There has been an incredible discovery concerning a bivalve mollusk called the heart cockle (Corculum cardissa). These bivalves have symbiotic partnerships with photosynthetic dinoflagellates called Symbiodinium corculorum. S. corculorum requires sunlight (UV radiation) for photosynthesis, and the heart cockles in turn can use the photosynthetic products the dinoflagellate produces. Such a relationship is called mutualism.
The scientists discussed the amazing design of the heart cockle, saying, “Many animals convergently evolved photosynthetic symbioses.”1 This is not an explanation regarding the origin of this amazing mutualistic relationship. Furthermore, appealing to convergent evolution (creatures that have similar structures but are not evolutionarily related) is nothing more than hand-waving.2,3
How does sunlight get through the shell to bathe the mantle, gills, and foot of the heart cockle where the dinoflagellates reside? After all, these three anatomical structures are inside the bivalve’s normally opaque shell. The answer is incredible.
The Nature article stated that the heart cockles “evolved transparent windows in their otherwise opaque shell to allow light to reach their symbionts,” and they “had to evolve techniques to let light irradiate their soft tissues and the photosynthetic algae within [emphasis added].”1 These are hardly scientific explanations, of course, and describe nothing as to how these windows originated.
An article from the science website Phys.org discusses the amazing construction of these windows that are composed of aragonite and that allow for the flow and focus of sunlight onto the algae.
The researchers found that heart cockle shells are made from aragonite, which is a crystalline form of calcium carbonate. To form the windows, an organic matrix that controls growth forms the aragonite into elongated fibrous crystals. By contrast, in the shells’ opaque regions, the aragonite is planar and crossed in orientation. Beneath the windows, the aragonite forms into bundled fiber optic cables that act as condensing lenses to focus light. Testing showed the structures allowed twice as much light to pass through as would be the case if they were just simple windows.4
ICR’s Brian Thomas reports of aragonite being used as an eye lens in another marine mollusc called chiton.
Researchers publishing in Current Biology tested chiton eye lenses and discovered they were the first ever known to be made of the hard mineral aragonite. Chiton shells are also made primarily of aragonite, but the use of this material in an eye lens turns out to be an elegant solution to the problem of forming quality images in either air or water.
“The mineral bends the incoming rays in two directions and creates a double image,” according to ScienceNOW. The researchers suspect that the chiton capitalizes on the two angles, or “refractive indices,” of transmitted light to form an image in either environment. The study authors wrote, “We propose that one of the two refractive indices of the birefringent chiton lens places a focused image on the retina in air, whereas the other does so in water.”5
The Nature Communications article stated, “the windows [of the heart cockle] are contiguous with transparent bumps on the inner surface of some shells that have been proposed to function as dispersing or condensing lenses.”1
Instead of impossible evolutionary stories, Christ the Creator ensured that the damaging rays of sunlight would be impeded, allowing only the light that would run the photosynthetic engine, or, as McCoy et al. stated, the “photonic system...[which] efficiently transmits useful light while protecting photosymbionts from UV radiation.”1 Furthermore, the aragonite fibers’ size, orientation, and morphology “transmit more light than many other possible designs.”1 So these windows are designed to transmit twice as much light. But only the useful kind gets in while the photosynthetic symbionts are protected from UV radiation. Is there anything “blind naturalistic forces” can’t do?6
Science writer Yirka reports the researchers discovered that
the natural fiber looked very much like artificial fiber cables, only without the cladding covering, which manufacturers add to communications fibers to protect them. They suggest the natural design used by the cockles could perhaps serve as inspiration for a cheaper way to make less-expensive artificial fiber cables.4
Such incredible design for light transmission does not only exist in heart cockles and chiton. It is also comparable with that in other marine invertebrates. Regarding another example, creation scientist Gary Parker described
Certain shrimp-like animals that live in deep ocean darkness [and] have compound eyes with lenses all arranged to focus light at a common point (rather than forming multiple images, as most compound eyes do). But...some members of the group have “lens cylinders” that smoothly bend the incoming light (because of smoothly varied refractive indices), whereas others have square facets with a “mirror system” for focus (utilizing even a double-corner bounce). Ingenious use of physics and geometry should be evidence enough of creation.7
After reading the 2024 Nature Communications research paper (and others like it), one can safely say chance and deep time have nothing to do with heart cockles transmitting sunlight using bundled fiber optic cables and condensing lenses. Rather, creationists look to the Lord Jesus and say, “Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is.”8
References
- McCoy, D. 2024. Heart Cockle Shells Transmit Sunlight to Photosymbiotic Algae Using Bundled Fiber Optic Cables and Condensing Lenses. Nature Communications. 15, article 9445.
- Bethell, T. 2017. Chapter 10. In Darwin’s House of Cards. Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute Press.
- Guliuzza, R. 2017. Major Evolutionary Blunders: Convergent Evolution Is a Seductive Intellectual Swindle. Acts & Facts. 46 (3): 17–19.
- Yirka, B. Heart Cockles Have Windows in Their Shells to Let in Light for Symbiotic Algae. Phys.org. Posted on phys.org November 20, 2024.
- Thomas, B. Hi-Tech Eye Design in a Lowly Mollusk. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org May 6, 2011.
- Morris, J. 2008. The Secrets of Evolution. Acts & Facts. 37 (3): 13.
- Parker, G. 2013. Creation: Facts of Life. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 47. See also Thomas, B. Fish’s Mirror Eyes Reflect the Creator. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org January 15, 2009.
- Acts 4:24.
* Dr. Sherwin is a news writer at the Institute for Creation Research. He earned an M.A. in invertebrate zoology from the University of Northern Colorado and received an honorary doctorate of science from Pensacola Christian College.
