The spider and the wasp
The wasp known as hymenoepimecis argyraphaga is a parasitoid that uses the spider Plesiometa argyra as a host for its egg and larva. This wasp somehow modifies the spider’s web building pattern to make a web specifically to support the wasp’s cocoon without breaking under rain and wind conditions.
As with other predator/host symbiotic or parasitic relationships in nature, the adult female wasp of this species paralyzes the spider and lays an egg on its abdomen. The egg hatches into a larva which sucks the spider’s blood through small holes, while the spider goes on, apparently unconscious of its condition or the presence of an intruder. The spider goes through its usual life building webs and catching insects for the next one to two weeks.
When the larva is ready to pupate, it injects a chemical into the spider. This chemical somehow causes the spider to build a completely different web pattern. Once constructed the spider then sits motionless in the middle of this web. The wasp larva then molts, it kills the spider with a poison and then sucks its body empty. It then discards the carcass and builds a cocoon that hangs from the middle of the web the spider has just built. After a while the larva pupates inside the cocoon and then emerges as a wasp to mate and begin this somewhat gruesome (to humans anyway) behavior cycle over again.
Thus the larva appears to be able to induce very specific behavioral responses in the spider.
This apparent “mind-control” is probably achieved with a chemical secreted by the larvae. What that chemical is or how it works is not yet known. It has also been shown that if larvae are removed on the last day, just before the spider is killed, the spider will often recover after a few days of spinning the abnormal web.
Now the obvious question for Darwinists is, “How did this evolve in a step by step process of random mutations and selection?”
The answer? There is no answer. And there’s no answer because it is simply not possible. There are far too many simultaneous and beneficial mutation/selection events necessary.
Here is just a very short sample of things that need consideration:
Both wasp and spider (or their ancestors) have to co-exist simultaneously
For the wasp to reproduce it must already possess the mechanisms related to its manipulation of the spider
The behavior of the wasp implies algorithmic information stored in its brain
The wasp has to evolve an injection system (secretory sys.)
The wasp larva has to evolve a literal behavioral program by which it is going to feed off the spider without killing it right off
The larva has to evolve the ability to manufacture the correct web spinning modifier chemical
The larva has to evolve a system capable of passing that chemical to its prey in the correct quantity
The larva has to have the most amazing bit of luck in the universe for that chemical to be able to modify the spiders genetic web construction program
…
There are so many intermediate steps required just for the above short list that it is mind bogglingly foolish to pretend that all this just came about as a mere unguided accident.
Indeed, the very facts that this wasp “knows” exactly what to do, that its larvae “know” when to feed or not, when and how to inject the web modifier, wait until the new web is built, then produce the correct venom to kill the host at the correct time etc etc. is uncanny in itself and inexplicable in Darwinian terms.
So how does Darwinism explain such creatures? There are thousands of such symbiotic relationships among living things! So how do they explain such wonders of obvious design and intent?
The same way it explains everything else – with a just-so story! But such stories only reveal the vivid imaginations Darwinists discover in themselves when they can’t really explain something under their own dogma. Such stories are always incredibly naive, far too short (as to the number of steps required to evolve such mechanisms) and worst of all these stories are not founded on any clear empirical evidence at all – just pure invention. Sometimes they present a vague comparison to some other similar instance that itself is not explained either!
When reading through some of the just-so stories published in supposedly “serious” scientific journals, one is lead to wonder how such trash can pass peer review. However we already know how; the peers are also staunch Darwinists with either -like a fool- have very poor ability to reason logically or are just as duped by story telling as the author is.
I could just as easily present the case of the emerald cockroach wasp, ampulex compressa, and its cockroach brain stinging that allows it to control the movement of the host. The female penetrates the exact point in a cockroach’s brain to disable its escape reflex! The evolution of such by the Darwinian mechanism once again implies too many remarkable coincidences for it to be unplanned.
So how do Darwinists respond to this kind of evidence against their theory when trying to avoid another just-so story? They will say that this is an argument from incredulity. A very common response these days since there is more and more such evidence being weighed against Darwinism. Unfortunately for them this is not an incredulity argument. This is in fact an argument from statistical mechanics. The mechanics involved demonstrate such a high level of integration and are so improbable – based on mathematics not incredulity- that the probability of such relations and mechanisms arising by the dual gods of Darwinism “chance” and “necessity”, is near zero.
There are far too many examples of mutually dependent relations in nature to list them or demonstrate why such are such robust refuters of the Darwinian illusion. I suggest those interested look up the many available articles on the web.
