The Case for Intelligent Design in a Nutshell Chrysalis

Home , Biologic Institute, David Klinghoffer, Discovery Institute, Metamorphosis, Robert Michael Pyle

COMPANION BOOK TO THE FILM

Edited by David Klinghoffer Discovery Institute METAMORPHOSIS COMPANION

Metamorphosis: The Case for Intelligent Design In a Nutshell Chrysalis A Companion Book to the Film

Edited by David Klinghoffer

We are the caterpillars of angels. —Vladimir Nabokov TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents

A Special Message from Dean Koontz...... 5

I. Introducing Metamorphosis...... 6

1. About this Book: A Still Small Voice, by David Klinghoffer...... 8

2. Reviewing Metamorphosis: The Case for Intelligent Design in a Nutshell Chrysalis, by David Klinghoffer...... 14

3. An Interview with Lad Allen, Producer and Director of Metamorphosis...... 18

II. Butterflies and the Case for Intelligent Design...... 22

4. Stranger than Fiction: The Riddle of Metamorphosis, by Paul Nelson and Ann Gauger...... 24

5. Mimicry and Protective Resemblance: A Philosophical Appreciation, by Bernard d’Abrera...... 40

6. What Is It About Butterflies that Drives Men to Doubt Darwin? Bernard d’Abrera, with a Note on His Curious Encounter with the Smithsonian Institution, by David Klinghoffer...... 50

III. Butterflies and Evolution: History, Science, and Art...... 56

7. “The Grand March of Nature”: The Evolution of Alfred Russel Wallace’s Intelligent Design, by Michael A. Flannery...... 58

8. Magic Masks of Mimicry: Vladimir Nabokov as Darwin Doubter, by David Klinghoffer...... 66

9. Darwin vs. Beauty: Explaining Away the Butterfly, by Jonathan Witt...... 75

Contributors...... 80

Photo Credits...... 82 ASPECIAL MESSAGE

A Special Message from Dean Koontz:

Metamorphosis is dazzling, insightful, and thought-provok- ing, with the power to open closed minds. For those of us who love science but decry scientism, this film affirms what we see everywhere from the latest discoveries in molecular biology to the long-understood twenty universal constants that, in their exquisite balance, make life possible: intention, meaning, and an intricacy that confounds all theories por- traying nature as a consequence of dumb forces.

Dean Koontz http://www.deankoontz.com

Hailed by Rolling Stone as “America’s most popular suspense novelist,” Dean Koontz has been compared to Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, and Charles Dickens. His books have been published in 38 languages and have sold more than 400 million copies. SECTION I: INTRODUCING METAMORPHOSIS

Section I: Introducing Metamorphosis METAMORPHOSIS COMPANION: CHAPTER 1

Chapter 1 About This Book: A Still Small Voice David Klinghoffer CHAPTER 1: ABOUT THIS BOOK

Chapter 1 “Neglected, weedy roadsides wherever About This Book: you find them.”1 A Still Small Voice None of that sounds much like the neat if wooded suburb where our fam- David Klinghoffer ily lives. So on a sunny Saturday in The purpose of this book is to serve June, I counted it as an unexpected as a companion to the Illustra Media blessing that a neighbor of ours had documentary Metamorphosis for read- let the border of property fronting his ers who want to know more about but- home turn to shrubby flowering weeds. terflies and the challenges they pose On the way home from synagogue, to Darwin’s theory. In editing it and our four-year-old twin Saul and I were writing some chapters, I thought with walking a steeply descending street, regret about how infrequently we get running down toward the edge of Lake to see living butterflies in the wild here Washington. It was lovely spring scene in Seattle. It’s a very different envi- and there, topping it off, was a most ronment from my Southern California beautiful butterfly. hometown which even had a unique Yellow with black stripes extend- native butterfly named after it, the now ing back from the edge of its fore- endangered Palos Verdes Blue (Glau- wing, a good three and a half inches copsyche lygdamus palosverdesensis). across, very large for a butterfly, it had Trying to remember the last time I saw swooped in for a sip of nectar, sharing a butterfly in a natural setting, I drew the tiny flowers of the neglected shrub a blank. with a group of fuzzy warm orange The butterfly season in Washington bumblebees who were seeking their State is brief, unlike California where it own livelihood. Later I identified it as a is year-round. Butterflies favor sunny, Western Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio ru- warm weather and generally only come tulus), probably a female judging from out when it’s over 60 degrees. They the prominent iridescent blue spots don’t care for the surroundings of a along the submarginal area of the city and even a suburb lacks the com- hind wings. forts they find most agreeable. In But- Catching sight of the swallowtail, I terflies of the Pacific Northwest, William drew Saul up for a closer look. I ex- Neill advises to seek them in open pine plained to him that the appendage on forests, mountain meadows and alpine the front called the proboscis, a bit like ridges, high desert river canyons, and 1 William Neill, Butterflies of the Pacific Northwest (Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press, 2007), p. 26.

8 CHAPTER 1: ABOUT THIS BOOK the straw that comes with those little juice boxes kids like to get in their lunch, is how the butterfly obtains her favorite beverage. Nectar is something like a sug- ary energy drink that kids would also enjoy. My son looked on with interest. “First he has to eat food,” Saulie commented. “And then when he’s done My son looked on eating, he says to the bees ‘Can you play with us?’” with“ interest. “First he has to eat food,” Saulie commented. “And then when he’s done eating, he says to the bees ‘Can you play with us?’”

Figure 1: The Western Tiger Swallowtail.

Later I told our older kids that the Western Tiger Swallowtail in its early larval stage disguises itself by mimicking a bird dropping. They found this hilarious and the occasion for an outburst of potty talk. I didn’t mention that many butterflies get nutrition other than nectar by alighting on dog or coyote scat from which they draw amino acids, fats and minerals. To each his own! The butterfly let us look at her for about 15 sec- onds and then flew away to the next shrub a few feet down the street. Saulie and I ran after her. This broke what I later learned is a cardinal rule of stalking butterflies: Don’t run after them. You are also supposed to walk softly and thus avoid setting off vibrations

9 CHAPTER 1: ABOUT THIS BOOK

she can feel through her legs. So as cause there are neither too few nor too not to scare her away, also avoid cast- many species to pique our interest.”2 ing a shadow over the insect, and try This understates, by a large mea- to somehow blend the outline of your sure, the spell of enchantment cast body with that of the shrub. We broke by butterflies. Even to speak of their all these rules too. beauty would miss the mark. Despite The swallowtail fluttered delicately, all the undoubted beauty of that spring awkwardly, down the street to another scene, with the trees, the lake, and shrub, and we ran after her again. the green highlands rising in the dis- Then she was off to the next shrub, tance under a warm sun, you might and then away again, at which point we still, if you really insisted, take it all decided to halt our pursuit. At any time as the fortunate production of an un- while she was feeding, I could easily guided process of cosmic churning, the have reached out a hand and caught same that produces stars and planets, her. Later I wondered, as have oth- oceans and deserts, and ultimately ers, how such a vulnerable, defense- Darwin’s tree of life. But now add that less, conspicuous and leisurely creature swallowtail to the scene. It is a flutter- emerged, if the conventional evolution- ing signifier of art and artifice if ever ary scenario is believed, as the fittest there was one. Dismissing nature as to survive over competitors. the product of blind, seething forces We had the opportunity to closely has just got a lot harder to do. observe this grand insect for about As at least my own tradition would a minute all told. It was a minute to have it, the supernal wisdom that per- treasure in memory. Paul A. Opler in A vades, underlies, and maintains exis- Field Guide to Western Butterflies of- tence is necessarily obscured and confers that when asked the ever popular cealed from us. We are like the visitor question of what distinguishes but- to a museum, gazing at a painting on terflies from moths, both groups in a canvas and getting lost in its fictional the order Lepidoptera, he explains reality, forgetting that it is the projec- that “butterflies are really just part of tion of an artist’s mind and creativity. the vast evolutionary variation in the The artist and the viewer collaborate in order. Another way to put it is to say this agreeable illusion. At certain mo- that butterflies are just ‘fancy moths.’ ments, however, it is as if we are that Butterflies have become popular partly same museumgoer when he notices a because they are conspicuous and be- 2 Paul A. Opler, A Field Guide to Western Butterflies, illustrated by Amy Bartlett Wright (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), p. 4.

10 CHAPTER 1: ABOUT THIS BOOK

signature in the corner of the canvas, scales to briefly fall away. There are that of the artist. This breaks the illu- as many as there are species of actual sion that what we are seeing on the butterflies, “neither too few nor too museum wall could be an actual scene many to pique our interest,” as Paul A. of life in the world, something glimpsed Opler might say. Whittaker Chambers by looking in or out of a window. No, described in his 1952 memoir, Witness, the painting is an artifice, the produc- the moment he awoke from his ear- tion of a designer. lier Communism: It was upon looking For the museumgoer, the realiza- closely one day at his young daughter’s tion may come as a disappointment. ear. He was feeding her oatmeal and It’s almost, but not quite, like the let even as the food got on her face and down you feel when the lights come on on the table top, he noted the exquisite in a movie theater after the show and beauty of the tiny ear and the evidence a young person from the theater staff of “immense design” it gave.3 The starts going around with a garbage experience shook him. He could never bag, picking up litter. again subscribe to the secular, Seeing a butterfly, of course, is the materialist dream. opposite of disappointing. The indica- It could be something as small as an tion that the canvas of nature bears ear or as great as an ocean. Before my such a mark of authorship, one among father passed away this year, he was ill many other signs, is one of those ex- for months in a Los Angeles hospital. periences in life that give you hope, There was an occasion when, on a visit in a culture blighted by cynicism, that to see him, I concluded a hard day by the enchantment we sometimes feel is driving out to the beach by the Santa no illusion after all. On the contrary, it Monica Pier. With sometimes high points to the ultimate reality, lying only levels of chemical and bacterial pollu- just behind the reality we observe. A tion, Santa Monica is no pristine beach butterfly dancing in the sunlight is a paradise. Yet somehow, standing with finger tapping you gently on the shoul- bare feet in the questionable water, the der, a still small voice from somewhere vastness of the Pacific abruptly calmed behind saying, “Don’t be fooled.” and cheered me, dispelling a darkness. A butterfly is not unique in this. You Contact with death and dying makes could probably think of many moments us vulnerable to the feeling that we are in your own life where catching sight helpless material beings in the grasp of something unexpected caused the 3 Whittaker Chambers, Witness (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1987), p. 16.

11 CHAPTER 1: ABOUT THIS BOOK

of a mindless material universal. It is behind nature, may well be indecent. a condition expressed in the Hebrew If so, then you can call me indecent. Bible as tumah or ritual contamination Metamorphosis is a fantastically beauti- for which the prescribed remedy is im- ful and informative documentary, but it mersion in “living water.” Touching the left me hungry for a more detailed and ocean, even at a somewhat polluted conclusive treatment of the contradic- urban beach, counteracts the contami- tions that butterflies have long been nating illusion. Like a butterfly, it leaves recognized as posing to Darwinian us surprised, grateful and wanting materialist philosophy. We have gath- more. It whispers, “Don’t be fooled.” ered the essays in this book because This is an intuition and an intuition doubtless many other viewers will can be mistaken. Some observations want, if not proof, then at least an need to be proved but some don’t. In elaboration of the ideas to which the his wonderful little book Real Pres- film briefly alludes. ences, the literary critic and philosopher George Steiner teaches that if materialism were to really win the day and conquer our culture, the expression and recognition of beauty would be crippled. He calls this a conjecture and admits it can’t be proven. Yet Steiner also cites Aristotle’s Metaphys- ics to the effect that knowing when an idea needs to be proven at all is a matter of apaideusis. The Greek word can “be translated as meaning a want of schooling, a fundamental lesion in education. I would render the term as connoting an indecency of spirit and of understanding.”4 To feel unmoved on seeing a butterfly, or even to feel moved yet to ask for harder proof that the creature points to the presence of an invisible reality

4 George Steiner, Real Presences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 231. 12 METAMORPHOSIS COMPANION: CHAPTER 2

Chapter 2 Reviewing Metamorphosis: The Case for Intelligent Design in a Nutshell Chrysalis David Klinghoffer CHAPTER 2: REVIEWING METAMORPHOSIS

Chapter 2 If you have one shot at opening the Reviewing Metamorphosis: mind of an uninformed and dismis- The Case for Intelligent Design sive friend or family member, the kind in a Nutshell Chrysalis who feels threatened by challenges to Darwinism, then presenting him with David Klinghoffer a copy of a 600-page volume like Ste- phen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell, or The other night, I watched the latest even a slimmer alternative like Michael production from Illustra Media, Meta- Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, would prob- morphosis, with our oldest kid, nine- ably be less effective than choosing year-old Ezra. Given that he pretty one of Mr. Allen’s DVDs. Among those, strictly requires that video entertain- Metamorphosis might well make the ment involve robots flying around blow- best initial selection, since the arguing things up, I expected him to scoff ment for intelligent design doesn’t at a movie about caterpillars that crawl come in till the third and final act. around, turn into butterflies then pro- When it comes, it’s a soft sell, pre- ceed to fly to Mexico. Conspicuously, ceded by a gorgeous, non-threatening on its remarkable unguided cross-con- nature film that only hints at what’s tinental journey, the luminous orange- ahead in Act III. In Act I, the focus is and-black Monarch butterfly fails to on the mind-blowing magical routine blow up anything at all. by which the caterpillar enters into the Yet Ezra sat entranced throughout, chrysalis, dissolves into a buttery blob as I did, which leads me to think Meta- and swiftly reconstitutes itself into a morphosis is going to be a big, cross- completely different insect, a butterfly. generational hit. A cute graphic sequence shows, by Metamorphosis follows on the heels way of analogy, a Ford Model T driving of past Illustra offerings, including along a desert road. It screeches to a Privileged Planet, Unlocking the Mys- stop and unfolds a garage around itself. tery of Life, and Darwin’s Dilemma. Inside, the car quickly falls to pieces, It’s probably true that with these films divesting itself of constituent parts that taken altogether, Illustra producer and spontaneously recycle themselves into documentarian Lad Allen has made the an utterly new and far more splen- most easily accessible, visually did vehicle. A sleek modern helicopter stunning case for intelligent emerges from the garage door and design available. thumps off into the sky.

