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Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2005
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Claim CB952:

An important element in an animal's struggle for existence is adaptability to a varied diet. If, say, a bird depended for its existence on a diet of one particular gnat, and that gnat disappeared, then the species of bird would die of starvation. But evolution proposes that an ancestral wasp with a varied diet evolved into species with very particular diets. Such evolution would not be advantageous.

Source:

Fabre, J. Henri. 1921. A dig at evolutionists. In: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (transl.), More Hunting Wasps, New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, pp. 203-213.

Response:

  1. Evolution does not operate for the long-term benefit of the species. Rather, it favors individuals which leave more surviving offspring, regardless of the implications for the species as a whole. Individuals which specialize on a particular diet often do better due to greater efficiency in their area of specialization. For example, a wasp which specializes on hunting only lycosid spiders might succeed in capturing them 20 percent of the time, versus a 10 percent capture rate for the generalist. That edge will make specialization an advantage as long as there are plenty of spiders to eat. If the diet goes away, the species which feeds only on it will go extinct, but evolution does not have the foresight to consider that. This would be one case in which evolution is not the same as survival of the fittest.

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created 2005-5-24