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Showing posts with the label Symbiosis

Nice Guys Finish — More Evolved?

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The evolution story is convoluted, using natural selection, mutations, and especially time. Death is the way that life forms advance, Although Charles Darwin did not come up with the phrase  survival of the fittest , he incorporated it into revisions of On the Origin of Species . Evolution is all about the struggle for resources; those who survive get the reward of passing along their genes. Y'all might want to sing about it being a wild world, baby, but it turns out that the violent struggle is overstated. Indeed, creationists have been pointing out cooperation  for quite some time. Charles Darwin serving cookies, generated at Bing AI Speaking of convoluted, this post is introducing the article featured below, which examines a paper reviewing a book about cooperation. Of course, evolutionary selfishness still exists are a motivation. Yeah, convoluted. We've all heard about symbiosis (win-win) and the like: Woolly bats live in carnivorous pitcher plants , the oxpecker on ...

Symbiosis and Interfaces

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Science is constantly growing and changing, some disciplines more than others. There are models and predictions used to explain data, especially in historical areas such as origins. Many areas are underdeveloped and need work. Creation science also has areas that need to be explored and strengthened. For example, Genesis Flood models have tremendous explanatory abilities, but certain areas need work. Creationists point these out and have calls to action. One area in biology that needs analysis and understanding is symbiotic relationships and interfaces. Artist concept of Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, NASA / MSFC (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) As stated before, theories and models come and go, but biblical creationists (also called young-earth or young-age creationists) keep the inerrancy of Scripture as a priority. If a model has problems with science or Scripture, it needs to go away. Living things have their niches in ecological environments. Understanding how they...

Flowers and Ants Stymie Evolutionists

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Sometimes people knock ants off flowers because they think they are intrusive. But that is like bursting into the home of someone and chasing out visitors, only to learn that the visitors were invited guests. Many times, ants and flowers have a mutually-beneficial relationship: Plants provide shelter and nutrients, ants disperse seeds and help defend the plants. Besides, ants like to climb things. Charlie Darwin and his followers have long insisted that flowers and plants evolved together, but they have no evidence. Flower with ants, Pixabay / wal_172619 When checking the fossil record, ants have always been ants. Sorry, Charlie, no transitional forms or signs of a common ancestor. Biblical kinds  of ants are found ( kinds  are close to the  family  classification in biology), but secularists will not consider that. I gave Chuck a floral wreath at  PhotoFunia In addition to the lack of transitional forms in the fossil CD — I mean, record — the Bearded Buddha lam...

Thieving Vegetable-Eating Spider

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Try as they might, Pseudomyrmex ants cannot successfully protect their property from certain invaders. Especially that pesky jumping spider known as  Bagheera kiplingi —  just a moment. If you are like me, you probably skip over the Latin names for the most part, but take a look. Bagheera was the panther in The Jungle Book , which was written by Rudyard Kipling. (He also wrote Just-So Stories , and when Darwinists evosplain things, they sounds like Kipling could have written them.) The author was honored by those names in 1896. But those stinging ants want that raider behind bars. Or something. Bagheera kiplingi image: Wikimedia Commons /  Wayne Maddison  ( CC BY 3.0 ), modified with Ckler clipart This jumping spider doesn't use a web very much, relying instead of stealth, cunning, and other traits. It likes the same vegetable matter that the ants want. Interestingly, the tree they call home gives them food and shelter, and the ants protect the tree. That's an exce...

Bees Kicking the Orchid Buckets

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Just the other day, my prospector friend Stormie Waters stopped by my place to discuss something she read in a nature magazine. It was about a mutually beneficial relationship that bucket orchids have with a certain kind of bee. Symbiotic relationship are difficult for proponents of atoms-to-astronaut evolution, settling for " it evolved " as a standard non-explanation. As we saw in the post about giganticism , thinking people want them to back up their assertions. The bucket orchid and its bee show the work of the Master Designer. Euglossine bees visiting Coryanthes speciosa Hook, Flickr / Alex Popovkin  ( CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 ) Another problem for evolutionists is that the fossil record is unkind to their beliefs: orchids have been orchids from the beginning. No evolution to be found. If these bucket orchids had volition, it would seem fitting to refer to them as sneaky. They trap the bees for a while to equip them to help with pollination, which includes affixing pollinia to ...