14 CHAPTER 2: REVIEWING METAMORPHOSIS

Ancient philosophers“ and mystics spoke of an “animal soul,” different from the soul that makes Figure 2: The Monarch making its journey of migration. human beings unique... In Act II, we follow a particular butterfly, the Mon- ” arch, on its journey to a volcanic mountain lodging site in Mexico for the winter, accomplished each year despite the fact that no single, living Monarch was among the cohort that made the trip the year before. Only distant relations—grandparents, great-grandparents—did so. Given the brief life cycle of the insect, those elders are all dead. The Monarch follows the lead of an ingenious internal mapping and guidance system dependent on making calculations of the angle of the rising sun and on magnetic tugs from ferrous metal in the target mountain range. Experts explain and comment, including Center for Science & Culture fellow and philosopher of biology Paul Nelson, Biologic Institute developmental biologist Ann Gauger, and University of Florida zoologist Thom- as Emmel. The film argues that neither metamorphosis nor migration is the kind of feature with which blindly groping Darwinian natural selection could ever equip a creature. How could an unguided step-by-step process build metamorphosis, inherently an all-or-

15 CHAPTER 2: REVIEWING METAMORPHOSIS

nothing proposition? As Dr. Gauger ness.” Butterflies may not literally blow points out, once the caterpillar has up bad guys like the robots in my son’s entered the chrysalis, there’s no going favorite movies, but they strike another back. It must emerge either as a fully blow for Wallaceism. formed butterfly or the soupy remains More subtly, the transformation of of a dead caterpillar. the caterpillar hints at a deeper truth If I had a criticism of the film, it about life, that it is not bestowed on would be that too little time is devoted machines or other mechanical devices, to the evolution debate. You come as per the mechanistic myth. Ancient away wondering how Darwinists would philosophers and mystics spoke of an respond, and how ID-friendly experts “animal soul,” different from the soul would reply in turn. Hence part of our that makes human beings unique, reason for publishing this book. although people possess both an ani- Well, Lad Allen’s film won’t be the mal and a divine soul, along with our last word on the subject, just as it is physical bodies. The animal soul, in this far from the first. Contemplating but- view, is a vital force received by inheri- terflies was among the considerations tance at conception and, among other that drove evolutionary theory’s co- functions, participating in the direction discoverer, Alfred Russel Wallace, to of how the body gets knitted together. doubt the sufficiency of natural selec- Speaking of it as a soul implies pur- tion to account for the most wondrous pose, intention, intelligence. That sure aspects of animal life. Like lepidopterist does look like what’s at work in those and novelist Vladimir Nabokov a half- mere couple of weeks spent in the century later, Wallace noted the aston- chrysalis. Darwinism, of course, has a ishing, gratuitous artistry with which hard enough time explaining the con- butterflies adorn their wings. struction of a living machine. This In The World of Life, Wallace wrote is something much greater, posing of how he could satisfyingly account a far harder challenge to for this only as a feature intended by materialist evolutionism. design “to lead us to recognize some guiding power, some supreme mind, directing and organizing the blind forces of nature in the production of this marvelous development of life and loveli-

16 METAMORPHOSIS COMPANION: CHAPTER 3

Chapter 3 An Interview with Lad Allen, Producer and Director of Metamorphosis CHAPTER 3: AN INTERVIEW WITH LAD ALLEN

Chapter 3 ful creatures on the planet. The variety An Interview with Lad Allen, of colors, patterns, and wing shapes Producer and Director of are extraordinary. They are also mar- Metamorphosis vels of engineering. Their wings are covered with thousands of microscopic solar panels that warm the cold-blood- Lad Allen has been making films ex- ed insects for flight. Their senses of ploring the wonders of nature for three smell (with their antennae) and taste decades. Since 2002, he and editor Jer- (with their feet) are highly developed. ry Harned of Illustra Media have been Their compound eyes create a field of responsible for creating a series of out- vision more than 180 degrees wide. standing science documentaries about Their wings adjust, in flight, to take ad- the evidence for intelligent design in vantage of even the slightest changes the universe: Unlocking the Mystery in wind currents. Their life cycle (egg to of Life, The Privileged Planet, Darwin’s larva to chrysalis to adult) is one of the Dilemma, and now Metamorphosis. most mysterious and miraculous trans- The first two films have been shown formations in nature. on dozens of PBS stations around the United States, and The Privileged What is the back-story of the film? Planet was screened at the Smithson- How did you come to do this project? ian’s National Museum of Natural Histo- ALLEN: In 1988-89, we produced ry in Washington, D.C. Translated into two films about butterflies for Callaway more than two dozen languages, Illus- Gardens and the Cecil B. Day Butterfly tra Media’s documentaries are known Center in Atlanta. At the time, I was around the world for their high produc- working for Moody Institute of Science. tion values, their engaging content, These projects really hooked me on and their cutting-edge science. Here butterflies. We photographed hours of Lad Allen talks about the story wonderful footage in Mexico, Ecuador, behind the creation of his latest and at the Day Butterfly Center. In film, Metamorphosis. 1997, Moody decided to curtail its film What is it about butterflies that you production work. All of the butterfly find so fascinating? footage was shipped to Chicago, where it was stored in a basement for more ALLEN: I find butterflies fascinating than a decade. In 2009, I received a for several reasons. They are spectacu- call asking if we would be interested in larly beautiful—among the most beauti- 18 CHAPTER 3: AN INTERVIEW WITH LAD ALLEN

the footage. Jerry Harned and I flew back to Chicago, found the butterfly material, and had it shipped back to California. It became the foundation of Metamor- phosis. In January 2010, we decided to proceed with production of a documentary that would explore evidence for intelligent design based upon the life cycle Metamorphosis of butterflies and the epic migration of the Monarch proved“ to be one of butterfly. We felt the story and subject matter would the most challenging have universal appeal, and that the evidence for de- and enjoyable sign was compelling. films we have ever made.”

Figure 3: Jerry Harned on location.

What was it like making this film? What are some of the locations you used? ALLEN: Metamorphosis proved to be one of the most challenging and enjoyable films we have ever made. We traveled to the Transvolcanic Mountain Range in Mexico (elevations over 10,000 feet) to film the winter sanctuary for most of the North American Monarch butterfly population (more than a billion butterflies that migrate to Mexico from as far north as Canada). It was thrilling to stand in a forest with hun-

19 CHAPTER 3: AN INTERVIEW WITH LAD ALLEN dreds of thousands of Monarchs flying The same is true for the migration around you on a sunny morning. You of the Monarch butterflies. Monarchs could hear their wings flap. that emerge in the spring or early sum- We also filmed extensively at the mer live for about two to four weeks. McGuire Center for Lepidoptera at the But the generation that emerges in University of Florida, and at Butterfly late August is genetically equipped to World in Ft. Lauderdale. The McGuire live up to nine months. It’s called the Center is one of the finest butterfly “Methuselah Generation.” This enables research centers in the world. Butter- these tropical butterflies (that would fly World is the largest display of free- die if exposed to the freezing winter flying butterflies (about 10,000 in all) temperatures of the Midwest and Can- in the Western hemisphere. There, we ada) to migrate as far as 3,000 miles, photographed every stage of the meta- to a small area of forest in the Trans- morphosis process, and slow-motion volcanic Mountains of central Mexico. studies of butterflies in flight. There, the conditions are right to ensure the survival of the Monarchs until Butterflies often inspire a sense of spring. In March, the Monarchs become wonder in children and adults alike. sexually active for the first time. They Did you experience that when mate and then begin their return mi- working on the film? gration north. When they reach south- ALLEN: This entire project was ern Texas, the females lay their eggs enveloped in wonder. A butterfly’s life (only on milkweed plants—the only cycle is still one of the great mysteries food source their caterpillars will eat) of the natural world. An earth-bound and soon die. Throughout the summer caterpillar encases itself in a casing months, new generations of Monarchs called a chrysalis. There, its organs emerge and move north—living, again, are dissolved into a chemical soup. between two and four weeks. Then, They are then rearranged to help build in early September, a new Methuselah wings, compound eyes, reproductive Generation—three or four generations systems, and a host of other organs removed from the Monarchs that mi- that did not exist in the caterpillar. It’s grated the previous year—travel from an incredible process that screams out as far north as Canada to the same purpose, foresight, engineering, and trees that provided sanctuary for their design. Every scientist and scholar we grandparents and great grandparents, interviewed was in awe of the process. the year before. The navigational sys-

20 CHAPTER 3: AN INTERVIEW WITH LAD ALLEN

tems that enable these insects (that This fact makes a Darwinian expla- each weigh less than a quarter of an nation for metamorphosis extremely ounce) to navigate so precisely to a difficult to formulate. Before there was forest in Mexico they have never been a butterfly, how did the first caterpil- before are incredible. lars rebuild their bodies—into winged insects that didn’t previously exist— How do butterflies help make a case through a series of small gradual evo- for intelligent design? lutionary steps…that included cell death ALLEN: I think the beauty evident and suicide? The only way this would in butterflies is evidence for design. be possible is if metamorphosis was The patterns, colors, and shapes of orchestrated by an agent capable of their wings are far beyond what is foresight and purpose. An agent that required for camouflage or attract- could look into the future and visualize ing a mate. I think it’s often a case of what it was going to become. An undi- gratuitous, over-the-top beauty that rected natural process couldn’t do that. may exist—in some measure—for hu- But an intelligent designer could. man beings to enjoy. Natural selection, by definition, doesn’t lead to physical characteristics that exist for purposes other than survival. It doesn’t make things for the purpose of “just being beautiful.” But intelligence does. You also see strong evidence for design in the metamorphosis process itself. When the caterpillar enters the chrysalis stage it kills itself, as its internal organs dissolve. Before it initi- ates that stage of its life cycle, it has to have a plan for getting out the other side as a fully functioning adult. If the transformation is incomplete, the caterpillar is dead.

21 SECTION II: BUTTERFLIES AND THE CASE FOR INTELLIGENT DESIGN

Section II: Butterflies and the Case for Intelligent Design METAMORPHOSIS COMPANION: CHAPTER 4

Chapter 4 Stranger than Fiction: The Riddle of Metamorphosis Paul Nelson and Ann Gauger CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION

Chapter 4 animal, completely unlike what Stranger than Fiction: came before. The Riddle of Metamorphosis Thus the butterfly’s life history involves the development of not one, Paul Nelson and Ann Gauger but two sequential body plans. This transformation is known as metamor- Imagine tucking yourself into bed phosis (literally meaning “to change one night and waking up as a com- one’s shape”). pletely different creature. Your tissues Strange as this story is, metamor- have dissolved, and you have grown a phosis is not limited to insects. In fact, new skeleton, a new straw-like mouth, animals whose life histories involve two eyes capable of seeing colors into the or more distinct body plans are the ultraviolet and near infrared, a new and rule rather than the exception.5 Most powerful sense of smell, and an iri- marine invertebrates (animals without descent set of wings. You can eat only backbones) have a metamorphic life nectar, and you are overwhelmed by history, with one or more free-swim- the urge to find another creature like ming larval stages, followed by a bot- you and mate with him or her. Sound tom-dwelling, reproductive adult stage. like fiction? Parasitic organisms can also have two Yet this is the life story of the cat- or more developmental body plans, erpillar. It hatches out of the egg as a each specially adapted for a particular worm-like creature whose sole purpose host. Even some vertebrates, including is to eat as much as possible and to frogs, toads and salamanders, go from grow as rapidly as it can. When it has an aquatic larval stage (tadpole) to a grown large enough, it tucks itself into terrestrial adult. Given the widespread bed (we know it as the chrysalis or presence of metamorphosis as a devel- pupa), and over the course of several opmental strategy, one would expect days, while it sleeps, so to speak, its there to be good explanations for its body is built anew. Caterpillar (larval) evolutionary origin. Yet it remains an tissues are dissolved or remodeled, enigma, for a number of reasons. and new wings, legs, eyes, antennae, nerve connections, muscles, epidermis, I. What the Fossils (Don’t) Show and reproductive organs develop. Even According to standard geological the brain itself undergoes a substantial transformation. The adult butterfly -fi 5 Wallace Arthur, The Origin of Animal Body Plans: A Study in Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Cambridge, United King- nally emerges as a beautiful, free-flying dom: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 271. 24 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION models, multicellular marine inverte- Winged insects such as dragonflies brates such as crustaceans, worms, and mayflies appeared in the late De- mollusks, and echinoderms appeared vonian or early Carboniferous. Scien- for the first time during the Cambrian tists generally agree that all winged explosion 540 to 520 million years ago. insects came from a single lineage, The sudden appearance in the fossil but debate still rages in the scientific record of animals with such complex, community about how it happened. distinct body plans has spawned many It appears, based on some fossilized theories but no satisfactory answers. nymphs and adults and from what we Darwin himself acknowledged that this know of their modern relatives, that mystery was the single most difficult from the beginning these insects had a challenge to his theory. Even more partial form of metamorphosis (hemi- mysteriously, it appears that the most metabolous—literally, “part changing”— ancient phyla were metamorphic from development). The nymphs resemble the beginning, based on the few larval adults in many respects, but lack wings forms that have been preserved.6 This and reproductive structures. Through suggests that these Cambrian animals several successive molts their wings had not one but two or more develop- grow gradually, with fully developed mental stages at the outset, a small wings and reproductive organs appear- and free-swimming larva, and a bot- ing only in the adult. Other familiar tom-dwelling adult with little or no re- hemimetabolous groups include grass- semblance to its earlier form. But how hoppers and crickets. such transitions could have evolved, Insects that undergo complete and from what, is completely unknown. metamorphosis, such as beetles, flies In contrast, insects arrived on the and ants, did not appear until the late scene much later, in the late Silurian or Carboniferous or early Devonian. early Devonian, and apparently devel- These insects have been fabulously oped metamorphosis secondarily. The successful. In fact, nearly 85 percent most ancient insects were wingless, of all modern insect species have terrestrial animals that developed holometabolous—literally, “all directly into mini-adults, and lacked changing”—development. any metamorphosis (this is called Butterflies and moths were among ametabolous—literally, “without the last to appear on the scene. Their changing”—development). order, the Lepidoptera—literally, “scaly 6 Richard Strathmann, “Hypotheses on the Origins of Marine Lar- wings”—first appeared in the fossil vae,” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 24 (1993), p. 89.

