Endowment
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A student who witnessed the deadly shooting of two students on February 27th, 2012 at Chardon High School, Ohio, reported that the gunman was targeting students sitting at a cafeteria table. At least 100 students in the cafeteria began screaming and fled through the halls as gunfire broke out around 7:30 a. m. Some ran into a middle school while others locked themselves in the teachers’ lounge.
Without a doubt the instinct of self-preservation was much in evidence.
If a son asked his father, who was a firm evolutionist,“ Dad, what causes human beings to run away from danger?” he would answer,“ Son, it’ s just instinct!”
But his son may continue,“ But everybody has that instinct! How come?”
With some irritation the father might answer,“ Son, it’ s just nature!”
“ But dad,” insists the child,“ I saw it on the nature channel. Animals also have instincts! I saw a mother cat trying to rescue a kitten that had climbed too far up into a tree. It was the mother instinct, just like how moms take care of their babies!”
“ Just nature, son!” the father would sigh, weary of all the questions.
As a child, I too recognized that much of God’ s creation was endowed with amazing instincts. From about the age of eight, being very close to nature, my inquiring mind was always asking very searching questions.
I used to keep white and yellow back spiders on our front porch along with dark brown may bugs in bottles half-filled with earth. I watched as spiders wove webs and found that bugs lay eggs in the dirt. After destroying one spider’ s web, I soon discovered that the spider had woven another elsewhere. I became aware that everything on earth had a cause. The spider wove its web to catch its prey, and bugs laid eggs to continue the species. I surmised that an intelligent mind must have reasoned that life without the hunting instinct, or the thrill of bringing up its young would carry no excitement at all. Therefore I soon agreed with the psalmist’ s conclusion,“ Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty!”
A Scientific Review Consider now the following scientific facts and illustrations, and come to your own conclusion, as you join me in the search for causes.
Jean Henri Fabre,( 1823-1915) the father of modern entomology( i. e. the study of insects), was a popular teacher, physicist, chemist and botanist in France. His influence is felt in the later works of fellow naturalist, Charles Darwin, who called Fabre“ an inimitable observer.” Fabre’ s special force was exact and detailed observation, field research that always avoided premature general conclusions from his observations.
From his intensive study he pointed out that insects that kill their prey by instinctive skill, understand the anatomy of that prey and of that prey alone. Those that paralyze know exactly how to paralyze certain species only. Secondly, Thomisus, the spider that cuts bees’ throats, knows how to apply the fatal blow, while the Epeira spider does not. Thirdly, Fabre also discovered the absolute symmetry of the cricket’ s two wings whenever it bows: the right always lies over and plays on the left. He found that all cricket musicians were right-winged. When he raised a cricket with the left wing case artificially displaced to cover the right, the cricket tried to play in that position, failed, then corrected its wing positions to the usual position, and then played! Thus, the study of instincts has long been a puzzle for the evolutionist, forcing the obvious question:“ How did certain insects come to have such instincts?”
An imaginary visit to the environs of the fawn( baby deer) may help us to evaluate Darwin’ s theory of evolution objectively. As we enter the forest, we are greeted by Bambi, a fawn, surrounded by his father, the Great Prince of the forest, his friends, Thumper( a pink-nosed rabbit), Flower( a skunk), and Faline, a female deer, his childhood
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