Toxic Butterflies Fool Evolutionists

About this episode

The episode discusses how the viceroy butterfly's toxicity challenges evolutionary claims about mimicry and survival.

The monarch caterpillar feeds on milkweed. Milkweed manufactures a powerful toxin that can, in most cases, stop the heart of any creature who eats enough of it. The monarch caterpillar itself is unharmed by this poison. In fact, the caterpillar stores the poison in its body, and this poison remains even after the caterpillar has turned into a butterfly.Evolutionary scientists thought that the viceroy evolved to mimic or look like the monarch to fool birds into thinking that it, too, was toxic. The evolutionary story was that viceroys must really be good to eat, since they evolved from the tasty admiral butterflies. This evolutionary thinking remained untested until a few years ago, basically because scientists often consider it improper to question evolutionary claims. But, the tests using the wingless bodies of six different kinds of butterflies, including viceroys, proved that viceroys are indeed toxic to birds. Birds avoid the viceroy because it manufactures its own toxins. In fact, research has shown that the viceroy is, on average, even more poisonous than the monarch!Evolution is bad science. In this example, we see how evolution led to generations of misunderstanding about…

People in this episode

Hosts: Ian T. Taylor, Mark W. Cadwallader

Topics covered

• evolution
• butterflies
• toxicity
• creationism
• science
• Christianity

Keywords

• viceroy butterfly
• monarch caterpillar
• toxicity
• evolution
• creationism
• birds
• milkweed

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: evolutionary scientists, God

Books & works: John 3:12

Places: milkweed, viceroy, monarch, birds, admiral butterflies

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