Monday, March 28, 2011

Did the Seabird Evolve Head Feathers as Sensory Device?

New research shows that without their head feathers seabirds such as Aethia cristatella can’t find their way through tight spaces as well:

Crested and whiskered auklets nest in hollows on rocky islands in the remote northern Pacific Ocean. To see if their elaborate headdresses helped the birds make their way through the rocks to their nests at night, Jones and Seneviratne went to the Aleutian Islands, captured wild birds and put them in a darkened maze – but first they taped down some birds' decorative feathers.

Infrared camera recordings showed that whiskered auklets (Aethia pygmaea) bumped their heads nearly three times more often if their long head feathers were taped down. Crested auklets (A. cristatella), suffered similarly with their crests taped down, but adding an artificial crest to the naturally unadorned least auklet (A. pusilla) – which also nests on the islands but in more open areas – didn't help these birds avoid bumps. Moreover, Sereviratne says, "birds with longer crests had greater difficulty in navigating inside the maze" when their crests were taped down.

The evolutionary origin of the birds' elaborate head feathers supports the idea that their first job was sensing, says Seneviratne. He adds that the auklets' crests evolved from filoplumes, long hair- or thread-like feathers that lack normal feather structures and are attached to pressure-sensitive cells so they can detect touch. In many birds these feathers are hidden by larger contour or wing feathers, but in the auklets they stick out proudly where they can detect obstacles.

The auklet’s head feathers clearly are not just for looks. But evolutionary theory was not needed to make this discovery, nor does it help in explaining the feathers, or the cellular pressure-sensing mechanisms. In fact, beyond empty speculation evolution has no explanation for how such mechanisms could have arisen on their own. It is a typical example of how evolution is a gratuitous explanation, adding nothing but a “multiplied entity” as Occam put it. We may as well say, with the Aristotelians, that fire is hot because it has the quality of heat. Not only has evolutionary theory badly failed, it is not particularly helpful in doing science. It simply becomes more and more complex as we learn about the world.

9 comments:

  1. Headline news: Creationist stupefied to learn that evolution produces features in animals that help them survive by better sensing their environment.

    Good thing the article wasn't about the whiskers on rats or the Eimer’s organs on the snout of a star nosed mole. The Creationist would have probably fainted in dead swoon.

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  2. If "this feature occurs because of evolution" is gratuitous than so is "this feature occurs because of design," or any other explanation you want to insert at the end of that phrase. We are left with, "this feature occurs." That's the implication of this article; that true science is ONLY observations and any percieved mechanisms are philisophical/religious bias. Maybe that is true, but there comes a point where doubt becomes unreasonable. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

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  3. Thorton:

    Headline news: Creationist stupefied to learn that evolution produces features in animals that help them survive by better sensing their environment.

    Hey meathead. Why is it that every time you open your mouth, a dead vermin falls out of it?

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  4. Louis Savain said...

    Thorton: Headline news: Creationist stupefied to learn that evolution produces features in animals that help them survive by better sensing their environment.

    Hey meathead. Why is it that every time you open your mouth, a dead vermin falls out of it?


    Thanks Looie for taking time from your busy schedule of fantasizing about men's testicles to make that elegant and insightful reply.

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  5. CH,
    "But evolutionary theory was not needed to make this discovery, nor does it help in explaining the feathers, or the cellular pressure-sensing mechanisms."

    It that is incorrect. the work was done by evolutionary biologists, motivated by evolutionary questions and performed using methodology explicitly developed for evolutionary biology (comparative analyses). would this function for crest feathers have been found if evolutionary biology did not exist? who knows, but it was found in this case because of evolutionary biology.

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  6. "nor does it help in explaining the feathers"

    not sure what you mean by this, but it does help to recognize that the feathers are modified filoplumes, which serve to sense pressure in other contexts (notably nestled within flight feathers)

    "or the cellular pressure-sensing mechanisms"
    usually papers don't address every aspect of a finding down to the subatomic level. that would make science move awfully slowly.

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  7. In fact, beyond empty speculation evolution has no explanation for how such mechanisms could have arisen on their own.

    What's the Intelligent Design explanation as to how these mechanisms arose?

    Note: "They were designed" is not an answer, it's a just-so-story.

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  8. OM:

    "What's the Intelligent Design explanation as to how these mechanisms arose?

    Note: "They were designed" is not an answer, it's a just-so-story."
    ===

    I don't believe the man has ever proposed an actual step by step explanation of how designed things arose. Though I do believe he has faith in a creator as accomplishing this, it would be an actual impossibility for anyone to give a factual step by step procedure of the processes involved without actually personally being there. It is the same exact burden of proof dilema that your side is shackled to. The difference however is that most believers in a creator admit the impossibility of actually knowing step by step processes. Your side refuses and makes things up as they go along and lables these FACTS.

    Your side fabricates and manufactures those "just-so-stories" as you put it and that is the point of Cornelius' blog. The fact that his various points infuriate you are irrelevent of the truth of the matter that the so-called "Scientific Method" is quite literally urinated and spat upon by your side in favour of your own version of FAITH STATEMENT making. That is what makes your position a clearly religious one.

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