Sometimes in our study of biology we are faced with facts which seem at first sight to be more rationally explained by the materialistic theory than by the postulation of a supervising intelligence. We suggest that this is due to in appreciation of the smallness of our knowledge, or over-estimation of the powers of chance. We know very little about the penultimate causes or laws which govern the ways of life, but if we postulate foresight as the ultimate cause, it is unreasonable to believe that the intelligence which has created a diatom of beautiful form has no part in the small variations which occur in individuals or races. If we do not postulate the direct supervision of foresight we have only three logical alternatives, namely, that (i) foresight is acting indirectly through the medium of limited chance, or (ii) through the medium of a fixed law, or that (iii) pure chance has produced the effect.
In this article we wish to consider a group of facts which seem to favour the materialistic interpretation inasmuch as the argument from natural selection appears to be very strong. The matter referred to is that known generally as “mimicry,”1 and it has been the subject of much controversy; the theory of natural selection, however, has never been really repulsed among evolutionists. There are three different phenomena which are classified under the general term mimicry—(a) protective or procryptic mimicry in which the creature resembles its environment and hence is difficult to pick out; this type usually conceals its possessor from enemy vertebrates, but there are cases in which such disguise is adopted by the enemy for the purpose of concealing its true identity from the prey; (b) aggressive or aposematic mimicry in which the creature is brightly coloured and conspicuous in order to advertise2 its unsavoury character; (c) pseudaposematic mimicry in which the edible and defenceless mimic imitates an unsavoury model,3 thus bluffing its enemies. According to the theory of mimicry, birds and other vertebrates show a preference for the most edible insects and leave the aposematic models alone.
Each type requires careful analysis, but we think that the logical mind will agree that pure chance could not possibly have produced any of them. There is too much order and co-ordination, and too many cases of repetition opposed to the pure chance theory. For instance, the warning colour scheme of black and yellow appears in numerous unrelated species; and in the case of pseudaposematic mimicry, complex patterns of similar design are used in a number of widely different genera. Such repetition, if we view it in the light of the law of probability, can only be explained by foresight; the evolutionist, however, claims that natural selection acting on random variation is an adequate explanation of the phenomena, and therefore we propose to examine the theory of mimicry from this point of view.
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Author: D. A. B. Owen
Keywords: Evolution, Evolved, Evolve, Man evolved, Evolution of the species, creationism, Theory of evolution, fossils, fossil record, evolutionism, Intelligent design, mimicry, natural selection, Darwinism, Charles Darwin, Symmetry
Bible reference(s): Gen 1, Gen 2:1-2, Gen 2:5, Gen 2:7, Gen 2:19, Neh 9:6, Job 9:8, Job 37:16, Psa 8:3, Psa 14:1, Psa 19:1, Psa 33:6, Psa 90:2, Psa 102:25, Ecc 3:11, Isa 40:12, Isa 42:5, Isa 44:24, Isa 45:12, Isa 45:18, Isa 48:13, Jer 51:15, 1Co 15:39, Heb 1:10, Heb 11:3
Source: “Mimicry and Chance,” The Testimony, Vol. 6, No. 67, July 1936, pp. 278-82, 288.
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