Articles

THE EVOLUTION OF INSTINCT

by Asyncritus

In my humble opinion, instinct is the most remarkable feature of the natural world: second only to the existence of life itself.

It is the force powering behaviour in animals.

We may argue and dispute about whether something evolved or not, but the one thing that is beyond dispute is the fact that instinct  exists, and that there is no evolutionary accounting for its existence.

Looking at the lowliest forms of life the viruses and phages, we see the viruses entering cells, and taking them over, turning them into virus factories. We know the details of how they do this - how they shed their protein coats, invade, and take over the genetic machinery of the cell and compel it to produce more virus material. And so on.

The biochemistry of much of this is well known, but there is one thing that will forever elude description. The WHY of their action. The REASON for what they do.

WHY do they enter the cell? WHY do they take over the genetic machinery?

There is no obvious compulsion for them to do so, yet they are driven to do this, somehow, and by something that cannot be identified. It can be called, even at this level, some form of INSTINCT.

An amoeba approaches a diatom. It's chemotaxis recognises it as food, and it moves toward it, engulfs it, then digests it. But WHY? Why didn't the chemotaxis make it turn in the opposite direction and run away? The amoeba recognises that it is food, it can be 'eaten', it will do it (the amoeba) good. but how does it 'know' this?

INSTINCT again. But what is that? And where does it come from?

The most startling examples come from the more complex animals, and I will present a few examples of the ones that have startled me the most. In every case, no evolutionary explanation can be sensibly offered. The sheer improbability of what actually happens, the fact that at every step of the way any mistake would have resulted in disaster for the species, argue powerfully that these examples originated in one blow, and not by any gradual evolutionary process. At  least none I've ever heard about, but it is up to readers to correct me.

We will begin with the Yucca Moth (Tegeticula spp).

THE LIFE HISTORY OF THE YUCCA MOTH

The adult female  moth emerges from the ground in June through July, at the time that the yucca plant is in flower (!!!), and mates shortly after emergence.

She collects the pollen of a yucca plant, using her specially shaped mouthparts, shaping it into a kind of horseshoe-shaped mass. She then flies to another inflorescence (on another plant.) There, she selects a flower, inserts her ovipositor through the wall of the carpel, and lays an egg next to the developing ovules.

She then climbs to the top of the style, and, using her specially shaped mouthparts, called maxillary tentacles (which are unique to the yucca moth), she actively transfers the pollen on to the top of the stylar canal. She repeats the process, several times, thus ensuring that the plant is adequately pollinated, and can produce seeds on which the survival of her young, and the plant, depends.

She then drops off the plant and dies.

The eggs hatch out into larvae after 7 -10 days, and they feed on the developing seeds, leaving one uneaten. After about 40 days, the 4th instar larvae eat their way out of the developing fruit, and drop to the ground using a silken thread. They then burrow their way into the soil, pupate after a year or so, and emerge as adults at the time of the flowering of the yucca plant.

The instinctive behaviours in this life history are nothing short of astounding.

Consider:

1 The young never see their mother or father, and therefore cannot copy what they did. They are born with the behaviour somehow programmed into their genes.

2 The female moth somehow knows that pollination of the flower is essential to the formation of the seeds, which are going to become the food for her offspring. She knows where the pollen needs to be placed in order to effect fertilisation.

3 Her mouthparts are shaped precisely to create the mass which is to fit into the stylar canal.

4 She somehow knows that the ovary contains the food her developing larvae will need to eat. If the plant is not pollinated, the seeds cannot develop.

5 The larvae, it has been observed, never eat all of the developing seeds, but always leave one or more to perpetuate the plant.

6 She ensures cross-pollination of the flowers, by flying from one plant to another after collecting the pollen.

7 The larvae, the grubs, pupate. That means, they dissolve entirely into a fluid within the pupal case, and reform into a flying creature, the moth. This by itself is a major, miraculous feat.

8 The pupae hatch out in June/July, at the very time that the yucca plant is in flower. Although they were underground, they are somehow aware of the correct time to hatch out and fly.

I have used the word ‘knows’ several times in this account. A moth cannot ‘know’

1 How to dissolve its grub character into a fluid enclosed in a case which is somehow going to reconstitute itself into a flying moth fully armed with instincts.

2 When to emerge at exactly the right time that the yucca plant is flowering

3 That pollination is essential to the fertilisation of the seeds and the survival of her larvae. How could she know? She never lives long enough to see either take place.

