Monday, December 18, 2017

I Never Thought of Butterflies (and moths)

On the radio a few days back, someone was talking about how much food caterpillars eat in their short phase of life.  I don't recall exactly, but it was many times their body weight.  And then, miracle of miracle, at the end of the caterpillar phase, they instinctively hang upside down, somehow encase themselves, and then metamorphose into a beautiful, (or sometimes humdrum) butterfly or moth.

Most middle-school kids are familiar with this process, and I have known about it since about that time in my own life (though we didn't divide up into middle-schools in those days). But, I never really gave it much thought until I heard it recently.

How would my neo-Darwinian evolutionist friends explain this odd process of maturation?  How could natural processes find any possible advantage in hanging from a branch and changing the animal's total form and system.

As an aside, think about ALL the needs to sustain flight capabilities.  The animal, whether bat (mammal), bird, or insect (think bumble bee), must have a light enough body to be lifted, big enough wings to generate that lift, and energy systems to support wing motion.

Darwin famously explained that evolution requires small step-by-step progression into a new creature.  What intermediates would a butterfly have?  How would this huge metamorphosis occur?

Doubtlessly my evolutionist friends have some explanation, but in the end, it is a faith commitment on their part.  As for me, I can't summon enough faith to buy some contrived just-so story.  Not saying it didn't happen, I am merely reflecting my own small faith.

As the man with the mute son plead to Jesus, "... help thou my unbelief!" (Mk 9:24)  But of course, I, like that man, my plea is that I trust in Jesus more, not in evolution, because, it doesn't matter to me whether or not evolution is correct.

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