Spider web structures and silks began their co-evolution [sic] about 400 million years ago [sic], at first probably as a protein cover to protect the animals eggs and young. Webs then evolved different functions [sic], including acting as a kind of wall-paper for the animals burrow and modifying the hole into a simple trap by radiating lines that inform the lurking spider about things beetling around outside. Even such simple lines expand the animal�s anatomical phenotype many fold by incorporating the body into an extensive silken net. The aerial webs of the modern [sic] spiders began to evolve [sic] perhaps 200 million years ago [sic] and are superb examples of extended anatomy. These webs also nicely illustrate the close interaction of material and behaviour which clearly are two separately encoded yet functionally inter-linked character traits.This seems to say that they evolved because they evolved.
This is a prime example of the leaps of faith rampant among Darwinians, who can discuss with apparent wonder the technologies of the animal kingdom capabilities that dwarf human efforts based on intelligent engineering then say they just evolved, with utter, implicit, and complete faith in the inspired Word of Charlie, who alone does wonders. Then they have the audacity to accuse non-Darwinians of relying on faith instead of science.
Vollrath apparently was not at all aware of nor troubled by the fact that he dodged the question about evolution. How did the spider web evolve? It evolved, he said. Any skill or technology needed was available to the spider with the snap of the evolutionary fingers. Example: certain spiders have evolved to produce web fibres that have an aqueous coating, supplied and maintained by hygroscopic compounds to attract the required water molecules from the atmosphere. How did the spider find these hygroscopic compounds and incorporate them into the production line? It evolved.
That explanation is all-sufficient. The precise acidity control? It evolved. The hyperbolic extrusion die? It evolved. The exact recipe of proteins, sugars, phosphates, calcium, sulfur, neurotransmitter peptides and other organic and inorganic ingredients that yielded a substance humans cannot emulate? It evolved. The ability to control the solidification and folding at exactly the right time and place? It evolved. The ability to sort out tough silks and soft, flexible sticky silks into a radial pattern? It evolved. The skill to snare insects, detect their presence, and get to them without getting stuck itself? It evolved.
It evolved because it evolved: that is apparently enough intellectual content to satisfy a brainwashed Darwinist. Some humans build webs, too; the tangled kind, spun by self-deception. Watch from a safe distance.
From Creation-Evolution Headlines
Thank you for bringing my attention to this article. I may use it sometime in the next few months as part of an exhibit clarifying how accidental features may form the basis for new evolutionary pathways and open up new ecological niches (the space _between_ grass blades).
Example: certain spiders have evolved to produce web fibres that have an aqueous coating, supplied and maintained by hygroscopic compounds to attract the required water molecules from the atmosphere.
Yes, it evolved. Many polyanions and polycations - DNA, for one - are hygroscopic. Take a silk fiber and change a few amino acids to give them a charge and you've made it more hygroscopic. Point mutation followed by natural selection = evolution. Or co-extrude one of any number of hygroscopic carbohydrate polymers, which arachnids make in quantity.
How did the spider find these hygroscopic compounds and incorporate them into the production line? It evolved.
The spider found nothing. The spiders that expressed a gene that made their webs attract water survived better. One wonders why anyone has difficulty with the idea.
That explanation is all-sufficient. The precise acidity control? It evolved. The hyperbolic extrusion die? It evolved. The exact recipe of proteins, sugars, phosphates, calcium, sulfur, neurotransmitter peptides and other organic and inorganic ingredients that yielded a substance humans cannot emulate? It evolved. The ability to control the solidification and folding at exactly the right time and place? It evolved. The ability to sort out tough silks and soft, flexible sticky silks into a radial pattern? It evolved. The skill to snare insects, detect their presence, and get to them without getting stuck itself? It evolved.
Why does he have a problem with any of this?
It evolved because it evolved: that is apparently enough intellectual content to satisfy a brainwashed Darwinist.
On the contrary, all of these processes were characerized by people who had enough intellectual curiosity to go discover and study them, then to have their curiosity denied by some jerk with time on his hands and a penchant for multicolored fonts. And what's his beef? Because in contrast with the complexity of the mechanisms themselves, biology has a comparatively simple explanation for their ontology - evolution. It's not that he dislikes the simplicity per se, either; he prefers another equally simple but far less useful explanation - Godidit.
Just one of the limited number of standard Creationist arguments. Compile a lengthy litany of biological facts - chances are, all of them discovered by Darwinian biologists - and then point to them and ask, how could something that complex have evolved? Argumentum ad ignorantem.