Metamorphosis
Nature's precarious path - hanging in balance27 total reviews
Comment from Rosemary Everson1
Is this a picture or image of a butterfly ready to hatch? I know of a lady who has interest in cocoon hatching and the birth of butterflies. It is a wonderful hobby that interests many people.
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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Is this a picture or image of a butterfly ready to hatch? I know of a lady who has interest in cocoon hatching and the birth of butterflies. It is a wonderful hobby that interests many people.
Comment Written 16-May-2023
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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Thank you so much for your kind rating and feedback. Yes, it is a butterfly very ready to hatch from its chrysalis as you can see it inside. I used to collect caterpillars as a child and am still in awe of this process.
Comment from Gypsy Blue Rose
Excellent entry for the 5-7-5 contest.
I like the presentation too. Concrete images easy to visualize.
Good syllables count and connection between lines.
Good luck in the contest.
Gypsy
"Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason" -- Novalis
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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Excellent entry for the 5-7-5 contest.
I like the presentation too. Concrete images easy to visualize.
Good syllables count and connection between lines.
Good luck in the contest.
Gypsy
"Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason" -- Novalis
Comment Written 16-May-2023
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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Thank you so much for this. Your comments are greatly valued.
Comment from Dolly'sPoems
A poignant write here, nature can be cruel and extinguish life before it has has a chance to birth, a clever post for the contes, my favourite, love Dolly x
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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A poignant write here, nature can be cruel and extinguish life before it has has a chance to birth, a clever post for the contes, my favourite, love Dolly x
Comment Written 16-May-2023
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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Many thanks Dolly. Your rating and comments are greatly appreciated.
Comment from Anne Johnston
Great picture and excellent words to describe what you shared in your notes: "I'm using this particular example of the butterfly/moth to represent the dangers that exist in nature which potentially impact on transformation and survival." Great entry for the contest.
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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Great picture and excellent words to describe what you shared in your notes: "I'm using this particular example of the butterfly/moth to represent the dangers that exist in nature which potentially impact on transformation and survival." Great entry for the contest.
Comment Written 16-May-2023
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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Thank you so much for your very generous rating and lovely thoughts. Much appreciated
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You are very welcome
Comment from Brett Matthew West
As the first line states for many critters they must play the not-guaranteed to survive game of "nature's lottery".
The results can be tragic or triumphant.
However, are they truly tragic?
Or is nature simply ensuring survival of the fittest?
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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As the first line states for many critters they must play the not-guaranteed to survive game of "nature's lottery".
The results can be tragic or triumphant.
However, are they truly tragic?
Or is nature simply ensuring survival of the fittest?
Comment Written 16-May-2023
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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Many thanks for your kind rating and thoughts. I'm glad it's been thought-provoking. For the animal concerned it's pretty tragic!
Comment from Aaron Milavec
I very much liked your poem and your reflection:
I'm using this particular example of the butterfly/moth to represent the dangers that exist in nature which potentially impact on transformation and survival. Even after the insect hatches from its pupa or crysalis (a kind of vessel in which the caterpillar changes) it remains fragile and extremely vulnerable. It has to wait for its wings to dry and pumps a liquid called hemolymph into them to enlarge and strengthen them. If lucky, it then spreads its new beauty in search of flowers and others of its kind with which to mate. A typical lifespan is between two to four weeks. Its beauty therefore ephemeral; its task urgent and essential for its species' survival.
Here is an instance where it makes no sense to speak of "random mutations" followed by "survival of the fittest." The caterpillar had to learn to select the right kind of leaf so that it grows fat and plump. Then there is the spinning of the cocoon and the skill to attach it by thin silky threads to protective branches. How many ways can this go wrong!
