Darwin's Finch’s Not-So-Darwinian Innovation: Insect Repellent

A male medium tree finch. Image courtesy of Jody O'Connor, public domain.






Joel Kontinen

Charles Darwin could hardly have surmised that a tiny Galapagos bird named after him would be clever enough to make its own insect repellent.

A research team from the University of Vienna found that Darwin’s finches picked leaves from guava trees and rubbed them into their feathers.

According to New Scientist, the “leaves repel mosquitoes and inhibit the growth of the bloodthirsty parasitic larvae.”

Contrary to evolutionary expectations, we would expect animals to have enough intelligence to cope in a fallen world. God, who created everything, did not forget the sparrow – or even the finch.

The Darwinian blind watchmaker could hardly have invented the amazing solutions we see in the animal kingdom.

Gliding spiders, moths that seem to defy the laws of physics, super sunscreen from fish, and the amazing design features in the octopus show that the Genesis-based model describes reality much better than the evolution model.


Source:

Blaszczak-Boxe, Agata. 2015. Darwin’s fast-evolving finches use a natural insect repellent. New Scientist (27 August).

Life Does Not Come from Hydrothermal Vents

Image courtesy of Dr. Robert Embley/NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, public domain.





Joel Kontinen

It is seldom easy to follow naturalistic logic on the origin of life. A recent example might illustrate quite well what I mean:

Researchers found water “oozing from rocky fractures 2 kilometres below the surface at the Kidd mine near Timmins in Ontario.” The researchers believe that the rocks are

“the ancient remains of hydrothermal vents formed at the bottom of Earth’s early oceans, and that means the water they contain could reveal important details about the chemistry that might have occurred at such vents before life began exerting its influence.”

One of the problems with this scenario is that the water “appears to show no signs of life.” The researchers think that it is “1.5 billion years old” and has “all the ingredients of a primordial soup.”

But there’s no life. Chemicals don’t just turn into living cells. And a lack of time is obviously not a valid option.

What they overlooked is that life only comes from life. All attempts to construe even a faintly plausible naturalistic explanation of how life began have turned out to be utter failures.

Charles Darwin’s warm little pond didn’t work, and neither did the water world hypothesis. The RNA world is not viable, and panspermia or life from space has not fared any better. Saying that life is a product of many lucky turns of events is a non-solution.

The only viable solution for the origin of life dilemma is introduced in the Book of Genesis: "In the beginning, God created."



Source:

Barras, Colin. 2015. Watery time capsule hints at how life got started on early Earth. New Scientist (20 August).

Saturn’s Moon Enceladus Defies Belief in Billions of Years

Enceladus puzzles old-agers. Image courtesy of NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.





Joel Kontinen

Many planets and moons in our solar system look far too young to be as old as the current secular consensus would assert, i.e. 4.5 billion years.

Researchers suspect that Saturn’s moon Enceladus has an underground ocean. Without it, the moon could hardly be as old as they believe it is.

A brief article in Science states:

“A watery layer beneath Enceladus’s crust has long been suspected to exist because of the constant eruption of geysers at its southern pole. But scientists have said that any such ocean should have frozen over the lifetime of the Saturn system.”

It’s a huge problem for the belief in billions of years. Researchers have attempted to solve the dilemma by suggesting that Enceladus may have a “rubble-filled pile of boulders and ice at its core, rather than a more conventional solid stone center.”

Some of the attempts used in bolstering up faith in an old solar system are beginning to sound like the epicycles that were used to explain the movements of the planets in the ancient Ptolemaic (geocentric) system.

Planets were assumed to move around in tiny circles as they orbited the Earth. This could explain some of the observations but not all and eventually the geocentric model was discarded.

It seems that faith in a billions-of-years-old solar system also needs epicycles, as the facts do not otherwise support the theory.

Many planets, moons and even asteroids look far too young, for instance Mercury, Venus, the dwarf planet Ceres, Saturn and its moons Titan and Mimas, Jupiter’s moons Io and Europa, Pluto and its moon Charon and even the asteroid 24 Themis.


