Instinct
Big Problem for Evolution







by Evan Shute

Instinct has long been of great interest to biologists, sociologists, psychologists, physiologists, and especially to evolutionists. They have been concerned with the physical and behavioral adaptations of nature as seen in a myriad of living forms. Indeed, sometimes natural history seems to be nothing but the study of the ability of life to adapt to every niche conceivable or even unimaginable. Structures appear which facilitate adaptation, whether by creation or evolutionary process or both. And to our continuing surprise, the animal anatomically fit for its place in the sun also has behavior patterns without which its physical adaptations would be as unhelpful as ludicrous. Imagine a bee with a proboscis that did not know that certain flowers, and those flowers only, had food awaiting it in nectaries exactly adapted to that size and type of feeding tube! Imagine a young kangaroo that didn't know that it must quickly reach its mother's teat, or a young whale that did not know how to swim and nurse the moment it was born! Instinctive behavior is a great challenge to students of nature.

The writer of Proverbs was well aware of instinct when he advised: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise; which having no guide, overseer or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her meat in the harvest" (Proverbs 6:6).

The Greek poet Aristophanes gave some of his plays names indicating the problems and foibles of people, names such as the Birds, Wasps, and Frogs. He knew that men lived largely by instinct rather than reason.

In 1781 Bartram reminded us that the ancients were much puzzled by migrations, especially those of birds. Some imagined that birds flew off to the moon. Among northern peoples the idea was widespread that they retired to caves and hollow trees to lie dormant during the cold season. Bartram remarks that "even at this day very celebrated men have asserted that swallows at the approach of winter voluntarily plunge into lakes and rivers, descend to the bottom, and there creep into the mud and slime, where they continue overwhelmed by ice in a torpid state, until the returning summer warms them again into life; when they rise, return to the surface of the water, immediately take wing, and again populate the air. This notion, though the latest, seems the most difficult to reconcile to reason and common sense."1

To come down to more recent times, Darwin included a chapter on instinct in the Origin of Species and admitted freely that certain aspects of instinct almost overthrew his theory. The first great experimentalist in this field was the inimitable Henri Fabre. Recent workers in this field, like Tinbergen and Lorenz, owe him a great deal.

Instinct covers a large territory, for it intrudes into the life and habits of nearly every living form. Thus it is hard to give an inclusive but succinct definition. Darwin gave none. Fabre said that instinct was "incapable of accurate definition."

Tinbergen defines instinct as innate behavior and restricts his discussion of it to its causes and varieties.2 Of necessity this ignores any subjective phenomena involved, as well as its obvious and purposive directiveness — its teleology, I would call it. This author says there may be subjective phenomena associated with it; but, as these are incapable of study by scientific methods, their discussion is "futile." Behavior is always dependent on a very complex and integrated set of muscle contractions. It is not a set of reflexes nor a series of tropisms alone. It is spontaneous. It is often characterized by mistakes because animals react blindly to external stimuli. Often its reactions are chain reactions and we can identify the links. Experience can modify an instinctive response, especially as animals grow and mature. Some patterns, such as reproductive reactions, occur in adults only. Others, like singing or flying in birds, improve with practice. An "imprinting" of new relations to other species has been found in insects, birds, fish, sheep, deer, and buffalo.3 This principle further confuses what we have long regarded as instinctive learning. Imprinting can warp or change its whole direction. It alters, too, in its turn, with the onset of fear. Drugs like meprobamate can interfere with both fear and the possibility of imprinting.

Yet learning is not a great factor in instinct, for the young cuckoo selects its proper mate although it has never seen a cuckoo before. A male stickleback selects only its own pregnant females, although from the moment of hatching it has seen none — only its father or young fish like itself. Moreover, the intensity of the instinctive response varies with the season, as in reproduction or feeding. Then, too, instinctive responses can occur in a vacuum — as in young ducks practicing escape from a chicken hawk before any predator appears, or a stickleback courting in an empty tank. And hormone injections may alter instinctive responses. For example, a female chick given testosterone propionate may copulate as a male and even crow. Many more such examples are to be found. Tadpoles and fish may swim perfectly after the dorsal nerve roots carrying motor impulses have been cut.

Instinct tends to be "blind." Frightened gull chicks will run when the mother utters the alarm call, but run in any direction, wise or unwise.
Pootman tells of partridges using their protective coloring to hide against the ground when an enemy appears.4 But albino and hybrid partridges do the same — to their great disadvantage. Their instinct has led to their doom. Bumblebees feel a doom impending in autumn. They stop feeding grubs, no longer defend their honey, and let all things about the hive slide. They continue only one activity — they go on building honeycombs, an absolutely pointless occupation by this time.

Stimulation of the cerebral cortex may duplicate perfectly coordinated instinctive responses in cats. Instinctive behavior tends to be stereotyped. Tinbergen says that its consummating act is rigid, but the higher behavior patterns remain purposive and adaptive. Instinctive expressions in one direction often produce blocking reactions to other instinctive acts. There may or may not be such a phenomenon as the parental instinct, for it depends on the species and the hormones involved. Sleep, the need for comfort, sexual fighting, and predator fighting are other possible instincts not yet proved to every investigator's satisfaction.

Tadpoles begin to swim while still in the egg. No learning is involved, even after hatching. Young pigeons do not learn to fly, as controlled studies show. Nor do butterflies or dragon-flies, says Tinbergen. But he mentions preliminary "intention movements" — for example, in birds. Birdsongs in skylarks, nightingales, and goldfinches are learned by imitation. Marler tells of the chaffinch songs in isolated Scottish glens. These songs form distinct dialects!5

By instinct gulls recognize their mates far more accurately than we do. Digger wasps learn the exact location of their nests but are easily baffled if someone moves these. This is true also of the nests of the herring gull, who will eat her own eggs if they are displaced only a little. Young geese can be "imprinted" to man early in life and thereafter will not accept any of their own species. Kingston points out that instinct is independent of instruction, is not associated with reasoning, and has an end in view of which the animal itself is ignorant.6 Although complex and perfect, instinctive acts are not to be confused with intelligent acts. Instinct is inflexible, yet shows foresight, often has rhythm, is wise and yet full of folly, is variable, has its strict limitations and, as in man, may be mixed with intelligence. Hingston believes that animals have an unknown added sense. There seems to be no other explanation for such things as insect migrations, for birds boring through tree bark to find their prey, or for ants to find their way about as they do.

It is not enough to talk of instinct as "inherited behavior patterns," since intelligence also creeps into the picture. Fine proofs of this are the cecropia's cocoon, the spider's web, or the ubiquitous cuckoo. But instinct and intelligence are "two quite different ways of meeting the needs of life." Instincts are prepared answers, with no time lost in learning and no parental care needed. "Learning implies making mistakes."7 Instinctive behavior can be plastic. For example, it can be modified in items like reproductive behavior or by hybridization and backcrossing.8

Pootman tells also of cows stampeding in wild terror before an attack of tiny burrel flies, so closely resembling other flies. These flies cannot eat or sting or suck, and live only a few days. Why do cattle fear them without any previous experience of them? These flies lay their eggs on cattle; these are licked off and penetrate through the cow's body, then burrow out through the hide in abscesses or boils, torturing the cow. Yet no one has taught the cow to fear these flies it has never seen, and cows cannot foresee the resultant boils and misery. Their only protection is to rush into water. How do they know that?

He also mentions the jay, which gathers acorns and beechmast, carries them about, then plants them better than a forester could at just the proper intervals for the trees' growth, often under old conifers for early protection. Thus the jay is often largely responsible for our treed landscapes.

How could weaver ants learn to sew leaves together, using their own grubs which are able to spin silk, unlike the adult?

The  process is almost unbelievably complicated and equally successful.

Burton calls attention to spider-crabs, which have hair-like bristles on their skulls to which they affix pieces of seaweed as a disguise. The sponge crab is uncomfortable till it has found a sponge to wear; not only a sponge, but one it can cut and fit to its exact size. If only paper is available, it will hide under this paper it then fits to size. If, after fitting, the paper sits awkwardly on its back, the crab will press it and smooth it down with its claws to the correct shape.9-10

Darwin devoted a chapter in the Origin of Species to instinct. He admitted: "This is by far the most serious special difficulty which my theory has encountered. . . . The problem at first appeared to me insuperable, and actually fatal to my theory." Later he concluded: "I do not pretend that the facts given in this chapter strengthen in any great degree my theory; but none of the cases of difficulty, to the best of my judgment, annihilate it." Elsewhere he admits that "instincts are as important as corporeal structure for the welfare of each species, under its present conditions of life." He concludes, "No complex instinct can possibly be produced through natural selection except by the slow and gradual accumulation of numerous, slight, yet profitable variations. . . .We ought at least to be able to show that gradations of some kind are possible, and this we certainly can do."11

Darwin noticed that instincts never exist for the exclusive good of other forms. He cites the aphid secretions licked up by ants. But these are excreted by the aphids for self-convenience, since they do it even when no ants are present. Even nesting habits in the same species of birds may differ. Domestic animals, too, have what Darwin calls "domestic instincts" which are strong, but can be modified by crossing or training. Some instincts are modified or lost under domestication, as in hens that do not become broody, or in dogs raised with poultry which they do not attack. There are slave-making ants which could not survive without enslaved ants, for they could not eat or make nests or feed their own larvae. Yet even in different parts of Europe the division of labor between masters and slaves varies greatly. And birds of the same genus, such as the swift, may use much or little saliva in nest building.

