Rosa Rubicondior: Malevoent Design - Has Creationism's Divine Malevolence Been Up To Its Old Tricks? - Another Bat Virus Modified To Infect Humans.

Illustration of a Nipah virus.

Photo: AFP / Ruslanas Baranauskas / Science Pho

Bats Identified as Origin of Unexplained Acute Respiratory Illness and Encephalitis in Bangladesh | Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

paper just published in Emerging Infectious Diseases by a team led by Nischay Mishra, of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, shows that Pteropine orthoreovirus (PRV) — a bat-borne orthoreovirus — has crossed the species barrier into humans in Bangladesh, causing a Nipah-like illness that is difficult to distinguish clinically from Nipah virus infection. The disease presents primarily as an acute respiratory infection, sometimes accompanied by encephalitis.

It has long been known that bats possess a markedly more effective antiviral immune system than humans. This fact alone presents a problem for creationists who insist that humans — and, conveniently, themselves — are the special creation of an omnibenevolent deity. There is no coherent reason why such a deity would equip bats with a superior immune system while leaving humans comparatively vulnerable, unless the intention were for humans to suffer more infectious disease than is strictly necessary.

However, the bat immune system appears to have a significant evolutionary trade-off. Rather than eliminating viruses entirely, it often suppresses their pathological effects while allowing persistent infection. As a result, bats function as biological incubators in which viruses can circulate, diversify, and evolve. Inevitably, some of these variants acquire the ability to cross species barriers and infect humans. This remains the most parsimonious explanation for the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19 — the pandemic of 2020–2022 that killed tens of millions of people and inflicted severe damage on the global economy.

Creationists argue that complex, specified genetic information must be supplied by their putative intelligent designer and then, by a glaring act of circular reasoning, claim that the mere existence of such information constitutes evidence for that designer. This line of argument has no more merit than insisting that tins of baked beans can only be made by magic pixies, and therefore that the existence of tins of baked beans proves the existence of magic pixies. It is a form of reasoning that functions only for those who lack even a basic grasp of logic.

An additional difficulty for creationists is that PRV could only become infectious to humans if it possessed the precise genetic features required for that capability. Within the internal logic of intelligent design apologetics, the zoonotic PRV must therefore count as the product of deliberate design — and hence as evidence for a malevolent intelligent designer. The usual response is to abandon any pretence that intelligent design is science rather than religion in disguise, and to retreat into Christian fundamentalism, invoking “the Fall” and claiming that some other supernatural entity was empowered to interfere with creation and design its own suite of pathogens and parasites. This claim borders on blasphemy even within Christian theology, which traditionally reserves the creation of living things exclusively to their deity.

Why bats tolerate viruses that devastate humans. Bats are exceptional among mammals in their ability to host a wide range of viruses — including coronaviruses, filoviruses, paramyxoviruses and orthoreoviruses — without showing clinical disease. This is not because bats are “disease-free”, but because their immune systems function in a fundamentally different way from ours.

Unlike humans, bats maintain a constitutively active antiviral response, particularly involving interferon signalling. In humans, interferons are strongly up-regulated only once infection is detected, often triggering inflammation and tissue damage as collateral effects. Bats, by contrast, keep antiviral defences permanently switched on at a low level, allowing them to suppress viral replication early without provoking damaging inflammatory responses.

This system is thought to be an evolutionary consequence of flight. Sustained flight produces high metabolic rates, oxidative stress and DNA damage. To survive this, bats evolved immune pathways that minimise inflammation — a dangerous liability in a flying animal where excessive immune responses could be fatal. The result is an immune system that tolerates viruses rather than eliminating them outright.

The downside is that viruses persist within bat populations for long periods, replicating at low levels and accumulating mutations. Bats therefore act as long-term evolutionary reservoirs in which viruses can explore genetic space. Occasionally, variants emerge that are well adapted to replication in other mammals. When such viruses cross into humans — whose immune systems rely heavily on inflammatory responses — the result can be severe disease.

This evolutionary dynamic requires no foresight, no intent and no “design”. It follows directly from natural selection acting on bat physiology and immune regulation. Although, withing the ID paradigm, the genetics behind this conform to William A. Dembski's 'evidence for an intelligent designer' - complex, specified genetic information.

Zoonotic spillovers are not anomalies; they are an inevitable by-product of viral evolution in long-lived, socially dense, highly mobile mammalian hosts.

The work of the Columbia-led team is also discussed in a Columbia Mailman School of Public Health news item.

Bats Identified as Origin of Unexplained Acute Respiratory Illness and Encephalitis in Bangladesh
Infectious disease researchers have identified Pteropine orthoreovirus (PRV), an emerging bat-borne orthoreovirus, in archived throat swab samples and virus cultures from five patients in Bangladesh who were initially suspected to have Nipah virus infection but tested negative. This adds PRV to the list of zoonotic viruses detected in humans in Bangladesh and suggests that it should be considered in the differential diagnosis of Nipah-like illnesses.
The study appears in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. All five patients had recently consumed raw date-palm sap—a sweet liquid also enjoyed by bats, especially during winter months—and a known vector for Nipah infections in Bangladesh. Bats are the natural reservoir of numerous known and novel zoonotic viruses, including rabies, Nipah, Hendra, Marburg, and SARS-CoV-1.
Our findings show that the risk of disease associated with raw date palm sap consumption extends beyond Nipah virus. It also underscores the importance of broad-spectrum surveillance programs to identify and mitigate public health risks from emerging bat-borne viruses.