Source:

Redd, Nola Taylor. Saturn’s moon has a fluffy heart. ScienceShot (21 August).

Darwin’s Tree of Life Has Become a Bush, Bird Research Shows

Darwin’s Tree of Life has fallen, never to rise again.




Joel Kontinen

Researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden have examined how birds supposedly diversified during the past “65 million years.” While relying on Darwinian thinking, they found no evidence for Darwin’s Tree of Life, once touted as an icon of evolution.

Their genomic study actually found evidence against evolution (though the researchers were reluctant to admit the full import of what they found:

“By using the jumping genes, or so-called retrotransposed elements, the Uppsala researchers have found that, for instance, a cuckoo can be more closely related to a hummingbird than a pigeon in a certain part of its genome, while the opposite holds true in another part. The study found numerous examples to corroborate the existence of the phenomenon.”

This is not the first time Darwin’s Tree of Life has been shown to be more myth than fact. For instance, in 2009, New Scientist published a cover story that basically stated that there’s no such thing. In 2014 research on microRNAs likewise suggested that the tree has fallen.

“The Tree of Life should often be understood as a Bush of Life,” the Uppsala researchers interpret their findings. Take away the adverb often, and this begins to sound like the after its kind model we’re introduced to in the Book of Genesis.

Source:

Koffmar, Linda. 2015. Livets träd – mer som en buske. Uppsala universitet (19 August).

Amazing Spider Glides Over 20 Metres, Lands Safely on Tree Trunk

A Selenops spider. Image courtesy of Marshal Hedin, Creative Commons.




Joel Kontinen

There’s much more variety in animal skills than anyone could have anticipated. The latest example is a spider that can dive from trees and survive.

Scientists from the University of Louisville in Kentucky recently filmed gliding spiders of the genus Selenops.

Released from a height of 24 metres, in over 90 per cent of their attempts, the spiders were able to land on a nearby tree trunk, which could be up to five metres away.

The spiders used their front legs to steer them to safety.

New Scientist suggested a Darwin of the gaps explanation for the ability: “The gliding behaviour evolved because spiders that fall to the ground are more likely to be eaten.”

But merely saying that a behaviour evolved does not disclose how it could have evolved. And the convergent evolution explanation doesn’t help, either.

The amazing variety of abilities seen in the animal kingdom speaks of creation. Moths, for instance, seem to defy the laws of physics. Bowerbirds can imitate practically anything they hear.

Some other examples include jellyfish navigation, butterfly design and the moth’s eye.

Intelligent solutions do not have their origin in blind Darwinian processes.

Source:

Le Page, Michael. 2015. First glimpse of skydiving spiders showing off gliding skills. New Scientist (19 August).

Butterflies: Designed Intelligently to be Effective

These wings were designed to be effective.



Joel Kontinen

Butterflies have an amazingly effective way of making use of solar energy. A paper recently published in the journal Scientific Reports looks at how humans could try to copy the system they use.

A report in Phys.org states:

“The humble butterfly could hold the key to unlocking new techniques to make solar energy cheaper and more efficient, pioneering new research has shown.

A team of experts from the University of Exeter has examined new techniques for generating photovoltaic (PV) energy - or ways in which to convert light into power.

They showed that by mimicking the v-shaped posture adopted by Cabbage White butterflies to heat up their flight muscles before take-off, the amount of power produced by solar panels can increase by almost 50 per cent.

Crucially, by replicating this 'wing-like' structure, the power-to-weight ratio of the overall solar energy structure is increased 17-fold, making it vastly more efficient.”

We cannot credit Darwinian mechanisms for this innovative design, nor was it Mother Nature’s invention.

An intelligent solution requires a Designer who used intelligence.

From self-assembling solar panels to the amazing design of the seahorse’s tail, the number of amazing design features seen in nature – and even in us – is staggering. (Read more here, here,
here and here.)

Such design shows that the world we live in is not a Darwinian one.

Source:

Phys.org 2015. Butterflies heat up the field of solar research. July 31).

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).