Darwin's great problem was the neuter worker in bees or ants, which has no progeny but which transmits its habits and powers to the young of the hive or nest. These neutral members of ant communities may differ to an incredible extent and be as different as different genera. They constitute real castes. But Darwin believed that there were all gradations between these castes. On the other hand, allied but distinct species of creatures living in widely separated localities may have similar instincts; for example, British and South American thrushes both lining their nests with mud, the hornbills of Africa and India holing their brooding females up in a tree while the males carry food to them, and a unique habit male wrens of North America (Troglodytes) and kitty-wrens in England have of roosting in "!%@*-nests."

In the Descent of Man Darwin correlated instinct with intelligence.12 "Those animals which possess the most wonderful instincts are certainly the most intelligent," but "instincts seem to have originated independently of intelligence." He notes elsewhere that the maternal instinct of birds like swallows, house-martins, and swifts may be overruled by the migratory instinct in the autumn, so that these birds may then desert their young in the nests.

Migration is the instinct that seems to have puzzled students of behavior most. Direct observation shows that migrations, of storks for example, can take different paths and are not merely passive responses to air currents. Pigeons have an accurate and prolonged visual memory and are lost when blinded. Yet some birds have an innate direction sense. They take a characteristic path even when started far away from their usual points of departure. Some birds are true navigators, say Delvinght and Leclercq, and they mention the ability of young birds to trace a way that they have never been taught.13 Perhaps they relate to the earth's electromagnetic field; perhaps they have an inborn orientation to the sun or — if nocturnal migrants — to the stars.

Salmon spawn in fresh-water streams, then mature in two to seven years at sea. Generation after generation, they return to the identical home rivulet to spawn in their turn. This seems to be due to a kind of "imprinting." If salmon eggs are switched to other waters, the adults return to the waters where they lived as fry. Hasler believes that fish remember the odors of their natal streams and so find their way back.14 They cannot do so if their organs of smell are destroyed. Two or three molecules of home water may orient the salmon. Indeed, they can detect a milliliter of beta-phenyl-alcohol in a body of water fifty-eight times as large as Lake Constance.

Monarch butterflies are famous for their migrations, sometimes as much as two thousand miles, to places like Pacific Grove, California.15 This is so predictable that a city bylaw there protects them. Burton calls it one of the wonders of the world. The migratory hordes extend for miles each fall as they take one of two flyways southward. They semihibernate in California all winter. Then in spring they fly north, never to return. But their untaught progeny do. Why do these creatures migrate at all? They could hibernate where they were. They pay no attention to the winds, may make wide meanders, but they get to their destination with great accuracy. They surely do not move to find new feeding grounds, nor yet for evolutionary reasons. In South America a similar race of monarchs moves in the reverse direction. Indeed, the monarch has appeared in Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and the East Indies.

Migratory butterflies may travel enormous distances, but they always try to return to their home locality, even to the same bush, to lay their eggs.16

Ricard found that tiny shore crustaceans called sandhoppers could orient themselves by the sun.17 Birds have standard but multiple flyways, and sometimes are guided by sight and landmarks. A migrating bird or fish can instantly calculate its position as if using a sextant, chronometer, and astronomical tables. Here is a tremendous mystery.

And yet, as Acworth points out, a pigeon returning to its nest will be unable to find its eggs if they are moved two inches! And if a new hive replaces the old one, a homing bee will return to the new one unconcernedly as long as it stands on exactly the same spot as the old one! Keep the old hive, but move it only a short distance, and the bee is quite nonplussed.

North American eels migrate from the fresh water where they were born to the ocean, indeed to the Sargasso Sea between Bermuda and the Bahamas. There they mate and lay and die. Their progeny gradually grow into elvers and return to fresh water streams. There they mature for five to twenty-five years. Then they go back to the Sargasso Sea. But there are two kinds of elvers in the Sargasso Sea, the second being of European origin. As the currents carry the eels northward, the two types divide. The slower growing Europeans turn back homeward and desert their North American cousins.

The green sea turtle travels more than one thousand miles from the coast of Brazil to tiny Ascension Island each year to lay her eggs. She bucks currents and side-winds and yet holds to a precision course.

Fiddler crabs on Cape Cod at low tide scuttle out to feed on the mud flats. Low tide is fifty minutes later each day. So are the crabs, on the shore or if kept in a laboratory. In the latter, too, they darken their skins as a protection from sunburn just as their brethren on the mud flats do. These circadian rhythms are not uncommon in animals, but can be altered in the laboratory.

The Milnes have discussed eggs at some length.18 There are differences about eggs between nearly related species. For example, the horned lizard of Texas lays its eggs in a hole it digs. But New Mexican lizards from the same genus carry their eggs inside the female's body until they can be expelled at the same age as the little Texas lizards which are burrowing out of their nest. This Mexican lizard or "horned toad" can hunt ants in ten minutes after birth. Another example is that pythons lay eggs, but boas bear live young.

One family of scorpions (Nathidae) brings forth live young out of the delivery tube where they have been feeding after being liberated into it. In the other family (Scorpionidae) the egg lies beside the laying tube in a side-chamber; it sends up a tooth to tap the mother's digestive tract. The young scorpion soon develops throat muscles designed to suck maternal fluid as if it was at a breast.

The bitterling fish has a long tube through which its eggs are laid in the mantle cavity of a clam. Why these eggs are not sucked in by the clam no one knows. But the eggs hatch there and then the young fish swim away freely and safely.

The big ichneumon fly, Megarhyssa, thrusts her long drill from the rear of the abdomen through tree bark to where the galleries of the wood-eating horntail larvae are, perhaps an inch down. Then she slides in a minute egg. The maggot that hatches assaults the horntail larvae.

Among the minute parasitic wasps called Mymarids is Carophrectus cinctus, l/20th of an inch in length, which preys on water beetles. These have eggs only one millimeter in length. The flying wasp injects her own eggs into the mid-gut of the beetle embryo in its egg and rejects any eggs already parasitized! The eggs she infects are located by touch, not sight!19

A Californian octopus squirts jets of water over her eggs to keep them clean and aerated. She does not eat until all the young are hatched (six to eight weeks). This northern octopus can be said to clean its eggs with a hose.

The giant water bug Belostoma lays her eggs on her mate's back, then plasters them there. He tries to brush them off but cannot till they hatch.
The male sea horse wants his pouch filled with eggs. Then he seals them up and carries them there for six weeks.

The Surinam toad manipulates his mate's ovipositor so that her eggs are laid under loose skin on her back. Then he works them under her skin into separate pockets, puts lids on these, and they are carried by her until she hatches little toads.

In some species the embryo must have a special method of escape from the egg. Thus every reptile and bird embryo ordinarily has a hatching tooth. These later fall off. Caterpillars use their jaws for the same purpose. Other insects just grow large enough to explode their way out at a certain preweakened line in the shell. The Milnes remind us that the escape hatch, like a parachute, must always work.

Instinctive habits in reproduction in animals are often developed around peculiar adaptations in plants or other creatures. An example is the edible Smyrna fig. To raise these one must plant Smyrna figs and caprifigs in the same orchard. The Smyrna fig produces only female flowers and hence has no pollen. The wild caprifig has both pollen and female organs. The floret studded lining of the pursed-up flower-head of the Smyrna fig has a small opening left, through which a fertilizing insect, usually the gall wasp, can crawl. The wingless male gall wasp creeps around inside the caprifig to locate galls containing nearly mature female wasps. When he finds one he fertilizes her inside her gall. Soon she emerges, crawls over the perfect florets inside the caprifig, and flies away loaded with pollen. If she now enters a caprifig, a new caprifig fruit develops. But if she crawls into a Smyrna fig flower, the female florets will be pollinated, the flower will set seed, the whole flower head will close up as the sugar filled cells swell, and one soon has the familiar edible fruit. The gall wasp makes Smyrna figs possible, but its wingless males never leave the caprifig flower!

Angler-fish lie on the ocean floor. The small male ignores the dangling lure of the female so much bigger than he, but bites into her head. She literally fuses with him there. His mouth, jaws, teeth, gills, and fins all degenerate, leaving him merely as a sort of wart loaded with sperms, waiting patiently until she chooses to lay.

The bagworm has developed a peculiar habit. Only the males have wings. They find the cocoons in which the female lies (never to escape) and there mate with the abdominal tip of the female they never see. She adds a shell to her fertilized eggs and dies in prison.

