On how the fear/dread of man upon creatures, given by God after the flood, also manifests itself in creatures fear of each other by bright coloration of their bodies.

After the flood God said the fear/dread of man would be upon all creatures on earth. birds, insects, animals , fishes. this was needed because, seemingly , for the first time man would be intimate with biology and so in danger. thus man had this innate protection. YET how does this work? Is it in the thoughts of creatures?

i suggest its simply the creatures see mankind as super confident and so presume we are dangerous. no special mechanism otherwise is needed. THEN this carries over to creatures themselves. once on a origin blog a evolutionist in talking about warning colours of poisonous creatures mentioned, as a side point, they with the special colours were quite bold in walking about. now this evolutionist left it there. yet i twigged on this and soon hypothesized that the claimed “WARNING COLOURS” of creatures, like skunks, bees, ladybugs, hosts of insects/reptiles, that have bright colours and are poisonous( with others mimicking them) are not warning colours that have been memorized by creatures but simply are LOUD colours that demand attention to the BOLDNESS of the creature walking about. poison creatures with these bright colours do not hide or camouflage but instead desire to be seen. their protection is being seen. Yet its not the colours equals poison that warns off other creatures but simply their boldness that warns them off. the other creatures presume they are dangerous by their boldness and the colours bring attention and shout it out loud and clear. This makes sense because otherwise, especially in rich tropical areas, it would require too much memory work to know which coloured critters are poison and which are not. I remember somewhere where experiments of creatures denied parents showed they instantly knew coloured creatures were dangerous.

Anyways a mystery of nature can be better explained by reference to genesis and a simple common reductionist equation most shown by how creatures fear mankind.

18 thoughts on “On how the fear/dread of man upon creatures, given by God after the flood, also manifests itself in creatures fear of each other by bright coloration of their bodies.

  1. Alan Fox:
    ?

    and

    graham2: Its the new meds.

    and

    Kantian Naturalist: Wow. That’s fractal crazy.

    My reaction was similar.

    Happy Thanksgiving everyone (even if a day late).

  2. Hey this is pretty good biology hypothesis. One must know that “warning colours” is a common thingb in biology. The most obvious being the skunk. it has stripes to tell everyone it has a smell that is very toxic.
    Now usual interpretation is that the skunks colours are a warning colour that is memorized by creatures and so they know its dangerous. not from being sprayed. I say , instead, its a boldness that warns off the creatures and the stripes ONLY are used to make it stick out in the dark and make this very obvious/loud.
    THEN this boldness concept is a general concept in biology that was startedb or most evident in how people were told by GOD they would be protected by creatures fears of them. i say this fear is not some strange thing but merely the creatures seeing our boldness.
    I know folks here deal with higher concept stuff usually but this a more down to earth creationist hypothesis joining biblical ideas with biological observations and making, I think, a better interpretation of how the colours on the poisonous creatures actually works in nature.

  3. Slightly off topic … It would be really really good if the posts were numbered, you know, in sequence. If UD can do it, surely it can be done here.

  4. petrushka:
    The numbers are there. Only The Elect can see them.

    This is in fact true. The numbers are there but are obscured by another plugin “quote comment”. If anyone has skills in CSS and might like to tweak a few parameters, PM me. No pay but undying gratitude is promised!

  5. Alan Fox: This is in fact true. The numbers are there but are obscured by another plugin “quote comment”. If anyone has skills in CSS and might like to tweak a few parameters, PM me. No pay but undying gratitude is promised!

    On my PC there are several ways I can see the numbers. Clicking “Reply” or “Quote in reply” will give the number in the text box (you can then delete the text without posting it). Or right clicking on the link and choosing “inspect” will open up a window with the number displayed. Or you can copy and paste the link address to get the number.

    Not as convenient as having the numbers displayed but they can be accessed 🙂

  6. Robert Byers:
    Hey this is pretty good biology hypothesis. One must know that “warning colours” is a common thingb in biology. The most obvious being the skunk. it has stripes to tell everyone it has a smell that is very toxic.
    Now usual interpretation is that the skunks colours are a warning colour that is memorized by creatures and so they know its dangerous. not from being sprayed. I say , instead, its a boldness that warns off the creatures and the stripes ONLY are used to make it stick out in the dark and make this very obvious/loud.
    THEN this boldness concept is a general concept in biology that was startedb or most evident in how people were told by GOD they would be protected by creatures fears of them. i say this fear is not some strange thing but merely the creatures seeing our boldness.
    I know folks here deal with higher concept stuff usually but this a more down to earth creationist hypothesis joining biblical ideas with biological observations and making, I think, a better interpretationof how the colours on the poisonous creatures actually works in nature.

    Questions that spring to my mind from this are: Does animal behaviour determine the physical form and appearance of the animal, or does its form and appearance determine its behaviour? Or is the causal relationship more complex than this?

    Without making any judgements, purely through a close observation of butterflies and flowering plants we can make comparisons. The egg with the seed, the caterpillar with the growing shoots and leaves, the adult butterfly with the actual flower.

  7. CharlieM,

    You’re correct that the definitive comment number shows up there but we have a plugin that numbers comments from 1 for each thread. Unfortunately there is a conflict over what gets displayed so it’s not visible.

  8. Bugger, the numbers would be really good. It helps to refer to them, and to easily see if there are previous comments, etc etc.

    But thanks for the reply. Now Im just that little bit smarter than I was yesterday.

  9. CharlieM,
    It seems unlikely animal behaviour affects bodyplans. In the case of the skunk the smell/poison developed first and then its boldness led to the colours morphing into colours that made it stick out in the dark. mechanism is always the issue in biology but it must be there.

  10. Alan Fox:
    CharlieM,

    You’re correct that the definitive comment number shows up there but we have a plugin that numbers comments from 1 for each thread. Unfortunately there is a conflict over what gets displayed so it’s not visible.

    Thanks for the clarification.

  11. Robert Byers:
    CharlieM,
    It seems unlikely animal behaviour affects bodyplans. In the case of the skunk the smell/poison developed first and then its boldness led to the colours morphing into colours that made it stick out in the dark. mechanism is always the issue in biology but it must be there.

    I’m not saying that behaviour affects body plans. But as in the photo below, we can see that on an individual level behaviour affects the appearance while retaining the general form.

    The question I am asking is, is there a group nature, a group behaviour if you like, that determines the appearance of the species within the general type?

    In the wild, the closest relative of the skunk that I have any experience of is the European badger. It is in the nature of badgers to dig tunnels and their form reflects that. A squat body and short powerful forelimbs.

    Another closer relative of the skunk is the Palawan stink badger, but it does not have the same distinctive markings of the skunks that are native to America. Maybe it isn’t as bold, I don’t know.

    I do think that studying form reveals the wonder of nature and brings up a multitude of questions, such as why are there no examples of members of canidae or felidae, possessing horns?

  12. CharlieM,
    Yes this striped badger would be the same thing. if they are dangerous by use of smell they would have the colouration to grab everyones attention.
    Thats my point. it is now common, probably greatly common before so much extinction.
    At best one can speculate that the poison plus the behaivor of the species leads somehow to colouration that makes the case.
    anyways i’m saying its the boldness and not memory that the colouration is actually activating in creatures to warmn them its poisonous. Thus a reflection on human boldness which scares all creatures as god promised.

Leave a Reply