 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
75 Unnecessary Beauty
|
| Menu | back |
The unnecessary beauty occurring in nature is an important criterion for intelligent creation. The naturalistic approach fails to explain the development of unnecessary beauty. Natural selection would favor exclusively practical mutations providing a survival advantage in some manner. Unnecessary beauty would not be favored or selected according to evolution theory.
There are animals and plants which are unspeakably beautiful (according to human standards) and which appear not to have any advantage in comparison to inconspicuous types of the same species with simple appearance. In his work, “The Origin of The Species”, Charles Darwin wrote that it would be a hard shock for his theory if many organic structures were really “beautiful only to delight the observer” (1). Simply being beautiful would not provide any advantage for evolution. Darwin was aware of this.
Naturally, a great deal of beauty in nature can be explained in connection with the reproduction behavior of living creatures. In many cases, it does, in fact, appear to have no specific purpose.
Structures are present apparently “only for the sake of beauty”.
It would not be necessary for many flowers to be anywhere near as beautiful as we know them. In the vast majority of cases, it would be sufficient to simply produce flower pedals with the right color to attract bees and other insects. Bees do not have eyes like those of humans. The beauty of most flowers (especially orchids) does, in fact, appear to have no specific purpose.
|
 |
|
 |
| Peacock (1) |
|
Peacock (2) |
The impressive peacock‘s tail with its unnecessary splendor or the wonderful pattern and colors of butterfly’s wings are probably not practical, they could even be disadvantageous.
Aeolids are tiny snails which can be observed only with a strong magnifying glass. These snails have an elaborate pattern with vivid colors – although they themselves do not have eyes at all with which they could perceive an image. The biologist Adolf Portmann wrote in this regard: “With these colourful snails, we see, as in numerous other cases, complex development processes for visual imagery with cannot be associated with any perceptive organ at all and still appear to be formed for ‘sight’ in terms of color and shape” (2).
Unnecessary beauty implies an observing, super ordinate intelligence that not only pays attention to detail and purpose format, but also considers the creature as a whole and places values on harmony and beauty.
Information theory | Menu |
back
|
References:
|
| (1) |
Digitale Bibliothek Band 2: Philosophy: Charles Darwin, „Die Entstehung der Arten“, P. 423. |
| (2) |
Adolf Portmann, Meerestiere und ihre Geheimnisse, Reinhardt-Verlag, Basel, 1958, P. 73. | |
| |
Image "Peacock (1)" http://www.animalpicturegallery.net/animal_picture_peacock_Laur.htm
Image "Peacock (2)" http://0.tqn.com/d/pittsburgh/1/0/w/Q/peacock.jpg |
| |
Comment this Site!
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
)
)