Other creatures take advantage of natural phenomena. Sea urchins time the discharge of sex cells to coincide with those of all the other urchins in that bay or lagoon, probably by biochemical synchronization. The brine shrimp, Artemia, lays vast numbers of eggs on the shores of salt ponds and alkaline lakes. These lie there until the spring rains. Then birds with sticky feet step on them and carry them away. The clam worm, Nereis, of the mudflats, swells up with eggs or sperms at the proper season, rises to the surface, where the males cavort around the females. Finally one male succeeds in swimming a spiral course around a mate, and at this stimulus both creatures explode and the eggs are fertilized as the parents both die. In one kind of seaworm, Playnereis megalops, the female worm bites off the rear of the male containing his sperms, leaving him to grow a new end. But she swallows her tid-bit, the sperms piercing the gut to enter the body cavity to fertilize her eggs. Then she bursts, releasing her eggs into the sea. The females never discharge their eggs until they have swallowed the sperms. Males may find their mates by unusual means. Thus male Mayflies find their mates against the setting sun by developing a wonderful enlargement of the upper part of their compound eyes with far larger lenses.

The common eastern firefly, Photinus pyralis, has a male with a peculiar dipping flight having a maximum brilliance in a flash emitted at the bottom every 5.8 seconds. The female flashes her response precisely two seconds afterward. In ten to fifteen such approaches he usually finds her. The male makes no response to other males' signals but homes in on any type of light with a two-seconds flash. A male will come to a male, if number two is made to flash two seconds after his initial flash. An airplane pilot could do no better. The real cue is the time interval — the response in two seconds flat.

Very recently Lloyd has observed that females of the genus Photuris mimic these two-seconds-apart signals of Photinus in order to eat male Photinus flies!20 How could evolution lead to such apt mimicry? How does the male Photuris escape this wily lady as she utters her false signals?

Courtship peculiarities are well known, of course. The cormorant plays in the water with his prospective spouse. Finally they intertwine their necks and mating soon occurs. The antics of birds of paradise in courtship have often been described. The male postures and spreads his plumes before his prospective lady. He also puts on a postmating display of an entirely different nature, pecking at her and showing his brilliantly colored open mouth. Different species of birds of paradise have different featherings and wide variations in courtship rituals.

The common newt finds a likely female, and near her lays a small sac of sperm cells on the bottom of a pond. Then the male persuades the female to approach it. Only then, when she is excited, do the lips of her cloaca swell and develop sufficient muscular control to pick up the sperm sac and insert it into her own cloaca. Here is a marvelous interplay between instinct and bodily function and shape.

Mating habits themselves are highly specialized. The short-horned grasshopper has a strange method. The male feeds a lobe of his spermatophore to his mate while the rest of it is being inserted elsewhere and the sperms are finding their way to her eggs. Tree crickets (Oecanthus) do it differently. The male feeds the female from a special gland on his back while he transfers the spermatophore to her. If she is prematurely disturbed she will eat the spermatophore and not be fertilized. The drone honeybee at one instant gives his queen not only enough sperms to last all her life but in doing so tears away the whole end of his body, a mortal wound. In leeches the male fastens the spermatophore to his mate's back. This spot now ulcerates and the sperm sac sinks down into her body where the sperms fertilize her eggs. A very similar device is seen in Peripatus, but in this particular form the eggs do not form until there are sperms to stimulate their formation and eventually to fertilize them. There are other kinds of Peripatus, as well as the domestic bedbug and some of the flatworms, which have a special organ in the male which is driven directly through his mate's skin. Through this his sperm sac is deposited inside her.

Rabbits and hares must copulate while facing in opposite directions. A similar problem is widespread among many insects. In the crane fly the creatures must mate tail to tail, but then the male twists his body through 180 degrees. His mate drags him along in this awkward position. In moth flies and mosquitoes a similar twist in the male's body occurs in the pupa, and the male fly emerges permanently deformed. Many beetles have hooks on the penis which break off when they separate and appear to serve no function. For instance, they do not deter subsequent males. They have been called "love thorns."

Male spiders have two palpi in front of the first pair of legs. They help in feeding and in a host of other ways. When a spider finds a willing mate he runs off and spins a little web. Then he puts a drop of semen in this. Next he walks under the web, sucks up the semen in his palpi, returns to his mate, and transfers the sperm to her receptacle by means of his palpi, and may even make a second trip. The Milnes point to the perfect and untaught matching of remarkable sexual parts and the instinctive knowledge of their use.

The oak apple gall wasp alternates generations and these generations have quite different instincts. A wingless female lays eggs in the oak buds and these mature into oak apples. From them both male and female winged forms arise. These pair then lay their eggs in the roots of the oak, where oak galls form. In these, wingless females mature; and the alternation of generations continues.

The remarkable yucca moth should not be passed over here. Her maxillary palpi are most unusual, as is her exceptionally long and protrusible ovipositor. She makes a large pollen ball, then flies to another yucca plant in whose ovary she lays. Immediately after, she climbs the pistil and rams her pollen pellet into the stigma. The ovules of the yucca ripen, some but not all are eaten by the larvae, and thus the yucca is perpetuated.

Ants can learn from experience, but most of their activities are based on instinct.21 For example, harvester ants do not plant deliberately, but by accident. They do, however, intelligently sort out their booty and make ant-bread. Many ants maintain fungus gardens on compost, using a fungus found nowhere else. Other types of fungus are weeded out. Such a fungus puts out edible bulbs only if tended by ants.

Army ants are "disciplined" on the march purely by accident. They follow a scent and if diverted will follow it blindly till all die. Their marches are geared to their queen's reproductive rhythm and the seasonal reactions of their young larvae.

Some live with aphids that they milk for desirable secretions. But this is not intelligent herding or pasturing or corralling. All these actions are selfish, reflex, and instinctive. Often the ants do not differentiate between the aphids' larvae and their own larvae, their eggs and aphids' eggs. The bloated honeypot ants are only exaggerations of the tendency of ants to overdistend their own "social stomachs."

Ants communicate about food, but poorly. They have memory and learning and are able to correct errors. Yet these abilities are in a straitjacket inside stereotypes of behavior which may cause them to do incredibly stupid things.

Fabre tells of an experiment he performed on a hunting wasp. It could drag away its prey, a grasshopper, as long as the latter bore antennae. Cut these off and it could no longer move its prey. It was quite unable to think of using a leg. Yet ants can navigate a maze of ten false turns. And they can be taught to collect food at a time of day when they would not normally be foraging.

Some harvester ants have specially strong jaws for crushing seeds. There are even special rooms set aside in their nests for culling out refuse and unwanted seeds.

Since Lorenz wrote a book recently on this instinct alone, we should consider it here.22 He urges that it is not an agent of destruction but an aid to friendship and law. It is one of the "parliament of instincts" that animals possess, some by inheritance. Some slight manifestations of tradition are seen in jackdaws, greylag geese, rats, and monkeys, but only in these. Other animals show no "culture." And these few species pass on knowledge only about such simple acts as pathfinding and the recognition of certain foods or of poisons.

Burton tells us of the woodpecker finch, which occupies a niche on the Galapagos Islands that a woodpecker would usually fill elsewhere.23 Since he does not have the latter's long tongue to reach insects under the bark of trees, he uses a cactus spine in his beak to pierce similar hidden prey, then eats them with his short finch beak!

Sir Julian Huxley compared an animal to a ship commanded by many captains. One "captain" or force may dominate as in animals, or all may do so as in man. The escape drive usually overpowers all others. Behavior patterns such as running, flying, pecking, or digging may serve the greater drives of feeding, reproduction, or aggression.

The chick's cheep averts the mother's aggressive response, which is aimed at any strange bird. In many animals infantile behavior, even infantile plumage, protects the young against intraspecific aggression.

Females are protected from males in hamsters, some finches, and even some reptiles, such as the South American emerald lizard. In cranes and rails the young are protected by showing a special red cap. Some animals crowd together in the face of threats of assault — for example, some fishes and starlings.

Jones tells us of the immature octopod, Tremoctopus violaceus, which carries pieces of the tentancle of the coelenterate Physalia on the suckers of its dorsal arms.24 The suckers are even adapted to hold these fragments. The stinging cells of Physalia are adhesive and act to paralyze fishes. It is hard to imagine the pickpocket skills needed to steal enough such fragments from the coelenterate to cover eight rows of suckers and cover them, moreover, in well-ordered rows. It is remarked by Jones that this behavior with Physalia fragments has been seen only in young Tremoctopus, which are unique in the use of such a potent tissue weapon. Perhaps the Tremoctopus also knows when replacements are needed?

In dealing with predator wasps, Evans remarks that usually the female of each species specializes in a particular prey — but the males are not predators at all!25  They seem to inherit none of that violent instinct. Aphilanthops frigidus of the United States preys only on ant queens, not ant workers, and then only those queens who have their nuptial wings. Moreover, the wasp larvae can often be induced to develop well on caterpillars that were not on mother's menu. Wasps never, or rarely, make identification errors in their prey. The stinging process they use is variable and adapted to the anatomy of their victims, though not administered as accurately as was once thought.

