A Problem for Creationists: Noah's Ark

During 2010's International Year of Biodiversity I lost count of the number of references to the quotation attributed to the geneticist John Haldane, who is said to have answered a clergyman's question about what his studies had taught him about the creator by saying: "He is inordinately fond of beetles." It is such a good line it really ought to have happened. And it raises a question about the very scale of biodiversity that ought to give creationists and biblical literalists pause for thought.

So far some 1 million species of insect have been discovered. Estimates of how many remain unknown vary between another million and 30m. Of these, some 400,000 are beetles – beetles in a wide array of shapes and sizes certainly, but still just beetles. A creator who made all of these but was so highly uninventive about body plans is puzzling. There are only 30 or so orders of insects, and the last was discovered nearly a century ago (there was a lot of excitement a few years ago, when a new order, the Mantophasmatodea, was erected, but that has now been demoted to a suborder). One wonders why a creator would make so many beetles but only 32 species of Zoraptera, or if beetles are so good, why the creator didn't make 300 more and not bother with the Notoptera at all. The argument for a creator's ineffability is unanswerable, of course, but mainly because it is not in any way explanatory. "Inordinately fond of beetles" just about covers it.…