Turning an Unevolved Horseshoe Crab Into a Darwin Showpiece

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Posted on January 26, 2012 in Awards, Biology, Darwin and Evolution, Dumb Ideas, Mammals, Marine Biology, Origins, Terrestrial Zoology

Horseshoe crabs are survivors by anyone’s measure; they have carried on their lives virtually unchanged, according to the standard evolutionary timeline, for 450 million years.  This not only points to incredible stasis against alleged forces of evolution; it also means they have survived at least three global extinctions that evolutionary biologists and geologists say wiped out most other species.  Not only that, the world has changed drastically since they allegedly evolved from who-knows-what arthropod ancestors – perhaps trilobites, that appeared in the Cambrian Explosion without ancestors.  But the numerous, successful trilobites did not survive the global extinctions.  Given these contradictory facts, how can the horseshoe crab possibly be an exhibit for evolution?  A recent article shows how.

Horseshoe crabs are not crabs; they are arthropods, similar in some ways to scorpions.  The UK Natural History Museum gave facts and fancies about these amazing, complex animals on the verge of a BBC News special TV program about them:

The Great Dying wiped out most of the Earth’s species.  Some scientists have estimated 96% of marine species, 70% of terrestrial vertebrates and 57% of insect families became extinct. But the strange-looking horseshoe crab, with its armoured shell and long rigid pointed tail, lived on… These animals have survived 3 of Earth’s extinctions that wiped out most other species.

If humans learned their secrets, maybe they could do better on the Survivor reality shows.  What are their secrets?  Fossil expert Richard Fortey lists some possibilities in the article: (1) being able to eat almost anything, (2) getting by with less oxygen, (3) salt tolerance, and (4) having a kind of blood that shields against bacteria.  If those traits are so evolutionarily successful in one of the earliest animals, it’s a wonder every other animal didn’t mimic them.  Presumably the trilobites had these traits, but they went extinct anyway.

At the end of the article comes the evolutionary exhibit.  Richard Fortey does his best to explain why an unevolved creature is really evidence for evolution:


Darwin Baloney“These creatures tell us that evolution does not move inevitably forwards towards new morphology and new designs,” comments Fortey.


The article dubs this “strange evolution.”  Indeed.  In the same article, Fortey said that the duckbill platypus has survived for 200 million years.  With flexible explanations like this, Darwin can’t lose.

Articles like this are more evidence that once the level of public credulity is sufficiently reduced by accurate information about the logical tricks of evolutionists, people will laugh Darwin off the stage of history and wonder how on earth so many smart people fell for his view of the world.

Let’s review what we were just told.

• Complex designs just popped into existence without ancestors.

• These designs were not only complex, they were better at surviving than more than 90% of other animals that followed.

• They endured virtually unchanged for 450 million years.

• Evolution improves body designs, but it also allows them to remain basically the same.

• A past design  that endures to the present day constitutes evidence for evolution.

If you are sufficiently dumbfounded at these shenanigans committed in the name of science, stop taking it.  Fight back.  Demand logic.  Demand integrity.  Call a spade a spade.  This spadeful of nonsense calls for a ultrasaurus-size pooper scooper.


lynn January 26, 2012

Supposedly, horseshoe crabs go though a larval-type stage referred to as the trilobite stage, because they resemble trilobites. How do we know trilobites were a separate species of creature rather than simply the immature form of a horseshoe crab-like creature?

Can you imagine if frogs and toads were extinct, but caught in the fossil record was evidence of a “fish” (tadpole) actually turning into an amphibian? That would be used as undeniable proof of evolution! And if some crazy creationist said something like, “Well, maybe that fish thing was the immature form of the creature and it changed into that other creature as an adult–you know, the way caterpillars turn into butterflies,” what an utter nut he would be considered!

Uncommon Descent | Darwinist: Evolution and no evolution are the same thing, it turns out January 26, 2012

[…] Horseshoe Crab Into a Darwin Showpiece” (Creation-Evolution Headlines, January 26, 2012), we learn, Horseshoe crabs are survivors by anyone’s measure; they have carried on their lives virtually […]

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