More Design Features in the Octopus, "An Eight-Legged Marvel" with "Uncanny Intelligence"

When describing the octopus, writers tend to run out of superlatives. Image courtesy of Albert Kok, Creative Commons.




Joel Kontinen

Science publications tend to bestow praise on the amazing dexterity of the octopus. A Nature News item used the expression eight-legged marvel and a more recent article had the words uncanny intelligence in its title.

It is obvious that the octopus is wonderfully made:

“With its eight prehensile arms lined with suckers, camera-like eyes, elaborate repertoire of camouflage tricks and spooky intelligence, the octopus is like no other creature on Earth.

Researchers want to understand how the cephalopods, a class of free-floating molluscs, produced a creature that is clever enough to navigate highly complex mazes and open jars filled with tasty crabs.”

Recently, an international team of scientists sequenced the genome of the California two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides).

The results were astounding:

“Surprisingly, the octopus genome turned out to be almost as large as a human’s and to contain a greater number of protein-coding genes — some 33,000, compared with fewer than 25,000 in Homo sapiens".

The article went on to say:

“The independent computing power of the arms, which can execute cognitive tasks even when dismembered, have made octopuses an object of study for neurobiologists such as Hochner and for roboticists who are collaborating on the development of soft, flexible robots.”

So, once again researchers are trying to imitate an intelligent solution they see in the animal kingdom. The amazing design we see in the octopus displays the prowess of the Creator who made everything to work perfectly, even in a fallen world tainted by the consequences of Adam’s (and Eve’s) sin.

What is puzzling for evolutionists is that the fossil record shows that the octopus has hardly changed in “95 million years”.

While the Nature video clip credits evolution for the amazing features exhibited by the octopus, the evidence unambiguously points to creation.

Source:

Abbott, Alison. 2015. Octopus genome holds clues to uncanny intelligence: DNA sequence expanded in areas otherwise reserved for vertebrates. Nature News (12 August).