When the cocoon is secured, how does the little fellow know how to turn off all the former processes and to entire liquify all its internal organs. And who can turn on the process whereby the rich biological stew is entirely reorganized to knit together a flying creature. The spiral tongue has to have just the right length and the right stickiness to draw out the nutients from flowers. Everything that the caterpillar knew about finding and chewing the right leaves has absolutely no relevance here. The mind of the butterfly has to master the art of flying. It has to go to the correct flowers and use its tongue to gather its next meal. Meanwhile, sexual appetites have been released that do not override the forces that guide the eating appetites. Consider how experimental trial-and-error in just this one area along could put things out of balance and lead to an early death. The caterpillar had eyes for spotting leaves. The butterfly has eyes for spotting nectar and pollen. Yipes! What a difference. No amount of trial-and-error could get this just right. If the wings do not receive enough hemolymph, they will never be stiff enough to support flight. If the wings receive too much hemolymph, the wings will be too heavy and the muscles will not be strong enough to flutter the wings to support flight. And it is not just a question of being able to flutter the wings, but that they have a shape that makes it possible to have a stable flight pattern. Consider all the mistakes that had been made by early aviationists when it came to designing wings. Consider how even the Wright Brothers only gradually moved toward a design that permitted controlled flight in an atmosphere where their were gusts of wind that could easily down a poorly designed aircraft. So, too, it is the same for butterfly wings. It makes no sense to say that Nature will need to try everything until it gets it right. Such a formula can only result in a mass extinction. Not to have stable flight means fatal crashes and no offspring ever. No offspring means that there will never be tens of thousands of caterpillars that permit the use of the 1 or 2 % "genetic flaws" in the hope that better flight control can be achieved. And there is no logic of expecting that cummulative errors would "miraculously" result in a model with superior flight control. To imagine this is to imagine that the random substitution of words in "Romeo and Juliet" would, after a thousand years, result in a superior rewrite of Shakespear's original text. "Random substitutions" cannot result in an overall improvement; it can only result in the progressive deterioration of the text. This would be the outcome if the Wright Brothers decided to try random alterations of one of their flight models. They had neither the time, the resources, or the energy to create ten thousand variations on their most promising prototype. Hence, they had to analyze how and why heavier than air kites were able to achieve a stable flight despite the occasional wind gusts. They had to analyze how a fixed wing can have more lifting power or less lifting power depending on the angle with which it moved through the thin "fluid" known as air. Slowly they came to the conclusion that the fixed wing had to be set on or near the center of gravity of the flying machine. Slowly they came to the conclusion that a rudder in the tail of an aircraft could be used (as in the case of water-crafts) to turn the direction of the nose of the airplane. Slowly they had to come to recognize that a small wing on the rear of a plane could be used to increase or decrease the angle whereby the main wing moves through the air. Just as the rudder turned the nose right or left, so, too, the rear "rudder" was able to direct the nose up or down. This change, needless to say, decided whether a plane was rising or falling above the imaginary line of horizontal flight. The success of this depended on the supposition that if the nose is lifted a few degrees, then the main wing has increased lift whereby the entire aircraft was moved upward.
In a nutshell, the DNA of caterpillars/butterflies must contain instructions for each of these processes and there must be some regulatory processes for adjusting for minor errors as the processes unfold. Thus maybe even errors in the DNA code (genetic errors) might be, within certain tolerances, corrected on the fly. Thus, it must be allowed that the DNA code not only guides the life processes but, in the event of a misfunction, makes correction in the processes by way of preserving the overall purposes of each stage of development. Thus, the DNA code must be more than a fixed blueprint for it must function to provide corrections in the face of genetic errors. Such corrections come forward as the "supervisory intelligence" of DNA codes. Thus, in some sense, the operation of these codes will make it appear as thought there is a "supervisory intelligence" within the life processes which might be interpreted as a "divine intervention." Instead of imagining an external monitor, however, it makes much more sense to appeal to the "supervisory intellegence" written into the DNA code itself. The presence of such "supervisory intelligence" displays a providence that operates to preserve and, in some cases, to improve the design features of the DNA.
This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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I very much liked your poem and your reflection:
I'm using this particular example of the butterfly/moth to represent the dangers that exist in nature which potentially impact on transformation and survival. Even after the insect hatches from its pupa or crysalis (a kind of vessel in which the caterpillar changes) it remains fragile and extremely vulnerable. It has to wait for its wings to dry and pumps a liquid called hemolymph into them to enlarge and strengthen them. If lucky, it then spreads its new beauty in search of flowers and others of its kind with which to mate. A typical lifespan is between two to four weeks. Its beauty therefore ephemeral; its task urgent and essential for its species' survival.
Here is an instance where it makes no sense to speak of "random mutations" followed by "survival of the fittest." The caterpillar had to learn to select the right kind of leaf so that it grows fat and plump. Then there is the spinning of the cocoon and the skill to attach it by thin silky threads to protective branches. How many ways can this go wrong!
