An article about a recently discovered lung-less frog popped up on my RSS reader. It’s an interesting discovery and the idea of finding species of animals we’ve never seen before is fascinating. This particular frog evidently breathes through it’s skin. It lives in cold, fast moving water where oxygen is abundant and where lungs would be a detriment. What I find particularly interesting is how they talk about the frog with regard to it’s evolutionary development.

“The researchers conjecture the loss of lungs might be an adaptation to the cold, fast rivers the frogs live in.”

The word adaption conjures up ideas of a controlled change initiated by the creature adapting in response to some aspect of environment. But obviously systems don’t adapt themselves, and whether adaption is selection pressure or advantage it certainly isn’t controlled. Whatever caused the accident of a frog without lungs it seems to me the environment was besides the point. If it happened that a frog appeared without lungs it was sure lucky it was also in an environment where that would be advantageous. Of course the frog wouldn’t just appear without lungs but every little change toward the end result is essentially the same thing…the change can’t be controlled; just lucky to happen, and happen in the right place at the right time.

“Also, the frogs would rather sink than float and get carried away in the water, so getting rid of lungs, which behave as flotation devices, would prove helpful.”

Again the frogs are ‘changing themselves’ evidently because it would prove helpful. Isn’t this silly talk? Why can’t they describe the process more accurately? All throughout the article language is used that give the impression this little frog is changing itself. Also, and more importantly, it infers purpose to the change. As if the environment acting on the frog pressured it into designing an appropriate solution, like someone who is cold figures out how to keep themselves warm with a warm jacket and gloves. This seems to me to be design inference and should be discarded if speaking in evolutionary terms. At the very least it’s misleading.