25 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION

record in the Jurassic, and more signifi- Now to outline the scope of the cantly in the Cretaceous. These insects problem. have a dramatic—and well-known—holometabolous life history. II. Directions That Work, What distinguishes holometabolous Directions That Don’t species is their strikingly different life Imagine being invited to a wed- stages. The major stages of holome- ding and receiving with the invitation a tabolous (abbreviated Holo) metamor- hand-drawn map that looks something phosis are (a) egg, (b) larva (often like this: given a different name, such as “caterpillar”), (c) pupa (or chrysalis), and (d) adult, in that sequence:

Holo egg > larva > pupa > adult

Contrast this with hemimetabolous (abbreviated Hemi) development:

Hemi egg > nymph > adult Figure 1. Hand-drawn, impressionistic “map.” Because hemimetabolous development appears simpler, and because The written directions accompany- fossil insects with this pattern of de- ing the map read this way: velopment appear earlier in the fossil record, it is thought by most scientists • Take Route 62 to be evolutionarily primitive, evolving • Go straight, but not too far prior to the more complicated pathway • Turn at stoplight seen in most modern insects. • When you see that brick wall, Thus, from an evolutionary stand- turn again point, the problem of the origin of but- • Church is right there terfly metamorphosis—in particular, of the pupal stage—is really the problem About twenty years ago—before of the origin of holometabolous meta- GPS devices or Google Maps—my wife morphosis generally, not just in Lepi- and I (Paul) found ourselves in just this doptera (although the pathway is espe- situation. (I’m omitting the details to cially dramatic in butterflies). 26 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION

spare the feelings of loved ones.) It’s thing, because they exclude too little. quite certain that the church was “right Such pathways might as well be there,” somewhere, at least in the mind random walks. of the mapmaker—but after nearly an With those contrasting images in hour of increasingly desperate search- mind, let’s turn to animal development: ing, driving past innumerable candidate in particular, to butterfly metamorpho- stoplights and brick walls, we stopped sis, which is development with all the to ask for help. The locals who saw our lights flashing, and the siren wailing, map shook their heads in bewilder- too—not to mention a marching band, ment. No wonder you’re lost, they said. baton twirlers, colorful floats, and the “Had we but world enough and homecoming queen waving from time,” to quote Andrew Marvell, we a convertible. could have searched the area via an undirected, or random, walk. Sooner or III. Animal Development Is a Highly later, the church would have appeared. Specific Pathway Across a Magic Bridge But, in the finite interval we had, a ran- When an egg of a female Monarch dom walk wouldn’t do. And, in practice, butterfly is fertilized by the sperm of no one ever reaches their destination a male, that cell, and its many daugh- using randomly generated directions. ter cells, set out on a long, targeted That would be known as “getting lost.” pathway: A to B to C—and so on, to Z, In our universal experience, map where Z is the adult form capable of directions that work as they should are reproduction, thus starting the whole the product of intelligent design. The cycle again. The pathway aims at the directions describe a pathway linking target of reproductive capability. Keep a starting point—call it A—through a that in mind, because we’ll come back series of specific steps (B, C, D, and so to it shortly when we consider the logic on) to a destination: call it Z. Such di- of natural selection. rections guide us because of what they But there’s another important fea- exclude, out of a vastly greater range ture to development—in all animals, not of possibilities, which is the very defi- just butterflies—too little grasped, even nition of information. Hopelessly non- by many biologists. specific “directions,” by contrast—you know that one brick wall? Well, turn there—cannot function to guide any-

27 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION

...as long as one Fertilized egg Adult capable keeps“ walking in the of reproduction right direction, the bridge will Figure 2. The “magic bridge” of animal development, be there beneath from fertilization to reproductively capable adult. one’s feet.... ” When an egg divides, the mass of cells to which it gives rise must “keep going” to reach the adult form (defined as being capable of producing gametes, i.e., reproductive cells such as eggs and sperm). One can think about this like someone walking from one side to another across what might be called a magical bridge, a structure that would fit perfectly in an Indiana Jones movie. The bridge is magical (so to speak) because, as long as one keeps walking in the right direction, the bridge will be there beneath one’s feet. The moment one stops moving, or heads in the wrong direction, the bridge instantly disappears, with dreadful consequences—into the gorge one tumbles. Developmental biologists know this “magic bridge” aspect to animal development intimately. Early embryos, for instance, are often described by isolating fate maps for particular groups of cells. A fate map shows the ultimate or terminal destination, in the adult form, of cell lineages that first arise in the embryo, in positions that often scarcely resemble their final target. But to get to that target, the cells must follow a prescribed path, with unerring trajectories

28 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION

breathtaking in their complexity and IV. Natural Selection: A Real Process, precision. The entire process is re- but Entirely without Foresight quired; it can neither stop nor go off The process of natural selection track. An embryo whose development requires three conditions. When these is arrested midway or distorted in a are present in a population of organ- major way will die: the end goal of re- isms, they are jointly necessary and productive adult will be lost. sufficient for natural selection to occur: Butterfly development exhibits these precise pathways, but with the 1. Variation in some trait p additional aspect of crossing a bridge (the variations can be molecular, of astonishing delicacy: namely, the physiological, anatomical, or chrysalis. Here, the Indiana Jones behavioral—any heritable trait of magic bridge dimension really does an organism may be affected). take one’s breath away, because dur- 2. Selection in relation to the ing the pupal stage (in the chrysalis), presence or absence of trait the tissues and structures of the cat- p: organisms possessing trait erpillar are almost entirely dissolved p must leave more offspring than away, digested by cell death processes those without p. (known as apoptosis and autophagy) 3. Heritability of trait p: parents into a molecular soup. The walker on must be able to transmit trait the bridge crosses on a lane just wide p to their offspring. enough for each footstep, with a chasm of death on either side—and the walker Note that if any one of these condi- must keep moving. Out of the soup tions is absent, natural selection can- arises the adult form, with its wings, not happen. These conditions can be legs, proboscis, genitalia, eyes, anten- thought of as the three legs of the nae, and so forth. stool of natural selection. Could this developmental pathway But there’s another aspect to natu- have evolved via the natural selection ral selection, which bears critically on of randomly arising variation, as pos- the problem of the origin of metamor- ited by neo-Darwinism? To answer that phosis. Because natural selection de- question, we need to look at what the pends (with condition 1, random varia- process of natural selection requires— tion) on whatever happens to vary in and what it cannot do, in principle. a species, or not—and there’s no way of knowing before the variations occur,

29 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION

or even if they will occur—the process which that system came to be. That’s cannot look into the future. Unlike hu- it: full stop. man designers, therefore, who can Go back for a moment to the open- visualize a distant target, the process ing story, about the badly drawn map of selection “sees” only the variations and unclear written directions. Let’s randomly arising in each generation, suppose the sequence of directions and their immediate selective out- were a chain of five independent steps, comes. like this: Thus, “life never evolves with foresight,” as evolutionary biologists A > B > C > D > E > Z Andrei Rodin, Sergei Rodin, and Eörs Szathmáry explain: Here, Z is the church, and A is some major route of entry (say, a superhigh- way) into the surrounding geographical …natural selection works strictly “in area. If the hand-drawn map in ques- the present moment,” right here tion is intended to direct guests to the and right now, just like a first-aid wedding site (and it was), then reach- ambulance—lacking the foresight of ing point D, or even E, won’t satisfy the potential future advantages….There- required function. Only the entire se- fore, just as with any case of step- quence, A > Z, will count as a success. by-step evolution towards a more One needs foresight, or more generally complex system, there should be an the ability to string together indepen- evolutionary rationale behind each dent stages, from start to finish, to intermediate step.7 give directions that actually work. The same is true, only many times over, with animal developmental se- This aspect of selection places strict quences. A caterpillar-like species limits on what the process can build de would never evolve in the direction of novo. If a biological system requires forming a chrysalis, dissolving its vital multiple independent changes, for tissues in the process, unless—some- instance, no one of which individually how—the variations were also occur- confers a selective advantage, natu- ring, and being preserved by natural ral selection cannot be the process by selection, which would also enable that species to make it out of the chrysalis 7 Andrei S. Rodin, Eörs Szathmáry, and Sergei N. Rodin, “On the origin of the genetic code and tRNA before translation,” Biology stage. And to leave offspring: condition Direct 6 (2011), p. 14.

30 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION

3 of natural selection, heritability, re- the differentiation of larval and adult quires that variations be transmitted to forms allows them to occupy different one’s progeny. ecological niches so that they can bet- But as we inspect the pathway ter exploit food resources and eliminate of metamorphosis, what we see is a competition; however, competition for magical bridge, where literally thou- food resources is not well documented sands of independent decisions need in natural insect populations.8 Another to be chained together for the process explanation given is that because lar- of transformation as a whole to work. vae often feed within plant material Reproductive capability—one of the as borers or leaf miners or as animal necessary conditions of natural selec- parasites, these life styles could have tion—lies on the far side of the gorge led to the reduction of wings and other we are crossing. The caterpillar can’t external structures. Yet many larvae leave offspring. Only the adult butterfly are free living.8 It also has been pro- can do that. posed that metamorphosis allows in- But to reach the adult, we need the sects to have more control over their caterpillar, and then we need to dis- development. Some insects have a solve it into a soup—inside a chrysa- shortened life cycle and so can repro- lis where it cannot feed, move, or do duce more rapidly and avoid predation much of anything, other than turn into in their most vulnerable stages. Other a butterfly. metamorphic insects can have long life If one wanted an example of a spans, including the Monarch’s Methu- biological system that could never be selah generation.8 In the end, though, explained by natural selection, butter- these explanations are not sufficient to fly metamorphosis would stand at the account for how metamorphosis came head of the line. to be. A metamorphic life history may indeed confer all these benefits, but V. Surely Evolutionary natural selection by definition does Hypotheses to Explain the not have the foresight to anticipate Origin of Metamorphosis Exist? future advantages. Remember, unless Yes, they do. We’ll sketch them out, each and every evolving intermediate and then look at why they don’t work. stage from embryo to adult remained Traditional adaptationalist explana- viable, and each and every incremen- tions for the evolution of holometabo- 8 David Grimaldi and Michael Engel, Evolution of the Insects (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2005), lous development include the claim that p. 334.

31 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION

tal change in developmental strategy Burrell at Scientific American.12 The made the insects better able to criticisms advanced are quite cogent; survive and reproduce, a process like yet Coyne and Burrell offer no alter- complete metamorphosis could not nate explanation for how metamorphic have arisen by unguided, purely organisms came to be. The only other Darwinian processes. viable explanation on the table will be What other theories have been explained below. proposed to account for the evolution When I (Ann) was a graduate stu- of metamorphosis in insects? The most dent in the 1980s, one of the profes- outrageous of them, the hybridiza- sors for my oral qualifying exam was tion theory, is not taken seriously by James Truman, an expert in insect most scientists. It was first proposed physiology. At one point in the exam, by the marine invertebrate zoologist Truman asked me how I might account Donald Williamson, based on incongru- for the evolution of complete metamor- ences he saw among larval and adult phosis in insects. I had no idea, having forms of various marine animals and never studied the question. After the their proposed evolutionary histories. exam was over, I asked him what the He recently extended his argument to answer was. He said no one knew. He include insect metamorphosis in an went on to say that though many theo- article published in PNAS.9 The gist of ries had been advanced, no conclusive his proposal is that at some point early evidence had been found for any theory. in evolution, eggs from an organism Years later, I learned that Truman of one class or phylum were fertilized must have been actively thinking about by sperm from an organism of a com- the problem of metamorphosis when pletely different type, leading to a new he asked me that question. In 1999, organism with two different, sequen- he and Lynn Riddiford proposed a new tially developing body plans. hypothesis for the evolution of meta- This idea has been severely criti- morphosis in insects.13 They proposed cized in the literature,10 and online by that the caterpillar (or larval) stage in Jerry Coyne on his blog11 and Brendan holometabolous insects is homologous to an extended pronymphal stage in 9 Donald I. Williamson, “Caterpillars evolved from onychophorans by hybridogenesis,” PNAS 106 (2009), pp. 19901-19905. hemimetabolous insects. 10 Alessandro Minelli, “The origins of larval forms: what the data indicate, and what they don’t,” BioEssays 32 (2009), pp. 5–8. DOI:10.1002/bies.200900133 12 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=national- 11 http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/ academy-as-national-enquirer worst-paper-of-the-year/; http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress. 13 James Truman and Lynn Riddiford, “The origins of insect com/2009/10/29/controversal-paper-on-origins-of-caterpillars- metamorphosis,” Nature 401 (1999), p. 447. debunked/

32 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION

Remember the Hemi pathway for development?

Hemi egg > nymph > adult

Now insert a pronymphal stage right around the time of hatching: “ In this scenario, Hemi egg > pronymph > nymph > adult the development of adult structures, In simplified terms, a pronymph is a short, non- that normally appear feeding stage that in some insects happens right gradually during before hatching, and in others right after hatching. the nymphal stages This Hemi pathway was hypothesized by Truman and of a Hemi species, Riddiford to have evolved by gradual steps to Holo, as is ‘telescoped’ shown in the diagram below. into a single pupal stage...”

Figure 3. The proposed stages of evolution to complete metamorphosis in insects, adapted from Truman and Riddiford’s 1999 paper. JH expression is indicated underneath each sequence by blue bars. The black tri- angles show where the organism is progressing to the next developmental stage in each sequence. PN, pro-

33 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION nymph; PL, protolarva; N1-N3, nymphal changing the timing of JH expression instars (only three are shown for sim- (blue bars above), Truman and Rid- plicity); L1-L3 larval instars. diford argue that the gradual changes In this figure, (a) represents the an- of hemimetabolous development could cestral Hemi pathway. Truman and Rid- have been converted into holometabo- diford hypothesized that changes in the lous development. timing of one of the main hormones of Thus the caterpillar as a modified insect development, juvenile hormone, pronymph would have to develop the could have caused a larval (extended ability to feed and to grow through a pronymphal) form to evolve that would series of molts, while suppressing the be able to feed after hatching (b). Con- changes of normal nymphal develop- tinuing selection for delayed maturation ment. The pupa (or chrysalis) stage would then extend the larval period would also have to encompass all of (c-d) until a pupal stage evolved (e). adult development, compressed into In this scenario, the development of one tumultuous reorganization rather adult structures, that appear gradually than stretched over a number of molts. during the nymphal stages of a Hemi VI. Difficulties with This Scenario species, is “telescoped” into the pupal Let’s remember the logic of natu- stage—giving rise to true holometabo- ral selection, as it will be our guide in lous metamorphosis. evaluating this evolutionary hypothesis. Now, we all have a single experience We can start with the first piece of the of the power of hormones: think, for story, the origin of the larval form (step example, of what happens to humans [b] in the figure). when the hormones of puberty are In Hemi species, the pronymph (PN, switched on. Perhaps not surprisingly, the first stage of [a]) is a non-feeding it has been found that hormones are stage. Thus, if the development of the important in controlling insect develop- pronymph is going to be prolonged, to ment also. Juvenile hormone (JH) in allow it to become a larva, it must si- particular maintains the status quo in multaneously evolve the ability to feed. holometabolous insects. In broad out- “The ability of this stage [PN] to feed line, the story is that if JH is constant, would seem to be an essential pread- the larva molts to another larval stage. aptation for it to evolve into When JH is withdrawn in the presence the larva.”14 of other hormones, the larva moves to the next stage of development. So by 14 Ibid., p. 451.

34 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION

The logic of natural selection asks In order for any changes to the tim- is there any evidence for such varia- ing and level of hormone expression to tions—the de novo origin of feeding have extended the pronymphal stage behavior—in the pronymphs of any into multiple larval stages, there would Hemi species? The answer is no. In have to have been an unknown number hemimetabolous insects, pronymphs of regulatory changes and compensa- may or may not hatch from the egg. tory mutations to make that possible. Those that hatch are capable of limited But the biggest problems come movement, but they get their nutri- because delaying development in the tion from remaining egg yolk. Not until caterpillar requires that all of adult the molt to the first nymphal stage do development be compressed into a they acquire the ability to feed. So this single pupal stage. This is the point of evolutionary story requires a new kind transition between steps (d) and (e). In of pronymph, one capable of feeding. Holo species, there is considerable dis- Otherwise, remaining a pronymph is a solution of cells and tissues during the death sentence, not an advantage. pupal stage and adult structures are Thus requirement 1, evidence of constructed during this phase. relevant variation, has not been met. For this to work, there must be A second, related problem is that if some way to set aside cells that will you expose a hemimetabolous embryo build the adult tissues (wings, eyes, to high JH, you don’t get holometabo- antennae, etc.) and to trigger their lous development, you get a mess.15 development into the right structures Such embryos develop inappropriate at the appropriate time. How this is nymphal rather than pronymphal char- done varies among different types of acters and/or terminate development tissues. For example, some caterpillars prematurely, depending on the tim- reuse leg epidermal cells to contribute ing of the hormone application. This is to the development of adult legs; this because these hormones act by regu- means that these cells must be able to lating a complex network of particular produce two different kinds of cuticle. downstream genes. As a result, mess- But caterpillars also use cells (called ing with the timing or level of expres- imaginal primordia or disks) that were sion of a hormone is in general detri- set aside in the embryo just for mak- mental or lethal, not transformative. ing adult structures; these cells may

15 DF Erezyilmaz, LM Riddiford, and JM Truman, “Juvenile hor- remain quiet in the caterpillar and only mone acts at embryonic molts and induces the nymphal cuticle in the direct-developing cricket,” Development Genes and Evolution begin to grow and produce adult struc- 214 (2004): 313.