Some spiders produce different webs when young than when mature. All spiders produce silk but only some build webs. All spiders, as well as mites, whip scorpions, and false scorpions cover their eggs with silk. There are many types of webs, some even buried in the ground under trapdoors. The females make most of the webs. It is no easy task, as Kaston points out in detail.26 A web can be a very complex structure. Some spiders throw snares (Dinopidae). Various forms of webs are found, ranging from tubular to single lines to trapezoidal to slings to balloon barrages to sheets. Some, like Euryopis and the spitting spider Scytodes, do not use webs. All sorts of weaving methods are used, the barrage of "stopping maze" being regarded as a primitive type! The spider may lie in wait outside the web, or at its hub (open or closed), or may use the web as a spring. Bolas are thrown by Mastophora in America, Dichrostichus in Australia, and Cladomelia in South Africa. But the bola is thrown differently among these forms, using different legs, and it may or may not be whirled. Fabre discusses spiders at length, as does Crompton.27-28 For example, Fabre tells us that the Epeira varnishes herself with sweat to avoid being mired in her own web. The knowledges of instinct are always specialized. Thus every paralyzing spider knows her own victim and how to handle it, but no other.

In the same way the cabbage caterpillar recognizes plants of the Cruciferae on which to lay her eggs and will lay them nowhere else. She can recognize these plants when the best botanist cannot.29 This is not magic. Smear the leaves of any other plant with mustard oil and she will lay on it promptly. It is the smell which fools her, not any uncanny knowledge of botany.30

Elsewhere I have discussed many examples of instinct in beasts, birds, and insects.31 The discussion could go on endlessly. One could talk of predation and defense, of food, of the care of the newborn, of colonial life, and other aspects.

Burton has discussed the peculiar food idiosyncrasies of birds and mammals at some length, even to the special techniques the mongoose has for breaking eggs open, and the ability of young" blackbirds to forage on the ground. He points out, too, the ability of ordinary robins, blackbirds, and hedge-sparrows to distinguish between good and bad food in artificial feeders on a lawn.32

Frith tells of incubator birds and their outstanding nesting habits.33  The Megapodidae are the only birds using an external incubator — for example, the malles fowl of Australia. It keeps the nest at 92° _+_ F., despite great changes in the climate. The chicks never see their parents and are independent from birth. In the warmer Celebes and Moluccas the Megapodes lay their eggs only in the warm sand of the beaches or in the warm ash of fresh craters or where steam comes out of the ground. Where no such loci are available they nest in rotting vegetable refuse. The mounds can be twenty feet high and fifty feet in diameter. Always just enough rotting material is added to keep the eggs at exactly the right temperature despite the external heat. This "almost suggests that the birds understand some chemistry." Remember that the mallee fowl lives in the desert where the days are blazing and the nights freezing cold. (The range in one day may be from 17 to 112 degrees F.) The male bird collects the necessary litter for months beforehand. If the leaves in the nest do not finally ferment, the birds abandon the nest and do not breed. When the last egg hatches, a new nest is built to replace the old one on the same spot. The eggs are kept within one degree of the desired temperature by the activities of the male. This is impossible if he deserts the nest. The birds can detect any unusual temperature and can cope with it. In fact, they are more effective in regulating the temperature than Frith, who used thermostats and a 240-volt generator. He concluded that the bird must have a thermometer in its bill or head. More recently this has been ascribed to the tongue. The newly hatching chick may spend fifteen to twenty hours burrowing out of the nest. This bird leads a hard life.

Then there is the newborn kangaroo. Sharman and Pilton tell us that the newborn first comes out of the birth canal 3/4 inch long.34 it grasps its mother's fur with special and precocious claws, and in three minutes has reached her teat in the pouch. The mother does not assist it. If it falls off the teat it can never get on again and dies.

Acworth discusses the cuckoo at some length.35 This bird's eggs hatch a day or two sooner than the eggs of its unknowing host. This enables the newly hatched cuckoo to throw the foster brothers overboard when they do appear. The great mystery is how the cuckoo can time her laying so accurately, how she usually (but not always) mimics the eggs of the rightful owner of the nest, and how she actually manages to insert her eggs into some almost inaccessible nests. Apparently the cuckoo can sometimes modify the size and color of its eggs to match those of the foster parent. Cott tells of cuckoos laying eggs in bunting nests in Japan and exactly mimicking the latter's scribble markings.36 Often it is simply impossible for the cuckoo's egg to be laid. It must be "squirted" into some nests, and this has been observed. Ash tells of cuckoos imitating the "soaring" of sparrow-hawks in order to raid nests such as that of the meadow pipit which it otherwise might overlook.37

Hinde tells of the odd behavior patterns of birds.38  Their feeding habits can differ in close species. Hybrid birds are rare in nature but can be produced in zoos, notably for this author's studies on the goldfinch and greenfinch. The same hybridization phenomenon is seen in swordtails and platyfish. Songs or behavior or even structure can differ in finches found on the same island. On the other hand, distinct species can almost disappear on islands. Birds differ in courting details, even in close sympatric species, and Hinde gives many examples. Diets also differ greatly in close species of birds, leading to different beak shapes and hunting procedures; for example, the famous Hawaii honeycreepers (Drepanidae) or the feeding behavior of tits. In most species there is a wide variation in habitat selection.

All behavior must be well adapted and is, of course. But some adaptations are really unimaginably good. Let me cite some of these.

Tinbergen tells also of the larva of the waterbeetle  Hydrous piceus, which preys on snails. They are caught, are pressed between the folds of the back, and thus are passed along by the "most improbable coiling movements" to the mandibles.

When mussels are slightly under water they remain partly open. The European oyster-catcher sinks its bill into the slit, then walks around them to pry the valves apart. Or the bill may merely be used as a lever while the bird's head is pressed low into the sand.

Most fish are dark on top and have pale bellies. But one species, Synodontis batensoda, has reversed coloring, and often swims upside down!
Fiddlercrabs attract their females by waving an overgrown claw. But twenty-seven species of Panama crabs do this so differently that all could be differentiated readily by their displays.

Certain flies — including a mosquito, Aedes nigripes — sit in flower heads such as Oryas, which turn with the sun, acting as mobile radiators.39 Thus the sunbathers have a reasonable chance of ripening their germ cells before the low sun goes down and they are frozen. There is just enough temperature variation sensed in this way to make a life-and-death difference.

Butterflies select just the proper plant on which to lay their eggs. They do not intrude on one another. But if an alternative plant must be selected, a choice is made of the closest species. And yet they can be incredibly stupid. Some Pine Pro-cessionaries were placed in a circle surrounding their food by Fabre. They continued to walk end to end in a circle until they died of starvation.

Ritual fighting occurs in some species. For example, labyrinth fish seize each other by the jaws and test their strength. Where such fighting occurs, the lips and jaws are covered with toughened skin for mutual protection.

A turkey hen will peck furiously at a chick approaching silently, but if there is a calling sound will gladly allow even a cheeping polecat to creep under her. As long as a young heron continues to "beg" it will not be assaulted by adult herons.

Rats will not eat a strange food if they see a few adult rats pass it by. If rats detect a poisoned bait they sprinkle it with urine or feces, even at a considerable personal inconvenience. Moreover, knowledge of this danger is transmitted from generation to generation.

Man and the greylag goose have remarkably similar instincts in respect of falling in love, struggle for rank, jealousy, grieving, even down to minute details. Lorenz regards all this as evolutionary "convergence" of behavior!

An adult leafroller weevil rolls a leaf expertly, though she has never seen it done before, Bastin remarks. He points out that often no egg is found in the rolled-up leaf. The ovaries have been emptied, but the other half of the instinct complex continues to operate, unchecked by any glimmer of reason.

The behavior of mimicking insects can perfectly match their deceptive forms and colors. A Malayan mantis exactly resembles a pink orchid. Its posture is floral. Indeed, an observer cannot tell where the insect ends and the flower begins. Near the Pilcomaya River are Mantids which resemble tufts of lichen so closely that they can be seen only when they move.

All sorts of these behavior-appearance mimics are known. H. B. Cott mentions many. Certain cryptic butterflies fly like the flutter of falling foliage, for example. Good naturalists have been deceived thus. Even more remarkable are the deliberate movements of insects at rest. Thus the leaf insect Phyllium sometimes suspends itself beneath a twig by a few of its legs only, then slowly rotates its body like a leaf spinning in a breeze, "in a manner that was staggering in its perfection." The irregular movements were perfect behavior to match the coloring. Certain fishes seen in the Bay of Panama float on their sides to mimic wood fragments exactly. A bittern stands rigidly among cattails if they are quiet, but trembles if a breeze shakes them. The triggerfish, Monacanthus, swims horizontally; but when it reaches a clump of eel-grass it fixes itself in vertical and holds itself there with its sucker mouth in order to perfect its camouflage. Birds do wonderful things to match behavior with coloration. Cott talks of short-horned grasshoppers which render their antennae "invisible" if threatened with danger. Some South American caterpillars gnaw leaves raggedly and color themselves to simulate half-eaten leaves and stems.

A Cuban bug, Pamphentus mimeticus, mimics ants in two ways, as a nymph and as an adult. The wingless nymph is narrow-waisted, but the adult has appropriate wing markings instead. A spider in Brazil can run quickly like an ant and carries a real ant's skeleton on its back to hide from view.

