Darwin’s Ratchet Only Goes Downhill

Parasitism is easy.
Just cheat and steal with-
out building anything new.

Another scientific paper alleges “macroevolution” but a closer look reveals freeloading, not innovation.

The wasps that horrified Darwin reveal evolution‘s one-way streets (Natural History Museum of Berlin, 6 Nov 2026). Parasitoid wasps (those that parasitize living insects and spiders by laying their eggs in them) indeed “horrified” Darwin. Now, evolutionists at the Natural History Museum in Berlin have studied the family tree of these wasps.

Background: In a letter to Asa Gray in 1860 (the year after The Origin was published), Darwin could not bring himself to believe that a benevolent Creator would have made animals that kill living hosts and use their flesh to lay their eggs, nor could he envision a good God creating cats that play with mice.

The Polemic: In that year 1860 when Darwin was focused no justifying his theory to friends and opponents, it is evident that “natural evil” was a problem for him. Here, he was not arguing that evolution could create such organisms. He was arguing that the Biblical Creator (in his estimation) would not have. Ever since, evolutionists have pointed to such instances of parasitism as arguments against a moral Creator. But how good is this argument?

Results of the Study

It must be acknowledged that the “horrible” wasps are not all that rare. The press release says,

This famous observation later inspired the name Darwin wasps for the insect family Ichneumonidae, which includes more than 25,000 described species.

Different species employ remarkably different strategies. Some wasps permanently paralyze their hosts before laying their eggs, effectively turning them into immobile food supplies for their offspring. Others adopt a more intricate approach: they allow their hosts to remain alive, feeding and growing even as the developing wasp larvae consume them.

These contrasting strategies offer a window into a fundamental question in evolutionary biology: how predictable is evolution?

The press release goes on to summarize the research, explaining that the scientists wanted to learn if evolution is reversible (and therefore unpredictable). Their conclusion? Evolution is like a ratchet. It can go one way, but once on a path, it is hard to turn it back the other way. The parasitoid wasps became stuck in the ruts in which they had become adapted.

That observation presumably adds a bit of predictability to evolution. Here is the paper with the details:

Directional evolution of parasitoid strategies and contingent host shifts shape the radiation of Darwin wasps (Santos et al., Current Biology,  6 Nov 2026). This paper mentions evolution (and its derivatives) 65 times, including 9 mentions of “macroevolution.” The researchers devised phylogenetic trees for 697 species of Ichneumonidae, determining that (according to theories of evolutionary ancestry), parasitism in this family of wasps arose at least 23 times independently, but never reversed. (How they could determine such numbers without assuming evolution is a separate question.)

Evolutionary change is not always reversible: some traits evolve repeatedly in one direction but rarely in the other, forming evolutionary “ratchets” that constrain future trajectories. Parasitoid wasps provide a powerful system to test this idea because their modes of host exploitation range from relatively simple strategies to highly integrated developmental interactions with living hosts. Here, we investigate the evolution of parasitoid strategies and host use across Darwin wasps (Ichneumonidae)…. These results show that macroevolutionary dynamics can differ sharply among interacting traits, with directional evolutionary ratchets reshaping not only individual trait trajectories but also the ecological options available to diversifying lineages.

They call this “evolutionary entrenchment.” A creature can get stuck in a cul-de-sac. After adapting to one lifestyle, it may never find the way back.

Let’s ask some questions that the Darwinians do not ask or answer.

• Did the wasps evolve into non-wasps? No. All of them are in the same family.
• Why, then, do they consider this to be macroevolution? It was their prior assumption.
• Did the wasps evolve any new body parts? No; they had wings, ovipositors, and all the other wasp hardware and software before and after they supposedly became parasitic. Some showed minor adaptations, but that is microevolution.
• Is there a common ancestor of ichneumonids and other wasps? No; the earliest fossil was already an ichneumonid.
• Do the authors mention any innovations such as new organs and systems? No. The mythical common ancestor supposedly used its mouth parts to bore into trees.
• Did they illustrate the “evolutionary ratchet” model for any creatures other than wasps? No.

Let’s ask the Darwinian scientists additional questions and hypothesize what reactions they would have:

• If evolution is always one-directional, isn’t that a limitation on the power of natural selection? [???No comprendo???]
• Aren’t the researchers claiming that parasitism is easier to evolve than independent living? [Ditto]
• Why would parasitism evolve so late after the origin of insects if it is such a successful evolutionary strategy? [Hmmm; will have to get back to you on that.]
• Is it evil for wasps to prey on other animals? [The word “evil” is not in the Darwin dictionary.]
• Why was Darwin horrified at his “Darwin wasps” if evolution is amoral? Doesn’t that suggest that he was appealing to moral values? [Uhhh…]
• Is this kind of wasp parasitism worse than other ways of predation that kills? [It looks that way to us.]
• How does the evolutionary model differ from creation models of adaptation? [What? Never considered those.]
• How are parasitic wasps different from human thieves and freeloaders? [Tilt!]
• Would you be in favor of people parasitizing the wealth of other people, if that is the course of nature? [I’m outta here!]

To the extent that this study is onto something, it means that freeloading is easy. Darwin’s ratchet goes down, not up. Why innovate when you can steal? Why would evolution do the hard work of engineering solutions to challenges of living, when it can just parasitize the solutions of other organisms?

Living Consequences

Yes, there is natural evil in the world today. Darwin’s reaction to the wasps that now bear his name arouses two problems for scientific materialism.

1. If materialism is as amoral as Darwin taught, then Charley should have been glad that wasps lay their eggs in living hosts. If he couldn’t stomach the thought of a good Creator making animals behave this way, why was he (as an evolutionist) horrified at all? Evolution is as evolution does. Whatever is, is right. Was something in his soul telling him that such a world looks broken?

2. For Darwin (and his followers today) to ascribe natural evil to unguided natural causes of natural selection, it means that evil no longer exists. If parasites can get along with freeloading, then freeloading is fine. Teach this long enough to impressionable students, and they will rationalize that crime pays, because it is the course of nature. Also, there is no accountability, and no hope for a better world. Life becomes a brief frenzy between nothingness and extinction.

Darwin never included the reality of the Fall in his reasoning about a benevolent Creator. When he penned The Origin, he already had become convinced of millions of years of death and suffering. The Natural Theology of Paley that he was rejecting only focused on the beautiful and wonderful things in nature. It did not give adequate answers to suffering. The original creation was put under a curse, allowing “nature to take its course” with less of God’s protection. Parasitism was an easy step down for these wasps. They only needed to devolve, not evolve. 

The Bible brings balance to our understanding of the world. Yes, it is beautiful and many factors are intelligently designed. But death and suffering corrupted it during Satan’s reign of terror, and only can act within God’s permissive will (example in Job 1). For now, the devil is called the “god of this world” and is the great Deceiver. Evolutionary materialism is his masterpiece, as tempting today as was the fruit was to Adam and Eve. Believing the lie that it leads to knowledge of good and evil still ends in shame and death.

When our first parents disobeyed, and chose to follow Satan, God kept them from the Tree of Life, but promised provision for a Savior to crush Satan’s head (Genesis 3:15). That provision has come. All who are in Christ by faith will emerge through death to a resurrection of life, and can look forward to a new Creation where there is no more death, sorrow, or tears. In our present fallen world, God can bring good out of suffering, and can teach us many valuable lessons. In the eternal state, death will be no more. “Behold, I make all things new” said the risen Lord Jesus Christ to the Apostle John in the vision of the new heavens and the new earth (Revelation 21-22). Therefore choose resurrection life, not Darwin death.