35 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION tures in the final larval stage and in the pupa. How do cells acquire the ability to carry out two different, sequential programs in response to hormonal signals? How do cells get set aside for future use? And how do you coordinate the two sets of cells to make fully functional adult structures? The flip side of the“ pupal riddle is that there also must be a way to specify and coordinate which larval cells will self-destruct.”

The flip side of the pupal riddle is that there also must be a way to specify and coordinate which larval cells will self-destruct. Programmed cell death is common enough in development as a way of remodeling tissues into their final form (how natural selection can produce a process like programmed cell death is another question), but only in metamorphosis is programmed cell death so wide-spread and catastrophic. Insects with hemimetabolous development change gradually with each molt and so do not require extensive remodeling, but insects with holometabolous development remake themselves in one compressed stage. In response to the hormonal cues that trigger pupation, the majority of caterpillar cells initiate a cel- lular program that leads to their destruction—essen- tially, they commit suicide in order to make room for the new adult structures.

36 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION

This represents a new response to species, it must spin itself a cocoon. hormonal signals at the time of pupa- Then it sheds its caterpillar skin, dis- tion. But new responses to hormones solves its larval tissues (but only the require new sets of receptors and ge- right ones), and triggers the adult cells netic response elements. In order for to finish dividing and differentiate. programmed cell death to take place These cells knit everything together, where it should, and nowhere else, make new cuticle, and the nervous these elements would have to be system makes connections to the new present in advance in the appropriate muscles, eyes, and antennae. When larval tissues. all is complete, and the environmental Presumably, then, the response ele- cues are right, the caterpillar’s brain ments responsible for turning on the triggers eclosion. It emerges from the cell death program in the appropriate pupa, pumps fluid into those gorgeous tissues would need to be in place, but wings, hangs there until the wings not yet activated, by step (d) of the harden and its proboscis is knit to- evolutionary scenario. But how do you gether, and then it takes off. Suddenly select for something not yet active? it sees and smells things it has never And unless simultaneous mutations seen or smelled before. The world has occur to enable the building of adult become a new place. structures after or during tissue and Finally, it may be that the claim that cell dissolution—between the pupal and the pronymph is analogous (or even adult stages in step (e)—requirement 3 homologous) to the caterpillar, and the of the logic of natural selection, herita- nymph to the chrysalis, is valid in a dis- bility, will not be met. The start of the tant sort of sense. There are intriguing pupal stage would be a death trap. similarities in some aspects of nervous That’s a lot of serendipitous change system development and cuticle forma- to produce the pupal transition. But tion in both. But to make the claim that there’s more: complex behaviors are the stages are similar is to overlook the also required for the process to go radical differences that also exist. The right. Getting any part of this wrong bottom line is, even if the caterpillar is would be disastrous for the organism. a modified form of the pronymph, the With its tiny insect brain the caterpil- modification of pronymph into cater- lar must know to stop feeding, climb pillar is unlikely to have come from up away from its food, and find a safe an unguided process. There is also no place to pupate. If appropriate to its gradual step-wise process that could

37 CHAPTER 4: STRANGER THAN FICTION

create something like the pupa to adult More to the point, all the evidence transition. Purely Darwinian processes points towards the reality of intelligent (mutation, natural selection, and ge- design. In our ordinary experience, netic drift) lack the foresight to have systems requiring multiple independent created such a process. components, aiming at and hitting a distant target, and the re-use of lower- VII. Conclusion: Trust Your Intuitions level modules for very different func- on This One tional roles, implicate a designer, Intuition is not always a reliable with a mind. guide. Many people, on seeing (for in- Or a Mind, where the capital letter stance) a spiraling, descending wooden indicates—something special. ramp carrying a ball bearing, think that This is a rational inference, from ev- the ball bearing will continue rolling idence. It’s science in the old-fashioned off the ramp in a curving trajectory. sense of knowledge. You can count Those with a bit of basic physics in on it. their backgrounds, however, know that the ball bearing will come off the ramp in a straight line. Intuition needs to be overruled by evidence. With butterfly metamorphosis, however, all the evidence we have reliably supports the intuition that this complex sequence could not have evolved by an undirected process, such as natural selection. Indeed, it is the very logic of natural selection itself that tells us the process won’t work. The theory makes strict evidential demands on investigators, and unless those demands are met—and, in the case of butterfly evolution, they haven’t been—we are simply not entitled to deploy natural selection in explanation.

38 METAMORPHOSIS COMPANION: CHAPTER 5

  E. hypermnestra D. chrysippus  H. misippus

Chapter 5 Mimicry and Protective D. chrysippus  Resemblance: E. hypermnestra  H. misippus  A Philosophical Appreciation Bernard d’Abrera

E. hyperbius  D. chrysippus f. dorippus  H. misippus 

E. hyperbius 

T. septentrionis  P. ceylanica 

P. ceylanica 

 T. limniace  Ch. clytia

D. ceucharis 

E. core  Ch. clytia  P. sita  CHAPTER 5: MIMICRY AND PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE

Chapter 5 intelligence), take steps to minimize or Mimicry and escape the consequences of such haz- Protective Resemblance: ards during its individual lifetime. Thus butterflies are by no means A Philosophical Appreciation16 exempt from the predatory hazards Bernard d’Abrera that beset most of nature. Indeed (with one notable exception) they are among Butterflies are created natural the weakest and least aggressive of things that can be recognized as exist- all creatures, totally lacking the active ing in time, in thousands of different physical means to exert force in their kinds. Within each kind, butterflies sur- own defense. All they have at their vive for short periods of time as indi- disposal (as individuals) is the means viduals, and for longer periods of time of swift escape in flight or (as species) as species. Their continuing existence the sheer weight of numbers. But there as species over time depends on the are many species that are either not survival of the individuals. Within creat- possessed of the ability for swift flight, ed sentient nature, the individuals are or not programmed with the genetic programmed to do the best within their propensity to reproduce themselves in mental and physical capacity, in order huge numbers. Thus it is that such ac- to survive and ensure the continuation tively defenseless creatures have been in time of their kind. There are many endowed with effective passive means hazards to this survival. Indeed nature, for the survival of their kind. in its entropic condition, is pathologi- The passive means of survival of cally beset with hazards, and while the many creatures involves a geneti- hazards are not entirely the product cally programmed capacity for decep- of blind chance, they are neverthe- tion or fraud by species involuntarily less predictable by the creature to a expressed in the morphology of its lesser or greater extent. For instance, individuals. This fraud may belong to a butterfly is aware of sudden move- one or other of two types, Protective ment, or extremes of temperature, or Resemblance and Mimicry. One of the the change in the intensity of light, and most celebrated examples of Protective can by instinct (programmed, it would Resemblance in the avian world is that seem, by an external intelligence), and of the Frogmouth (Batrachostomos sp.) by experience (learned through its own in which the bird at rest on the for- 16 Reprinted with permission from Bernard d’Abrera, The Concise est floor or upon its nest resembles a Atlas of Butterflies of the World (Melbourne, Australia: Hill House Publishers, 2001). 40 CHAPTER 5: MIMICRY AND PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE decaying log. Its camouflage colors and putedly that of the White Pepper Moth markings and the way its head hunches (Biston betularia) in Europe or North into its body, all maintained rock still, America. The story went something ensure that it is totally missed by pred- like this. These moths were so colored ators’ eyes hungry for a meal of Frog- that when they rested on the trunks of mouth or Frogmouth’s eggs. There are lichen-covered trees they “vanished” other examples of Protective Resem- from sight. With the advent of the blance throughout the bird world, espe- Industrial Revolution, factories gushed cially in the cryptic coloration of many out huge quantities of pollution, which female waterfowl, ducks and so on, caused the lichen cover to disappear, but it is in the insect world in particu- and the trees to darken. The white lar that this phenomenon reaches its spotted moths very soon lost their most spectacular. There must be few “protective resemblance” and became people indeed who have never heard of fatally visible to predatory birds. But or seen stick—or leaf—insects (Phasmi- within a miraculously short period of dae), butterfly or moth caterpillars that time a dark colored form (f. carbonar- resemble twigs (Geometridae), and so ia!) emerged and the moth once again forth; but in butterflies, we have lar- vanished from view as it rested on the vae that pass for dried bamboo leaves, now blackened tree trunks. Julian Hux- snakes, or fresh bird droppings, pupae ley triumphantly announced that here that cannot be distinguished from dried was “Evolution before our eyes.” twigs, and actual butterflies Kallima( Unfortunately, all of the foregoing sp.) that are so convincingly leaf-like on relating to the adaptability of Biston their verso surfaces that no two indi- betularia to a rapidly changing environ- viduals (even from the same brood) are ment was later exposed to having been quite alike. These Kallima species have a colossal fraud. All the experiments wing shapes that are dried-leaf-like, intended to demonstrate the evolu- complete with stem and leaf tip, mid- tionary aspects of these changes were ribs and veins, various mottling due to conducted by one Bernard Kettlewell. age and decay, and even the little bits What Dr. Kettlewell had in fact done of leaf mold or fungus that one might was an elaborate but somewhat ama- expect to find on a dried leaf. teurish set-up in order to demonstrate The most astounding and fa- the different phenotypes contrasting mous case of Protective Resemblance with non-homogeneous backgrounds. amongst lepidopterous insects was re- He had deliberately placed long-dead,

41 CHAPTER 5: MIMICRY AND PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE museum-set specimens in entirely The other type of deception or fraud artificial posture on tree-trunks for in nature is referred to under the head- his photographs, some of these speci- ing of Mimicry. The most useful way to mens even having pin marks on their describe this phenomenon is to refer thoraxes! Lepidopterists have long to the plate of Ceylon butterflies fig- known that B. betularia has always had ured here and to compare the speci- an enormous range of infrasubspe- mens illustrated. cific phenotypes, ranging from almost pure white to almost totally charcoal in ground-color. They would also be seen

resting on any background, whether E. hypermnestra   D. chrysippus  H. misippus complementary or not. There is no empirical evidence that the different

D. chrysippus  E. hypermnestra  forms would deliberately choose to rest H. misippus  against backgrounds that would allow them to “vanish.” E. hyperbius  D. chrysippus f. dorippus  H. misippus  On the other hand, the true scientist must know that phenotypic variation is E. hyperbius  a capacity inherent in every population, T. septentrionis  P. ceylanica  and that profound environmental shifts

 (or “shifting selection”) can cause P. ceylanica changes in genotypic frequency until a  T. limniace  Ch. clytia new equilibrium can be reached. The D. ceucharis  process is, by inference, bi-directional, and in some cases even multi-directional, but at no time has the species E. core  Ch. clytia  P. sita  (or kind) actually and permanently changed into a new species. This type The three butterflies in the top left of observable (and demonstrable) natu- hand column represent both sexes of ral selection is most repugnant to the the species Danaus chrysippus (family evolutionist psyche, because notwith- Danaidae). This is a poisonous species. standing all the enormous variations, It is poisonous not because it goes there is no permanent mutation into around biting things and killing them, something genetically new; nothing in but because it belongs to a family fact changes. Plus ça change plus c’est whose larvae, having eaten poisonous la même chose! 42 CHAPTER 5: MIMICRY AND PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE

food plants, are themselves full of the noticeable when comparing their re- poisonous alkaloids of those plants (of spective males. One would expect the the botanical families Asclepiadaceae females at least to resemble the males, or Apocynaceae). but they do not. Instead they resemble Thus if a putative predator were to both sexes of the toxic model. ingest the adult butterfly, it would be- Now the plot thickens somewhat come very sick indeed. Now, the theory when the third specimens in each of goes that because of their poisonous the first and middle rows are compared nature, and by dint of experience, the with the black-tipped f.w. males above predators (who themselves have to ful- them. Evolutionary mimicry enthusiasts fill their own survival program) learn to immediately point to this and say that recognize the markings and colorations it is a fine example of a species evolv- of the different poisonous species and ing on the basis of the survival of those leave them alone. The theory further individuals most able and suited (the goes, that certain non-poisonous but- fittest) to do so. “So clever” (they say) terfly species (the mimics, whose bod- is the deception by mimicry that even ies do not contain toxins) resort to when the model (the poisonous spe- passing themselves off as close copies cies) has a different form of the fe- of the poisonous species (the models). male, the mimic goes so far as to copy The middle column comprises both that as well. This different form is the sexes of the non-toxic species, the so-called f. dorippus. One will notice Danaid Eggfly Hypolimnas( misippus, however that the other two mimics in family Nymphalidae). The first four the right column (Elymnias and Argyn- butterflies on the right hand column nis) do not have an equivalent dorip- represent both sexes of two other non- pus form. Nor do the males of all three toxic species, the Palmfly Elymnias( non-poisonous species figured here hypermnestra, family Satyridae) and show the slightest tendency to change the Fritillary (Argynnis hyperbius, fam- their appearance. Why not? ily Nymphalidae). Other examples of mimicry on the It will be noticed that the female same plate are quite self-evident; the specimens in each column all resemble three lower specimens in the left col- each other superficially in the general umn are all toxic danaids; the three orange coloration with black f.w. apex lower specimens in the middle row and white transverse sub-apical band. (in parallel with them) are a non-toxic This resemblance becomes all the more pierid (totally dissimilar blue male in

43 CHAPTER 5: MIMICRY AND PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE CHAPTER 5: MIMICRY AND PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE the right hand column), and both of its inbuilt and secure genetic pro- forms of the non-toxic Mime Butterfly gramming, it cannot change (mutate) (Chilasa sp.) which allegedly mimics the into another species. But while it can toxic danaids. have within that program the genetic The last two specimens in the right capacity to produce individuals that hand column are both pierids. The up- permanently resemble other species per one, the Jezebel (Delias sp.), has (to human eyes at least), leaves, twigs, some toxicity because its larvae feed snakes, birds (hummingbirds, hawk on the Mistletoe (Loranthus sp.)—the moths), bird droppings, monkeys’ faces lower one, the Painted Sawtooth (Prio- and so on, it does not mean that it can neris sp.) is apparently non-toxic, be- change (genetically) into those kinds cause its larval food plant is the Caper of things! (Capparis sp.) The bright colors of the There are two principal kinds of model warn prospective predators of mimicry, Batesian and Mullerian, but its toxicity. The imitative bright colors it hardly matters what they are called, of the mimic exploit this warning for its because the point is that if the butter- own benefit. flies are not personally responsible for It must be stressed that all of this acquiring the capacity for protective fraud and deception is not voluntarily resemblance or mimicry (and we are willed by the creatures. They cannot all agreed that it is a neat (intelligent) and do not choose to appear thus, but trick), then who or what intelligence they certainly have been programmed put it there? For it to happen in a single within their specific kind to appear so. species once through chance, is math- Hence morphology is a composite set ematically highly improbable. But when of particular structural attributes or di- it occurs so often, in so many species, agnostic features strictly and invariably and we are expected to apply math- peculiar to a given species. Stated sim- ematical probability yet again, then ply, the capacity of deception build into either mathematics is a useless tool, Kallima butterflies cannot be expressed or we are being criminally blind. at any point in time by, say, Swordtail Thus, or Swallowtail butterflies. Thus every species has locked into its genome its (a) any given specific kind differs singular and strictly limited capacity to (inter alia) from any other specific reproduce only its own kind or cease kind by the uniqueness of its genetic to exist (survive) as a species. Because make-up (usually demonstrable by

