Watch a glasswing passing (without flying colours)
Glasswing butterflies1 (e.g. certain Pteronymia spp.) have large clear patches on their wings.
Many would claim they ‘evolved’ transparent wings (to minimize their visibility to predators). Christians might retort that only a Creator could have made these beautiful see-through wings. Who’s right?
Actually the ‘glass’ wing areas are missing a feature of coloured butterfly wings—scales. Both glasswings and colourful butterflies have transparent wing membranes, but colourful butterflies have pigmented or translucent scales covering them. In iridescent butterflies, by diffracting the light rays in a complex manner, the translucent scales (not pigments) produce the vivid colours, more vibrant than any painting.2 The electron microscope reveals ‘how complex the structures are and difficult to fabricate’.3
Such complexity, which man with all his technology struggles to copy, was surely constructed by Someone even more intelligent (Romans 1:20).
So, colourful (and especially iridescent) butterflies reflect more strongly the Creator’s handiwork than do glasswings. In this post-Fall ‘bondage to decay’ (Romans 8:19–22), glasswings have evidently lost genetic information (for scales)—in common with other observed mutations.
Such mutations demonstrate ‘devolution’, not evolution.4 Natural selection sometimes favours defects—e.g. the glasswing is likely less visible to predators than are colourful butterflies. But this is not evolution—no new information has been produced, notwithstanding that Pteronymia has been given its own genus name, separate from other (coloured) types of Nymphalid butterflies.5
And the fact that the glasswing can fly, just like butterflies with scales,6 confounds evolutionists on two counts. First, the aerodynamic intricacies of butterfly flight defy evolutionary explanation, pointing instead to a Creator.6 Second, the glasswing ‘proves scales are not needed for flight’,7 indicating that the original colourful butterflies were ‘over-engineered’ for flight.8
So why did the Creator bother to make colourful butterflies?
Maybe it’s because God appreciates beauty, and, given that we’re made in His image, He knew that we would, too.
Related Articles
Further Reading
References and notes
- Also known as clearwing butterflies. Return to text.
- Sarfati, J., Beautiful black and blue butterflies, Journal of Creation 19(1):9–10, 2005. Return to text.
- Graydon, O., Blue microstructures mimic nature, Optics.org, optics.org/cws/article/research/18712, 8 December 2003. Return to text.
- I.e., the changes are downhill, not the ‘uphill’ ones evolutionary theory requires. See: Wieland, C., The evolution train’s a-comin (Sorry, a-goin’—in the wrong direction), Creation 24(2):16–19, 2002. Return to text.
- Speciation is not evolution. See: The Heliconius hybrid butterfly: speciation yes, evolution no, 23 June 2006. Return to text.
- Why a butterfly flutters by, Creation 26(2):56, 2004. Return to text.
- Brockman, N., The delicate wings of a butterfly, Iowa State University Extension News, www.extension.iastate.edu/newsrel/2004/dec04/dec0431.html, 20 December 2004. Return to text.
- Examples of ‘over-engineering’ abound in nature, presenting a major difficulty for evolutionary theory. Return to text.
Readers’ comments
One Who weighs the Earth on the tip of HIS Finger and Knows the numbers of hairs on our heads.
I wish to however state that colourful (and especially iridescent) butterflies did not only reflect more strongly the Creator’s handiwork than do glasswings, but it it rather shows HIS infinite Wisdom which cannot be comprehended by Mankind.
Our Father is the Author of what i wish to refer to " Divine Exceptions". He does this by creating contradictions in all HIS Creations such as
1. All mammals give birth. but our God decided to create Australia's Duck Bill Platypus that lay Eggs.
2. All Birds Fly and Lay Eggs, Our God Created Bats- mammal that fly and give Birth.
3. Planets of the Solar System move in the same direction but our God showing HIS Power made one of the Planets to move in an opposite direction.
Whatever our God does, HE creates an exception so that the mouths of HIS enemies would remain shut.
So GlassWing butterflies are not necessarily a result of post-Fall ‘bondage to decay’ (Romans 8:19–22).
Glasswings have may not have lost their genetic information (for scales)—in common with other observed mutations.
Its more of God showing multi-faceted Wisdom.(Rom. 11:33. Eph. 3:10)
Thanks for all you and your organization is doing for the body of Christ.
"One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple." Psalm 27:4
"And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, And establish the work of our hands for us; Yes, establish the work of our hands." Psalm 90:17
and beauty is an attribute of holy worship
"Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name; Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." Psalm 29:2
"Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! Tremble before Him, all the earth." Psalm 96:9
Thank you for lifting up the Lord with the glory due His name in all creation.
Your Brother in Christ,
Michael
At present, no-one has yet determined whether the lack of scales on the transparent sections of the wings is because there is a controlling genetic switch which is turned “off”, or whether the genetic information has in fact been corrupted:
Regards
David Catchpoole
Also, the author does not seem to appreciate the beauty of this organism, which can be appreciated equally, I think, from either a creationist or naturalistic perspective.
Many thanks for your feedback. Note that we are fully aware that evolutionary theory is not necessarily progressive. However, the concept of microbes to mankind involves a NET gain of genetic information. Therefore in order to make the concept feasible, it would be helpful if there were information-gaining processes taking place all around us in the biosphere on a scale that would make the neoDarwinian mechanism mathematically plausible. I.e. a few hundred examples, at least. The unfortunate fact is that the examples of ‘evolution happening’ in the textbooks are all information-losing processes. They don’t contradict the evolutionary paradigm, but they fail to demonstrate it. It is therefore intellectually unsound to refer to them as if they did, which is what happens all the time.
To summarize: the evolutionary paradigm requires that Natural Selection/Mutation be capable of huge amounts of informationally uphill change. The creationist paradigm does not. The fact that we repeatedly see the downhill variety as the alleged ‘evidence in front of our eyes’ is surely significant.
Regards,
Carl W