Photo by Jeffery Wong
ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
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The Venus Flytrap Takes a Bite Out of Darwinism

Episode
1247
Guest
Marcos Eberlin
Duration
00:10:29
Download
Audio File (7.2 mb)
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On this episode of ID the Future, Scotsman Andrew McDiarmid reads from Marcos Eberlin’s recent book Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose. In this excerpt, the distinguished Brazilian scientist highlights the challenge the Venus flytrap poses for evolutionary theory.

Dr. Eberlin, the former president of the International Mass Spectrometry Association, describes the problem: The Venus flytrap, like all carnivorous plants, had no use for its insect-trapping function unless it also had an insect-digesting function. And vice versa. Did they really both evolve together? And how when there would be no functional advantage along much of the evolutionary pathway to the sophisticated finished system? Finally, how did this “evolutionary miracle” also happen in four other carnivorous plant genera? (See the Venus flytrap here, as mentioned in the podcast.)

Marcos Nogueira Eberlin

Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture
A member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, Marcos Eberlin received his PhD in chemistry from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and served as a postdoc at Purdue University. Back at UNICAMP, he founded and coordinated for 25 years the ThoMSon Mass Spectrometry (MS) Laboratory, making it an internationally recognized research center, one of the best-equipped and innovative MS laboratories worldwide. Eberlin has published nearly 1,000 scientific articles and is a recipient of many awards and honors, including the title of Commander of the National Order of Scientific Merit (2005) from Brazil’s President, the Zeferino Vaz Award (2002) for excellence in teaching and research.
Tags
carnivorous plants
convergence
Convergent evolution
devolution
foresight
homoplasy
irreducible complexity
Marcos Eberlin
Venus flytrap