Symbiosis at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park

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If folks saddle up and ride to Florida, head way south into the Florida Keys. The Spanish word cayo  means "little island". The Keys are an archipelago, and U.S. Highway 1 takes you to Key Largo ( Cayo Largo , long little island). Then head out to  John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park . There are plenty of activities year round. Boating, walking, hiking, and so on. But the good stuff for our purposes happens underwater. People who do snorkeling and diving can get a good look. Flickr / Matt Kieffer  ( CC BY-SA 2.0 ) Symbiosis  happens with mutually beneficial relationships, but things that happen in coral reefs are a mite surprising. Corals tend to be on the tiny side for the most part, and the living parts (polyps) generally eat zooplankton. Meanwhile, single-celled algae called zooxanthellae have a symbiosis with corals. Another fascinating bit of symbiosis is what are called cleaning stations. Big fish queue up and let little fish swim into their mouths and cl...

Seaweed, Sea Otters, and Provision

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Seaweed is found in a variety of sizes and colors, and many boat owners can tell you that it is extremely annoying when caught in the propellers of a motorboat. Fish eat it, and that huge brown sugar kelp can be eaten by humans . Nobody has offered me any. Sugar kelp grows along the coastlines in colder oceanic areas. There is some trading off in the animal kingdom with this seaweed that demonstrates how our Creator cares for the critters. For that matter, kelp's benefits to humans is beginning to be explored. Sugar kelp image credit: Flickr / Byrnes Lab  ( CC BY 2.0 ) Seaweed uses photosynthesis to get nourishment from the sun, but it is anchored so it doesn't get pulled out to sea. Sea otters are not interested in chowing down on the kelp, but other animals are — and the otters eat them. In addition, there is another interesting benefit from the otter-kelp pact. Tidewater-tossed seaweeds display God’s providence. Hidden in plain view, tidewater seaweeds are spectacular exhibi...

Competition and Evolution

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Maybe the main reason the owlhoots at the Darwin Ranch cheat at cards and at science is because they believe their own philosophies: competition, survival of the fittest, and that sort of thing. The strong survive, one critter gets to eat, the other one starves, the survivors propagate the species. People believe these things because they trust what "scientists say" — even without evidence, and even when scientists are wrong. Scarlet Tanager image credit: Morguefile / AcrylicArtist (Rodney Campbell) There are times when we see animals fighting over what they consider their stash, even though there's enough food available for everybody. But there are other times when they will help each other out. Sometimes it's a one-on-one thing, gotta watch out for your own kind and so forth, but there are also baffling instances of symbiosis, inter-species assistance where both parties benefit. Such things refute Darwin's idea, and show that the Creator has design plan...

Is Evolution Itself the Intelligent Designer?

An atheistic, evolutionary worldview is irrational. According to its adherents, evolution is an unguided process that is unpredictable. Expecting uniformity and predictability in nature, laws of logic to exist and so on is inconsistent with this belief system. And yet, evolution is presented as if it had intelligence. In fact, evolution is wise enough to design mutually beneficial symbiosis between different organisms, it appears. To hear evolutionists tell their stories, evolution is able to choose, plan, make decisions and carry out its wise plans. There was a book written by a priest named Nogar that seemed to have a weird religious New Age-y approach, The Wisdom of Evolution. We keep hearing about "natural selection", which indicates that if there is selecting happening, there is a selector. Watch a nature documentary and listen for the "just so stories" of evolutionary propaganda ( stories, not facts ) and listen for the way that evolution is portrayed a...