The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis and the Flattid Bug Society of Kenya

I first encountered the extraordinary phenomenon of the Kenyan flat bug society in my teens, when I borrowed Robert Audrey’s African Genesis from my father’s library. So powerful was the impression made on me by Audrey’s description of this insect society that his newly acquired faith in Darwinism wavered and collapsed. I had been converted to Darwinism by shortened and simplified versions of Origin of species Y The descent of man I read.

The flattid bug exists as a colony of insects that form a coral-colored flower much like a hyacinth, a flower that does not exist in nature. The imitation of a flower is so perfect that it fools insectivorous birds and other predators. If you touch the twig of what looks like a real flower, it dissolves into a swarm of tiny insects, but within minutes the insects will return to perch on the twig to reproduce the flower perfectly. Individual insects have wings that come in a variety of colors ranging from green, pink to coral. The general arrangement of the individual insects is such that you have a colorful flower with a green bud made up of a single insect. The insects, when disturbed, recreate the flower in seemingly random movements. But the movements are not random. Each individual insect finds its place in the artificial flower colony based on the color of its wings.

Robert Audrey, in his book, speaks of having felt a chilling sensation at the incredible and extraordinary achievement of evolution, but his belief in Darwinism survived what seemed to me, and still seems to me, a devastating negative feedback blow from the reality.

The powerfully convincing body of evidence, in nature, about the crudeness and inadequacy of the standard interpretation of the biomechanical means of evolution, in the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis, would seem to confirm the view of many cynics that Darwinism is akin to a religious faith. . that defies any magnitude of challenging evidence in the fight for its survival.

I have always found it necessary to make a fine distinction that evolutionary biologists often forget to make to laymen: evolution is not the same thing as the theory of evolution. Evolution is the observed fact that life has changed over geological ages from relatively simple to more complex forms. Paleontological evidence is abundant and speaks for itself. No one needs to deny it. When specialists say that Evolution is a fact, their main reference is the fact that life has changed throughout the eons of geological history. The Theory of Evolution, on the other hand, is the body of scientific theories that seeks to answer the question: How did evolution occur? That is, what are the biomechanical means of evolution? It is one thing to claim that evolution must have happened, and another to explain how it happened. The bone of contention is with the Theory of Evolution and not with the fact that it happened.

There are many biological scientists who are not satisfied with current theories of evolution. I happen to be one of them. I believe that the concept of evolution by random mutations will sooner or later give way to more sophisticated explanations of the function of DNA based on recent developments in Information Technology.