A spider web, with lots of gnats caught up in it.
Spider webs are fascinating structures. First of all, the silk is manufactured by silk glands in the spider's abdomen. There are seven different types of silk glands that make different kinds of silk. One kind is used for draglines, which function as bridges or safety lines. Another is used for attachment discs, which attach strands of silk to surfaces. A third kind is swathing silk, which is used to wrap their prey in a cocoon. Females have a special kind of silk to make their egg sac. Other kinds of silk are used to make the strands necessary to create the sticky spirals.
The external silk organs are called spinnerets and the spider can combine the liquid material from different glands into a single thread. Each spinneret is made up of a group of finger-like organs with hundreds of tubes, each with a flexible nozzle. As the spider draws out a thread with its leg or attaches the silk to an object, it is transformed from a liquid to a solid strand of silk.
Modern evolutionary theory teaches us that these highly organized structures evolved by the accumulation of random mutations, acted on by natural selection. These are highly organized, complex systems that are made up of multiple structures and multiple processes that are integrated in such a way that they support each other and they also support the overall function, which is to construct a web to catch food. These kinds of highly organized systems cannot be explained by current evolutionary theory. In fact, they cannot be explained by any kind of mechanism that relies on random, undirected or accidental processes. The construction and assembly of these systems clearly required insight, and insight cannot come from random processes, only from intelligently guided processes.
"A Scientific Case for Intelligent Input"
