As I was reading through all the blogs I track the other day, I came across a cool article about this guy who made a fly-powered self-sustaining clock. It has a flypaper conveyor belt that traps flies and scrapes them off into a biocell filled with bacteria to break down the flies, releasing electrons, which are in turn used to power the clock and the motor that turns the conveyor belt.
The video explained that, understandably, the inspiration for this invention came from the carnivorous plants in nature that use bugs as fuel. And it got me to thinking that these plants are an excellent argument against Evolution. I mean, how would something like that come about by numerous small successive changes? I can't see any way. A Wikipedia article I read tries to explain the Evolution, but it skirts what I think is a major issue. This is basically a brain dump, and not a scientific article, but the logic is spot-on, so bear with me.
These plants grow in nitrogen-poor soil, and hence need supplements (bugs) in order to survive. Whereas plants like the Venus flytrap, pitcher plant, and sundew plant go about it in different ways, they all turn bugs into food. So how could something that's not a sentient being evolve from being a "simple" photosynthetic plant to a carnivorous one? If we assume that eons ago some stray seed fell into some nutrient-poor soil and started growing, what is most likely to happen? The plant eventually dies of course without all it needs to grow and thrive. It's a plant, it can't say, "Oh, this isn't a great spot to be in, I think I'll evolve something to help me survive!" But what really strikes me is that a fly (or beetle, or ant) is a completely different thing from a plant. How could the plant "decide" to go after bugs?
The only thing that is remotely plausible (as much as inter-species can be thought of as plausible instead of a joke) is that perhaps a plant in that situation would evolve to become parasitic, spreading out roots and taking nutrients from other plants. But this isn't what we have today. We have plants that get part of their energy from a completely different source, something completely outside "plantdom" if you will.
To expand on this line of thinking, I suppose a lazy thinker could be persuaded that a squirrel or muskrat could evolve into a beaver by virtue of living near the water, and that the squirrels with larger, flatter tails survived better in the water. I don't buy it, but for the sake of argument, let's say that's what happened. But what we don't have is a squirrel evolving to use a rock to carve out a little squirrel canoe from a stick, because the rock and the stick are just objects to the squirrel that he wouldn't think to use for purposes other than he does. Similarly, if we assume these plants had some kind of "knowledge" about bugs, it makes no sense that the plant would evolve anything to repurpose those bugs for its own use .
So coming back around to how this could possibly happen, let's break it down. Let's say we have a dandelion seed; it lands in a bad neighborhood that doesn't have the support it needs to grow. It dies. Ooo, not passing on anything there. Another seed lands in the same neighborhood later, a caterpillar crawls up a leaf, is taken by a bird, who clips the leaf, and some of the sticky leaf-blood seeps out. No biggie, but the plant later dies for lack of nutrition. Another seed, same story, gets clipped and everything. This time an ant walks by and gets stuck. Yay! We have a carnivorous plant, see? The ant? He dies. On the plant. Another one for Evolution! Hold on, don't sell the farm just yet. There's no mechanism for the plant to digest or metabolize the bug. The plant eventually dies in the nutrient-poor neighborhood. Sigh... Another seed, another bird, another slice, another ant... See how these things have to pile up multiple times? It's not like you just hit the jackpot once, you have to do it a million times. This is what mathematicians call practically impossible. The probability is so low that's it's not worth considering. Without the right plant in the right place, with the right attractive properties and the right processes and functions to metabolize and use bug juice, all you have is dead plants, not plants that keep getting stronger!
Rather than dandelion seeds landing where they can't survive and ending up evolving into a fascinating carnivorous plant, is it not much more likely that you just don't have dandelions in that area, and perhaps only plants that were designed to live there?