Pycroft stresses that protective coloration would be useless unless it was ancillary to "a much more important factor" — that is, behavior. He mentions the Malayan Tapir, more singularly colored than any other mammal, in sharply contrasting black and white. Yet it lies in the blazing sun among great boulders and along watercourses which it exactly matches in camouflage perfection. He also describes walkingstick insects which can drop to the ground, then extend their front legs to resemble a fallen twig and lie motionless even when picked up and rolled about in the hand.40

H. Bastin describes the East Indian plant Dischidia, an epiphyte having no soil contact. It has pitcherlike leaves in two whorls, one inside the other. Into the intervening space the plant secretes and collects a sweet substance. Then ants gather there and carry up soil to build up a kind of flowerpot. On this the plant then lives. Is this an example of a plant or animal instinct?

Tinbergen points out that gulls "understand" the meaning of gull signals without "learning."41  Many signaling movements of animals are as distinctive for the animal as its anatomy. The signaling repertoires of gulls differ in all fifteen species he has studied. Direct bird-to-bird attack in a territorial dispute may be replaced by an attack aimed at the ground — "redirected attack." Some different postures assumed by them are obviously related to their color markings in a very intimate way, suggesting correlated evolution or creation by a great Planner. Tinbergen concludes that one must be sure in biology that conclusions based on similarity of structure are consistent with the facts of behavior.

Many fish in the region of the Bahamas use the cleaning services of the Pederson shrimp.42  It lives communally with a sea anemone. Fish swim up to it and wait for its attentions. The shrimp thoroughly examines each big client, going all over it and sometimes even making small incisions to reach subcutaneous parasites while the fish remains inert. The shrimp even forages through the fish's gills and mouth. As was said, other fish meantime may line up for similar care. Off southern California, the golden-brown wrasse, called the senorita, cleans the black sea bass and the ocean sunfish thus. The senorita has even been seen cleaning the bat-ray. Cleaning species, however different in genera, tend to have pointed snouts and teeth like tweezers. The senorita can safely enter the open mouth of the kelp bass, a fish that eats other fish of senorita size. The immunity of the cleaning species has led other fish to mimic it — or is that idea too teleological?

J. H. Fabre once wrote that "instinct is omniscient in the unchanging paths that have been laid down for it; away from those paths it knows nothing. Sublime inspirations of science, astounding inconsequences of stupidity, are alike its portion."

He once referred to the grub of the Capricorn Beetle as "a bit of intestine that crawls about." But "this nothing-at-all is capable of marvelous acts of foresight; this belly, which knows hardly aught of the present, sees very clearly into the future." It climbs up and down an oak trunk for three years. Then at some unknown signal it gnaws out to the very bark, where a woodpecker may or may not be waiting. The worm, which has often turned in its burrowings, now makes sure its head is toward its exit, goes to sleep as a caterpillar, to awaken as an armored beetle which is far from flexible. Obviously "the animal . . . possesses certain psychological resources, certain inspirations that are innate and not acquired."

Fabre again: "The most elementary sieve, handled with a little logic, is enough to winnow the confused mass of affirmations and to release the good grain of truth." It is as hard to fault Fabre's scientific conclusions as his remarkable literary style.
R. A. Hinde has referred to the "old dreary but not merely semantic question of the nature of instinct." I know of no more difficult field to define, nor one in which less real progress has been made.

Crompton says insects evolved early.43  During their long existence they had "created the flowers" in an evolutionary sense and the flowers had "created" many insects. He says the plant realized it could use the insect, for as an evolutionist he suspects a plant is as quick as a man to grasp such a point. Some flowers even struck on the idea of offering premiums and began to hide their sweets in nectaries available only to specialized insects. All this may make sense to an evolutionist, but not to me.

The ancients were suitably puzzled by the mysteries of the birds and the bees. No consistent attempt to reduce the problem to experimental dimensions seems to have been made since until Fabre entered the lists. The collectors of facts have added a great deal to our information since Darwin's day, of course; and everything they have brought to light has enlarged the dimensions of our wonder and our puzzlement. Not only do we now have animal function to explain, which was sufficiently difficult, but our explanation must also include the coincident reactions of other animals and plants intimately involved. Of course, it is difficult to apply oneself to the first and presumptuous. Consider how many times more difficult our compounded problem becomes. Can one logically talk of plant instincts? Has a yucca as much individuality or responsiveness to its environment as a dragonfly? Has it as much consciousness? If you tell me it has not, then I must ask you to tell me how much consciousness the dragonfly has and how you measure that sort of thing.

It does seem that the most incredibly complex and self-preserving actions are seen in the smallest and simplest forms of life. When we ourselves achieve corresponding results we are quick to explain the occurrence as the result of intelligent perception, rational cogitation, and reasoned response. We admit that some or many of our responses are too quick to have been mediated through the brain. We say we responded reflexly, or that the readiness of response was due to long habit, as in steering a car while lost in thought. And we do concede that our response to food or to the opposite sex or to being struck or to an earthquake is much like that of the animals around us and whom we keep as "pets" because we find them congenial company.

At the same time one must be struck by the stupid invariability of instinctive responses. They are aimed at norms only. They make no allowances for the exceptional. All the individuals who respond do so in an identical, predictable manner. We say the animal involved has "no brains."

We know that instinctive responses are modified with age, sex, the seasons, hormones, food scarcity, crowding, the type of food available, enemies, learning, perhaps the stars, senses such as smell, and other items.

We are also aware that instincts can be mixtures, that some of these can be separated or modified, as in the stickleback, that instinctive responses can be diverted or substituted until they are scarcely recognizable. We realize that instinct is often mediated through the brain, at least in major animals. For example, cats can have wires implanted in the areas near the thalamus and have hate and aggressive behavior turned on or off at will.44 "Domesticated animals" can have their instinctive responses modified by selective breeding. For example, one can produce cowardice in dogs in this manner. Here we have an instinct with genetic conditioning, something hard to correlate with the transmission of bee instincts from one generation of neuter worker bees to another. How can the cuckoo do such magical (black magic) things with no example and, of course, no training? What is to be said about one of the oldest puzzles of all, the long annual migration of birds and butterflies? One can compound the difficulty by adding eels and green sea turtles to the puzzle.

One must be struck, too, with the foresight of instinct, as Fabre was. Almost more astonishing is the versatility involved. Of course it is wonderful that a fiddler crab should have an enlarged claw to brandish like a banner. But is it not even more astonishing that this should be his symbol of courtship and that this signal should play scores of variations on the major theme?

Instinct is versatile. It is almost the standard of variability, in fact. It suggests to me that a truly gigantic Mind planned it, that the simpler forms of life fill a more important role in the economy of the world than we usually concede, and that the greatest Virtuoso of all does not mind, on occasion, reminding us that He can play the most difficult arpeggios even better than Paganini.

We feel, if we do not explicitly say it, that man is the reasonable creature. He is the tool user. He can laugh. He conquers space and everything under it. He remembers and learns. He has books. His children need not always start from scratch. In short, he is Homo sapiens.

Imagine our chagrin to find that man, the sensible, has a multitude of rivals without sense competing with him relentlessly for lebensraum, for food, for life itself, and that the best that man can claim is a drawn battle. In the country of the blackfly or tsetse fly he may not fare even as well as that. In the war between sense and no-sense could no-sense win?

My main interest in this problem of instinct, of course, is in its bearing on the theory of evolution. Darwin was honest and accurate when he spoke of the doubts that instinct raised in his mind. I feel that here lies the invincible challenge to his theory. Let anyone try to imagine the evolution of an instinct!

According to classic evolutionary theory, one-celled animals once or many times developed into the more complex forms we know. The use of these bodies must have always been effective or they would have perished. Their behavior must have always been congruent with their anatomical resources. Their instincts must have kept in step with their horns, their reproductive mechanisms, their poisons, and their phosphorescence. They could never get ahead of or behind their structures. There could be no sense in an impulse to migrate till there were wings and directional aids to match. There would be little use of a phosphorescent signal in a male firefly till his mate could see it and time it in seconds. There can be a yucca only with the cooperation of the yucca insect. Is it not fortunate that these developed synchronously and "happened" to match each other's needs so exactly?

How does an instinct like migration get under way? Do a few selected species decide to wander en masse to some unknown objective a hundred miles away, perhaps in the middle of a lake? Why and how do fly ways develop that are very long, quite stereotyped, and unlearned? Why migrate in any case? What would happen if the instinct gave out halfway to the creature's destination, or if it worked in one direction only? How do migrating monarch butterflies get the right amount of energy — no more and no less — for the trip which has a definite terminus? How do they know when that is reached? How does the return trip take the butterfly back to the same bush and the salmon back to the same rivulet, even after an absence of years?

One could ask an almost infinite number of such questions about migration, to which answers would be superlatively difficult. But let us turn to other aspects of our problem.

Why are there so many types of bird nests? Was there no one correct way to build one? How did the "balance of nature" develop — the perfect assault linked so tightly to the perfect defense?

There is no point in storing caterpillars till the wasp can semiparalyze them with appropriate poisons. Why hibernate till a bear can drop his body temperature and heart rate? Why should the senorita be able to clean out the mouths of big fish till the big fish are ready for it, will spare the senorita, and it has developed a suitable technique?

Then I suppose one should have an explanation for prenatal swimming in tadpoles and the stage by stage problems solved by the tiny kangaroo embryo. Both of these situations in nature, like many others, seem utterly inexplicable by the principles of evolution.

The vast variety of adaptations is hard to explain. Simple things can be simply explained, but the infinite complexity of nature is quite a different matter.