The wasp known as hymenoepimecis argyraphaga is a parasitoid that uses the spider Plesiometa argyra as a host for its egg and larva. This wasp somehow modifies the spider’s web building pattern to make a web specifically to support the wasp’s cocoon without breaking under rain and wind conditions.
As with other predator/host symbiotic or parasitic relationships in nature, the adult female wasp of this species paralyzes the spider and lays an egg on its abdomen. The egg hatches into a larva which sucks the spider’s blood through small holes, while the spider goes on, apparently unconscious of its condition or the presence of an intruder. The spider goes through its usual life building webs and catching insects for the next one to two weeks.
When the larva is ready to pupate, it injects a chemical into the spider. This chemical somehow causes the spider to build a completely different web pattern. Once constructed the spider then sits motionless in the middle of this web. The wasp larva then molts, it kills the spider with a poison and then sucks its body empty. It then discards the carcass and builds a cocoon that hangs from the middle of the web the spider has just built. After a while the larva pupates inside the cocoon and then emerges as a wasp to mate and begin this somewhat gruesome (to humans anyway) behavior cycle over again.
Thus the larva appears to be able to induce very specific behavioral responses in the spider.
This apparent “mind-control” is probably achieved with a chemical secreted by the larvae. What that chemical is or how it works is not yet known. It has also been shown that if larvae are removed on the last day, just before the spider is killed, the spider will often recover after a few days of spinning the abnormal web.
Now the obvious question for Darwinists is, “How did this evolve in a step by step process of random mutations and selection?”
The answer? There is no answer. And there’s no answer because it is simply not possible. There are far too many simultaneous and beneficial mutation/selection events necessary.
Here is just a very short sample of things that need consideration:
Both wasp and spider (or their ancestors) have to co-exist simultaneously
For the wasp to reproduce it must already possess the mechanisms related to its manipulation of the spider
The behavior of the wasp implies algorithmic information stored in its brain
The wasp has to evolve an injection system (secretory sys.)
The wasp larva has to evolve a literal behavioral program by which it is going to feed off the spider without killing it right off
The larva has to evolve the ability to manufacture the correct web spinning modifier chemical
The larva has to evolve a system capable of passing that chemical to its prey in the correct quantity
The larva has to have the most amazing bit of luck in the universe for that chemical to be able to modify the spiders genetic web construction program
…
There are so many intermediate steps required just for the above short list that it is mind bogglingly foolish to pretend that all this just came about as a mere unguided accident.
Indeed, the very facts that this wasp “knows” exactly what to do, that its larvae “know” when to feed or not, when and how to inject the web modifier, wait until the new web is built, then produce the correct venom to kill the host at the correct time etc etc. is uncanny in itself and inexplicable in Darwinian terms.
So how does Darwinism explain such creatures? There are thousands of such symbiotic relationships among living things! So how do they explain such wonders of obvious design and intent?
The same way it explains everything else – with a just-so story! But such stories only reveal the vivid imaginations Darwinists discover in themselves when they can’t really explain something under their own dogma. Such stories are always incredibly naive, far too short (as to the number of steps required to evolve such mechanisms) and worst of all these stories are not founded on any clear empirical evidence at all – just pure invention. Sometimes they present a vague comparison to some other similar instance that itself is not explained either!
When reading through some of the just-so stories published in supposedly “serious” scientific journals, one is lead to wonder how such trash can pass peer review. However we already know how; the peers are also staunch Darwinists with either -like a fool- have very poor ability to reason logically or are just as duped by story telling as the author is.
I could just as easily present the case of the emerald cockroach wasp, ampulex compressa, and its cockroach brain stinging that allows it to control the movement of the host. The female penetrates the exact point in a cockroach’s brain to disable its escape reflex! The evolution of such by the Darwinian mechanism once again implies too many remarkable coincidences for it to be unplanned.
So how do Darwinists respond to this kind of evidence against their theory when trying to avoid another just-so story? They will say that this is an argument from incredulity. A very common response these days since there is more and more such evidence being weighed against Darwinism. Unfortunately for them this is not an incredulity argument. This is in fact an argument from statistical mechanics. The mechanics involved demonstrate such a high level of integration and are so improbable – based on mathematics not incredulity- that the probability of such relations and mechanisms arising by the dual gods of Darwinism “chance” and “necessity”, is near zero.
There are far too many examples of mutually dependent relations in nature to list them or demonstrate why such are such robust refuters of the Darwinian illusion. I suggest those interested look up the many available articles on the web.