45 CHAPTER 5: MIMICRY AND PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE

qualifying chromosome type and al would be the primary cause of quantifying its number); race formation. It must be stressed that evolutionists erroneously refer (b) genetic information by any indi- to such changes as “microevolu- vidual within a specific kind can only tion.” They are nothing of the kind. be transmitted (naturally) by inheri- I repeat, they are simply a built-in tance; or programmed response of a species or kind to extrinsic dynamic (c) the only source of such in- change. The proof of this is that heritance in nature is from sexually when isolated populations (races) complementary parents, and finally with clear morphological differences from one original male and one orig- from other related isolated popula- inal female of that specific kind; tions are allowed to mix with their relatives, they usually disappear as (d) the original male and original individual races, returning to the female must have had sufficient species or kind, another example of gene vigor to sustain millions of so-called “evolution in reverse.” In- generations before entropy finally deed, it is well proven that if many brings their line to non-viability. of these isolated populations remain Therefore such a male and such a cut off for very long periods of time, female must necessarily have been the gene pool diminishes in its vigor, superior to their progeny, and could and the population perishes. (Dog, only have been created fully pro- cat, and avian breeders know this grammed, “ready fashioned,” with sorry state of affairs all too well!) all the genetic information required for the survival through time of their (e) Evolutionists refuse to see this, specific kind. This survival would and in fact propose quite the op- also necessarily encompass any posite. In several of my previous variations imposed upon the popula- works, I quote the words of a great tion that would permit the species geneticist, Professor Maciej Gier- or kind to adapt to changes in en- tych, on this subject. vironment or other pressures. For example, such extrinsic dynamics as (f) In all species of butterflies the changes in climate and elevation or sexes are morphologically different isolation through geological upheav- to a greater or lesser extent. This

46 CHAPTER 5: MIMICRY AND PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE

is called sexual dimorphism. To the to mate successfully? scientist, whose ontological sensi- The evolutionary model requires bilities are unencumbered by fash- much faith. Hence the need for evo- ionable skepticism, and who thus lutionists to face the inherent self- understands intelligent, ordered contradiction in their belief in continual creation, there is no need to explain ordered existence (through reproduc- the obvious. But for the evolutionist, tion) of millions of specific kinds of liv- who bases everything on unintelli- ing creatures (arising together, in time), gent and unintelligible chance, there entirely from nowhere, by disordered, is a need to explain in logical terms materially non-existent chance. (in other words, by the rules of phi- Evolutionism (with its two eldest losophy) the following: daughters, phylogenetics and cladistics) is the only systematic synthesis in the At what point in the evolution of history of the universe that proposes these species did the males and their an Effect without a Final Cause. It is a respective females, both emerge in great fraud, and cannot be taken time, so as to seriously because it outrageously a) Recognize each other as being of attempts to defend the philosophically the same species, in spite of their indefensible. differences? Some readers may well ask what b) Get together to mate success- all this has to do with the simple study fully, to reproduce their own kind—be- of butterflies. My response is that the cause just one evolutionary state of er- study of butterflies is not simple, and ror in trial would guarantee extinction? what I have to say has everything to In other words, if either sex of each do with it. I have written this chapter species descended from a common because I want science and scientists ancestor, was the evolution of the form to become philosophically accountable. of each sex (in other words its “mor- Evolutionists are notorious for two phism”) absolutely parallel throughout things. They are the masters of wooly evolutionary history, so that at each thinking, and are totally incapable of stage of the evolution of that species, logic in the classical sense. Such woolly blind, unintelligent chance would deter- thinking reaches even greater clouds of mine that they continue to express dif- nebulosity with pronouncements such ferent morphologies, but still maintain as, “One has only to wait: time itself specific homogeneity and thus be able performs the miracles…Given so much

47 CHAPTER 5: MIMICRY AND PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE

time, the ‘impossible’ becomes pos- origin of species, by design not by sible, the possible probable, and the chance, can be demonstrated by com- probable virtually certain.”17 And this mon sense and the simplest of sci- gobbledygook from a Nobel Laureate, entific experiments with any species, Harvard biologist George Wald (1906- particularly of butterflies; whereas it is 1997)! His statement is not only philo- scientifically impossible to sustain the sophically bankrupt, it is scientifically evolutionary model without having to irresponsible. Its tendentious construc- distort objective truth itself. However, tion, poor logic and tone of childish in this unfortunate age such a notion credulity make it sound like an adver- of truth has come to be denied near tisement for Disneyland, or worse, like universally, precisely because of the a passage from a second-rate fairytale damage done by the opposite notion of (for grown-ups). constant change (or evolution). Thus al- Natural Science is now in grave most everyone now believes to a great- disrepute. It survives in its present er or lesser extent that truth is a func- form only because of a media- and tion of time, instead of the axiom that academia-generated program of pro- time is a finite dimension at the service paganda which needs the constant of infinite and unchangeable Truth. distractions of novelties, spurious discoveries, outright fraud, and smoke- screens of personal invective, all of which are designed to keep the punters guessing, and ordinary people from asking the most fundamental of philosophical questions about cause and effect, reason and purpose, and loss and gain. The cruelest trick perpetrat- ed on the most sentient of terrestrial creatures is that they have been cut off from all knowledge of the very fount of their own existence. This is not science. This is unmitigated wickedness. The true scientific model of the

17 George Wald, “The Origin of Life” in The Physics and Chem- istry of Life: A Scientific American Book (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1955), p. 120.

48 METAMORPHOSIS COMPANION: CHAPTER 6

Chapter 6 What Is It About Butterflies that Drives Men to Doubt Darwin? Bernard d’Abrera, with a Note on His Curious Encounter with the Smithsonian Institution David Klinghoffer CHAPTER 6: WHAT IS IT ABOUT BUTTERFLIES...?

Chapter 6 nidae, Riodinidae, in a revised edition What Is It About Butterflies including a lengthy assemblage of in- that Drives Men to Doubt troductory essays. The latter comprise Darwin? Bernard d’Abrera, one of the most colorful, amusing, en- with a Note on His raged, and wildly unclassifiable attacks Curious Encounter with on Darwinism that I’ve come across. the Smithsonian Institution David Klinghoffer

In Chapter 7 we will meet novelist and lepidopterist Vladimir Nabokov, a self-described “furious” critic of Dar- winian theory. An erstwhile butterfly researcher and curator at Harvard and the American Museum of Natural His- tory, Nabokov thought that butterflies possess powers of mimicry inexplicable on Darwinian assumptions. In the same The book is huge—I’ve been car- tradition of butterfly-induced Darwin rying it around as I bicycle to work heresy, allow me to introduce Bernard and my sore back attests to this—and d’Abera, who contributed the essay gorgeously furnished in the system- immediately previous to this one atic section with d’Abrera’s incredibly (Chapter 5). detailed butterfly photos. His pictures A kind of latter-day Audubon of were taken both in the field and in the Lepidoptera, d’Abrera is a philosopher unsurpassed collections of the British of science, renowned butterfly photog- Museum (Natural History) where he rapher, one of the world’s most formi- has been a longtime visiting scholar dable lepidopterists—and if anything, in the Entomology Department. an even more furious Darwin doubter Unfortunately, priced at more than than Nabokov. His series of enormous $500 a copy, the book probably isn’t volumes, The Butterflies of the World, a realistic purchase for you unless you a heroic act of categorization and il- have a professional or at least very lustration, is almost completed with serious amateur interest in the recent publication of Butterflies of butterfly classification. the Afrotropical Region, Part III: Lycae- 50 CHAPTER 6: WHAT IS IT ABOUT BUTTERFLIES...?

D’Abrera is an old-fashioned scholar, have already taken place. Laws and insisting over and over on the indis- experiments are inappropriate tech- pensability of Linnaean taxonomy, niques for the explication of such governed by “the rules of ideology- events and processes. Instead one free, empirical science,” before it began constructs a historical narrative, to be overtaken by worldview-driven consisting of a tentative reconstruc- speculation. He recalls his dismay in tion of the particular scenario that the mid 1980s when his British Mu- lead to the events one is trying to seum colleagues permitted themselves explain [emphasis added]. to be swept away by a “sudden and almost manic drive to abandon the vestiges of tradition and endow their The evolutionist begins with the own output with the pseudo-intellectual assumption that the events in ques- flavor of phylogenetics.” Candidly, I tion have already taken place, life’s should say that Bernard d’Abrera, while development has occurred, by means a distinguished scientist, publisher and of Darwinian processes. He seeks only photographic artist, takes some intel- to “explicate” in more detail how this lectual paths for which one cannot happened. His method consists of commend him. Yet his objections to imagining a historical scenario and then Darwinism are illuminating, and more spinning out a fictional narrative, in line fundamental than Nabokov’s thoughts with a theory that’s already held to be on mimicry. true before any proof has been offered. He pours particular scorn on the When you reason this way, as Marx- late Harvard zoologist and would be ists and Freudians also found in their Darwin heir Ernest Mayr, from whom respective pseudo-scientific fields, it’s d’Abrera offers a quotation that sums almost eerie how all the evidence you up everything he finds fraudulent in consider appears to uniformly confirm evolutionary thinking. Mayr explained your theory. how evolutionary biology’s status as a This is d’Abrera’s basic complaint “historical science” exempts evolution- about Darwinism. His case, however, ists from normal standards of scientific would not be completely depicted with- argumentation: out referring to his interesting recent experience with the Smithsonian Insti- tution, a wonderful taxpayer-supported ...the evolutionist attempts to ex- educational establishment that has a plain events and processes that 51 CHAPTER 6: WHAT IS IT ABOUT BUTTERFLIES...? bad record when it comes to treating D’Abrera tells the whole story in scientific Darwin-doubters with due the aforementioned Butterflies of the respect for academic freedom and free Afrotropical Region, Part III. A Smith- speech. Now to this list of indictments sonian publication on the butterflies add respect for intellectual property. of Myanmar (a/k/a Burma) pirated—or Readers may recall the Richard “pirated”—a huge batch of his famous, Sternberg affair, in which supervisors gorgeous, and unique butterfly photos at the Smithsonian’s National Museum for use without permission, notification, of Natural History (NMNH) persecuted or compensation of any kind. When an evolutionary biologist on their staff caught, no one with the Smithsonian just for editing a peer-reviewed re- tried to deny it. D’Abrera received no search paper supportive of intelligent apology. The Smithsonian strenuously design. More recently, senior figures at resisted attempts to claim compensa- the Smithsonian may have pressured tion but, after wearing d’Abrera down, the affiliated California Science Center finally agreed to settle the case with a to cancel a contract to show a Darwin- payment of $120,000. critical documentary, in what seems to When I contacted several Smithson- be an instance of a public facility ille- ian spokesmen, I was referred to the gally regulating speech. institution’s Associate General Counsel, In both of those cases, the indica- Lauryn Guttenplan, who emailed me tions suggest it was the intention to that the Smithsonian confirms the set- squash a controversial viewpoint that tlement was reached but has “no com- motivated Smithsonian personnel. In ment on Mr. d’Abrera’s version of the the case of Bernard d’Abrera, there’s dispute as set forth in his new book.” no reason to believe that it was his Isn’t it strange for a government Darwin-doubting itself that led to an entity to be so unforthcoming with an act of startling brazenness. account of its actions? It gets stranger. Brazen what? “Theft,” as d’Abrera D’Abrera records that in email cor- calls it in his account published now for respondence with Stephen Kinyon, posterity in Butterflies of the World. He compiler of the book in question, An actually puts the word in quote marks Illustrated Checklist for the Butterflies since, he observes wryly, his attor- of Myanmar, Kinyon was open about ney advised him that while it looks to having appropriated the lepidopterist’s the untrained eye exactly like theft, it images. He wrote that he “did scan wasn’t a criminal case, ending up in- a number of butterfly pictures from stead in the Court of Federal Claims. 52 CHAPTER 6: WHAT IS IT ABOUT BUTTERFLIES...? your Butterflies of the Oriental Region ogy Department at the Smithsonian’s Parts 1, 2 and 3.” What number, ex- National Museum of Natural History actly? D’Abrera counts 1,352 butterfly for a reaction, d’Abrera received from pictures, or 62 percent of the images spokesman Gary Hevel the astonishing “compiled” by Kinyon. That is a lot consolation that curator of Lepidoptera of butterflies. Bob Robbins “comments that Kinyon’s Kinyon went on to say that the use of some of your images is a true project was funded by the Smithson- testament to your photographic skills.” ian’s Conservation and Research Cen- This is like someone surreptitiously ter (CRC) to help train Burmese forest lifting the wallet out of your pocket, rangers. The book also got money from extracting the cash inside and making the Walt Disney Company Foundation. off with it—and then, when confronted, Kinyon explained that: explaining that he talked it over with friends beforehand and decided that since the money in his own wallet ...when putting the checklist togeth- “would not come near to” covering an er, we realized that the specimens I expenditure on behalf of a deserving collected...would not come near to Burmese acquaintance, therefore the covering all Burmese species. We fact that it’s your money “should not be filled in the gaps with images cop- a deterrent” to pickpocketing you. On ied from several published works. I the contrary, you should feel flattered discussed this with my friends at the since the choice of you above other CRC, and decided eventually that possible victims is “a true testament” this should not be a deterrent, given to your “skills” in earning the money in the charitable purpose and distribu- the first place. tion limited to NWCD [Myanmar’s The only problem with this analogy Nature and Wildlife Conservation is that there were no other possible Division] and the University of victims with an adequate holding of Yangon in Burma. butterfly photos to swipe. In the world of Lepidoptera, d’Abrera is without a competitor. “He is a controversial bi- Since when did seeking to educate ologist,” comments Dr. Thomas Em- students of forestry or any other field mel, director of the Florida Museum of exempt you from paying someone for Natural History’s McGuire Center for his work? On contacting the Entomol- Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, who also

53 CHAPTER 6: WHAT IS IT ABOUT BUTTERFLIES...?

appears in the documentary film Meta- What does it all mean? This is not morphosis, “but one whose remarkable another Sternberg case. And NMNH lifetime accomplishments publishing an spokesman Randall Kremer denies that illustrated catalogue of butterflies of the Entomology Department at Stern- the world must be admired for a berg’s former institutional home had unique contribution that will likely anything to do with the publication never be duplicated.” of Kinyon’s entomological catalogue. D’Abrera claimed he was owed $1 Copyright cases are handled for the million in statutory damages, both for most under civil law, and they are, of the swiped photos and the accompa- course, common. nying systematics with all the original But there is something really un- research that the latter represent. seemly and, as I said, brazen about the It’s not hard to make the case for this Smithsonian’s treatment of this distin- figure. D’Abrera was allowed to pho- guished 70-year-old biologist. Unlike tograph the enormous and unequaled a lepidopterist at, say, the Smithson- collections of the British Museum (Nat- ian Institution, d’Abrera is freelance, ural History), a privilege he paid for, meaning that either he earns his keep with the whole project consuming six or he starves. years of his professional life and, he While the d’Abrera affair doesn’t says, an investment of his money equal tell us anything about the intellectual to a seven-figure sum. freedoms denied to Darwin doubters, As d’Abrera informs me, the De- it does suggest a possible reason why, partment of Justice sought to defend in those cases, the name of the Smith- the Smithsonian based on a claim that sonian Institution keeps coming up. d’Abrera did not deserve such dam- On one hand, the SI is a public endow- ages because his works, published ment, answerable to taxpayers and the in Australia where he lives, were not U.S. Constitution. That demands a de- properly registered for copyright in the gree of transparency and fair play that U.S. However, while I’m not a lawyer, it would not be legally required of private would seem that d’Abrera should have organizations, which are entitled to ex- been protected anyway under clude viewpoints that owners or admin- the Berne and Universal Copyright istrators dislike. Conventions of which the United In the d’Abrera story, the Smithson- States is a signatory. ian took full advantage of its protec-

54 CHAPTER 6: WHAT IS IT ABOUT BUTTERFLIES...? tions and resources as a government entity. Yet when it suits them, staff at the Smithsonian (and the California Science Center) behave as if they were not employees of a public trust at all but rather of a private agency and, in suppressing dissenters from institutional orthodoxy, a rather opaque and unprincipled one at that.

