The African Mosquito is fulfilling God’s mandate to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The African Mosquito, which transmits most of the malaria in sub-Saharan Africa is adapting to a different habitat. One variation (the M type) is adapted to where there is a more permanent supply of water, and now another variation (the S type) is adapting to short-lived bits of water. Is that evolution? No.
The two varieties are physically indistinguishable from each other and they can also interbreed. There are no new body parts or new genetic information. Its chromosomes are very complex and can carry a huge variation of genetic information. With natural selection, and the variety of genetic information, the mosquito can adapt to different environments.
This is not Darwinian evolution, but what is termed microevolution or, more appropriately, variation within a kind or family. Scientists have never observed one kind or family change into a completely different kind or family. We also observe variation within these in the fossil record. Some of these variations have probably become extinct.
All of this fits with God’s mandate to multiply and fill the earth. If the created kinds are to fill the various environments on the earth, then the genetic material required to adapt to slightly different environments needs to be quite diverse and complex. This can give rise to extensive, but minor, variation within kinds or families. This is what is being observed in the mosquito. Even a pest like the mosquito can give Glory to God!
Richard Stepanek
[In response to the article: African Mosquitoes Diverging into two Species; USA Today, Science Fair, Oct. 22, 2010]