When the cocoon is secured, how does the little fellow know how to turn off all the former processes and to entire liquify all its internal organs. And who can turn on the process whereby the rich biological stew is entirely reorganized to knit together a flying creature. The spiral tongue has to have just the right length and the right stickiness to draw out the nutients from flowers. Everything that the caterpillar knew about finding and chewing the right leaves has absolutely no relevance here. The mind of the butterfly has to master the art of flying. It has to go to the correct flowers and use its tongue to gather its next meal. Meanwhile, sexual appetites have been released that do not override the forces that guide the eating appetites. Consider how experimental trial-and-error in just this one area along could put things out of balance and lead to an early death. The caterpillar had eyes for spotting leaves. The butterfly has eyes for spotting nectar and pollen. Yipes! What a difference. No amount of trial-and-error could get this just right. If the wings do not receive enough hemolymph, they will never be stiff enough to support flight. If the wings receive too much hemolymph, the wings will be too heavy and the muscles will not be strong enough to flutter the wings to support flight. And it is not just a question of being able to flutter the wings, but that they have a shape that makes it possible to have a stable flight pattern. Consider all the mistakes that had been made by early aviationists when it came to designing wings. Consider how even the Wright Brothers only gradually moved toward a design that permitted controlled flight in an atmosphere where their were gusts of wind that could easily down a poorly designed aircraft. So, too, it is the same for butterfly wings. It makes no sense to say that Nature will need to try everything until it gets it right. Such a formula can only result in a mass extinction. Not to have stable flight means fatal crashes and no offspring ever. No offspring means that there will never be tens of thousands of caterpillars that permit the use of the 1 or 2 % "genetic flaws" in the hope that better flight control can be achieved. And there is no logic of expecting that cummulative errors would "miraculously" result in a model with superior flight control. To imagine this is to imagine that the random substitution of words in "Romeo and Juliet" would, after a thousand years, result in a superior rewrite of Shakespear's original text. "Random substitutions" cannot result in an overall improvement; it can only result in the progressive deterioration of the text. This would be the outcome if the Wright Brothers decided to try random alterations of one of their flight models. They had neither the time, the resources, or the energy to create ten thousand variations on their most promising prototype. Hence, they had to analyze how and why heavier than air kites were able to achieve a stable flight despite the occasional wind gusts. They had to analyze how a fixed wing can have more lifting power or less lifting power depending on the angle with which it moved through the thin "fluid" known as air. Slowly they came to the conclusion that the fixed wing had to be set on or near the center of gravity of the flying machine. Slowly they came to the conclusion that a rudder in the tail of an aircraft could be used (as in the case of water-crafts) to turn the direction of the nose of the airplane. Slowly they had to come to recognize that a small wing on the rear of a plane could be used to increase or decrease the angle whereby the main wing moves through the air. Just as the rudder turned the nose right or left, so, too, the rear "rudder" was able to direct the nose up or down. This change, needless to say, decided whether a plane was rising or falling above the imaginary line of horizontal flight. The success of this depended on the supposition that if the nose is lifted a few degrees, then the main wing has increased lift whereby the entire aircraft was moved upward.
In a nutshell, the DNA of caterpillars/butterflies must contain instructions for each of these processes and there must be some regulatory processes for adjusting for minor errors as the processes unfold. Thus maybe even errors in the DNA code (genetic errors) might be, within certain tolerances, corrected on the fly. Thus, it must be allowed that the DNA code not only guides the life processes but, in the event of a misfunction, makes correction in the processes by way of preserving the overall purposes of each stage of development. Thus, the DNA code must be more than a fixed blueprint for it must function to provide corrections in the face of genetic errors. Such corrections come forward as the "supervisory intelligence" of DNA codes. Thus, in some sense, the operation of these codes will make it appear as thought there is a "supervisory intelligence" within the life processes which might be interpreted as a "divine intervention." Instead of imagining an external monitor, however, it makes much more sense to appeal to the "supervisory intellegence" written into the DNA code itself. The presence of such "supervisory intelligence" displays a providence that operates to preserve and, in some cases, to improve the design features of the DNA.
This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.
Comment Written 16-May-2023
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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Thank you so much for your kind rating and amazing background knowledge and in-depth thinking. I think you should put it all in a post so that more people can read this. I've always been fascinated by this particular transformation and saddened that it should be attributed, in such general terms, to survival of the fittest.
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Comment from Pam (respa)
-A good image for your poem.
-Your notes are appreciated.
-The syllable count is good, along with the topic.
-I like your opening line; it is creative.
-You have good description of what
the lottery is and it is a precarious balance.
-A good entry; good luck.
This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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-A good image for your poem.
-Your notes are appreciated.
-The syllable count is good, along with the topic.
-I like your opening line; it is creative.
-You have good description of what
the lottery is and it is a precarious balance.
-A good entry; good luck.
This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.
Comment Written 16-May-2023
reply by the author on 16-May-2023
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Thank you so much for this very kind and thoughtful review. Much appreciated.
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You are very welcome.