55 SECTION III: BUTTERFLIES AND EVOLUTION: HISTORY, SCIENCE, AND ART

Butterflies and Evolution: History, Science, and Art

Section III: Butterflies and Evolution: History, Science, and Art METAMORPHOSIS COMPANION: CHAPTER 7

Chapter 7 “The Grand March of Nature”: The Evolution of Alfred Russel Wallace’s Intelligent Design Michael A. Flannery CHAPTER 7: “THE GRAND MARCH OF NATURE”

Chapter 7 action. They also, as he would make “The Grand March of Nature”: clearer later on, gave evidence of de- The Evolution of Alfred Russel sign and purpose in nature. Butterflies, Wallace’s Intelligent Design therefore, offer an interesting glimpse into Wallace’s development as an evo- Michael A. Flannery lutionary biologist and intelligent design advocate. Alfred Russel Wallace knew but- That development began with the terflies. He was first introduced to April 1869 issue of the Quarterly Re- these most colorful and elaborate of view when he startled Charles Darwin creatures in the tropics of the Amazon and the rest of Darwin’s entourage River Basin where he amassed, by one (especially Thomas Henry Huxley and estimate, a collection of 10,000 speci- his X Club cohorts) by invoking an mens largely consisting of butterflies “Overruling Intelligence” to account for and beetles. During his eight-year stay the evolution of Homo sapiens. From in the Malay Archipelago he collected that point on, and despite Darwin’s more than 13,000 butterfly specimens deep consternation, Wallace continued alone!18 The complexity of this animal’s to expand and develop an increasingly life cycle, its metamorphosis from a teleological worldview. humble and voracious caterpillar to a So when, after a lifetime of scien- flying insect of unparalleled beauty, tific investigation and inquiry, he con- fascinated the famed co-discoverer of templated the amazing life cycle of the natural selection throughout his life. butterfly, he was forced to conclude In an extensive analysis of Malayan that there was some guidance behind swallow-tailed butterflies read before the transformation of the modest cat- the Linnean Society in March of 1864, erpillar into the majestic beauty of its Wallace insisted “that not the wing of a culminated form. Wallace described the butterfly can change in form or vary in process of metamorphosis thus: color, except in harmony with, and as a part of the grand march of nature.” 19 Wallace felt that the butterflies he Everyone knows that a caterpillar encountered in the Malay Archipelago is almost as different from a but- gave evidence of natural selection in terfly or moth in all its external and 18 Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1869), p. viii. most of its internal characters, as 19 Alfred Russel Wallace, “The Malayan Papilionidæ or Swallow- Tailed Butterflies as Illustrative of the Theory of Natural Selec- it is possible for any two animals of tion,” in Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection: A Series of Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1871), p. 198. 58 CHAPTER 7: “THE GRAND MARCH OF NATURE”

the same class to be. The former as mysterious as before…. has six short feet with claws and ten There is, I believe, nothing like this fleshy claspers; the latter, six legs, complete decomposition of one five-jointed, and with subdivided kind of animal structure and the tarsi; the former has simple eyes, regrowth out of this broken-down biting jaws, and no sign of wings; material which has thus undergone the latter, large compound eyes, a decomposition of the cells, but not spiral suctorial mouth, and usually apparently of the protoplasmic mol- four large and beautifully colored ecules to be found elsewhere in the wings. Internally the whole muscu- whole course of organic evolution; lar system is quite different in the and it introduced new and tremen- two forms, as well as the digestive dous difficulties into any mechanical organs, while the reproductive parts or chemical theory of growth and of are fully developed in the latter only. hereditary transmission.20 The transformation of the larva into the perfect insect through an inter- vening quiescent pupa or chrysalis Indeed, Wallace thought that birds stage, lasting from a few days to also gave evidence of intelligent de- several months or even years, is sign, noting, “the bird’s wing seems to substantially the same process in me to be, of all the mere mechanical all the orders of the higher insects, organs of any living thing, that which and it is certainly one of the most most clearly implies the working out marvelous in the whole organic of a preconceived design in a new and world. The untiring researches of apparently most complex and difficult modern observers, aided by the manner, yet so as to produce a mar- most perfect microscopes and elab- velously successful result.”21 Wallace orate methods of preparation and doubted that all of the diverse color- observation, have revealed to us ation of birds could be explained on the the successive stages of the entire mere principle of utility, namely, that it metamorphosis, which has thus afforded them in each and every case become more intelligible as to the a survival advantage in nature. In method or succession of stages by which the transformation has been 20 Alfred Russel Wallace, The World of Life: A Manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind and Ultimate Purpose (London: effected, though leaving the funda- Chapman and Hall, 1910), pp. 298, 300. mental causes of the entire process 21 Ibid., pp. 287-288.

59 CHAPTER 7: “THE GRAND MARCH OF NATURE”

applying this to insects like butterflies, vehicles of color alone; and though Wallace believed that they the diversity of tint and pattern is undoubtedly useful in a variety of ways to the insects themselves, not only present us with a range yet it is so almost wholly in relation of color and pattern and of metal- to higher animals and not to their lic brilliancy fully equal (probably own kind….The brilliant metallic or superior) to that of birds, but they phosphorescent colors on the wings possess also in a few cases and in of butterflies may serve to distract distinct families, changeable opales- enemies from attacking a vital part, cent hues, in which a pure crimson, or, in the smaller species may alarm or blue, or yellow pigment, as the the enemy by its sudden flash with incidence of light varies, changes change of position. But while the into an intense luminous opales- colors are undoubtedly useful, the cence, sometimes resembling a mode of producing them seems un- brilliant phosphorescence more necessarily elaborate, and adds a than any metallic or mineral luster fresh complication and a still greater …. And what renders the wealth of difficulty in the way of any coloration thus produced the more mechanical or chemical conception remarkable is, that, unlike the feath- of their production.22 ers of birds, the special organs upon which these colors and patterns are displayed are not functionally essential to the insect’s existence. They have all the appearance of an added superstructure to the wing, because in this way a greater and more brilliant display of color could be produced than even upon the exquisite plumage of birds. It is true that in some cases, these scales have been modified into scent-glands in the males of some butterflies, and perhaps in the females of some Figure 1. Alfred Wallace moths, but otherwise they are the 22 Ibid., pp. 302-304. 60 CHAPTER 7: “THE GRAND MARCH OF NATURE”

In the final analysis, Wallace concluded that if the coloration and beauty of birds couldn’t be fully explained on the principle of utility, the complex process of metamorphosis and the resul- tant beauty and splendor of butterflies magnified the problem. If butterflies reflect “the grand march of nature,” then by 1910 Wallace declared that Na- ture herself has told the story on their wings “like the pages of some old il- Figure 2. Wallace’s Golden Birdwing luminated missal, to exhibit all her butterfly (Ornithoptera croesus). Wal- lace described the exhilaration of cap- powers in the production, on a minia- turing this species he called “the pride ture scale, of the utmost possibilities of the Eastern tropics.” In the forest at of color-decoration, of color-variety, Batchian (one of the northern Spice Is- and of color-beauty; and has done this lands), Wallace discovered a shrub fre- quented by these stunning butterflies. by a method which appears to us un- “The beauty and brilliancy of this insect necessarily complex and supremely are indescribable,” he wrote, “and none difficult, in order perhaps to lead us to but a naturalist can understand the intense excitement I experienced when recognize some guiding power, some I at length captured it.” (The Malay Ar- supreme mind, directing and organizing chipelago, p. 300). the blind forces of nature in the production of this marvelous development of life and loveliness.”23 ally compiled in 1870? If, as one recent This raises a question. How, if Wal- student of Wallace has claimed, “Wal- lace made this great departure from lace’s earlier belief in laws was replaced Darwin’s methodological naturalism in by his belief in ongoing providential 1869 by invoking an Overruling Intel- guidance,”24 then the answer to this ligence and by 1910 was seeing clear question is unobtainable. However, this features of design and purpose in but- view misconstrues the laws of nature. A terflies, could he leave unamended dichotomy needn’t exist between te- an essay written several years before leology or “providential guidance” and in a collection, Contributions to the natural law. It also misinterprets Wal-

Theory of Natural Selection, he person- 24 Jakob Novák, “Alfred Russel Wallace’s and August Weismann’s Evolution: A Story Written on Butterflies” (PhD diss., Princeton 23 Ibid., p. 323. University, 2008), p. 205.

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lace, for although he never embraced telligent design in nature: 1) it needn’t Christianity, his teleological biology was demand miraculous interventions; 2) a natural theology of sorts. Understood law-like phenomena don’t preclude in this way, Jay Richards’s observation teleology; and 3) intelligent design is seems germane: “if God [or an Over- fully consonant with science, for how ruling Intelligence] is in charge, then else could Wallace have let his 1864 even where natural selection is work- essay stand unrevised! For Wallace, as ing, no variation will be literally random wondrous as were all species of but- in the sense that most Darwinists un- terflies, the direct and special act of a derstand the word. They won’t creator was not required to explain the be purposeless.”25 existence of every one of them, simply As we have seen, Wallace him- some guidance or teleological power to self said that “some guiding power” direct the common descent of Lepidop- or “supreme mind” was responsible tera. In short, evolution itself for “directing and organizing the blind was intelligent. forces of nature.” In other words, Wal- This was not a volte-face for Wal- lace did not view teleology as being at lace. Hints of teleology can be seen in odds or in tension with natural law. The his life and work early on. For example, stochastic and utilitarian properties of as a young man of twenty writing late natural selection are limiting factors in 1843 he asked, “Can any reflecting that demand a design inference where mind have a doubt that, by improving those properties are lacking; natural to the utmost the nobler faculties of laws and purposeful design were not our nature in this world, we shall be the either/or propositions for Wallace who better fitted to enter upon and enjoy certainly allowed that “the controlling whatever new state of being that future action of such higher intelligences [i.e., may have in store for us?”28 These are teleological forces] is a necessary part hardly the words of a committed ma- of those laws.”26 Wallace once put it terialist or atheist. Then in 1856, two bluntly, “There are laws of nature, but years before his famous Ternate letter they are purposeful.”27 Wallace demon- explicating the theory of natural selec- strated three propositions regarding in- tion, he chided his fellow naturalists for being “too apt to imagine, when they 25 Jay Richards, “Understanding Intelligent Design,” in God and Evolution, edited by Jay Richards (Seattle: Discovery Institute cannot discover, a use for everything Press, 2010), pp. 256-257. 26 Alfred Russel Wallace, “The Limits of Natural Selection as Ap- plied to Man,” in Contributions, p. 360. in nature: they are not even content 27 Alfred Russel Wallace, New Thoughts on Evolution. Being the View of Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace. As Gathered in an Interview by 28 Alfred Russel Wallace, My Life: A Record of Events and Opin- Harold Begbie (London: Chapman and Hall, 1910), p. 14. ions (1908; reprinted, Elibron Classic, 2005), p. 114. 62 CHAPTER 7: “THE GRAND MARCH OF NATURE”

to let ‘beauty’ be a sufficient use, but from Wallace “the theist,” as if the two hunt after some purpose to which even could not coexist. that can be applied by the animal it- In fact it is pointless to imagine a self, as if one of the noblest and most pre-teleological Wallace and a post- refining parts of man’s nature, the love teleological Wallace. There were never of beauty for its own sake, would not two Wallaces. The same Wallace who be perceptible also in the works of a searched the laws of nature was the Supreme Creator.”29 Even then Wal- same Wallace who, the more he inves- lace perceived limiting factors in purely tigated them, began to perceive the naturalistic explanations and was sens- harmonies behind them. Wallace’s te- ing higher purpose in nature. At least leological world was as law-based and one Wallace biographer, H. Lewis McK- as unbroken as ever. Butterflies hadn’t inney, has noted Wallace’s call in 1863 changed either, but “the grand march for ecological responsibility in light of of nature” to which they colorfully “Creation which we had in our power paraded was for Wallace increasingly to preserve” and the hypocrisy ex- to the cadence of a teleological drum. pressed in poor stewardship notwith- In the end, butterflies taught Wallace standing the general belief in a direct that the seeming cacophony of atonal Creator. For McKinney this is sugges- materialism was in fact a symphony tive of Wallace’s shifting religious be- of purpose. A new and different Wal- liefs well before his being introduced lace needn’t be posited simply because to then-fashionable spiritualism two he was finally able to read the “notes” years later.”30 The notion held by some written on butterfly wings. (for example, Malcolm Jay Kottler and James Moore31) that Wallace’s conver- sion to spiritualism—a belief shared by many of his scientific colleagues—explains his increasing commitment to teleology is a facile compartmentalizing and dividing of Wallace “the scientist”

29 Alfred Russel Wallace, “On the Habits of the Orang-utan of Borneo,” Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 2nd series. 17, no.103 (1856), pp. 26-32. 30 Dictionary of Scientific Biography, s.v., “Wallace, Alfred Russel.” 31 See Malcolm Jay Kottler, “Alfred Russel Wallace, the Origin of Man, and Spiritualism,” Isis 65, no . 2 (1974), pp. 144-192; and James Moore, Post-Darwinian Controversies: A Study of the Figure 3. This striking butterfly bear- Protestant Struggles to Come to Terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America, 1870-1900 (Cambridge, United Kingdom: ing the name Heliconius wallacei or Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 184-190. 63 CHAPTER 7: “THE GRAND MARCH OF NATURE”

Wallace’s Long Wing butterfly (above) is found in the Amazon River Basin. Wallace’s discovery of new and different butterflies in the Malay Archipelago only continued work he had begun in the Amazon River Basin (1848-1852). “It is in the lovely butterflies that the Amazonian forests are unrivalled,” he remarked, “whether we consider the endless variety of the species, their large size, or their gorgeous colors. South America is the richest part of the world in this group of insects, and the Amazon seems the richest part in South America.” From his Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro (London: Reeve and Co., 1853), p. 468.

