The "design" of the eye

one example is the eye. eye its like a camera. so we can check and test if a minimal camera can be funtional when its base about one part or more to conclude if an eye\camera can evolve step wise. even by a designer that add one part each time.

The predecessor to a “camera” organ is a “light sensing” organ. You haven’t proved anything.

eyespot have about 200 proteins. so its still need a lot of parts.

Absolutely … a functioning eye will need lots of parts… but your omission of the “photo-sensitive” stage of future eye anatomies shows that you aren’t really dealing with facts … you are just trying to score debating points.

i actually do refer to a photo-sensitive stage. and still you will need at least several parts to this stage. and therefore it can evolve step wise.

@dcscccc

Fine - - you mentioned the photo-sensitive stage in some other thread. Please make sure you reference that stage as a crucial part of the Evolutionists’ understanding of the evolution of eye anatomy.

As for you still insisting that there are STILL missing stages for arriving at a light-sensitive organ … or for ultimately arriving at an eye - - this topic is quite old, is it not?

You writing 2 or 3 sentences about it is hardly PROVING that the eye has to be designed.

If ID folks have some PROOF … I think it’s time you produce it.

@dcscccc I moved this because it was off-topic on the thread you posted it on. You need to start new threads to introduce this kind of discussion instead of throwing them out in the middle of discussions of unrelated topics.

@dcscccc, I’m really surprised that you would choose one of the very best examples where scientists do have a very good step-by-step understanding of the eye’s evolution. It’s almost as if you have presented the other side’s argument on their behalf! Have you read any of the excellent articles on this topic by various comparative anatomists and paleontologists online?

You seem to think that complexity helps your argument. It really doesn’t. You are using the argument from personal incredulity fallacy, which basically reasons, I don’t understand how evolution could produce something complicated like the human eye. Therefore, nobody else understands it either and I will conclude that it never happened.

Until you take the time to learn the basics of evolution, you will be vulnerable to these kinds of arguments found on creationist websites.

This evolutionary algorithm simulation is very helpful in understanding how complexity can come from simplicity. The link was posted on several forum topics here at Biologos. It demonstrates how a non-intelligent algorithm can design very efficient “cars”:

http://rednuht.org/genetic_cars_2/

While a bit of a tangent, it makes me wonder how the “de-evolution” of the eye fits in. We have a number of caves in the area with various “endangered species” of cave critters, most of which have lost pigment, and lost the function of their eyes, though non-functioning structures remain. While a good example of evolution, I would think that would present problems for ID and YEC.

for the evolution of the eye we don’t need to worry about the fossil record or conjecture. Living animals have eyes that show the various stages of eye development, from simple light sensitive spots through directional light sensitivity through simple pinhole lenses through ever more sophisticated eye mechanisms. Each slight improvement in eye development granted the creature that had it tremendous advantages over those that didn’t.

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are you sure dr ex? the first eye in the fossil record for contain about 16000 lenses, when even human eye have only one. a simple eye spot contain about 200 proteins. those evidence alone make a counter argument against the eye evolution.

not at all. we do understand that a minimal eye need about several parts. its about things that we do know.

see my comment to dr ex. the first eye in the fossil record is actually very complex.

its an example of degeneration and not evolution. they loss something and not evolve one.

That tells me that you don’t understand “complexity” nor the nature of evolution. Are you implying that 16,000 lenses are somehow more complex or more evolved than one lens in a human eye?

Frankly, I have no idea what argument you are making. Secondly, do you seriously believe that biologists and paleontologists are unaware of the different eye structures?

And why do you think that that is some sort of a problem?

We don’t expect every organism (and its eyes) to be preserved well in the fossil record. Of course, we don’t need them to be because we can study them all around the world today!

More proof that you don’t know what evolution is. Evolution doesn’t have up and down directions. Define for us what you mean by “evolution” and “degeneration”.

Did you follow the URL link that @Dr.Ex-YEC gave you where you could see how complexity is produced by simplicity through evolutionary steps? Once you grasp simple examples like that one with the “genetic cars”, check out the AVIDA project.

@dcscccc, it is time you answered a question: How do YOU explain non-functioning eyes of cave fishes? Were they specially created with non-functioning eyes? Was there a “second creation” after Adam sinned in the Edenic Fall in which various anatomical structures lost their functions?

Hello Eddie,

What experience do YOU have in evolutionary modelling that enables you to so blithely judge the presence or absence of sophistication?