4 That the pollen she collects with her peculiarly shaped mouthparts is shaped exactly correctly to fit the stylar canal.

5 That the ovary contains ovules, which are going to develop into seeds on which her young can feed.

6 That cross pollination will ensure the continuance of the yucca plant

7 If the larvae do not have the silk thread, they would probably perish on impact with the ground.

Without the moth, the yucca species will perish. Without the yucca, the moth will perish. Each is entirely dependent on the other for its survival, because the moth lives on no other plant, and the plant is not fertilised by other insects. No moth, no yucca. No yucca, no moth.

The instinct displayed defies belief. Yet several reputable observers have described the behaviour in detail and published their findings, mithering foolishly about 'co-evolution' when they try to explain the origin of the behaviour.

It's like a lock and a key. Without the key, the lock is useless. Without the lock, the key is useless. Both have to be present at the same time for the device to work - and both are the work of an intelligent designer.

Here, we have several miracles rolled into a single life cycle. The moth would perish without the plant, and the plant would perish without the moth. Which came first? Answer: neither. They appeared there at the same time, fully formed and fully functioning. There's no evolution here, that's for sure.

I have to confess that when I consider the phenomena of the natural world, I am always gobsmacked at the incredible things that happen, especially when they concern instinct.

Here is another gobsmacking example which has me respectfully doffing every hat that I have at the brilliance of the Creator.

THE EUMENES WASP

This wasp occurs in my country of origin, so I'm happy to be able to say that I can testify to the accuracy of some of this from what I personally saw. However the full details are taken from various authors, such as Henri Fabre, whose observations carry more weight.

After mating has ocurred, the female wasp begins the process of confounding evolutionists (and amazing me, when I saw it doing this).

She actually builds what looks like a hollow igloo made out of mud, and sticks it on a wall or the underside of a roof. The mud is made of her own spittle, dust, and small stones. It’s quite a structure, too: about 1 cm in diameter, and 1 cm deep.

At the top, she creates an opening, and curves the lip of the opening backwards, much like the lip of a round ornamental vase. She decorates the nest with shiny pebbles too!

She then catches and stings small green grubs.

Now hear this you unbelievers, and marvel with me. She stings them - but does not kill them, merely inducing partial paralysis. This keeps the game fresh and not putrefying. I wonder how many wasps take degrees in anaesthesiology!!

Somehow, the wasp knows what sex her offspring is going to be!!! If male, she catches fewer grubs, and if female she catches more. Here's J H Fabre describing the Ammophila wasp:
http://www.pdbooksonline.com/free_books/The_Wonders_Of_Instinct_by_J_H_Fabre/page_23.php

'But the egg is laid when the provisions are stored; and this egg has a determined sex, though the most minute examination is not able to discover the differences which will decide the hatching of a female or a male.

We are therefore needs driven to this strange conclusion: the mother knows beforehand the sex of the egg which she is about to lay; and this knowledge allows her to fill the larder according to the appetite of the future grub.

What a strange world, so wholly different from ours! We fall back upon a special sense to explain the ™ hunting; what can we fall back upon to account for this intuition of the future? Can the theory of chances play a part in the hazy problem? If nothing is logically arranged with a foreseen object, how is this clear vision of the invisible acquired?'

Fabre asks a question it's impossible for evolution to answer.

But the wonders aren't over yet.

Where is the mother to lay her extremely fragile eggs? If she lays them in the mass of grubs, then they might squash it as they wriggle around.

Fabre says that he and his friends were astonished at the answer, and admits that he was unable to guess it. Before you read further, can you guess it?

The mother suspends the egg by a silken thread from the ceiling, out of reach of the grubs. When it hatches, it is suspended by its hindquarters, and can raise itself out of danger if a grub becomes too frisky.

She has also built an escape route for it, a protecting sheath that he failed to observe initially, because it was so well hidden.

Now wasps have a brain the size of a mustard seed. And yet, the mother is able to do all this - without having been taught - after all, she never sees her own mother, who dies after all the above is done.

How can she possibly

1 know how to make mud?

2 know how to build an igloo?

3 know which grubs to catch?

4 know how much venom to inject, and where to inject it so it paralyses, but doesn't kill?

5 And who thought up the idea of hanging the egg from the ceiling?

6 And how does a wasp learn how to manufacture a silk thread?

7 And how did all that get into the chromosomes?

The only answer is that the whole thing was carefully and competently designed.

And if it was designed, then there was a Designer.

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=16535