Evolution: Did the eyespots of butterflies and moths really evolve to deter predators?
For two hundred years, scientists have believed that the eyespots of butterflies and moths evolved to look like large eyes in order to frighten off predators. A bird might think that the bright eyespots are the eyes of a concealed cat, for example.
It sounds logical, but there is a hidden assumption: We are assuming that a predator such as a bird pays attention to the same features that we would.. But does it?
Cambridge behavioral ecologist Martin Stevens and his team decided to test the longstanding assumption:
For the rest go here.
Other Design of Life news:
Cells: Scientists learning to tap cells' regenerative power, to regrow organs, fingertips
First detailed map of the Grand Central Station of the brain
Animation of life inside the cell as high art?
Also at the Post-Darwinist:
Just up at the Post-Darwinist
Ottawa Citizen's David Warren vs. the Darwinoids
Dutch cartoonist arrested for rude cartoons
The plant ate it? Not as unlikely as some might think ... (And what does that mean for Darwinian evolution?)
No, not without a fight ...
Cladograms: Reconstructing evolution's history depends on the assumptions you start with.
Learning biology is more fun with free virtual cell animations
I am not at all certain that there are poisonous butterflies or poisonous arthropods generally. Lobsters, crabs, lice, houseflies, scorpions, crickets, spiders and grasshoppers are all edible as far as I know. I understand cockroaches are unpalatible but I doubt if they would kill you. I know my frogs would not eat them. I recall that some investigator had his grad students eating butterflies and nobody got sick. There are very few poisonous animals but plenty of poisonous plants. That makes sense since animals eat plants!
Darwinism is pure mysticism. It is hard to believe isn't it?
I love it so!
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
As you probably know, Paul Zachary Myers has a one way communication system which allows anyone to send a comment to Pharyngula. For quite some time I have been forwarding links to him, most recently the present one. It is great sport and one way to deal with compulsive atheist mystics. There is more than one way to skin the Darwinian cat.
I love it so!
It doesn't get any better than this.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
When two organisms share similar properties there is no need to assume that genes were exchanged. It could mean simply that they were both expressing a common latent property that was present all along. This same explanation applies to the many similarities between unrelated species of butterflies. Often the mimic and the model live on different continents!
It seems that there are a limited number of butterfly patterns available for expression so it is not surprising to find them repeated many times. I am confident they have nothing to do with predation and may have no adaptive significance whatsoever!
Of course this "prescribed" interpretation is anathema to the atheist Darwinian mentality. They are incapable of even conceiving of such an explanation even when the evidence for it is staring them in the face.
One of its most dramatic demonstrations is illustrated by the remarkable similarity between the skulls of marsupial and placental saber-toothed cats which were separated by thousands of miles spatially and millions of years temporally. I have summarized the evidence for this interpretation in my paper - A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis and earlier papers published in Rivista di Biologia.
If you go to my weblog -
john.a.davison.free.fr/
and click on the Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis and then scan down to message #55 you will be able to link directly to that paper complete with the figure illustrating the skulls of the placental and marsupial cats. That version of my paper was provided courtesy of DaveScot / David Springer of Uncommon Descent.
"A picture is worth a thousand words."
anonymous
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
Since I was uncertain about the future of my weblog - Professor John A. Davison's Weblog -
john.a.davison.free.fr/
I have, with the help of an anonymous benefactor, transferred the contents of that blog to a new site - John A. Davison's Weblog -
jadavison.wordpress.com
I hope you will transfer your attention and participation to the new blog. You will have to reregister but that takes but a few minutes.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
I am removig my comment.
The bizarre markings of
The bizarre markings of butterflies were predetermined and have nothing to do with predation. They probably serve primarily to allow butterflies to recognize other members of the same species. That can explain why there is so much sexual dimorphism in butterfly patterns. As a source I cite Reginald C. Punnett, Mimicry in Butterflies (1915) -
"Natural selection is a real factor in connection with mimicry, but its function is to conserve and render preponderant an ALREADY EXISTENT LIKENESS, not to build up that likeness through the accumulation of small variations, as is so generally assumed."
quoted by Leo Berg, Nomogenesis, page 314, my emphasis added in caps.
and
"The struggle for existence and natural selection are not progressive agencies, but being, on the contrary, conservative, maintain the standard....Evolution is in a great measure an unfolding of pre-existing rudiments."
Leo Berg, Nomogenesis, page 406.
So much for Darwinism, the most enduring hoax in the history of science. As an alternative I recommend "A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis."
john.a.davison.free.fr/
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison