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<SMALL>(The purpose of this page is to present the illustration of the bombadier
beetle as written by Scott Huse in <I>The Collapse of Evolution</I> to illustrate
the problem that darwinists have explaining how some creatures could have
evolved.)</SMALL>
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<I>The following description of one of God's fascinating creations was found
in a book called </I>The Collapse of Evolution<I> by Scott Huse. Creatures
like the bombardier beetle cause evolutionists to have cold sweats! Many
other such examples are found in nature. They are reported in various books
which critically investigate the evolutionary
hypothesis.</I><A HREF="#footnote">
<HR>
</A>"The bombardier beetle is a small insect that is armed with a shockingly
impressive defense system. Whenever threatened by an enemy attack, this spirited
little beetle blasts irritating and odious gases, which are at 212 degrees
F. out from two tail pipes right into the unfortunate face of the would be
aggressor.
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"Dr. Wermann Schildknecht, a German chemist, studied the bombardier beetle
to find out how he accomplishes this impressive chemical feat. He learned
that the beetle makes his explosive by mixing together two very dangerous
chemicals (hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide). In addition to these two
chemicals, this clever little beetle adds another type of chemical known
as an inhibitor. The inhibitor prevents the chemicals from blowing up and
enables the beetle to store the chemicals indefinitely.
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"Whenever our beetle friend is approached by a predator, such as a frog,
he squirts the stored chemicals into the two combustion tubes, and at precisely
the right moment he adds another chemical (an antiinhibitor). This knocks
out the inhibitor, and a violent explosion occurs right in the face of the
poor attacker.
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"Could such a marvelous and complex mechanism have evolved piecemeal over
millions of years? The evolutionist is forced to respond with a somewhat
sheepish "yes," but a brief consideration of this opinion will reveal its
preposterous nature.
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"According to evolutionary "thinking" there must have been thousands of
generations of beetles improperly mixing these hazardous chemicals in fatal
evolutionary experiments, blowing themselves to pieces. Eventually. we are
assured, they arrived at the magic formula, but what about the development
of the inhibitor? There is no need to evolve an inhibitor unless you already
have the two chemicals you are trying to inhibit. On the other hand. if you
already have the two chemicals without the inhibitor, it is already too late,
for you have just blown yourself up. Obviously, such an arrangement would
never arise apart from intelligent foresight and planning. Nevertheless,
let us assume that our little beetle friend somehow managed to simultaneously
develop the two chemicals along with the all important inhibitor. The resultant
solution would offer no benefit at all to the beetle, for it would just sit
there as a harmless concoction. To be of any value to the beetle, the
antiinhibitor must he added to the solution. So, once again, for thousands
of generations we are supposed to believe that these poor beetles mixed and
stored these chemicals for no particular reason or advantage until finally,
the anti inhibitor was perfected. Now he is really getting somewhere! With
the antiinhibitor developed he can now blow himself to pieces, frustrating
the efforts of the hungry predator who wants to eat him. Ah yes. he still
needs to evolve the two combustion tubes, and a precision communications
and timing network to control and adjust the critical direction and timing
of the explosion. So, here we go again; for thousands of generations these
carefree little beetles went around celebrating the 4th of July by blowing
themselves to pieces until finally they mastered their new found powers.
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"But what would be the motivation for such disastrous, trial and error, piecemeal
evolution? Everything in evolution is supposed to make perfect sense and
have a logical purpose, or else it would never develop. But such a process
does not make any sense at all, and to propose that the entire defense system
evolved all at once is astronomically improbable, if not impossible. Yet,
nature abounds with countless such examples of perfect coordination. Thus,
we can only conclude that the surprising little bombardier beetle is a strong
witness for special creation, for there is no other rational explanation
for such a wonder."
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(Scott Huse, <I>The Collapse of Evolution</I>, pp. 78-79, Baker Book House,
1983)
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<I>(After receiving a couple of emails from evolutionists charging "inaccuracies"
in Scott Huse's book, I have decided to include the following extended quote
from Dr. Duane Gish's book, "Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics,"
Institution for Creation Research, 1993, pp. 101-104. Dr. Gish is responding
to similar charges leveled against him when he used the Bombadier Beetle
as an illustration in a public debate at San Diego State University.)</I>
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"Another charge hurled against me is that I continued to repeat an error
in my description of the remarkable defense mechanism of the bombardier beetle,
even after I had become aware of the error. I described this complex mechanism
in my book on dinosaurs for children, <I>Dinosaurs: Those Terrible Lizards</I>,
and used it first publicly in a debate that Dr. Henry Morris and I had with
Professors Frank Awbrey and William Thwaites at San Diego State University
on April 26, 1977.
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"The bombardier beetle has a remarkable defense mechanism and, after describing
this incredible mechanism, I challenged Awbrey and Thwaites to explain how
an ordinary beetle, through a series of random, accidental mutations, acted
upon by natural selection, could gradually change into a bombardier beetle.
Neither at that time nor since have Awbrey and Thwaites been able to explain
how this could have taken place. Awbrey and Thwaites subsequently, however,
did utilize the common evolutionist ploy of ignoring the challenge and grasping
for a flaw, even minor, in the creationist's argument.
