Bioscience 2010: Problems with evolution of mimicry “huge”
| April 7, 2014 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Evolution, News |
… if the only possibility is Darwinism. From Bioscience, 2010:
The balance of Dazzled and Deceived focuses on the genetics and development of mimetic patterns, as revealed mostly through work with butterflies. The problems here are huge for evolutionary biologists. How does natural selection build a complex organism with all its integrated parts through fixation of random mutations? Butterfly mimicry has been a classic arena in which to tackle this problem precisely because the gambit is so obvious: To be a good mimic of another species requires many pattern elements of bars, lines, colors, and even wing shapes to change at once. Moreover, how can this process produce females that are perfect mimics and males that look nothing of the sort within a single species? These genetic requirements are seemingly at odds with our understanding of gradual evolutionary change and genes of small effect. Forbes takes us through the emergence of E. B. Ford’s school of ecological genetics and the basement-made butterfly crosses that eventually began to illuminate the problem of linked-gene complexes (“supergenes”), sex-linked inheritance, and modifier genes. The answers to the mimicry paradox, preliminary as they are still, inform modern evolutionary-developmental studies in all species and have launched the current effort to map a number of butterfly genomes. These genomic excursions promise to uncover the genetic architecture of mimetic patterns in a variety of species and in doing so uncover the fundamental basis of adaptation and speciation.
They wouldn’t be thinking of anything like this butterfly or these insects and lizards, would they?
However, the answer to problems with Darwinism (natural selection acting on random mutations slowly builds up the disguise from say, 1% to 100%) is, of course, more Darwinism, now happily defined as progress.
Hat tip: Daniel Quinones via Dennis Jones
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2 Responses to Bioscience 2010: Problems with evolution of mimicry “huge”
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Reminds me of this quote:
And although butterfly mimicry is certainly a ‘huge problem’ for evolutionists (actually explaining the existence of a single functional protein is ‘huge problem’ for evolutionists), I think that the metamorphosis of Butterflies presents an even greater difficulty for Darwinists to ‘explain away’ than mimicry does. The following video, at the 12:21 minute mark, gives a nice illustration of the enormous challenge involved for neo-Darwinists to ever offer a credible explanation for metamorphosis (not that they, waxing poetic in their obfuscation, won’t try).
The ‘brick wall’ difficulty for Darwinian explanations is discussed here:
Moreover, as far as the fossil record can tell us, insects with the ability to undergo ‘complete metamorphosis’ appeared abruptly with the signature complex larval stage indicative of ‘complete metamorphosis’ already present from the very beginning of their existence on earth:
As well, many of the different phyla found in the Cambrian Explosion were also metamorphic:
Supplemental notes:
Of personal note as a Christian, Butterflies have always had a special ‘spiritual’ significance for me, in that I find that our time here on earth is much like the worm stage of the butterfly. Think about it, considering all the seemingly senseless death and violence we are surrounded with, we are pretty much groveling around down here on earth trying to make sense of it all, completely oblivious to the magical transformation that awaits us as we enter heaven:
Verse and Music: