Fireweed Designed to Reclaim Damaged Land?

There is a perennial wildflower that grows in temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere known as fireweed in America, and rosebay willowherb in Britain. It seems like an understatement to refer to land as disturbed after fires or volcanic eruptions (or bombing, it has been called bombweed in England), but fireweed is ready to reclaim the land.

Fireweed is attractive, but may be sparse during good times for the land. Its method of distributing itself on disturbed land (above and below ground) is quite interesting.

Fireweed, Flickr / Alaska Region U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Kristine Sowl (PD)

When Mt. St. Helens erupted, the land was a mess and scientists watched for years to see how it would recover. Guess what showed up right quick-like? Yup, fireweed was observed by 1985. Fungi also joined the land reclamation party. Add to this is that fireweed and other plants are food for wildlife — if they eat the right varieties at opportune times.

One reason that biblical creationists like to study these things is to see how devastated land was probably reclaimed after the Genesis Flood. Indeed, the dove brought an olive leaf back to Noah (Genesis 8:10–11), showing that growth was beginning again. Damaged land as well as newly-formed islands also show how the Creator designed living things to get to work and bring land back to supporting life.

And yet, nature shows a designed preparedness that outshines the level of intelligence and wisdom humans often demonstrate either individually or in community. How can this be? Can nature, devoid of conscious intelligence, show greater wisdom than humans, whose intelligence, according to evolution, supposedly culminated from nature alone?

An example from nature of an “unintelligent” organism, a plant, that has exceled in preparing for future disasters is fireweed.

To read the article in its entirety, visit "Fireweed: An Example of Intelligent Latent Design."