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| My head hurts! |
by Brian Thomas, M.S.
A fungus turns ants into zombies. Roundworms brainwash insects, forcing them to commit suicide by drowning in order to complete the worm's life cycle. Barnacles transform male crabs into females that then oxygenate the barnacle's offspring. These parasites' complicated life cycles and surgically-precise host interactions leave virtually no doubt that they were intentionally fashioned. But how, when, and why could God's originally "very good" creation accommodate such morbid features?
Researchers have also found fossilized evidence of a barnacle-infected, feminized male crab from a Miocene deposit in New Zealand. But again, the fossil merely shows that this particular parasitic relationship had already completely formed by the time of fossilization. Where is the evidence for evolution?
What Hughes and his evolutionary colleagues really needed were examples, either living or fossil, of parasites with not-yet-complete life cycles, i.e., transitional life cycles. For example, what about a roundworm that, instead of zombifying its host insect into a full-on suicidal jump into water, merely brings the insect closer toward a water source?
Instead, Hughes came up with this:
Ancestrally, some worms requiring reproduction in water must have managed to manipulate their terrestrial insect hosts to select slightly more humid environments, thereby conferring a selective advantage to the parasite as the emerging worm would be able to travel the remaining distance to a body of water without dissicating [drying out.]
That's it—a speculative story with not a shred of supporting science. Is this supposed to represent the best evidence for the evolution of host-manipulating parasites? (Emphasis added)
Hughes even admitted that these bizarre life cycles cost these parasites more energy than those that don't bother with manipulating their hosts. He wrote, "Knowing this, it becomes even more curious as to why it ever evolved."
Read the rest of the story here.
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