tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7583674511519808833.post3980407365258770828..comments2024-03-29T01:45:45.002+00:00Comments on Rosa Rubicondior: Parasites and CreationistsRosa Rubicondiorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06063268216781988588noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7583674511519808833.post-3341076288207323022014-08-15T20:00:16.281+01:002014-08-15T20:00:16.281+01:00Helmer.
You should be writing your own blog wher...Helmer. <br /><br />You should be writing your own blog where you can expand on posts such as this. It would be well worth subscribing to.Rosa Rubicondiorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06063268216781988588noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7583674511519808833.post-3902928078708165792014-08-15T19:11:13.048+01:002014-08-15T19:11:13.048+01:00I just read this article: http://www.the-scientist...I just read this article: http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/40770/title/Interspecies-RNA-Shuffle/ . The headline is: "Interspecies RNA Shuffle", which is a relatively new and exciting topic in plant biology. The movement and functions of mobile RNAs in plants and between plants definitely extend the frontiers of possibilities to plant-plant interactions. (In that respect God seemingly was a clever Creator.)<br /><br />But here are some quotes from the article that makes me wonder how God, the Creator, could have thought in order to decide to make those things possible:<br /><br />1) “We’ve known for a while that parasitic plants take up a lot of nutrients, [and macromolecules] from host plants but what this paper shows is the real extent to which this happens. Upwards of one percent of the RNA transcripts in the parasite are from the host and vice versa and that is really dramatic,” said John Yoder...<br /><br />2) RNAs are used for regulating communication between the different tissues within a plant, “like sending a letter through the plant to a specific address,” said Westwood. “We thought there would be a similar spectrum of RNAs used for the parasite-host communication going on through the plants’ vascular systems. But instead, we found a whole cross section of RNAs suggesting that the parasitic relationship is something quite different from the normal cell-cell plant interaction.”<br /><br />3) The passive transport of RNAs as the parasite takes up materials from its host is a plausible explanation for the transfer. But, the reverse flow—from the parasitic plant to the host—is harder to explain, wrote Neelima Sinha, who studies genomic adaptations of plants at the University of California, Davis and was not involved in the work, in an e-mail to The Scientist. “The bi-directionality argues for an active, regulated process, and that is very interesting.”<br /><br />4) The bi-directional RNA movement also provides a novel mechanism for horizontal gene transfer and for the transfer of genes between plants, according to Yoder. “This means that the parasite can act as a bridge, facilitating movement of genetic material between unrelated, non-parasitic plants.”<br /><br />In other words: Our caring and amiable God seems to like parasites very much. Why else would He create this mechanism of a two-way (bilateral) transfer of RNA, at least between parasite and host in the world of plants? In my eyes that's more a sign of Unintelligent Design, increasing the chances for parasites to survive. That's why I believe God loves parasites. Helmer von Helvetehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02136543309048013677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7583674511519808833.post-48418068952143482892014-08-11T13:48:29.952+01:002014-08-11T13:48:29.952+01:00Rosa, you missed the obvious humour. Parasites an...Rosa, you missed the obvious humour. Parasites and Creationists - but I repeat myself. Boom Boom! Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18400028544744506342noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7583674511519808833.post-71733562759461157892014-08-03T11:05:29.693+01:002014-08-03T11:05:29.693+01:00Must be nice to be a religious apologist. You just...Must be nice to be a religious apologist. You just get to make stuff up and declare it to be true. No need to bother with evidence or sources or verification. Let there be a good reason for parasites and voilá! there is a good reason for parasites, just as William Lane Craig can declare genocide and infanticide to be good things - must be good because God did it.<br /><br />But the point they always gloss over is that parasitism, by definition, harms the host and harming the host is not the act of an omnibenevolent being.Rosa Rubicondiorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06063268216781988588noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7583674511519808833.post-65166923881300479822014-08-03T10:48:05.950+01:002014-08-03T10:48:05.950+01:00Talking of parasites, creationists have proposed m...Talking of parasites, creationists have proposed many explanations in an attempt to make parasites compatible with a loving and benevolent God.<br /><br />Check out this link: http://www.johnjanovy.com/tapeworms.pdf <br />It contains an excerpt of 4 pages from an ID-friendly book (?) called INTELLIGENT DESIGNER: EVOLUTION FOR POLITICIANS. <br /><br />Here are some quotes from the article mentioned above:<br /><br />1) So what was God thinking when He made tapeworms? The first and most logical answer to this question is: God wanted some device for keeping some of his most intelligent, curious, insightful, and creative humans occupied for their entire lives. He knew, because He was God, that intelligent, curious, insightful, and creative humans come up with all kinds of blasphemous thoughts, and furthermore, are not always big fans of organized religion. So He needed a way to <br />involve these minds in some activity that prevented their intelligence and creativity from being applied to other activities such as war, especially war conducted in His name. We have some historical precedence for assuming that God made things to fool humans into harmless behaviors, perhaps the best ones being fossils, which keep lots of people occupied, for example, <br /><br />2) It is probably a pretty good bet that God’s intent and purpose for making <br />tapeworms was the same as His intent and purpose for making all the rest of nature that we currently know about, or whose existence we can easily infer from what we do know, namely, as a source of truly great mystery and wonder.<br /><br />3) Our observations could then be consistent with some theological conclusions about God’s personality, namely, that He’s a creative, ingenious, and loving entity who likes to play hide and seek.<br /><br />4) God could easily have made tapeworms simply for His own pleasure. <br /><br />5) [Is the existence of parasites caused by laziness or ignorance by the Creator?] In this particular case, instead of laziness and ignorance, decidedly human traits, God might have been up to His eyebrows in administrative tasks and simply didn’t have time to check whether there were tapeworms in the beasts he was copying for Earth [from other planets there He alsp had created life and different life forms].<br /><br />YEAH! All five arguments listed in the quotes above are really strong ones. Or...? Seriously speaking: Have you ever seen such silly arguments? Maybe this paper was written by a seven years old schoolboy? And in that case, he's at least good at spelling.Helmer von Helvetehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02136543309048013677noreply@blogger.com