The egg of evolution cracks wide open on the hard rock of instinct.

I realize that creation is the alternative, and I do not shy away from its essential difficulties. An obvious one is that it is incapable of experimentation. Another is that it makes the creator very, very busy and almost too fussy over detail. But the major difficulty for the Creationist is that his stance credits God with the flaws or faults of nature, the poison fang, the parasitized as well as the parasite, all the paraphernalia of "tooth and claw" from which, I hope, one has just chased the evolutionary process. This may make God less than lovable, indeed less than moral and merciful. We face the awkwardness of pain and premature death, the strange dilemmas of existence for man or midge. As Lewis points out, much of world history and much of life has been and is lived without chloroform.45 Weatherhead remarks succinctly that it is better to be a man in pain than a cabbage in ecstasy.46

I take it, however, that men by now have upset the balance of nature often enough by introducing new organisms or killing off old enemies to realize that only mutual interplay keeps them in the nice balance which permits some of all forms to live and yet extinguishes only a few stragglers from the main hordes. Moreover, I cannot believe that insects, for example, feel either pain or apprehension. Perhaps one cannot have good sensory innervation in forms loftier than the insect without sensory apparatus occasionally, perhaps only momentarily, conveying to the brain the sensation we call pain but which can rarely indicate to less-than-men the "pangs of death." Predation mows down older beasts but spares them the trouble of slow starvation as their bodies wear out. In regard to man, why grow old if one is not privileged to be aware of the beauties of earth and the senses, of reflection and memory, of ambition and filial love? Sensation (pain, if you like) is their inescapable price.

Yes, I will come down hard for creationism as I think it much the more logical and attractive explanation of the two great alternatives. At least it offers a viable outlook on what is otherwise the inexplicable.

Job considered this problem long ago (see chap. 39) and mentioned the dilemma nature presents in the calving of wild goats and hinds, the freedom of the wild ass, the peacock's gorgeous feathering, the nesting habits of the ostrich, and the bravery of the horse. He concludes by asking: "Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south? Doth the eagle mount up at thy command and make her nest on high?" He was well aware of the wonders of instinct in nature and gave credit for ideal adaptations of organs and instinct to the creator of all things, as should we.

Indeed, we have no good alternative, as I hope has been indicated in the pages preceding. God made form and function superlative. Then, to compound His mercies, He added an instinct so closely adapted to need that it can compete with and sometimes surpass intelligence. After aeons of effort man begins to rival the sonar and range of sight and hearing and smell that wild things have been given for their birthright. Only God can present gifts like that. Only men could be so blind as to ignore or misunderstand their Source.




http://www.creationism.org/symposium/symp4no4.htm

The Folly of Design
without Purpose

A construction contractor struggling to prevent a failed project criticized his designer as “flying by the seat of his pants,” meaning that he was simply making up stuff as the project progressed. Projects that lack clearly defined purpose or key design objectives generally fail. Purpose and design are inseparable.¹ Only a foolish architect would propose a project devoid of purpose. So it is astounding how explanations of nature’s design by evolutionary theorists—a career field that never designs anything—not only intentionally decouple purpose and design, but are presented as something to boast about.

That thinking by evolutionists was predictable. According to Romans 1, nature’s design is so clear, so obvious, and so understandable that people of all ages in all cultures can easily see the Lord’s “eternal power and Godhead.” The one who actively suppresses this truth becomes a God-denier, an act that leaves him “without excuse.”

The Bible adds another valuable insight that is useful in any conversation about the origin of nature’s design. Truth suppressors who profess themselves to be wise actually become fools. One certain reality is that evolutionary explanations of nature’s design will invariably be foolish—they cannot escape this—and everyone else just needs to be mindful to look.

Is it possible to know where a conversation will end up—without fail—right from the beginning? Yes. This useful assurance will help believers who worry that evolutionists will produce a “killer” explanation that crushes creationist thinking. True evolutionists must deny purpose in nature. Since design and purpose are inseparable, they violate this principle at their peril. Just as purposeless construction projects fail, evolutionary thinking forces failed scientific explanations—leaving only incoherent or mystical stories.

The First Step to Incoherence: Deny Nature’s Purpose

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology states that “engineering design is the process of devising a system, component, or process to meet desired needs. It is a decision-making process (often iterative), in which the basic science and mathematics and engineering sciences are applied to convert resources optimally to meet a stated objective.”¹ The centrality of purpose to design is emphasized twice. Purpose initiates design processes, and designs are constrained to meet the purpose.

Evolutionists choose not to accept nature’s purpose since purpose affirms intent, willful decisions, or other attributes of personality, and only God is big enough to implement a purpose for earth. Thus, evolutionists must eschew “teleology,” the study of purpose in nature. But the purpose-recognition instinct is so strong, biologists struggle to escape it. Evolutionist David Hanke complained:

Biology is sick. Fundamentally unscientific modes of thought are increasingly accepted….[T]he heart of the problem is that we persist in making (literally) sense of a world that we know to be senseless by attributing subjective values to the objects in it, values that have no basis in reality…. [I]t is no longer acceptable to think of biological objects as having any purpose because the overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion is that they were not designed and built by a Creator (a mental construct necessary to inject a human sense of purpose into existence) with purposes in mind for them. Instead we believe (I’ll put that as strongly as I can) they are products of Darwinian evolution.²

For evolutionism, design must somehow arise from mindless properties of matter. The belief that nothing exists outside of matter is called “materialism.” Would evolutionists persist in this mindset unfazed, even knowing that excluding purpose is toxic to sensible explanations? It seems so. Evolutionary authority Richard Lewontin is candid about this materialistic implication:

We have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism…we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes…that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.³

Learning a Short Example

Do evolutionists really maintain explanations that are “counter-intuitive” and “mystifying to the uninitiated”?

Explaining the universe’s origin, cosmologist Stephen Hawking says:

Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist….It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.⁴

Another theorist detailed why Hawking’s views are plausible:

Then there’s the idea of inflation, which predicts that an extremely tiny region of space can blow up into a universe-sized domain. Modern cosmologists believe that inflation, once it starts, can keep going forever, continually creating new “pocket universes” with different conditions in each one.⁵

Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss adds:

So if we can explain a raindrop, why can’t we explain a universe? Mr. Hawking based his argument on the possible existence of extra dimensions—and perhaps an infinite number of universes, which would indeed make the spontaneous appearance of a universe like ours seem almost trivial.⁶

In biology, the National Academy of Sciences solved the origins dilemma for how molecular machines got all of their parts at the right time and place:

We proposed that simple “core” machines were established in the first eukaryotes by drawing on pre-existing bacterial proteins that had previously provided distinct functions. Subsequently, and in a stepwise process in keeping with Darwinian evolution, additional modules would have been added to the core machines to enhance their function.⁷

Evolutionist Kathryn Applegate of BioLogos joins in: “The bacterial flagellum may look like an outboard motor, but there is at least one profound difference: the flagellum assembles spontaneously, without the help of any conscious agent.” Acknowledging that “the self-assembly of such a complex machine almost defies the imagination,” she justifies shrugging off this difficulty since “natural forces work ‘like magic.’”⁸

Then there’s natural selection’s clever abilities to evolve systems: “The discovery that the hemoglobins of jawed and jawless vertebrates were invented independently provides powerful testimony to the ability of natural selection to cobble together similar design solutions using different starting materials.”⁹ Or how humans inherited basic parts of their nervous system from sponges: “‘Evolution can take these “off-the-shelf” components and put them together in new and interesting ways,’ said study leader Kenneth Kosik….Other genes would also have had to evolve or to have been co-opted to create complex nervous systems, such as our own.”¹⁰

After studying a pivotal fossil, Britain’s top science journal explained its evolutionary ancestry:

This forces us to infer much longer ghost lineages for tetrapods and elpistostegids [lobe-finned fish] than the body fossil record suggests….(Ghost lineages are those that must have existed at a particular time, according to the phylogeny, but which are not represented by fossils at that time.)¹¹

What about humans? In jocular evolutionary speculation, Oliver Curry expects future genetic-based classes of humans will emerge:

People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species….The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the “underclass” humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.¹²

Evolutionary theorists appear to build one incoherent or mysterious explanation upon another—an “uninitiated” contractor might be tempted to conclude that they are flying by the seat of their pants.

Pulling It All Together

The best explanation for design remains the main issue. Is it real or only apparent? True evolutionary explanations for apparent design must separate two things that cannot be disconnected: purpose and design.

Should Christians feel threatened by a foolish worldview that inevitably produces counter-intuitive explanations that appeal to an infinitude of self-creating universes where an unobserved force—natural selection—co-opts discrete, off-the-shelf molecular parts and cobbles together complex machines that self-assemble like magic, eventually emerging, after a long trail of ghost lineages, as organisms which, by the year 3000, will give rise to dimwitted goblins coexisting with their cousins—genetically superior attractive humans?

“Why don’t you believe in evolution?” A totally rational response is: “Explanations that assert that the diversity of life on earth is the outcome of a blind purposeless process are ridiculous. I have no desire to engage in selfdelusion that the exquisite features of design seen in nature are all an illusion. A far better explanation is that the Lord Jesus Christ created each kind of organism with inherent capabilities to diversify in order to fill environments on the earth…which they do remarkably well.”