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"When a bombardier beetle (<I>Brachinus</I>) is threatened by a predator
or an offensive invader of any kind, at the appropriate point of approach
the bombardier beetle swings his tail end around in just the right direction
(he never misses) and hot, noxious gases, heated to 212ºF (the boiling
point of water), are explosively released from twin combustion tubes right
into the face of his enemy. This is, of course, sufficient to discourage
any further notion of an attack on the bombardier beetle. Research has revealed
the fact that this beetle has a double set of apparatus. In twin storage
chambers, he stores an aqueous solution of two chemicalsl0% hydroquinone
(a reducing agent used in photographic developing fluids) and 23% hydrogen
peroxide (a powerful oxidizing agent). Remarkably, these chemical agents
do not react, the solution remaining as crystal clear as pure water. Apparently
the bombardier beetle adds an inhibitor which prevents the chemicals from
reacting. If these chemicals are mixed in the laboratory, the solution soon
becomes discolored, as the hydrogen peroxide oxidizes the hydroquinones to
quinones (in the bombardier beetle a mixture of hydroquinone and
methylhydroquinone is used).
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"When the bombardier beetle is ready to fire his defensive spray, he squirts
a charge of the chemical solution into each of the combustion tubes. There
an enzyme, catalase, catalyzes the extremely rapid decomposition of hydrogen
peroxide into oxygen and water, and another enzyme, peroxidase, catalyzes
the oxidation of the hydroquinones to quinonesnoxious, irritating chemicals.
The chemical reaction generates sufficient heat to raise the temperature
of the mixture to 212ºF, and the excess oxygen produced provides the
high pressure, and valves in the ends of the combustion tubes are opened
at the appropriate time.
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"My original source of information (and the only source available to me early
on) was a little pamphlet, "Darwin and the Beetles," published in the early
sixties by Dr. Robert E. Kofahl, then president of Highland College and now
science consultant to the Creation Science Research Center, San Diego. In
his reading of the article by Schildknecht and Holoubek, Kofahl apparently
mistranslated the German word for "unstable" to read "explosive." Kofahl
in his pamphlet thus reported that a mixture of 10% hydroquinones and 23%
hydrogen peroxide was explosive. Following Kofahl, as I told the story of
the bombardier beetle in lectures, in the debate at San Diego State University,
and in the book, <I>Dinosaurs: Those Terrible Lizards</I>, I said that ordinarily
a mixture of these chemicals at those concentrations was explosive. Awbrey
and Thwaites, anxious to find a way out of the dilemma posed by the bombardier
beetle, diligently searched for any possible slip in my story. As soon as
they discovered that the mixture was not explosive, they made no attempt
whatever to explain how the bombardier beetle could have evolved, but trumpeted
loudly, everywhere, this minor slip in the story. Other evolutionists eagerly
grabbed onto the story, and it found its way even into Nature, the prestigious
British science journal.
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"As soon as I learned of this little hitch in the story of the bombardier
beetle, I modified the story I related in my lectures. I had to wait until
the publisher was ready to publish a revised edition of <I>Dinosaurs: Those
Terrible Lizards</I>, however, to correct the story there. In the meantime,
the first edition was continuing to be sold. That apparently was the source
of the charge that I had continued to tell the original story even after
the problem had been called to my attention.
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"Dr. Kofahl, in an article entitled "The Bombardier Beetle Shoots Back,"
which he published in the evolutionist journal <I>Creation/Evolution</I>,
in response to the critical article by Weber, accepted the responsibility
for the slip in the story. He further argued powerfully that Weber's attempt
to explain the evolution of the bombardier beetle from an ordinary beetle
was exceedingly weak and seriously flawed. In spite of this explanation,
published in 1981 in the major anticreationist journal, evolutionists have
continued to bring up the story, implying that I have persisted in using
a flawed case, even after having been made aware of the problem. As recently
as my debate with Grover Krantz at Washington State University on March 3,
1987, an evolutionist professor from the University of Idaho brought up this
subject during the question/answer period. It is long past time that this
old tired story should be laid to rest.
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"Even if the mixture of hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide is not explosive,
a mixture of these two chemicals in the presence of the two enzymes in a
confined space is explosive. The beetle, on his way to becoming a bombardier
beetle, would have to be smart enough to carefully store the chemicals in
a storage chamber apart from the enzymes but in the presence of an inhibitor
to prevent them from reacting prematurely with one another. He also would
have to be smart enough to know which enzymes he needs to catalyze the chemical
reactions involved, and he would have to be smart enough to secrete them
into the combustion chamber. The combustion chamber itself must be very special,
able to resist the corrosive effect of the hot, irritating chemicals and
strong enough to contain the high pressure without rupturing. The combustion
chamber must also be equipped with a highly efficient valve, and the appropriate
muscles must exist to manipulate the combustion tube and point it in the
right direction. Of course, all of this incredibly complex apparatus would
be totally useless without a precisely designed and perfectly functional
communication system to squirt the charge of chemicals into the combustion
tube, secrete the enzymes into the combustion tube, activate the valve at
the appropriate moment, and send the correct signals to all of the muscles
involved, in order to point the combustion tube in the right direction.
Evolutionists would have us believe that all of the hundreds, and most likely
thousands, of genes required to direct the construction and operation of
all of this arose through a series of copying errors. Furthermore, these
complex genetic changes had to occur in just the right order, so that at
every stage of development the beetle was not only able to survive but also
was actually superior to the preceding stage. Creation scientists reject
this notion as more than scientifically untenable; it is simply preposterous,
a fairy tale! But once again, evolutionists have resorted to an <I>ad
hominem</I> attack on a creation scientist in order to obscure their failure
to explain fatal flaws in evolutionary theory."
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(<I>Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics, pp. 101-104, Dr. Duane Gish,
Institute for Creation Research, 1993)</I>
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