Horseshoe crabs are virtually unknown in my community and it may feel bit odd why a craft blogger wants to write about them. I have been working with a small fact file about the creature but obviously have some problems finding free-share photographs. I have taken some blue-toned ones in a sea aquarium, because I have no possibility to travel to Delaware coast in the Spring time. I'll add some links to the end of the text.
The horseshoe crabs are old species. Some religious people and other who totally have misunderstood the Evolution Theory of Charles Darwin claim that the crab is a counter-evidence against the Evolution Theory. The first thing here is to show them wrong by explaining the Theory and how the crab fits to it.
Charles Darwing spent years and years pondering about the wonders of the nature and of course was very careful to publish any thoughts that would affect the popular Christian believe of the creation of the world. He did not intend to hurt anyone, but he needed to tell the truth and the evidence he had that showed that the "creation" of the world did not happen in seven days like the myth tells us. Everybody should understand that myths are created to explain the wonders and satisfy the human curiosity until some better evidence is shown. Nothing should be considered as the whole truth, especially not a text that was written and rewritten by several people by some thousand years ago. Just think what incredible harm was done to people when everybody thought that Galen was the unquestionable genius and the development of surgery was based on his teachings for centuries. Galen did get a lot of it right and a lot is good- but his ideas of how the human body works was based on autopsy on animals. Looking inside a HUMAN body was considered somewhat sacrelegic. The dead would not go to heaven or they would be injured when they go. The body was to remain untouched, just like the mummies in ancient Egypt needed all their organs to live in the Other World. For centuries bloodletting and eels were considered as good treatments too. How would you think if you went to a doctor and he pulled out a 2000 years old book that told that your illness is caused by the unbalanced levels of four humours, yellow and black bile, blood and phlegm? Also remebler that washing hands for instance before helping in giving birth started first in 1840's when Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis (not knowing each other) started to told their staff's to do so...
The Bible too has a lot of good advice in it. I truly do believe in for instance being kind to the others like Jesus tought. Just taking everything for granted is haulting the development.
And now back to the crabs and Darwin. Charles Darwin showed that there is a continuum from a type of species to other type of species. He wrote that living conditions affect to what king of creatures best survive. And here are the things that oh so many od us don't get.
1. No, there are no "best and final" species. No, the human being is not the top of the chain of development. And it's ok. No one of us is not any less! No one loses any importance! We all just are excisting in this world as unique and special as we are. We just don't have any reason to thing we are better than the chimpanzee, the bee or the leech. The humans are the best creatures to live as we do. The bees are the best creatures to live as they do. The leech is the best creature to live like a leech. You would suck in collecting pollen and making honey like the bees do, and you definitely would be the worst leech. Just be happy to be the unique you.
2. That a species is been 445 million years more or less same kind does not mean that Darwin was wrong. The Evolution Theory tells that the best to survive in a specific living area is thriving while others do not. The horseshoe crab is a creature that has ten eyes and twelve legs, it lives in the bottom of the sea. Once a year they come to beach to mate. The horseshoe crab has a simple but effective immunological system. It has a simple but effective method to eat: it walks on the sea floor, while the legs move the spikes on its bellyside around the mouth move and the small edible molluscae and other edible particles go inside the mouth and that way to the stomach. It cannot purge or go backwards. Well, the ocean floor is wide. This system is obviously working so why would it change? There may have been born mutations of slightly other type of horseshoe crabs. They have not survived. The old crab still is going strong. That's evolution!
3. When I was starting the theacher studies some lecturers asked how we, a huge group od adults, would explain why there are not short-necked giraffes. The popular explanation was that the neck grows longer when the animal needs to reach further... Yes, and the baby is born with a missing leg if the mother has been amputated...
We have biology and natural history tought in school. Nobody just seems to get the Darwin's idea. As I explaned about the living area and being the best to fit in it means that while the short-necked animals eat of the lower level and the ones who reach higher get more food and live longer and make more babies and after a longer time there is different populations of short-necked animals like antilopes who survive best the way they live and finally there is longer-necked animals whose characteristics make them best to eat the top leaves of the acasia trees. Those we call giraffes.
Darwin and natural science has no objection to Christian or other believes to be good to the others, respect the life and to live a good life. They just want to explain how the things come to be.
And why are the crabs that are not actual crabs my inspiration?
While we humans ponder about things like "why are we here", "how do I find true love or true happiness", and "what the next day brings", the horseshoe crabs have been crawling on the ocean floor for years, centuries, milennias...
Just follow your instinct and crawl further. You'll find your way.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00djmrs#synopsis
Good information about the medical history I have been thinking about when I wrote this text.
http://horseshoecrab.org/
A wonderful horseshoe crab information page.
http://seagrant.gso.uri.edu/factsheets/horseshoe_crab.html
Some basic stuff about the horseshoe non-crab's bood system.
http://www.assateague.com/horsesho.html
More crab.
http://www.livescience.com/animals/080128-horseshoe-crab.html
The oldest fossile found.
http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Charles-Darwin-Theory-Evolution.htm
And my man, Charles Darwin.
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