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no. but in terms of lenses number its indeed more complex.

so you agree that evolution doesnt predict order in the fossil record then. at least in the eye c

first i think that you dont know what evolution mean or predict. secondly i talk about evolution in the family level. and not just a variation of the same

why do you tnihk that it represent what evolution can do?

those eye was functional in the past and then degenerated by mutation.

family.

ase.

The double-standard does get tiresome.

@Benkirk, these recurrent declarations that anyone who agrees with the science academy and university textbooks is unqualified to render that opinion of agreement betrays a seriously bizarre understanding of the concept of burden of proof.

The I-know-better-than-the-scientists gets old very quickly. Of course, their predictable comeback is always to pick and promote their favorite scientist who serves their purposes for the argument at hand and then pretend that all other scientists who disagree don’t exist. (You can always count on “I’m not against science at all. I agree with Dr. _____, a scientist who knows far more than you do and therefore you should clam up and listen to him explain it to you.” There’s a script somewhere, I guess. They all seem to read from it.) Perhaps some of the young people have the energy to deal with the hecklers who play that game. I don’t. It is an endless cycle to exasperate and wear down.

We’ve been dealing with a couple of such persons at our local school board meetings as they regularly demand “reform” of the science curriculum. (Americans would call it a public school. My friends in the UK would call it a private school. I’ve always found it interesting how speakers of the “same language” can reverse the meaning of the terms public/private.) We give them their one-minute slots in the “public forum town hall meetings” once a month so they can have their say about how we should only listen to their scientists on evolution and global warming and vaccinations. And then everyone ignores them for another month. It is the only way to get anything done and avoid apoplexy. (“Ignore them and they will go away.” is not quite true. But it’s a strategy which makes life a little easier.)

Is there any way we can keep these discussion threads focused on the ideas without someone whining about how anyone who agrees with the consensus of the scientific academy is unqualified to do so? (Probably not.) It’s boring and it’s adolescent. Those who agree with the science textbooks have no need to post credentials before expressing that agreement. In contrast, those who disagree with the science textbooks certainly don’t have to post their qualifications to disagree—but certainly readers are going to wonder, “What does this non-scientists presume to know that the science academy doesn’t? And how did he/she come by that exceptional knowledge?”

You wrote “no” and then proceeded to basically say yes. This is yet another instance where I’m not following you, @dcscccc.

Once again, I have no idea what that means. Obviously, I did NOT say that the Theory of Evolution doesn’t predict the order of appearance in the fossil record.

I disagree. Evolution “means” that allele frequencies in populations change over time. (Whether that leads to what you happen to call evolving or degeneration, it is still changes in allele frequencies in populations over time.)

Now it is YOUR TURN: What do you think evolution “means”. How do you summarize the Theory of Evolution?

As far as what evolution predicts, the Theory of Evolution doesn’t predict that “more evolution” will bring more lens or fewer lens.

Why do you restrict it to the family level? Explain for us what processes or obstacles prevent evolution from going beyond “the family level”?

Are you asking me to explain the AVIDA project because you didn’t check it out like I asked? Are you implying that you do NOT think that it “represent[s] what evolution can do?” If yes, why do you think that the scientists are mistaken but you have identified their errors? What do you know that they don’t?

So are you saying that the Intelligent Designer designed cave fishes with defective genome copying mechanisms which have defective error-correction mechanisms?

I do agree with you that mutations help to explain why cave-fishes have skin grow over their non-functioning eyes as they mature. So I’m glad to hear that you agree with that evolutionary processes. Do you also agree with the role that natural selection plays: Because blindness did not harm the survival prospects of the fish, natural selection did not “select against” the blindness-related mutations? So is this part of what you mean when you imply that you accept the Theory of Evolution within a taxonomic family—but that you think that something stops evolutionary processes from producing new taxonomic families over time?

Let’s consider organisms which actually “lose” body structures or features over time. Is that “degeneration” something bad or is it good? Isn’t it good for an organism to no longer devote nutrients and calories to something no longer contributing to its survival?

@dcscccc, I commend you for consistently focusing on the ideas and not whining about credentials and qualifications as a diversionary tangent as some science-denialists are prone to do. Thank you for that.

so even if all the species created by designer and not evolve from a commondescent-

ic systems. systems that ne

if you call a degeneration evolution.

ed at least several parts.

evolution its still true?