Information Related to "Cooperation or Competition: Symbiosis vs. Evolution"
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A serious obstacle to evolutionary theory is the interdependent relationships between living things, called symbiosis, in which completely different forms of life depend on each other to exist.
Darwin's theory of biological change was based on competition, or survival of the fittest, among the individuals making up a species. He admitted: "If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection" (The Origin of Species, 1859, Masterpieces of Science edition, 1958, p. 164).
Symbiotic relationships pose such a challenge to Darwin's theory, since they have animals and plants of different species cooperating for the benefit of both. Evolutionists call this coadaptation, but they have yet to come up with a plausible explanation of how such relationships could have evolved in stages.
How can plants that need certain animals to survive have existed before those animals appeared in the first place? And how do animals that need other animals to survive arrive without their partners arriving at the exact same moment?
Symbiosis among lower forms of life
One example of beneficial symbiosis (called mutualism) is that found between algae and the fungus of lichens. While fungi provide vital protection and moisture to algae, the algae nourish the fungi with photosynthetic nutrients that keep them alive. As a biology textbook puts it: "Neither population could exist without the other, and hence the size of each is determined by that of the other" (Mary Clark, Contemporary Biology, 1973, p. 519).
So which came first, the alga or the fungus? Since neither could exist without the other, according to evolution for both to survive they had to evolve independently of each other, yet appear at exactly the same time and with precisely the right functions.
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