How the butterfly got its stripes

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The genetics of the humble butterfly tells us a lot about the creation-evolution debate, the definition of ‘species’, the definition of ‘junk DNA’, and how complex the control systems for things like wing patterns are. The ‘unit’ of creation is not the species but the baramin (e.g., the ‘created kind’), so within the creation model, species can merge, split, and morph to their hearts content.

Links and notes:

• Main paper: Mazo-Vargas et al. 2022. Deep cis-regulatory homology of the butterfly wing pattern ground plan. Science 378(6617):304-308.
• Carter. 2021. Species were designed to change, part 1.