Co-Evolution Theory Challenged

A classic case of co-evolution has been called into question.  EurekAlert reported that a “paradigm change” is needed regarding plant-eating beetles and their angiosperm hosts.  Dr. Jes�s G�mez-Zurita and collaborators in the Natural History Museum in London have challenged the view that the two groups co-evolved, diversifying rapidly in response to one another.  Neither the fossil record nor molecular phylogeny support this view, they said.  “Hence, the coevolution hypothesis can be rejected in this case, demonstrating a different, perhaps more sophisticated principle of speciation in such diverse groups: phytophagous chrysomelid beetles radiated on a pre-existing diverse resource.”

What kind of sophistication is that?  If a diverse resource pre-existed, that’s not evolution.  Why wouldn’t all the beetles pick the plants they liked and stay the same, uniform and unchanging?  Saying that beetles radiated on a pre-existing diverse resource provides no cause or effect; it assumes what they need to prove.  Their explanation is reduced to little more than, “stuff happens.”
    The short article does not elaborate on the impact this “paradigm change” would have on other examples of co-evolution, but if the textbook example is flawed, what are we supposed to think the next time someone uses the term?  This removes another mystical arrow from the Darwinian quiver.  Now they can’t say that the plants are forcing the beetles to evolve and vice versa.
    At the rate that studies are eroding evolutionary paradigms, it may soon be possible to predict the date the Charlie idol topplies over.  Wisdom would prescribe keeping one’s distance.