Insects took off to keep up with trees, according to articles in ScienceDaily 6 November 2014 an ABC News in Science 7 November 2014 and Science doi:10.1126/science.1257570. A large international group of scientists has used genetic data from 144 species of insect to draw up a detailed evolutionary tree for insects. The researchers claim insects evolved from marine crustaceans, then moved onto land, and then developed wings and the ability to fly as land plants grew upwards.
David Yeates, an Australian entomologist who took part in the project, explained: “Insects appeared around 500 million years ago, just as the first land plants and stable terrestrial environments evolved. And as soon as these early plants started to develop height, which is about 400 million years ago, insects developed wings”. The ABC article continues: “As plants grew taller, insects could have crawled to their tops and jumped off, at first gliding, before later evolving to flap their wings, he says. By flying, insects would then have been able to exploit the growing diversity of tall plants”.
Editorial Comment: The essential and sometimes complex interactions between plants and insects are well known, and continue to intrigue scientists. However, we would like to challenge these scientists with this question: How does the height of plants give non-flying insects any new genes required that will make the wings, muscles and nervous systems needed for flight? Climbing up to the top of a plant and jumping off is certainly not going to create new genes, and will certainly eliminate many via a bizarre insect form of Hari Kari.
When we read such laughable ideas in otherwise serious science news sources we are reminded of Malcolm Muggeridge’s assessment of the theory of evolution: “I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity it has”. (Malcolm Muggeridge (journalist and philosopher), 1978 Pascal Lectures, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.) (Ref. botany, ecology, entomology)
Evidence News vol. 14 No. 20
19 November 2014
Creation Research Australia