The Theory of Evolution

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: mribnik1
I'd just like to point out that there is a difference between Evolution itself and the Theory of Evolution.

In a different thread another poster mentioned this and provided the following link as well...

http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/evolution.html

Um, where's the difference? Using Evolution as a proper noun generally means referring to the Theory of Evolution.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: loki8481
ID seems like a really lazy argument to me. I feel like they're saying "it's complicated, so God must be responsible."

personally, I don't know how my stereo works, but I'm not about to tell people it was crafted by the hand of God

Yet even ID doesn't need God. What about that Powercolor blow-up Alien that writes chinglesh in the sidebar ad, here?

Unfortunately, of course, ID is hung on to as a, "we don't want to believe we came from monkeys* without at least some divine assistance," cover for Creationism.

ID has two easy sides that can be seen:
1. Cover for creationism.
2. Question reasons for existence, as a basic part of attempting to practice philosophy.

While #2 would be fine in schools, IMO, neither should have even a single footnote in physical science. The problem is pretty basic. With observed facts (not necessissarily all correct ones, either), hypothesis and then theories are made, to attempt to explain how something happened and/or is happening. If you work from a divine cause, you're basically starting with a theory (which also assumes an innate purpose) and working backwards to find facts for it. Even if such an innate purpose exists, it probably doesn't exist specifically in what you're looking at--but you can sure make it look that way if you believe it to be there.

* Yes, earlier primates than monkeys, but hey: and .

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Riprorin
How can an unintelligent process like natural selection which demands progress at every step of change account for the formation of an eye? What evolutionary advantage did a non functioning transitional "eye" have?

You really don't work very hard at this, do you? Did you ever try reading a book on the subject or even just googling?

From PBS, the first result from googling evolution of the eye:

Here's how some scientists think some eyes may have evolved: The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator. Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made "vision" a little sharper. At the same time, the pit's opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera.

Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.

In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species. The existence of this range of less complex light-sensitive structures supports scientists' hypotheses about how complex eyes like ours could evolve. The first animals with anything resembling an eye lived about 550 million years ago. And, according to one scientist's calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch.

 

[Tommunist]

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: Riprorin
How can an unintelligent process like natural selection which demands progress at every step of change account for the formation of an eye? What evolutionary advantage did a non functioning transitional "eye" have?

You really don't work very hard at this, do you? Did you ever try reading a book on the subject or even just googling?

From PBS, the first result from googling evolution of the eye:

Here's how some scientists think some eyes may have evolved: The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator. Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made "vision" a little sharper. At the same time, the pit's opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera.

Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.

In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species. The existence of this range of less complex light-sensitive structures supports scientists' hypotheses about how complex eyes like ours could evolve. The first animals with anything resembling an eye lived about 550 million years ago. And, according to one scientist's calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch.

another reason to continue funding PBS....

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Riprorin
Natural selection is derived in part from the concept of the survival of the fittest.

In a "fit" society, people would look out for themselves, advance themselves at the expense of others, and even destroy others if possible. Natural selection demands that the powerful live and thrive and the weak be destroyed. Barbarism would prevail.

Yet, people exhibit mercy, pity, and compassion, all of which inhibit natural selection.

Rip, seriously, why don't you read a book on evolution? Your above post shows a complete misunderstanding of how natural selection works, and there's extensive literature on the evolution of altruism, which you can find the beginnings of through a quick google search.

Humans are social primates, who need morality and altruism to sustain the social structures that help them survive. It's also essential to note that natural selection functions at the level of genes in a population, not on individuals. Characteristics that are likely to help a gene propagate, such as helping your relatives so that they are healthy enough to have more children or so that more of their children survive to have children of their own, will be selected for.

If you wanted a harder puzzle, you would've picked a eusocial species like many ant species, who are far more altruistic than humans, as most of the workers give up their ability to have children and spend their lives working for the queen's children. Eusocial species were quite a puzzle for evolutionary biologists when they were first studied, as it seems that any small mutation that lets workers have children would be favored, yet there are many eusocial insects and their species have thrived for many millions of years.

After the discovery of DNA (one of natural selection's many successful predictions, by the way), we found that ant genetics and reproduction work quite different from those of most species and result in the workers sharing 3/4 of their DNA with the queen's children, their sisters, but they would only share 1/2 their DNA with their own daughters as we do. Therefore, natural selection favors sisters over daughters in eusocial worker insects, because sisters are more closely related to each other than to their daughters.

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Tommunist
another reason to continue funding PBS....

True, especially as the anti-evolution Discovery Institute is one of the main political movers behind the threat of defunding PBS.

 

[Riprorin]

Originally posted by: Tommunist

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: Riprorin
How can an unintelligent process like natural selection which demands progress at every step of change account for the formation of an eye? What evolutionary advantage did a non functioning transitional "eye" have?

You really don't work very hard at this, do you? Did you ever try reading a book on the subject or even just googling?

From PBS, the first result from googling evolution of the eye:

Here's how some scientists think some eyes may have evolved: The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator. Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made "vision" a little sharper. At the same time, the pit's opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera.

Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.

In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species. The existence of this range of less complex light-sensitive structures supports scientists' hypotheses about how complex eyes like ours could evolve. The first animals with anything resembling an eye lived about 550 million years ago. And, according to one scientist's calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch.

another reason to continue funding PBS....

What did Darwin say about the eye?

