FCP-04-INSECTS.
INSECTS. When we turn to a different department of Nature and examine the wings of various insects under a lens it will be found that they are constructed on many different plans just as men do with aeroplanes. Every one shows definite scientific features according to the requirements of each. Yet all the wings on any given species will correspond exactly, down to the last minute detail!
Behind each insect wing, just as with a nail or a clothes peg, is a designer and one can see, with the naked eye and even comparing as many as one would wish, that the markings on various butterfly wings are accurate in every detail. It’s just as though they came out of a printing machine every marking, down to the smallest dot in exactly the same position on every wing and, every color true to species. There should be enough evidence in one butterfly to convince anyone there is a Creator!
We hear much today, in this age of knowledge, about computers built for the mass production of uniform designs but, God the Creator had introduced methods of mass production of millions of different, intricate, yet perfectly uniform designs, far more marvelous than anything produced by man, long before man himself was created. I venture to say, with confidence, that no living person, even with the aid of the most sophisticated equipment could correctly assemble just one butterfly, even if given all the parts intact.
We have spoken of the remarkable accuracy of the markings visible to the naked eye but now let us examine these wings under the lens. No one could fail to be amazed because the whole of the coloring and pattern is made up of thousands of tiny scale feathers! Feathers of various shapes, sizes, and colors, each feather being perfect in design and complete with quill with which it is set in the exact position on the delicate fabric of the wing! The way in which the pattern is worked out in the various colors is nothing short of staggering because even one little patch or dot may involve from dozens to hundreds of feathers of one particular color, yet there are just enough to make that spot exactly the correct size and shape and remember, in exactly the correct position to correspond with every other wing of that species. And this is not the end of the miracle because the underside of the wing is a completely separate layout and usually of a different design and color and, even more miraculous, the whole of this beautiful creature, composed of many thousands of feathers and other parts, is developed from a few drops of milky substance, hanging in a cocoon.
Think of it! This means that the whole of this pattern, consisting of thousands of feathers of various colors were accurately developed, in the correct spot, while concealed in a tight parcel! This only deals with one feature of this gem of a creature and, beautiful as the Monarch is, it would be no exaggeration to say it is a plain Jane compared with numerous other varieties which are exquisite beyond description. I should like to ask the evolutionist how these thousands of definite designs were, not only placed in the wings, but by what unseen power they continue to be ’worked in’, exactly true to pattern and color in every species?
One must examine this wonder of wonders under the microscope to even begin to grasp the marvel of it all, when one sees the size of these feathers. You may have noticed some time, when holding a moth or a butterfly by the wings, how there is left on your fingers what appears to be soft, velvety powder? Now!
Actually every speck of that powder is a perfect feather and it is this, coupled with the perfection of these tiny components, which make the completed creature such a living miracle!
Let me draw your attention to some scientific principles, proved by engineering science to be unsurpassed, even in modern practice and yet found in almost any insect wing, also in the wings and feathers of all birds. They are the taper, the strut and stay, and the concave, and corrugation and I have insect wings with the main structure beginning with a perfect triangle of stays, braced by lattice struts, exactly as is done in modern construction engineering.
Some of these insects, for example, the dragon-fly, are provided with special facilities which enable them to remain stationary in flight, move forwards, backwards, or sideways, instantly. Our aircraft engineers have a long way to go yet to achieve such feats!
Take now the honeycomb of the common bee.
How does it come about that a thousand different hives of bees in various parts of the world, (who have no communication with one another), all work to the same accurate scale, in exactly the same way as all engineers work to a standard measure? The bees work so accurately that, if you were to compare a section of comb from each of these thousands of hives, there would not be the slightest variation. The most skillful draughtsman could not even produce this on paper without special instruments.
How then does the bee accomplish this? And who fixes the design and sets the scale?
Furthermore. Each cell is finished in a cube at the bottom and mathematicians have found that the angles of this cube are as perfect, as they could possibly be, to give the maximum space with the use of the minimum material. Who then was the Master Mind behind all this? So much for the work of the bees but what of the bee itself?
Again one must see its various members under the lens to appreciate the marvels of its body. The brush extractor. The pollen sacs. The wonderful way the wing is constructed. The double hooks on the legs. Its marvelous eyes. The sting is designed like a hypodermic needle and is so sharp that one has to look carefully to see the actual point and, under the microscope a needle looks like a bullet in comparison.
It has three barbs set neatly in the side and through the centre is minute core through which the poison is injected. This little instrument is a miracle of constructive genius and only one of the wonders of the bee’s complicated body.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing I discovered was when I was mounting some bee stings. We know that when the bee injects its sting the barbs cause it to hold fast and part from the bee but did you know that, immediately, there comes into operation a pumping action which actually pumps all the poison from the large container down through the needle like sting into the flesh after it is completely severed from the bee?
Now, if this is not design, neither is the needle of the physician. Further, we all know that, the barbs on a spear, or fish hook, are designed by man to make their extraction difficult.
Surely no one will deny that the barbs on the bee’s sting are for the same purpose and, seeing this costs the bee his life in exchange for one injection, it is hardly reasonable to suppose this is either ’spontaneous adaptation’ or the bee’s own design! This is especially significant when one examines his relative, the wasp. The bee contributes much to life and gives his own life to protect his hive and the wasp, a far less productive creature, has a more deadly instrument than the bee and he can administer dose after dose of poison without harm to himself.
There is food for thought!
Other instances of definite design are seen in the wing construction of the bee. The wings are beautifully concaved on a most elaborate structure and are designed to withstand the terrific strain of their fast flight and, perhaps even more wonderful, are the double wings. A pair of wings large enough to support the bee, when fully loaded with nectar and pollen, would prevent it from entering some flowers so the Creator provided a double wing on each side, which opens when the bee is in flight and folds neatly, as one wing, when the bee is working. The wasp, however much we may deplore his ability to sting us, is in many ways also a remarkable insect and the larger species of them have the respect of most other insects and animals alike, and no wonder, because they have the most formidable and dangerous of stings!
They hunt by instinct, detecting grubs and spiders with ease even though they are completely hidden from sight but what I wish to draw your attention to is a matter concerning their young which hatch from eggs sealed in a compartment of their mud nests.
These young wasps, which hatch out as grubs, may not do so for several months, yet they must be provided with live food, on which they feed until fully developed, when they bore a hole through the hard mud wall and emerge.
Now. To provide this live food, the wasp catches spiders and grubs and, with its sting, injects an anesthetic into them which paralyses and preserves them, sealed in the compartment, until eaten by the young wasps. Who worked all this out?