References

1. ABET Definition of Design. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Posted on me.unlv.edu, accessed October 8, 2010.
2. Hanke, D. 2004. Teleology: The explanation that bedevils biology. In Explanations: Styles of explanation in science. Cornwell, J., ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 143-155.
3. Lewontin, R. 1997. Billions and Billions of Demons. The New York Review of Books. 44 (1): 31.
4. Roberts, L. Stephen Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe. Telegraph. Posted on telegraph.co.uk September 2, 2010, accessed October 8, 2010.
5. Carroll, S. The ‘Why?’ Questions, Chapter and Multiverse. Wall Street Journal. Posted on online.wsj.com September 24, 2010, accessed October 8, 2010.
6. Krauss, L. M. Our Spontaneous Universe. Wall Street Journal. Posted on online.wsj.com September 8, 2010, accessed October 8, 2010.
7. Clements, A. et al. 2009. The reducible complexity of a mitochondrial molecular machine. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106 (37):15791-15795.
8. Applegate, K. Self-Assembly of the Bacterial Flagellum: No Intelligence Required. The BioLogos Forum. Posted on biologos. org August 19, 2010, accessed October 8, 2010.
9. Simons, T. Biologists find that red-blooded vertebrates evolved twice, independently. University of Nebraska-Lincoln news release, July 26, 2010.
10. Than, K. Origins of Human Nervous System Found in Sponges. LiveScience. Posted on livescience.com June 6, 2007, accessed October 8, 2010.
11. Niedzwiedzki, G. et al. 2010. Tetrapod trackways from the early Middle Devonian period of Poland. Nature. 463 (7277): 43-48.
12. Human species ‘may split in two.’ BBC News. Posted on news.bbc.co.uk October 17, 2006, accessed October 8, 2010. 

http://creationrevolution...-design-without-purpose/

The lies of Lynchburg

How
U.S. evolutionists
taught the Nazis.

The courthouse in Lynchburg, Virginia. Nazi eugenics laws were modelled on those framed by U.S. evolutionists.

The chilling revelations of a recent [1993] television documentary¹ expose the disturbing consequences of evolutionary ways of thinking. Beginning in the 1920s, many thousands of people in the United States were sterilised against their will and without their consent, to prevent ‘undesirable breeding’. Over 8,000 of these procedures took place at a major centre to which such ‘undesirables’ were sent, in Lynchburg, Virginia.

The victims included some with various degrees of mental retardation; many were simply there because they had been abandoned as a result of broken homes or had suffered some other social misfortune. Some had been honours students at school. They were lied to routinely, being told that it was something ‘for their own good’ or ‘for their health’. Those older ones who discovered the purpose behind the operations realised that they would not be able to leave the institution unless they underwent the procedure.

The documentary stated that the entire effort was based upon the notion of eugenics. The eugenics movement was started by Sir Francis Galton (a cousin of Charles Darwin), who wanted to encourage ‘survival of the fittest’ within human society. The ‘humane’ way to do this was by compulsory sterilisation of those deemed ‘unfit’. The idea seduced ‘social reformers from the right and the left’—among them George Bernard Shaw, and Winston Churchill.

The Lynchburg doctor who was responsible for most of the sterilisations in his own town was convinced that what he was doing was for the ‘scientific good’ of society. As a dedicated Darwinian, notions of absolute right and wrong were old-fashioned obstacles to the greater good of the ‘herd’. Needing a legal cover for his actions in the face of the human rights meant to be guaranteed in the (creation-based) U.S. Constitution, he became enamoured with model legislation prepared by a leading U.S. evolutionary biologist, Dr Harry Laughlin.

Laughlin’s law called for compulsory sterilization of not only the ‘feeble-minded’, but also the blind, drug addicts, sufferers from TB and syphilis, epileptics,² paupers, the deaf and the homeless. Since these people were, it was claimed, obviously the victims of ‘bad genes’, the law was overtly aimed at maintaining the ‘racial purity of the white race’ by preventing the further ‘breeding’ of those whose offspring would ‘drag down’ this race.

What was needed was a test case, a ‘patsy’ to ensure that the law would not be declared unconstitutional. In a blatant set-up which made the ACLU’s manipulation³ of the famous Scopes trial look positively mild, a young lady was chosen who had been targeted for sterilization because there had allegedly been ‘three generations of feeble-mindedness’ in her family. Her lawyer challenged the Laughlin law all the way to the Supreme Court. However, far from being her champion, he was in reality one of those heavily involved in the formulation of these eugenics policies!

Unfortunately also for the young lady, the presiding judge of the Supreme Court hearing this case in 1924 was Oliver Wendell Holmes, an influential Darwinist⁴ who laid the legislative foundation for many of the advances of secular humanism in the United States. Not surprisingly, Holmes declared the law constitutional. It was acceptable for the state to compel the sterilization of those who were deemed ‘socially inadequate’. The forced sterilization of this innocent victim went ahead; subsequent investigation has revealed that the entire story of the ‘feeble-minded generations’ in her family was a fabrication.

After the Supreme Court decision, eugenics became a major plank of social policy in many American states.

As soon as Hitler (who campaigned on a platform of naked evolutionism—the survival of the fittest race) came to power in 1933, eugenics laws became one of his first acts. Not only was the Nazi program of forced sterilisation for the ‘unfit’ lauded in the U.S.—it was actually modelled after the law framed by Laughlin, who was awarded an honorary doctorate by Hitler’s government. As the Nazis moved on to the euthanasia-murder of entire wards full of mental patients, ‘scientific’ admiration for their ‘racial hygiene’ policies was unabated. One U.S. evolutionist actually stated, ‘The Germans are beating us at our own game’.¹

Once it was seen as ‘moral’ to take active steps to ‘purify the German race’, it was just a short, logical step from there to the even greater horrors of the Holocaust⁵

After World War II, the horrified reactions of a stunned U.S. public to the unimaginable atrocities done in the name of evolutionary ‘racial hygiene’ forced eugenics practices to go underground. The names of the practice changed, but it continued, right down past 1970. All in all, a grand total of some 70,000 people suffered involuntary sterilization.

It was the efforts of a Jenny Crockett, then with the ACLU (which, ironically, has a track record of mostly siding with evolutionary thinking) which brought this scandal to light, in the face of government attempts to keep the lid on. Eventually, a mumbled apology and some offer of ‘mental health counselling’ was all that was available for these many people whose lives had been destroyed by the assumptions of evolutionism.

The church overall must bear its share of the responsibility for being so ‘bluffed’ by the ‘scientific’ claims of evolutionists (which have since changed, and will keep on changing) that it failed to take a strong stand on the true history of man and the world. Instead, as now, it by and large preferred to either ignore the issue or maintain an uneasy compromise—or worse.⁶ The Lord Jesus said to believers: ‘Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid’ (Matthew 5:13 ff).

We cannot just blame ‘society’ for the evils which flow naturally from the false root of evolutionism if we are unprepared to be salt and light, and to take a stand for biblical reality.




http://creation.com/the-lies-of-lynchburg#oliver

When our core beliefs are attacked, it’s often easy for humans to retreat to statements such as this: “My belief is a fact, and yours is wrong.” That’s exactly why we cannot trust mere human understanding to explain the unobservable past—emotion and pride get in the way. Evolution is not a fact, no matter how many times evolutionists say it is. It’s a framework built on assumptions about the past—assumptions that will never have direct, first-hand, observational proof.

Focus in: Hasn’t Evolution Been Proven True?

Besides the arrogance of such statements, this argument has no footing and should be cast off. Mainly, those who make this claim usually define “educated people” as those who accept evolution. Anyone who disagrees fails the test, no matter what their background (e.g., if we follow this ideology, Isaac Newton must have been uneducated). There are many lists of well-educated scholars who look to the Bible for answers (here’s one)—and we could point out Darwin’s own deficit of formal education (he earned a bachelor’s in theology). But the bigger issue is that education—or lack—does not guarantee the validity of a person’s position.

Focus in: Can creationists be “real” scientists?

The irony, of course, is that for centuries prior to Darwin’s publication of On the Origin of Species, the majority of scientists found the opposite to be true: the “evidence” supported creation. What changed? Not the evidence. Rather, the starting point changed (i.e., moving from the Bible, God’s Word, to humanism, man’s word). Creationists continue to see everything in light of God’s Word and all evidence as supporting the biblical account. In reality, there is no “neutral” starting point; everyone—whether they acknowledge it or not—interprets the “facts” according to a particular way of thinking (i.e., worldview).

Focus in: What’s the best “proof” of creation?

Focus in: Don’t Creationists Deny the Laws of Nature?

Ironically, the Bible describes the earth as round and hanging in space—long before this could have been directly observed (Job 26:10; Isaiah 40:22). The appeal of this claim is that it stereotypes creationists as stuck in the past, since the common assumption is that people once universally believed the earth was flat before science “proved” otherwise (which wasn’t the case—only a few bought into the idea that the earth was flat). But even if this were true (it’s not), direct, repeatable observation shows us the earth is round and orbiting the sun. Evolutionary stories about fossils are not direct observations; they’re assumption-based beliefs.

