Bedbugs Bite Evolution

One of the latest claims of “evolution in action” comes via a new study of the lowly bedbug.¹ The Wall Street Journal reports that the pests “are quickly evolving to withstand the pesticides used to combat them.”²

As creationists often try to explain, such resistance is not evolution in the molecules-to-man sense. The survival of the bedbugs that are resistant to pesticides shows only natural selection, or “selective survival” of certain variations of bedbugs.

Some of the creatures already possessed resistance to the pesticide via variations in their DNA, which they had as a result of mutations or God’s original created diversity. The survivors then passed along their resistance to their descendants, while those that did not possess the resistance died.

Contrary to the impression left by the media, no new genetic information was added to change bedbugs into a new type of organism. They are still bedbugs. Their resistance to pesticides points to the incredible designs that God gave His creatures so that some could survive and thrive, even in a fallen world.

¹Xiaodong Bai et al., “Transcriptomics of the Bed Bug (Cimex lectularius),” PLoS ONE 6 no. 1 (2011): e16336.

²Robert Lee Hotz, “Why Bedbugs Won’t Die,” The Wall Street Journal, January 20, 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703951704576092302399464190.html