Page 23 - Devotion Among Animals Revealing the Work of God

Awareness in Animals

instincts—in this case, the caterpillar's—means interpreting
them as inborn. That doesn't get us anywhere else than where
we started from, and prevents us from finding true answers
to this problem… However, it's well-nigh irrational to speak
of the "intelligence" of caterpillars lacking a developed brain.
Yet if we look at the behaviors that we've been examining
from the start, we do notice that some features meet the crite-
ria of intelligence. If focusing on a goal, predicting future

events, calculating the potential behavior of another species,
and responding appropriately are not indicators of intelli-
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gence, then what is?
This is a famous evolutionist's attempts to explain the behavior
of a small caterpillar that acts with intelligence and planning. In such
books or publications, it's not possible to find other comments or ex-
planations, aside from this sort of demagogic sentences and unan-
swered questions.
Actually Charles Darwin, father of the theory of evolution, re-

alized the threat that animals' instinctive behavior posed to his the-
ory. In his book, On the Origins of Species, he admitted this clearly,
here as well as in other places:
Many instincts are so wonderful that their development will
probably appear to the reader a difficulty sufficient to over-
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throw my whole theory.
In The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Francis Darwin,

Darwin's son, relates his father's dilemma over instincts:
Chapter III of [The Origin of Species], which concludes the first
part, treats of the variations which occur in the instincts and
habits of animals… It seems to have been placed thus early in
the Essay to prevent the hasty rejection of the whole theory
by a reader to whom the idea of natural selection acting on in-
stincts might seem impossible. This is the more probable, as

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