Focus in: Don’t Creationists Believe Some “Wacky” Things?

A conclusion does not prove the premises are true. That is, if the answer is “four,” we could arrive at that any number of ways: 2 + 2, 5 - 1, etc. In the same way, evolutionists often assume that since certain species or traits exist, this is proof of evolution because that’s how it must have happened. This argument, however, is self-reflexive and useless. The Bible offers another (and more sound) framework for how those traits and species came to be.

Focus in: Beginning at the Beginning

This is likely the most abused argument on the list—and most in need of being scrapped. Often evolutionists bait people into showing them a change that is merely natural selection and then switch to say this proves molecules-to-man evolution. However, this is quite misleading. Natural selection, even according to evolutionists, does not have the power to generate anything “new.” The observable process can only act upon existing characteristics so that some members of a species are more likely to survive. In fact, it’s an important component of the biblical worldview.

Focus in: Is Natural Selection the Same Thing as Evolution?

Historical common descent is not and cannot be confirmed through observation. Rather, certain observations are explained by assumptions about the past. These observations, we might add, have alternative explanations. Common body plans (homology), for example, do not prove common descent—that’s an assumption. A common Designer fits the evidence just as well, if not better.

Focus in: Comparative Similarities: Homology

Sedimentary layers show one thing: sedimentary layers. In other words, we can—and should—study the rocks, but the claim that rocks prove the earth must be billions of years old ignores one important point: such an interpretation is built upon a stack of assumptions. When we start from the Bible and examine the rocks within the framework of a global Flood, the need for long ages vanishes.

Focus in: Chapter 4: How Old Is the Earth?

Perhaps because of movies and fiction, the popular idea is that mutations make evolution go. Given enough time, shifts in the genetic code will produce all the variety of plants and animals on earth—and beyond. The problem? Mutations cannot produce the types of changes evolution requires—not even close. Some may benefit an organism (e.g., beetles on a windy island losing wings), but virtually every time mutations come with a cost.

Focus in: Chapter 7: Are Mutations Part of the “Engine” of Evolution?

Misconceptions about the Scopes trial run rampant. Often, accounts sound something like this: Fundamentalist Christian bigots arrested an innocent biology teacher fighting for scientific freedom, and while they won the court case, they ultimately lost the public perception battle to the well reasoned presentation of the defense. Thanks to the play Inherit the Wind, this common—though completely flawed—perception of the event continues to be used against creationists. But real history presents a much different account.

Focus in: Monkeying with the Media and Inherit the Wind

News stories thrive on conflict and intrigue, and one common meme presents science and religion as opposing forces—reason struggling to overcome draconian divine revelation. It grabs attention, but it’s bunk. Many atheists and humanists oppose biblical Christianity, but science does not. After all, the truth of a risen Savior and an inerrant Bible puts quite the damper on the belief that God cannot exist. However, science, as a tool for research, works quite well within (and, in fact, requires) a God-created universe. Otherwise, there’d be no reason to do science in the first place.

Focus in: Feedback: Does Science Need God? and Biblical faith is not “blind”—it’s supported by good science

Why address these arguments?

Answers in Genesis wants to show the world that the creation-gospel message and the book that contains it are trustworthy from the first word to the last. We don’t try to hide that. Most of the attacks against the Bible and those who trust in it are based on flawed premises and faulty logic, which is why we point out the arguments above as just a sampling.

Beliefs about the past—and arguments against what God says—have real consequences. If we do demolish such strongholds, it’s because we want as many as possible to experience the fullness of God in Christ.






http://www.answersingenes.../arguments-evolutionists

Evolution Is
Impossible to
Falsify

Serious problems have been reported for Darwinian evolution in these pages, and by other reporters ever since Charles Darwin lived, that should have long ago swept his theory into the scientific dustbin of unworkable hypothesis.  Yet neo-Darwinism survives, stronger than ever – strong enough to exclude any other alternative from the scientific competition.  How can this be?  A recent article shows how.

National Geographic News just reported the discovery of a fossil tiger skull from China, the earliest ever known, claimed to be 2.5 million years old.  That’s a substantial leap back in evolutionary time from the previous record-holder at 1.8 million years old.  Yet it looks strikingly modern, about halfway in size between a jaguar skull and a tiger skull.  One might think this to be a problem for evolutionary theory, which would predict a sequence of transitional forms from pre-tigers to tigers.  But here’s the headline: “Oldest Tiger-like Skull Yet—Hints Evolution Got It Right From Start.”

The headline should start several scientific sirens.  In the first place, one cannot personify Evolution as an entity even capable of trying to get something right.  And Evolution has no standard of rightness.  But if NG meant that it was a pure gamble – that chance hit a lucky strike by an unguided process – the statement could mean nothing short of a miracle.  To see if that is what was implied, the article can interpret itself.

• Representing a new species, the skull isn't that different from those of modern tigers, suggesting evolution hit on a winning formula early on and stuck with it.
• The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center's Meachen said the skull's similarity to those of living tigers and jaguars is more striking than the differences.
• "[Big cats] were great at what they did right away in their evolution, so their [anatomy] hasn't changed much ... ," said Julie Meachen, a carnivore paleontologist at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina. "They were—and still are—really good predators, in part because of their extremely successful body plan."

No statement in the short article suggested any problem for evolutionary theory with this fossil.  In fact, they celebrated it as a trophy for evolution.

We really need to get these con artists out of science.  In the Darwin Party there are the con artists, who know exactly what they are doing, and the conned, who have been taught only this mode of magical thinking since their youth, who don’t realize what they are thinking.  Academia is the brainwashers leading the brainwashed, the con artists leading the conned. It’s contrived, contorted, and contemptuous.   Confound it, we need clarity in science and in science news.  Embarrasment is a good tool for exposing a con; learn how to show reporters like this one at National Geographic how utterly illogical, inconsistent, and illusory their prop for evolution is.  If they listen, they are honest; if not, they are acting as mendacious, prevaricating purveyors of deceit.




http://crev.info/content/...is_impossible_to_falsify

NOVEMBER 12, 2011

Rethinking
Thinking

How a lumpy bunch of tissue lets us plan, perceive, calculate, reflect, imagine—and exercise free will.

Gorilla Genome Is
Bad News for Evolution

by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. *



March 9, 2012

Evolutionists have long maintained that modern primate species (including, in their view, humans) are branches on an evolutionary tree that lead back to a common ancestor. But the recent news of the published genome sequence for the gorilla in the journal Nature adds more solid data to the growing problem facing the current model of primate evolution.¹

This problem is related to a biological paradigm called independent lineage sorting. To illustrate this concept among humans and primates, some segments of human DNA seem more related to gorilla DNA than chimpanzee DNA, and vice versa. This well-established fact produces different evolutionary trees for humans with various primates, depending on the DNA sequence being analyzed.

In a significant number of cases, evolutionary trees based on DNA sequences show that humans are more closely related to gorillas or orangutans than chimpanzees—again, all depending on which DNA fragment is used for the analysis. The overall outcome is that no clear path of common ancestry between humans and various primates exists, so no coherent model of primate evolution can be achieved.

The recent release of the gorilla genome spectacularly highlights this evolutionary quandary. According to the Nature study, "in 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other."¹

Of course, independent lineage sorting and the problems it presents for evolutionists are nothing new. It existed before the days of DNA sequencing in regards to mosaics of morphological traits, and it now exists in light of each new genome sequence discovery.

One of the first papers to expose this problem in the area of primate evolution was published in 2007 by the Center for Integrative Bioinformatics of Vienna's Ingo Ebersberger and his colleagues. They wrote:

Thus, in two-thirds of the cases, a genealogy results in which humans and chimpanzees are not each other's closest genetic relatives. The corresponding genealogies are incongruent with the species tree. In concordance with the experimental evidences, this implies that there is no such thing as a unique evolutionary history of the human genome. Rather, it resembles a patchwork of individual regions following their own genealogy.²

It is noteworthy that both the recent gorilla paper and Ebersberger's report utilize highly filtered data in which repetitive DNA (which comprises a significant portion of the genome) is masked and omitted, homologous (similar) regions are pre-selected, and sequence gaps are omitted. Both papers cited here explicitly state this. After this initial level of data selection, a methodology called multiple sequence alignment lines up the DNA segments between multiple organisms and the data is parsed into evolutionary trees.

Therefore, the data are always carefully prepared and selected for optimal tree development and should be full of evolution-favorable DNA sequences. Nevertheless, despite all of the data manipulation to make it more conducive to an evolutionary outcome, the picture that always emerges is a unique mosaic pattern of DNA between the various genomes being compared.

These results continue to clearly support a Genesis-based biblical view of unique created kinds and mankind being created in the image of God.

References

1. Scally, A. et al. 2012. Insights into hominid evolution from the gorilla genome sequence. Nature. 483 (7388): 169-175.
2. Ebersberger, I. et al. 2007. Mapping Human Genetic Ancestry. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 24 (10): 2266-2276.

* Dr. Tomkins is Research Associate at the Institute for Creation Research and received his Ph.D. in Genetics from Clemson University.






http://www.icr.org/article/6723/