Institute for Creation Research
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.
At any given time, no matter where we are, we’re not far from those infamous arachnids the spiders, most of which are not a threat.
Many feel a natural revulsion when they experience spiders up-close-and-personal, but like the mosquito, God had a plan for them in our ecosystem. What is immediately apparent is that spiders have always been spiders and did not evolve from a non-spider ancestor. Indeed, even fossil spiders are 100 percent spider.
Tufts of hairlike fibers seen on its legs showed this 165-million-year-old arachnid to be the oldest known species of the largest web-weaving spiders alive today—the golden orb-weavers, or Nephila.
Going back even further in “evolutionary time” reveals two fossil spiders of the genus Eocteniza and Protocteniza from Coseley, England. They were found in sedimentary rock dated at “310 million years ago”—yet, as the creation model predicts, they’re still spiders.
While creationists ponder the purpose of some aspects of spider physiology prior to the Fall, it’s now evident that their toxicity actually has the potential to save many people from starvation.
As the world’s population continues to grow at approximately 80 million souls per year, it’s important to make maximum use of the various food crops. Unfortunately, crops lost to insect pests is around 10 percent—food that could have nourished millions of people.5 Reducing this intolerable loss via traditional pesticides is costly, it adversely affects the environment, and insects are becoming increasingly resistant to the poison. (Insect resistance to pesticides is hardly “evidence of evolution.”6 The insects are the same genus and species before and after resistance acquisition.) One way of battling crop-destroying insects is to use more environmentally friendly compounds that are just as deadly to these pests. Nicotine is one such natural pesticide. It can be diluted and applied and has “a much lower acute mammalian toxicity and greater field persistence.”
Oddly enough, using spider venom as a natural… Continue Reading.
