How to Unmask the “Convergent Evolution” Magic Trick

Convergence is an evasive, circular
term for Darwinians who are
surprised by unrelated similarities

This article was originally posted by Science & Culture Today in 2016 and was reposted in 2026.

For “Convergent Evolution,” Darwinists Offer Awkward Explanatory Tinkering
by David Coppedge
Science & Culture Today, 30 Jan 2026

Here’s a conundrum for evolutionists: similar design principles and strategies are found across kingdoms. Plants and animals use similar proteins as switches to activate the immune response when invaded by pathogens. The story is told in Science Magazine. The editors call it “Shared logic in diverse immune systems.”

The innate immune systems of both plants and animals depend on the ability to recognize pathogen-derived molecules and stimulate a defense response. Jones et al. review how that common function is achieved in such diverse kingdoms by similar molecules. The recognition system is built for hair-trigger sensitivity and constructed in a modular manner. Understanding such features could be useful in building new pathways through synthetic biology, whether for broadening disease defenses or constructing new signal-response circuits. [Emphasis added.]

Standard Darwinian Terms

The authors, Jones, Vance, and Dangl, use standard Darwinian terms throughout — common ancestor, natural selection, co-evolution, etc. Yet they can’t help but notice how similar the “strategy” is in “evolutionarily ancient” lineages. Since the mechanisms are largely “conserved” between plants and animals, they chalk it up to the usual evasive, circular explanation: convergent evolution.

Multicellular eukaryotes coevolve with microbial pathogens, which exert strong selective pressure on the immune systems of their hosts. Plants and animals use intracellular proteins of the nucleotide-binding domain, leucine-rich repeat (NLR) superfamily to detect many types of microbial pathogens. The NLR domain architecture likely evolved independently and convergently in each kingdom, and the molecular mechanisms of pathogen detection by plant and animal NLRs have long been considered to be distinct. However, microbial recognition mechanisms overlap, and it is now possible to discern important key trans-kingdom principles of NLR-dependent immune function. Here, we attempt to articulate these principles.

Their basic “principle” goes like this: If something works, it must have evolved….

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Who’s on First? A classic cartoon by Brett Miller.