I keep hearing creationists who oppose evolution bring up the eye, claiming that we can't show how it evolved. But we can! Clearly. And it has evolved multiple times and can be see in multiple stages in various organisms. Is there something special about the eye that draws creationist critique? Is the evolution of the eye somehow troublesome? Or is it just a quirky trend of theirs?
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Creationists: Why The Eye?
- Thread starter Jolly_Penguin
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zorq
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Here's Charles Darwin on the eye that I believe has inspired so much adoration from creationists.
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree"
Of course, Darwin goes on latter in the same document to say that:
"...The difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection , though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered subversive of the theory.”
Source
But anti-evolutionists cover their eyes when that gets brought up.
That didn't stop the first part of the quote from making the rounds in creationist chain e-mails in the 90's and it doesn't stop some idiotic internet memes these days.
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree"
Of course, Darwin goes on latter in the same document to say that:
"...The difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection , though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered subversive of the theory.”
Source
But anti-evolutionists cover their eyes when that gets brought up.
That didn't stop the first part of the quote from making the rounds in creationist chain e-mails in the 90's and it doesn't stop some idiotic internet memes these days.
Keith&Co.
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As zorq says, they can quote mine Darwin himself and claim even HE didn't know how the eye could have evolved.
Then they ask 'what good is half an eye?' because they don't understand the evolution they're criticizing.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
And if the eye is so special how does it become injured and diseased so easily? Or any body part for that matter. Why did a creator choose the form we have? We're just big worms after all is said and done. I can only assume their creator is a big worm too.
Creationists like to worship things, the eye is just another thing for them to get all woo woo over.
Creationists like to worship things, the eye is just another thing for them to get all woo woo over.
Keith&Co.
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Sin.
Duh.
abaddon
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This. They operate on old news. They think of original texts as authoritative and Darwin as the authority on “Darwinism”.
Shadowy Man
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Lately, I've been more interested in how the sleep patterns of dolphins evolved.
It seems that evolution can be so good at finding a solution for a given problem that it just "looks" designed. Sometimes it's hard to see how you could get to that solution without forethought. I'm a scientist, but not an evolutionary biologist, and I can certainly appreciate those people who are amazed and befuddled by evolutionary solutions. I don't think "God did it" is the answer, but that doesn't mean I have a handy answer.
It seems that evolution can be so good at finding a solution for a given problem that it just "looks" designed. Sometimes it's hard to see how you could get to that solution without forethought. I'm a scientist, but not an evolutionary biologist, and I can certainly appreciate those people who are amazed and befuddled by evolutionary solutions. I don't think "God did it" is the answer, but that doesn't mean I have a handy answer.
bilby
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Perhaps a better question is "If the vertebrate eye was designed by the same creator who designed the cephalopod eye, why did he put the nerve connections on the wrong side of the retina in the former, but not the latter?"
The cephalopod eye clearly has a better basic layout, with no blind spot, and much reduced image processing needs; If these two objects, with similar structure and purpose, were designed by a single infallible designer, why didn't he use the better design for both?
Indeed, that question can be asked of a huge range of structures, organs and assemblies in the natural world, where there is more than one way of achieving the same ends. If sharks have gills, so they needn't surface for air, then why don't whales? If I was designing both species, I would pick the better of the two ways of oxygenating the blood for an aquatic creature, and use it for both.
The natural world is full of sub-optimal solutions, for which a more optimal alternative ALSO exists, but in a different taxon. While it is always possible to handwave away a single example of poor design by saying that there may be an (unknown) reason why the apparently better design couldn't work, that rather weak argument is demolished by the existence of another species that is observably able to make the better design work.
Bad design is evidence of a blind watchmaker, as Terry Pratchett famously pointed out.
Keith&Co.
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I just imagined a creationist asking 'What good is half an echolocation system!?!'
That would, of course, be 'screaming.'
ronburgundy
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They should focus on the brown-eye instead. It's downright magical the way it clenches to hold shit in until we are sitting on the toilet. Not to mention, only a divine intelligence could have foreseen its secondary use as a place for young Christians to stick their willies without technically violating their purity pledge. In fact, I think "purity ring" is a nickname for the sphincter.
Kharakov
Quantum Hot Dog
A Navy man would know that sonar was not intelligently designed and improved over time as more information was gathered about the complex interactions of various materials. It just evolved naturally, like everything else in nature.
Were the dolphin genes transmitted by seamen?
Shadowy Man
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Aren't all genes transmitted that way? Or at least half of them.
Kharakov
Quantum Hot Dog
Are you being deliberately dry because we're talking about seamen?
Kharakov
Quantum Hot Dog
Makes me wonder what occurred first in nature: The use of electromagnetism to communicate (wifi or "ESP woooooOOOO") or using complex chemical structures to communicate (sending paper notes that take time and effort to assemble, instead of shaping electromagnetic fields to communicate)?
bilby
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Well it could equally well be 'listening'; but creationists don't do that.
Keith&Co.
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I thought of that, but, yes, in the creationist camp, that's contraindicated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwew5gHoh3E
this is old,but still spot on!
this is old,but still spot on!
Keith&Co.
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I hope you're not talking about his shirt...