64 METAMORPHOSIS COMPANION: CHAPTER 8

Chapter 8 Magic Masks of Mimicry: Vladmir Nabokov as Darwin Doubter David Klinghoffer CHAPTER 8: MAGIC MASKS OF MIMICRY: VLADIMIR NABOKOV

Chapter 8 Was Right All Along,” as evolutionary Magic Masks of Mimicry: biologist and thumper for atheism Jerry Vladimir Nabokov as Coyne put it in the title of a post on Darwin Doubter his blog site, Why Evolution Is True.33 Coyne, who teaches at the University David Klinghoffer of Chicago, wrote about how he found it “really cool” that a paper Nabokov Was Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) published in 1945 in the scholarly but- a fundamentalist Christian or simply a terfly journal Psyche had just been scientific ignoramus? Among Darwin- confirmed by modern gene sequencing. ists, those are the most commonly Nabokov’s focus in the world of but- cited explanations for the strange phe- terflies and moths was the Polyomma- nomenon where people shockingly and tus blues. In the article he had specu- otherwise unaccountably pipe up with lated, based on a searching review of doubts about Darwinian theory. The the blues and their genitalia, that the great novelist (Lolita, Pale Fire, Pnin) group invaded the Americas from Asia was, in his own telling, a “furious” critic in a series of migrations via the Bering of Darwinian theory. In fact, he based Strait, starting 11 million years ago. the judgment not on religion, to which As a team writing in the Proceedings his biographer Brian Boyd writes that of the Royal Society of London now he was “profoundly indifferent,”32 and confirmed, Nabokov’s speculation was certainly not on ignorance but on de- prescient and, as retrospectively dem- cades of his scientific study of butter- onstrated, accurate in every detail. flies, including at Harvard’s Museum of Not mentioned, however, by news- Comparative Zoology and the American paper or braying atheist was how Museum of Natural History. Nabokov in the very same paper took It’s interesting, then, how in media a swipe at Darwinian theory. He wrote coverage of a recent story that remind- that “‘natural selection’ in its simplest ed the public of his expertise in Lepi- sense…certainly had no direct action doptera, Nabokov’s Darwin doubting whatever on the molding of the genital was slyly elided. Or perhaps not slyly armature….While accepting evolution but cluelessly. “Nonfiction: Nabokov as a modal formula”—describing the Theory on Butterfly Evolution Is Vindi- changing character of populations over cated,” read the New York Times head- line on January 25, 2011. “Nabokov 33 Jerry Coyne, “Nabokov Was Right All Along,” http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/nabokov-was-right-all- along/. 32 Brian Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 291. 66 CHAPTER 8: MAGIC MASKS OF MIMICRY: VLADIMIR NABOKOV

time—“I am not satisfied with any of York Times, was far from an isolated the hypotheses advanced in regard to incidence of his public Darwin doubting. the way it works.”34 As Brian Boyd notes in his biography, This is just another way of saying Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years, what the scientists who have signed “He could not accept that the undi- Discovery Institute’s Dissent from Dar- rected randomness of natural selection winism list affirm (“We are skeptical of would ever explain the elaborateness of claims for the ability of random muta- nature’s designs, especially in the most tion and natural selection to account complex cases of mimicry where the for the complexity of life”). Nabokov design appears to exceed any preda- naturally accepted that life evolved tor’s powers of apprehension.”35 in the sense of changing over vast Just how noted a lepidopterist was stretches of time, but he rejected all Nabokov? In an appreciation of his contemporary formulations, including scientific work written for the magazine Darwin’s, that seek to explain by what Natural History, Boyd summarized the mechanism evolution occurs. artist’s bona fides: Writing in the same issue of Psyche, he goes on to say that “repetitions of structure”—the same biological struc- For most of the 1940s, he served tures recurring around in butterflies as de facto curator of Lepidoptera the world—cannot be explained as re- at Harvard University’s Museum of sulting from “haphazard ‘convergence’ Comparative Zoology, and became since the number of coincident char- the authority on the little-studied acters in one element, let alone the blue butterflies Polyommatini( ) of coincidence of that coincident number North and South America. He was with a set of characters in another ele- also a pioneer in the study of but- ment, exceeds anything that might be terflies’ microscopic anatomy, distin- produced by ‘chance.’” This is an argu- guishing otherwise almost identical ment familiar today in discussions of blues by differences in the convergence theory advocated by their genital parts. Simon Conway Morris. Nabokov’s comment, while escaping the notice of Jerry Coyne and the New Later employed at Harvard as a research fellow in entomology while 34 Reproduced in Vladimir Nabokov, Nabokov’s Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings, ed. Brian Boyd and Robert Michael Pyle (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000), p. 356. 35 Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years, p. 23

67 CHAPTER 8: MAGIC MASKS OF MIMICRY: VLADIMIR NABOKOV

teaching comparative literature at of intertwisted wrestlers): that of a Wellesley, Nabokov published scientific writhing larva and that of a big ant journal articles in The Entomologist, seemingly harrowing it. When a cer- The Bulletin of the Museum of Compar- tain moth resembles a certain wasp ative Zoology, The Lepidopterists’ News, in shape and color, it also walks and and Psyche: A Journal of Entomology. moves its antennae in a waspish, As Boyd notes, Nabokov wrote “a unmothlike manner. When a but- major article,” subsequently lost, “with terfly has to look like a leaf, not only ‘furious refutations of “natural selec- are all the details of a leaf beauti- tion” and “the struggle for life.”’ He fully rendered but markings mimick- completed the paper in 1941 but all ing grub-bored holes are generously that survives is a fragment in his mem- thrown in. “Natural Selection,” in the oir, Speak, Memory (1951): Darwinian sense, could not explain the miraculous coincidence of imitative aspect and imitative behavior, The mysteries of mimicry had a nor could one appeal to the theory special attraction for me. Its phe- of “the struggle for life” when a nomena showed an artistic per- protective device was carried to a fection usually associated with point of mimetic subtlety, exuber- man-wrought things. Consider ance, and luxury far in excess of a the imitation of oozing poison by predator’s power of appreciation. I bubblelike macules on a wing (com- discovered in nature the nonutilitari- plete with pseudo-refraction) or by an delights that I sought in art. Both glossy yellow knobs on a chrysalis were a form of magic, both were a (“Don’t eat me—I have already been game of intricate enchantment squashed, sampled and rejected”). and deception.36 Consider the tricks of an acrobatic caterpillar (of the Lobster Moth) which in infancy looks like bird’s The novelist/lepidopterist asked, if dung, but after molting develops a particular artistic subtlety is beyond scrabbly hymenopteroid appendages the ability of a predator to perceive, and baroque characteristics, allow- how did nature select it? That sounds ing the extraordinary fellow to play an awful lot like the lead-up to an two parts at once (like the actor in argument for intelligent design. Oriental shows who becomes a pair 36 Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory (New York: Everyman’s Library, 1999), p. 88. 68 CHAPTER 8: MAGIC MASKS OF MIMICRY: VLADIMIR NABOKOV CHAPTER 8: MAGIC MASKS OF MIMICRY: VLADIMIR NABOKOV

A prime source on Nabokov on In 1941, he wrote in a letter to novelist design in nature is a book that Boyd and chemist Mark Aldanov that simul- edited with Robert Michael Pyle, Nabo- taneously with his work on his novel kov’s Butterflies, collecting his scien- Bend Sinister he was “writing a work tific and literary writing on butterflies, on mimicry (with a furious refutation of both published and previously unpub- ‘natural selection’ and the ‘struggle for lished. Nabokov, writes Boyd, detected life’).”38 What a shame that work does a “sense of design deeply embedded in not survive. But in his novel The Gift nature’s detail, of a playful deceptive- he considered including an addendum ness behind things, of some kind of titled “Father’s Butterflies” that cap- conscious cosmic hide-and-seek.” Al- tures at some length the source of his though there is no evidence that Nabo- doubts about Darwin. kov understood the intelligence behind The addendum was never published the design to be a deity, the situation as part of the novel but a manuscript in his mind was much as the Bible had was preserved in the Library of Con- put it: “It is the glory of God to hide a gress and appears, translated by his thing, but the glory of kings to search son Dimitri, in Nabokov’s Butterflies. things out” (Proverbs 5:2). Mimicry On mimicry, he argued that evolu- among butterflies was one of those tion never had the time to produce give-away clues in nature that point such wonders by a Darwinian process: most clearly to hidden design. “The impossibility of achieving false “Only in mimicry,” says Boyd, “did similarities via a gradual accumulation he suspect that the design behind of corresponding traits, whether by things was apparent enough and ex- chance or as a consequence of ‘natu- plicit enough to be treated ral selection,’ is proven by a simple as science.”37 lack of time.”39 As published (in English In his own introductory essay to translation in 1963), The Gift recounts the book, lepidopterist Robert Michael the narrator’s memories of his father’s Pyle writes of how Nabokov challenged arguments along the same lines, the his colleagues, the evolutionists Ernst “magic masks of mimicry.” Mayr and Theodosius Dobzhansky, on the nature of species. As I mentioned, he planned to issue a formal chal- He told me about the incredible ar- lenge, rather than an incidental one. tistic wit of mimetic disguise, which

37 Nabokov, Nabokov’s Butterflies, pp. 19-20. 38 Ibid., p. 248. 39 Ibid., p. 223. 70 CHAPTER 8: MAGIC MASKS OF MIMICRY: VLADIMIR NABOKOV

was not explainable by the struggle concession to any religious faith. As a for existence (the rough haste of lepidopterist, he was not some dab- evolution’s unskilled forces), was too bling dilettante but a serious scientist refined for the mere deceiving of ac- with a mastery of his subject and a cidental predators, feathered, scaled perceptiveness that would be further and otherwise (not very fastidious, demonstrated with time. This, not but then not too fond of butterflies), surprisingly, puts Nabokov scholars in and seemed to have been invented a bind. They can’t and don’t want to by some waggish artist precisely for minimize his scientific expertise. They the intelligent eyes of man.40 can’t deny the obvious reality that with regard to Darwinism, he was a flaming heretic. But neither do the prejudices In the Nabokov Archive at the New of academia permit them to validate York Public Library, Boyd and Pyle dis- Nabokov’s view as one that he could covered further unpublished notes on have sustained indefinitely. issues related to speciation, made in In a footnote in the second volume the course of preparing another paper of his biography, Boyd reassures us for Psyche (“Notes on the Morphology that—perhaps on the model of Darwin’s of the Genus Lycaeides,” 1944). In one disturbing racism—Nabokov’s heresy note on what he called “homopsis,” was a product of his time and there- a kind of repetition of characteristics fore excusable. Back in the day, “his among species—in this case, those of position was not so unusual as it may the butterfly genusLycaeides —he com- seem now. Among professional biolo- mented on the coincidence of various gists it was only in the decade 1937- mimetic traits. The coincidence was of 1947 that what Julian Huxley called ‘the a kind that it was “impossible to explain evolutionary synthesis’ itself evolved, satisfactorily either by blind acciden- and settled the differences between tal causes or by the blind coordination naturalists and geneticists that had of accidents termed natural selection impeded widespread acceptance, not (even if the protective value of mimetic of evolution per se, but of Darwin’s own resemblance is proved).”41 explanations of the phenomena.”42 Nabokov’s view on the inadequacies That’s a nice try. Stephen Jay Gould of natural selection as a theory was no tried a similar tack in an essay (“No casual eccentricity, just as it was no Science Without Fancy, No Art With-

40 Ibid., p. 178. 42 Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years, p. 23. 41 Ibid., p. 310. 71 CHAPTER 8: MAGIC MASKS OF MIMICRY: VLADIMIR NABOKOV out Facts: The Lepidoptery of Vladimir time such ideas were in the process of Nabokov”), arguing that “When winning orthodox approval, it’s hard Nabokov wrote his technical papers to see how the neo-Darwinian revela- in the 1940s, the modern Darwinian tion would dissolve the dilemmas that orthodoxy had not yet congealed, he perceived. and a Nabokovian style of doubt Johnson and Coates also consider remained quite common among the possibility that while Nabokov was evolutionary biologists.”43 not influenced by religious belief, per- Yet while leading evolutionists like haps other philosophical views shaped Mayr and Dobzhansky were synthesiz- his doubts about Darwin. A lepidop- ing the modern synthesis, Nabokov terist at Yale and friend of Nabokov’s, wasn’t lost on a desert island or isolat- Charles Lee Remington, suggested a ed on an Alpine peak. He was present parallel between Nabokov on mimicry at the idea’s birth, at Harvard and the and the thought of Russian esoteric American Museum of Natural History, philosopher P.D. Uspensky (1878-1947). and was a contemporary of the very A vitalist, write Johnson and Coates, leaders in the scientific movement that Uspensky “nourished the Aristotelian gave Darwinism its “neo” form. In their belief that there is a driving intelligence book Nabokov’s Blues: The Scientific behind nature and that natural pro- Odyssey of a Literary Genius, lepidop- cesses, like mimicry, are developed by terist Kurt Johnson and journalist Steve this intelligence toward a desired end…. Coates note that Nabokov followed While Uspensky’s often magical view Mayr and Dobzhansky’s work in par- of the world suggests some of the lay- ticular “with critical interest.”44 ered realities Nabokov himself created Yet Johnson and Coates too sympa- in works like Pale Fire, it seems unlikely thize with the Gould defense, explain- that Nabokov the scientist would ing that nowadays everyone in the field have put much faith in Uspensky’s would know “how actions of genes in overall worldview.”45 specific populations drive evolution It’s not clear whether Nabokov ever toward sometimes fantastic but still read Uspensky’s work. But as a young mechanistic external resemblances.” man he is known to have read another But even if Nabokov had been else- vitalist and anti-materialist, Henri Berg- where than at Harvard at precisely the son, with attention and admiration. Brian Boyd in the first volume of his 43 Quoted in Kurt Johnson and Stephen L. Coates, Nabokov’s Blues: The Scientific Odyssey of a Literary Genius (Hanover, N.H.: Zoland Books, 2000), p. 328. 45 Ibid., pp. 328-329. 44 Ibid., p. 50. 72 CHAPTER 8: MAGIC MASKS OF MIMICRY: VLADIMIR NABOKOV

biography, Vladimir Nabokov: The Rus- eyes open, by sincerely, intelligently, sian Years, notes that Nabokov went and openly considering the relevant ev- even further than Bergson in his anti- idence of life, science side by side with Darwinism—which surfaced, at least art. Darwinists are invested, always, implicitly, as early as his 1924 short in explaining away and deconstruct- story “The Dragon.” ing other people’s evolutionary doubts. It’s possible that Nabokov was in- Nabokov’s science has already been fluenced decisively and led astray by vindicated on one relatively arcane other people’s ideas, or possibly by question. Why not, too, on what is—for symbolic, metaphysical meanings he scientists and non-scientists—the big- attached to butterflies. They turn up gest question there could be? frequently as a motif in his fiction, often denoting the soul’s liberation at death—a metamorphosis like the one that takes the caterpillar through the chrysalis to its transmogrification in the form of a butterfly. The name of the peer-reviewed scientific journal where he published many of papers, Psyche, means in Greek “soul,” “life,” “ghost,” “self,” and “butterfly.” “We are the caterpillars of angels,” he wrote in a 1923 poem.46 Charles Lee Remington believed his old friend was so committed to his metaphysics that even in the face of the fully articulated neo-Darwinian doctrine, had he remained professionally active as a scientist, Nabokov might well have refused to relent. But all such speculations are really intended to avoid confronting the possibility that his view was just what it seemed to be—honestly attained with

