science explains it naturally; ID leaves us with nothing but an unintelligently designed theological paradox.

Advertisement
The Malevolent Designer: Why Nature's God is Not Good

This book presents the reader with multiple examples of why, even if we accept Creationism's putative intelligent designer, any such entity can only be regarded as malevolent, designing ever-more ingenious ways to make life difficult for living things, including humans, for no other reason than the sheer pleasure of doing so. This putative creator has also given other creatures much better things like immune systems, eyesight and ability to regenerate limbs that it could have given to all its creation, including humans, but chose not to. This book will leave creationists with the dilemma of explaining why evolution by natural selection is the only plausible explanation for so many nasty little parasites that doesn't leave their creator looking like an ingenious, sadistic, misanthropic, malevolence finding ever more ways to increase pain and suffering in the world, and not the omnibenevolent, maximally good god that Creationists of all Abrahamic religions believe created everything. As with a previous book by this author, "The Unintelligent Designer: Refuting the Intelligent Design Hoax", this book comprehensively refutes any notion of intelligent design by anything resembling a loving, intelligent and maximally good god. Such evil could not exist in a universe created by such a god. Evil exists, therefore a maximally good, all-knowing, all-loving god does not.

Illustrated by Catherine Webber-Hounslow.

The Unintelligent Designer: Refuting The Intelligent Design Hoax

ID is not a problem for science; rather science is a problem for ID. This book shows why. It exposes the fallacy of Intelligent Design by showing that, when examined in detail, biological systems are anything but intelligently designed. They show no signs of a plan and are quite ludicrously complex for whatever can be described as a purpose. The Intelligent Design movement relies on almost total ignorance of biological science and seemingly limitless credulity in its target marks. Its only real appeal appears to be to those who find science too difficult or too much trouble to learn yet want their opinions to be regarded as at least as important as those of scientists and experts in their fields.

Amazon