Creation Bullet # 10 by Bill Nowers
A Beetle Fable
Many eons ago, when the earth was still young, a few newly evolved beetles got together to discuss a critical problem. Larger insects and toads were sneaking up and devouring the beetles. A call went out to all the beetle scientists to come up with a defensive solution. You wouldn’t believe all the proposed solutions. They ranged from growing fangs, growing wings, getting better camouflage, to forming an alliance with hawks. But the winning proposal was to develop an explosive gas that could be fired at an approaching predator. This sounded dangerous. Everything had to work just right the first time or the beetle would blow himself up.
Two tiny compartments were developed inside the beetle along with a tiny mixing chamber. One compartment contained hydrogen quinine and the other hydrogen peroxide. Some enzymes were also involved. I don’t understand all the chemistry the beetles scientists used. There was a small tube at the end of the mixing chamber that could point in any direction, to fire a hot mixture of gasses at 212 degrees F at the predator. These were really smart beetle scientists, right? Wrong.
They didn’t exist in this fantasy just like the evolutionists belief that that all this happened by chance. The only truth is that the bombardier beetle described above does exist with the explosive defense as listed.
God created it all from the start. He didn’t need the beetle scientists or the evolutionists. By Bill Nowers
Commentary:
When faced with the remarkable design of creatures like the bombardier beetle, evolutionists resort to storytelling that sounds more like fantasy than science. In this humorous fable by Bill Nowers, the idea that beetles could engineer their own defense systems is rightly mocked—but only because modern science has no better explanation.
The Bombardier Beetle: Precision by Design
This small insect defends itself with a chemical weapon that would make a military engineer proud. It stores two volatile chemicals—hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide—in separate chambers. When threatened, it releases both into a mixing chamber where special enzymes ignite the chemical reaction, instantly generating gas that heats to 212°F and explodes out of a swiveling nozzle toward the attacker.
If anything goes wrong in this split-second reaction, the beetle blows itself up. Yet this mechanism works perfectly, every time.
Darwinian evolution says this system developed by accident—mutation after mutation, all while the beetle somehow didn’t destroy itself before the system was “perfected.” That’s not science. That’s a fairy tale.
Complexity Cannot Evolve in Steps
One of the fatal flaws of macroevolution is that it cannot explain irreducible complexity—features that require multiple interdependent parts to function at all. The bombardier beetle’s defense system is irreducibly complex:
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Two separate chemicals
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Storage chambers
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Triggering mechanism
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Enzymatic catalyst
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Directional nozzle
Remove any one part, and the system fails—or worse, kills the beetle.
There is no gradual path that leads to this system. It had to be complete from the beginning, and that means it was created, not evolved.
The heavens declare God’s glory—and so does the beetle.
The Wisdom of God in the Smallest Creatures
God’s handiwork isn’t just visible in the stars. It’s visible in insects, DNA, and even self-defense systems built into creatures like the bombardier beetle. Rather than seeing such complexity as proof of randomness, we should see it as what it truly is: evidence of divine engineering.
Next: Creation Bullet #11 — “The Fossil Record: Evidence or Embarrassment?”
Explore more at the VCA Young Earth Creationism page →
About the Author – In Memoriam
Bill Nowers (1925–2021) was a long-time VCA Board Member and founder of Creation & Evolution Science Ministries. His legacy of defending biblical truth lives on through this powerful series.
