Life Sciences Commons^™

Testing The Cavefish Model: An Organism-Focused Theory Of Biological Design, Michael J. Boyle, Scott Arledge, Brian Thomas, Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Randy J. Guliuzza

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

Poster Abstract

The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is experimentally testing an engineering-based model of rapid biological adaptation: Continuous Environmental Tracking (CET). This model infers that organisms actively track conditions within specific environments to self-adjust through internal mechanisms and initiate adaptive functionality. The animal under investigation is Astyanax mexicanus (Mexican tetra), a freshwater fish with well-differentiated, interfertile morphotypes: eyed surface-dwelling fish (surface fish) with distinct pigmentation patterns, and eyeless cave-dwelling fish (cavefish) with minimal pigmentation. Aquaria within our newly established laboratory contain breeding pairs of cavefish exposed to either (A) cyclical light/dark patterns of full-spectrum high-intensity light, (B) minimal light …

Testing The Cavefish Model: An Organism-Focused Theory Of Biological Design, Michael J. Boyle, Brian Thomas, Jeffery P. Tomkins, Randy J. Guliuzza

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

The significance of this research is multifaceted. At the 8^th ICC, Guliuzza and Gaskill (2018) introduced a novel paradigm: Continuous Environmental Tracking (CET). This theory infers that organisms actively and continuously track conditions within their specific environments to self-adjust through internal mechanisms that integrate molecular, biochemical, physiological and behavioral functionality of the whole organism. These mechanisms are predicted to operate by the same integrative principles that govern human-engineered control systems, suggesting that fish and other animals make highly-regulated responses in order to compensate for changes in external conditions that may exceed their routine efforts to maintain homeostasis. Moreover, the …