Electronic gadgets have been converging for years. My phone has a camera in it; the next one, when this stops working, is likely to also have GPS. These different technologies are converging, they’re becoming as one. That’s not completely true - the camera in my cell phone hardly deserves to be called that, and the same is true for cell phone/mp3 players - but at first blush it seems overwhelmingly the case.
We see the same thing in plants and animals. Bats, dolpins, and whales are experts in the art of sonar. This isn’t always the case. Most animals have eyes; each species changes some of the details, but inherits the idea from a common ancestor. Different styles of eyes have evolved parallel to each other. There are many examples of two ( or more ) species with the same trait, who didn’t inherit it. In this case, they must have “invented” - evolved - it separately. Or: god really likes some creation styles?
That’s what I’m wondering, actually. How do bats flying through the night sky, and whales swimming in the murky depths, both using echo-location, fit into the creationist worldview? This knowledge would have been very difficult for evolution to explain before Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
- Thorns, spikes, prickles, and the like are found in too many plants to list.
- Four species of anteater make the same living as twenty varieties of armadillo, eight pangolin, four echidna, the numbat, and the aardvark.
- Koalas have finger prints, like humans.
- A possum in Australia has the sort of long tongue you’ll see on a butterfly, to drink nectar from flowers.
- Vultures live in the old and new worlds, both eating carrion. In the west, they find it exclusively by eye-sight, while in the Middle East smell plays as much a role in locating food.
- The sabre-tooth tiger had a distant cousin, the false sabre-tooth or nimravids, pictured at right. There was a third version, a marsupial that carried its young in a pouch.
- Hummingbirds are virtually indistinguishable from Australian Sunbirds.
- Some crabs who live on dry land smell in almost the same way as many insects.
Random chance is a very small part of evolution. Mutations arise at a low rate, and either get spread into the gene pool, or don’t.
Only those that give some type of advantage to their bearers make it into the next generation, and have a chance to spread. Randomness works under tight constraints.
Put another way, some designs are just good. Thorns protect roses and blackberries alike. Being able to digest carrion is tremendously helpful if you live in the desert, or on the steppe. Sabres coming out of your mouth can be an efficient way to take prey down. And so on. I have to admit, I don’t know what gave rise to finger prints - twice.
If there’s a reason why a god would prefer so many designs while inventing so many others, and discarding most of them, I’d like to know what it might be?