Associate Professor Nischay Mishra, PhD, senior author.
School of Public Health
Columbia University, Center for Infection and Immunity,
New York, NY, USA.

Between December 2022 and March 2023, five patients were admitted with symptoms consistent with Nipah virus infection (including fever, vomiting, headache, fatigue, increased salivation, and neurological), but tested negative for Nipah virus by PCR and serology. Researchers used high-throughput, agnostic viral capture sequencing (VCS) to analyze biological samples from the five patients and detected PRV sequences in archived throat swab specimens. PRV was also cultured from three of these samples, providing evidence of infectious virus.

Patients were enrolled under a Nipah virus surveillance program established by the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), Bangladesh; International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b); and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Viral Capture Sequencing (VCS) is a patented technology developed in the CII at Columbia University to rapidly screen for all viral infections of vertebrates, including infections of bats. It is as sensitive as the gold-standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays while enabling simultaneous testing for thousands of viruses and providing near-complete genome sequences. A correlate method, Bacterial Capture Sequencing (BCS), allows detection of pathogenic bacteria and genes for antimicrobial resistance. Both VCS and BCS are approved for clinical and research use.

All five patients experienced severe disease, although PRV infections reported elsewhere in neighboring countries have often been milder, suggesting that less severe cases in Bangladesh may be undetected.

A new addition of zoonotic spillover causes respiratory and neurological complications following consumption of raw date palm sap next to Nipah virus infection.

Dr Tahmina Shirin, PhD, C-author
Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR)
Dhaka, Bangladesh.

In a study conducted more recently that was supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Mishra and colleagues identified the source of infections by identifying genetically similar Pteropine orthoreoviruses in bats captured in proximity to the five human cases near the Padma River Basin (unpublished data).

This [research] provides critical evidence linking bat reservoirs to human infection. We are now working to understand the spillover mechanisms from bats to humans and domestic animals, as well as the broader ecology of emerging bat-borne viruses in communities along the Padma River Basin.

Ariful Islam, co-first author.
Gulbali Research Institute
Charles Sturt University
Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia.

The study’s other co-first author is Sharmin Sultana, assistant professor of Virology and Senior Scientific Officer at the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR) in Bangladesh. Additional authors include James Ng, Sunil Kumar Dubey, Cheng Guo, and W. Ian Lipkin of the CII; Manjur Hossain Khan at IEDCR in Bangladesh; Mohammed Ziaur Rahman and Moinuddin Satter at icddr,b in Bangladesh; Joel M. Montgomery at the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and Lisa Hensley at the Zoonotic and Emerging Disease Research Unit, in the United States Department of Agriculture.

Publication:
Sultana S, Islam A, Ng J, et al.
Bat Reovirus as Cause of Acute Respiratory Disease and Encephalitis in Humans, Bangladesh, 2022–2023. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2025; 31(12): 2302-2307. doi:10.3201/eid3112.250797.

Abstract
We report 5 patients in Bangladesh presumed to have Nipah virus infections after consuming raw date palm sap. PCR and serology for Nipah virus were negative, but high-throughput sequencing identified Pteropine orthoreovirus in archived throat swab samples and virus cultures. This batborne virus should be considered in differential diagnosis of Nipah-like illnesses.

Figure 1. Study locations and locations for related viruses from study of bat reovirus as cause of acute respiratory disease and encephalitis in humans, Bangladesh, 2022–2023. Inset shows Bangladesh with color-coded locations of patients (BDB040, BDB052, BDB047, BDB113, and BDB051) from whom we detected Pteropine orthoreovirus in archived throat swab samples. Larger map shows global locations from which related viruses have been detected in humans, bats, and monkeys.

What studies like this make abundantly clear is that the real world behaves exactly as evolutionary biology predicts, and not at all as intelligent design apologetics require. Viral emergence, host tolerance, mutation, and zoonotic spillover are not random mysteries nor the result of malevolent intent, but the inevitable consequences of natural selection operating on both hosts and pathogens over deep time. The bat immune system did not evolve *for* the benefit of viruses, nor did PRV evolve *to* infect humans; both are simply outcomes of blind, undirected processes constrained by physiology, ecology, and chance.

Creationism and intelligent design contribute nothing to this understanding. They offer no testable predictions, no mechanisms, and no explanatory power. Worse, they actively obscure reality by substituting supernatural intention for empirical evidence. When confronted with pathogens whose genomes are exquisitely tuned for infection, replication, and immune evasion, creationists are forced into an impossible dilemma: either deny their own claims about “specified information”, or concede that their designer is directly responsible for suffering, disease, and death.

Science, by contrast, has no such problem. Evolutionary theory not only accommodates these findings with ease, it predicts them. It explains why bats tolerate viruses, why viruses evolve to exploit new hosts, and why humans repeatedly find themselves on the receiving end of zoonotic spillovers. The uncomfortable truth for creationism is that the natural world makes sense without invoking design — and the more closely we examine it, the less room there is for one.

Nature does not behave as though it were designed; it behaves exactly as though it evolved.

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