Sunday, January 16, 2005

What, no mythological narrative?

Mythological narratives of naturalism are typical to Darwinists. Actually, there is a lot missing, a lot that can be deconstructed. That's why it is fun to get one into some writing.

But perhaps I can help them out on this by writing some naturalistic mythological narratives for them.

An interesting example of where one is missing,
"The living world is full of innumerable other systems, particularly among the insects and invertebrates, for which gradual evolutionary explanations have never been provided. A particularly fascinating case is the mating flight of the dragonfly. The male flies ahead of the female and grips her head with terminal claspers. The female then bends her abdomen forward and receives the sperm from a special copulatory organ which is situated toward the front on the under surface of the abdomen of the male dragonfly and which he fills with semen from the true reproductive aperture before the start of the mating flight. This strange manoeuvre, which seems a curiously round about way to bring sperm to egg, depends on the unique and complex machinery which forms the male copulatory organ. Although in its detailed structure it varies enormously in different species, the fundamental design of this extraordinary complex organ is essentially the same in all species of dragonfly. No other insect possesses anything remotely like it, nor is it led up to gradually by a sequence of simpler transitional structures.

As Tillyard remarked:

The copulatory apparatus of the male Dragonfly is one of the most remarkable structures in the Animal Kingdom. The “palpal organ” on the pedipaip of the male Spider, and the hectocotylous arm of the Cephalopod Mollusc, extraordinary as they are, do not defy all explanation, since in each case they are modifications of an appendage already present. But the apparatus of the male Dragonfly is not homologous with any known organ in the Animal Kingdom; it is not derived from any pre-existing organ; and its origin, therefore, is as complete a mystery as it well could be.

An interesting example of a very widespread invertebrate phenomenon, the origin of which is in most cases difficult to account for in gradualistic evolutionary terms, is that of metamorphosis. Many invertebrates undergo a dramatic metamorphosis between the egg and adult form. As described in Chapter Seven, in the case of certain types of insect such as butterflies, beetles, bees and ants, which undergo what is termed complete metamorphosis during a quiescent pupation stage, the transformation involves virtually the complete dissolution of all the organ systems of the larva and their reconstitution de novo from small masses of undifferentiated embryonic cells called the imaginal discs. In other words, one type of fully functional organism is broken down into what amounts to a nutrient broth from which an utterly different type of organism emerges."
(Evolution: A Theory In Crisis
By Michael Denton :219-220)

I kept going beyond the mating flight of the dragonfly a little because it is interesting, that metamorphosis of being born again. Dust you are, to dust you must return....yet another symbol written into Nature?

There is more that is interesting but I guess you'll have to buy the book.

So about the mating flight of the dragonfly, there is no mythological narrative of naturalism for that? Yet another one, missing.....well then, perhaps I can write one.

Once upoon a time, there was a group of dragonfly ancestors. I suppose the technical term for this group would be, proto-wannabedragonflyus. Now the problem with this group of ancestors was that they lacked a good copulatory organ. So the male dragonflies were buzzing around after the females, and few survived. Sometimes they would buzz after a female and bump into each other. Then in their lil' proto-dragonfly heads they would think, "Hey man, can't you see I'm trying to evolve a good copulatory organ here, now out of my way!" But these poor proto-dragonflies still just did not have a good one. But one day, one thought, "Man, I bet if I flew ahead of her and gripped on with these terminal claspers thingies, this would work better!"

And he did. It was a success, so all the lil' dragonfly babies began to look like the daddy dragonfly, who just happened to figure out his lil' terminal claspers.

So all the dragonflies lived happily ever after.

2 comments:

mynym said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
mynym said...

Thanks...

As to these mythological narratives and my attempt to help Darwinists out, I probably tread a fine line with that example about copulatory organs. It might bring some prissy Christians that lurk down on me, yet again! Sigh...

Oh well, at least they're nice.

It's like Ned Flanders would say, "Heidley ho neighbor....copulatory organs, now this is a diddily of a pickle!"

(But you see that he is talking through clenched teeth because he's angry, but just can't let it out. Now that's a diddily of a picadilly!)