Wonderful Design in Doves

Nature v. 431, 9 Sept. '04, p. 146, "Superfast muscles control dove's trill" by Elemans et al. is worth mentioning as an example of the wonderful design of creation. "Here we show that doves control their syrinx, a vocal organ that is unique to birds, by using superfast muscles.

These muscles, which are similar to those that operate highly specialist acoustic organs such as the rattle of the rattlesnake," (another case of so-called convergence or parallel evolution) "are among the fastest vertebrate muscles known and could be much more widespread than previously thought."

Normal muscles can't operate fast enough to produce the dove's trilling, but this type of muscle can twitch at a rate "one to two orders of magnitude faster than that of typical locomotor muscles." That's up to 100 times faster! And the authors note that "Given the added vocal complexity, songbirds have probably evolved muscles that outperform the syringeal muscles of doves" and similar muscles are found not only in rattlesnakes but also toadfish.

Of course, nobody has ever observed a mutation making a muscle superfast, let alone just in the right place to provide a special sound, but evolutionists have to have faith that it did happen, not once but several times, in very different organisms and very different parts of their bodies.

Until Next Time,

David Bump
Philippians 3: 13 Brethren, I
count not myself to have
apprehended: but [this] one thing
[I do], forgetting those things
which are behind, and reaching
forth unto those things which are
before, 14 I press toward the
mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus.

http://home.att.net/~david.bump