Sucking the Blood out of Evolution

I was watching a program on television Saturday night (I don't know what the name of the program was, what time it was, or what station it was on--though it was a local Louisville station), and I found out some of the coolest things. The show was hosted by some Australian guy who was looking for animals that live off blood. The animal that I found must interesting that he studied was the leech. Now, I'm hardly a leech expert, and I'm sure that there are different kinds of leeches, but I'll tell you about the kind he studied.

The leeches that were shown in the program were the kind with three saw-like jaws that are used to gently saw through the skin. The key to the survival of the leech is that it has to be undetected, otherwise most animals would take the leech off of themselves. So the leech has something in its saliva that is a painkiller. Rather than having intense pain when the leech makes a wound, all the one feels is a slight tingle (which would probably be unnoticable if you were not expecting it).

The saliva of the leech also has an antibiotic in it that keeps the victim from getting infected (I'm not really certain of the benefits of this for the leech, though I'd imagine it probably keeps the leech from getting any diseases that are in the blood of its host). There is also a substance in the saliva which keeps the blood from coagulating (clotting). This keeps the blood flowing so that the leech can fill to ten times its size with blood. As the leech gets full of blood, it releases much of the fluid in the blood so that it can hold as many red blood cells as possible (other animals do this as well, such as vampire bats).

Now, I'm no scientist, and I'm not sure of what kind of explanations can be concocted to explain how the leech developed from a single celled organism into what it now is, but there are a few things that strike me as, at the least, quite unlikely to have possibly been chance mutations. For one, how would saliva go from not containing a substance that stops clotting to containing one? Do some just start to mutate this way? If so, why don't some humans have this trait? Other animals do (such as vampire bats). Now, sure this doesn't help humans to survive, but chance mutations are just that--by chance--and so why would they just happen to occur in little blood sucking worms (and I mean leeches, not your little brother)? Second, why would they develop an antibiotic? We don't see people running around with antiseptic spit--though if we did, Listerine would go out of business pretty quickly. Maybe 3 million years ago leeches mated with rubbing alcohol and so we ended up with hybrid leeches. Third, how about that painkilling saliva? Vampire bats (according to the show) don't even possess that neat little trick.

Now, I'm sure that people can develop some kind of theories about this, but serious logic should seek what is a much simpler answer: God created leeches that way in the beginning. The reason why most evolutionary scientists (and almost anybody who really desires to hold to evolution) will not accept this is because this stifles their naturalistic worldview. Naturalism must and will jump through every imaginary hoop to find a way to get around God--even if it defies logic. Naturalism is not a possibly consistent and coherent worldview (I don't have to worry about offending anyone with this statement because the consistent naturalist cannot read this, as padded rooms in mental hospitals do not come complete with internet hook-up). For a good discussion of worldviews and to see why naturalism does not work, check out Life's Ultimate Questions by Dr. Ronald Nash.