46 Nabokov, Nabokov’s Butterflies, p. 109.

73 METAMORPHOSIS COMPANION: CHAPTER 9

Chapter 9 Darwin vs. Beauty: Explaining Away the Butterfly Jonathan Witt CHAPTER 9: DARWIN VS. BEAUTY

Chapter 9 understand something is to identify its Darwin vs. Beauty: material parts, and to do so at lower Explaining Away the Butterfly and lower levels (e.g., from traits to cells to molecules to atoms, and so Jonathan Witt on). At its most extreme, reductionism views things as ultimately just the sum There is nothing necessarily illogical of their parts. Thus, to a Darwinian re- about seeking to “explain away” some- ductionist, the grace and beauty of the thing, since the something in question butterfly or the songbird or the poet may be an illusion; but a first step in ultimately spring from some advantage understanding Darwinism’s response this beauty lent the creature and its to the beauty of the butterfly—and to ancestors for survival and reproduction beauty generally—is to recognize that (“survival of the fittest”). Darwinism does seek to explain away And at this point Darwinism is only our experience of it. In particular, it getting warmed up. Darwinian reduc- seeks to explain away our sense that tionism is the great equalizer, boiling all beauty in some way connects us to of life down to either natural selection the transcendent. or sexual selection, and beneath that, To his credit, Charles Darwin recog- to genetics. “Now they swarm in huge nized there were instances of extrava- colonies, safe inside gigantic lumber- gant natural beauty that outstripped ing robots, sealed off from the outside the explanatory power of Darwinian world, communicating with it by tortu- natural selection, so in The Descent of ous indirect routes, manipulating it by Man he developed his theory of sexual remote control,” explains evolutionary selection to fill the explanatory gap. apologist Richard Dawkins. “They are in There Darwin argued, in essence, that you and in me; they created us, body the peacock has an extravagant tail, and mind; and their preservation is Shakespeare an extravagant gift for the ultimate rationale for our existence. spinning tales, and Mozart an extrava- They have come a long way, those gant ability to compose, the better to replicators. Now they go by the attract a mate.47 name of genes, and we are their His explanation, while scientific in survival machines.”48 its orientation, was part of a larger If we imagine that the higher things philosophical project known as reduc- in life are somehow exempt from this tion—the idea that the best way to

48 Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (New York: Oxford Univer- 47 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation sity Press, 1976), pp. 19-20. to Sex (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 1981. 75 CHAPTER 9: DARWIN VS. BEAUTY

reductionist acid, Harvard socio-biolo- tion for saying anything is noble or low gist Edward O. Wilson sets us straight. or wicked. He leads into the matter by suggesting Think about some of the great po- that when humans have grown wiser, ems, paintings or novels. They probe the human mind “will be more precisely the world of flesh and blood, but at the explained as an epiphenomenon of the same time they draw us into things neuronal machinery of the brain. That spiritual: the sublime and the ridicu- machinery is in turn the product of ge- lous; love, heroism, and envy; good netic evolution by natural selection act- and evil. But if Darwinism is right, ing on human populations for hundreds some of our ancestors had an evolu- of thousands of years in their ancient tionary mutation that caused them to environments.”49 A bit later he adds, imagine that a spiritual dimension—in- “The social scientists and humanistic cluding things like nobility—actually ex- scholars, not omitting theologians, will ist. Since the illusion made them better eventually have to concede that scien- at surviving and reproducing, the mu- tific naturalism is destined to alter the tation passed from one generation to foundation of their systematic inquiry the next in a growing population of de- by redefining the mental process itself.” luded ancestors, creatures who worked As for the beauty of artistic genius, out their delusion in everything from the “sensuous hues and dark tones poetry to painting to music. So goes have been produced by the genetic the story of Darwinian reductionism. evolution of our nervous and sensory One might respond, “Well, that’s tissues,” he writes. “To treat them as just the price of honest, unflinching other than objects of biological inquiry rational investigation.” But the con- is simply to aim too low.”50 clusion is far from rational, and for at Wilson puts a brave and noble face least a couple of reasons. First, the on his recommended approach, imply- theory of sexual selection moves rather ing as he does that his opponents are than solves the problem of extrava- aiming “too low.” But what exactly is gant beauty in the biological realm. high about Darwinian reductionism? Consider the tail of the peacock. Their Treating artistic beauty as a mere by- enormous tails slow them down, mak- product of evolution doesn’t lead to a ing it easier for predators to catch higher, deeper or nobler understanding them. Darwin’s complementary theory of art. It undermines the very founda- of sexual selection says that peahens

49 Edward O. Wilson, On Human Nature (Cambridge: Harvard are attracted to large tail feathers (or University Press, 1978), pp. 195, 204. 50 Wilson, On Human Nature, p. 11. 76 CHAPTER 9: DARWIN VS. BEAUTY CHAPTER 9: DARWIN VS. BEAUTY more specifically, to the abundance of ter survive amidst a host of predators bright blue spots on the tail feathers), searching for dinner? Darwin’s theory and they use these as a selection crite- of sexual selection doesn’t answer this rion when choosing a mate. The prob- question. Thus, it moves rather than lem is this: Now there’s another trait solves the problem of the impractical to be explained besides the enormous peacock tail. tail feathers of the peacock: namely, A second and more wide-ranging the tendency of peahens to choose way that Darwinian reductionism is less peacocks with impractically large tail than fully rational is in its commitment feathers. According to the Darwinian to the principle of methodological ma- story of natural history, this trait wasn’t terialism. This is the investigative rule created by an intelligent designer; it which says that investigators may con- emerged gradually by natural selection. sider only theories fully consistent with But why would nature tend to select atheism. (It’s not usually described this peafowl that prefer large tail feathers starkly, but that’s what it boils down on their peacocks? to.) According to the dictates of meth- Imagine you have a population of odological materialism, if the extrava- peafowl. Some of the peahens select gant beauty of butterflies or birds, if their mates in the ordinary way—ac- the origin of life or the universe or the cording to how fast the peacocks can fine tuning of the laws and constants of take off, by how well they can handle nature, if any of these features of our themselves in a fight with other pea- world points strongly toward a creative cocks, that sort of thing. But a curious intelligence beyond the purely material, cluster of genetic mutations bestowed the flow of the evidence must on one peahen the gift of appreciating be resisted. artistic effects, including an impractical This is what passes for scientific thirst for big, beautiful plumage. Con- rationality in our age. But it isn’t hard- sequently, she and some of her female nosed realism at all; it’s priggish dog- offspring start selecting peacocks with matism. It’s the man in the seat beside bigger tail feathers. The question is: you at a Beethoven concert insisting why would natural selection prefer that everything you’re hearing is only these pea hens with their impractical so many notes, which are only so many disposition over pea hens with surviv- sound waves, which are only so many al-oriented selection criteria, criteria perturbations among so many gaseous that would help their offspring bet- molecules amidst the machinery of

78 CHAPTER 9: DARWIN VS. BEAUTY your ear drum, the whole experience explanation not only for the beauty of a curious stew of physics and sexual the butterfly, but also for the origin of selection working its soulless magic species. In doing so we will have left upon a delusional audience. The prig the world of Aldous Huxley’s ironically has talked all about the parts but has titled Brave New World—with its utili- missed the whole, has missed tarian pleasure seekers oblivious of the the genius. transcendent—and will have returned to In the midst of such reductionism, the far richer universe of meaning and the Dictionary of the History of Ideas wonder that led William Shakespeare’s strikes a hopeful note: “Although we Miranda to exclaim to her father Pros- are reminded that the man of the pero, “How many goodly creatures are second half of the twentieth century there here! … O brave new world!” no longer believes in geniuses, they Does sex come into it? Of course. can hardly be abolished by an act of But that too is a work of genius. ‘cultural will.’”51 The evidence of artistic genius, whether human or natural, remains all around us. The evidence that we live in a world not only red in tooth and claw, but also overflowing with beauty and meaning—this too remains all around us. Perhaps, then, we should take the existence of beauty in nature as a starting point, since we’re much more directly acquainted with that than with the truth of the various theoretical attempts to explain them away. We need only leave the flatland of Darwinian reductionism to see them for what they are. When we do, we will find a richer

51 “Genius: Individualism in Art and Artists,” The Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, Vol. 2, p. 311, ed. Philip P. Wiener, http://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/ view?docId=DicHist/uvaGenText/tei/DicHist2.xml;chunk.id=dv2- 36;toc.depth=1;toc.id=dv2-36;brand=default (originally New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973-74). Lowinsky quoted from E.E. Lowinsky, “Musical Genius—Evolution and Origins of a Con- cept,” The Musical Quarterly 50 (1964), pp. 321-40.

79 CONTRIBUTORS

Contributors proximately 7,500 pages. (See the Hill House Publishers website for a list of titles, regions and families treated.) Lad Allen is co-founder of Illustra D’Abrera has described several new Media, a motion picture production genera as well as over 100 new species company based in Southern Califor- and subspecies. The D’Abrera’s Tiger, nia. Lad has produced, written, and Parantica dabrerai, an Indonesian but- directed more than 100 films and re- terfly species, is named for him, as is ceived numerous international awards. Gnathothlibus dabrera, a species of Illustra’s documentary trilogy—Unlock- Indonesian moth. ing the Mystery of Life, The Privileged Planet, and Darwin’s Dilemma—has helped popularize the scientific case for Michael A. Flannery is a Discovery intelligent design in the universe. These Institute Fellow and the author of Alfred films have been translated into more Russel Wallace: A Rediscovered Life than two dozen languages and distrib- (2011) and the editor of Alfred Russel uted throughout the world. Illustra’s Wallace’s Theory of Intelligent Evolu- most recent documentary is Metamor- tion: How Wallace’s World of Life Chal- phosis: The Beauty and Design of But- lenged Darwinism (2008). Flannery de- terflies, which was released during the veloped the content for the educational summer of 2011. website www.alfredwallace.org, and he appears in the new documentary Darwin’s Heretic. Flannery is Associ- Bernard d’Abrera is an Australian ate Director for Historical Collections entomological taxonomist and phi- at the Lister Hill Library of the Health losopher of science. His magnum opus Sciences and a Professor at University comprises a series of works forming a of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He synoptic reference to the true butter- has published extensively in medical flies, hawk moths and saturniid moths history and bioethics, winning the Ed- of the world, which is based largely on ward Kremers Award in 2001 for dis- the collections of the Natural History tinguished writing by an American from Museum in London, and other world- the American Institute of the History wide museums, public and private. of Pharmacy and the 2006 Publications The works comprise taxonomic text of Award of the Archivists and Librarians over 4 million words, illustrated with in the History of the Health Sciences. over 66,000 colored figures, over ap- 80 CONTRIBUTORS

Ann Gauger is a Senior Research (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 1999). Scientist at the Biologic Institute. Klinghoffer has been a literary editor She received a BS in biology from MIT, and senior editor of National Review. where she studied bacterial genetics. His articles and reviews have appeared Her PhD at the University of Washing- in the New York Times, Los Angeles ton Zoology department expanded her Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington horizons to include invertebrate zool- Post, Weekly Standard, and elsewhere. ogy, animal physiology, cell biology and development; it was there that she first encountered the riddle of metamorphosis, while working with Drosophila ima- Paul Nelson is a philosopher of ginal disks. As a post-doctoral fellow at biology who received his PhD in evo- Harvard she cloned and characterized lutionary theory and the philosophy of the Drosophila kinesin light chain gene. science from the University of Chicago Now she has come full circle to focus (1998). He is currently an adjunct pro- on the origin, organization and opera- fessor in the MA Program in Science tion of metabolic pathways in bacteria. & Religion at Biola University, and a Her research has been published in Na- Fellow of the Discovery Institute. His ture, Development, the Journal of Bio- research interests include the relation- logical Chemistry, and Bio-Complexity. ship between developmental biology and the history of life, the theory of intelligent design (ID), and the interac- tion of science and theology. He has David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fel- published chapters in many antholo- low at the Discovery Institute. His most gies dealing with evolution and ID, and recent book, a collaboration with Sena- speaks frequently on these topics at tor Joe Lieberman, is The Gift of Rest: colleges and universities in the United Rediscovering the Sabbath Day (How- States and abroad. ard Press/Simon & Schuster, 2011). His other books include Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History (Doubleday, 2005), Jonathan Witt, PhD, is a Senior The Discovery of God: Abraham and Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center the Birth of Monotheism (Doubleday, for Science and Culture and co-author 2003), and The Lord Will Gather Me In of A Meaningful World: How the Arts

81 CONTRIBUTORS

and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Photo Credits Nature (2006) and Intelligent Design Uncensored (2010). He has written or Unless otherwise noted, photos in co-written scripts for three documenta- this book are © Illustra Media. All ries that have appeared on PBS, includ- Rights Reserved. ing The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe. He has Chapter 1: Figure 1, Fotolia/© Tom written on aesthetics for Literature and Hirtreiter. Theology and The Princeton Theologi- cal Review. His essays on Darwinism, Chapter 4: Figures 1 and 2, Paul Nel- intelligent design and worldview have son; Figure 3, Ann Gauger, adapted appeared in such places as the Seattle and redrawn from information provided Times, the Kansas City Star, Philoso- by James Truman and Lynn Riddiford, phia Christi, Crisis and Touchstone. His “The origins of insect metamorphosis,” narrative writing has appeared in the Nature 401 (1999), p. 447. journals Windhover and New Texas. Chapter 5: Butterfly photos, chapter title page and p. 42, © Bernard d’Abrera and Hill House Publishers.

Chapter 7: Figure 1, Public Domain, from Alfred Russel Wallace, My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions, vol. 1. Figures 2 and 3, Wikimedia Commons (reprinted under the Creative Com- mons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Un- ported license).

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Hill House PublishersTM Butterflies of the World (1961-2010) by Bernard Melbourne & London d’Abrera is the sole modern multi-volume work by a single author/illustrator referencing the true butterflies (Papilionoidea) of the world. It is a comprehensive yet synoptic record of the entire butterfly fauna, listing every known species and many new species and races, since the famous work of Adalbert Seitz of nearly 100 years ago.

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