"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 freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

And Darwin didn't even completely appreciate the eye's complexity!

 

[Tommunist]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: Tommunist

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: Riprorin
How can an unintelligent process like natural selection which demands progress at every step of change account for the formation of an eye? What evolutionary advantage did a non functioning transitional "eye" have?

You really don't work very hard at this, do you? Did you ever try reading a book on the subject or even just googling?

From PBS, the first result from googling evolution of the eye:

Here's how some scientists think some eyes may have evolved: The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator. Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made "vision" a little sharper. At the same time, the pit's opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera.

Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.

In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species. The existence of this range of less complex light-sensitive structures supports scientists' hypotheses about how complex eyes like ours could evolve. The first animals with anything resembling an eye lived about 550 million years ago. And, according to one scientist's calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch.

another reason to continue funding PBS....

What did Darwin say about the eye?

"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 freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

And Darwin didn't even completely appreciate the eye's complexity!

Darwin's theory and the current theory (as well as knowledge about everything surrounding the evolution producing the eye) has changed quite a bit. Darwin is perhaps the inspiration of evolution theory but he is FAR FAR FAR from being any kind of final say on any aspect of it.

 

[NJDevil]

Originally posted by: Riprorin
What did Darwin say about the eye?

"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 freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

And Darwin didn't even completely appreciate the eye's complexity!

Darwin isn't the know-it-all of evolution. Technology exists today that scientists during Darwin's era couldn't even dream of. The eye is actually the most amazing evolutionary development, though it is not quite understood. There are several organisms (found at different time periods, with the more recent ones being more complex) that did not have complete eyes, rather they had an aparatus that had certain functions of the eye.

The first was a basic light receptor. All it functioned as was a way to figure out where the light was coming from. Another organism had a more advanced light receptor, which could focus light, helping define the source of that light. If you look at the progression of these organisms, they eventually get to ones with organs very similar to the eye. I think the most amazing part is that other organisms developed similar eyes independently (convergent evolution I believe).

Rip, I don't understand why Evolution and being religious are so mutually exclusive to some people. How can you possibly know that God's "day" was 24 hours? I don't understand the logic of, "well, I'm going to ignore the part about stoning women, etc, but I will focus on 7 days in Genesis." I know many very religious people who don't deny evolution takes place, they just realize that maybe, just maybe, the bible has a metaphor.

Imagine how one would explain the process thousands of years ago? The simplest solution is, "God created everything in 6 days + 1 day of rest."

I also don't understand why you keep going into this subject. Have you ever even taken a basic biology course? Do you understand protein synthesis, cellular respiration, do you even know how the heart pumps blood throughout the body?

If you answer yes to these questions, I'll be very surprised, but please, understand that you being a Christian does not mean that evolution is "impossible."

Einstein, one of the greatest scientists in the history of the field was able to both understand relativity, accept evolution, and believe in God (he was a relatively devout Jew).

Just don't speak about things which you do not know much of, and try to understand that religion and science can get along .

 

[Riprorin]

The more pressing difficulty [of Darwin's theory of evolution] was theoretical. Many organs require an intricate combination of complex parts to perform their functions. The eye and the wing are the most common illustrations, but it would be misleading to give the impression that either is a special case; human and animal bodies are literally packed with similar marvels. How can such things be built up by "infinitesimally small inherited variations, each profitable to the preserved being?" The first step towards a new function--such as vision or ability to fly--would not necessarily provide any advantage unless the other parts required for the function appeared at the same time. As an analogy, imagine a medieval alchemist producing by chance a silicon microchip; in the absence of a supporting computer technology the prodigious invention would be useless and he would throw it away.

Stephen Jay Gould asked himself "the excellent question, What good is 5 percent of an eye?," and speculated that the first eye parts might have been useful for something other than sight. Richard Dawkins responded that

An ancient animal with 5 percent of an eye might indeed have used it for something other than sight, but it seems to me as likely that it used it for 5 percent vision. . . .
The fallacy in that argument is that "5 percent of any eye" is not the same thing as "5 percent of normal vision." For an animal to have any useful vision at all, many complex parts must be working together. Even a complete eye is useless unless it belongs to a creature with the mental and neural capacity to make use of the information by doing something that furthers survival or reproduction. What we have to imagine is a chance mutation that provides this complex capacity all at once, at a level of utility sufficient to give the creature an advantage in producing offspring.

Dawkins went on to restate Darwin's answer to the eye conundrum, pointing out that there is a plausible series of intermediate eye-designs among living animals. Some single-celled animals have a light-sensitive spot with a little pigment screen behind it, and in some many-celled animals a similar arrangement is set in a cup, which gives improved direction-finding capability. The ancient nautilus has a pinhole eye with no lens, the squid's eye adds the lens, and so on. None of these different types of eyes are thought to have evolved from any of the others, however, because they involve different types of structures rather than a series of similar structures growing in complexity.

If the eye evolved at all, it evolved many times. Ernst Mayr writes that the eye must have evolved independently at least 40 times, a circumstance which suggests to him that "a highly complicated organ can evolve repeatedly and convergently when advantageous, provided such evolution is at all probable." But then why did the many primitive eye forms that are still with us never evolve into more advanced forms? Dawkins admits to being baffled by the nautilus, which in its hundreds of millions of years of existence has never evolved a lens for its eye despite having a retina that is "practically crying out for (this) particular simple change."

***** From Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin On Trial, East Sussex, England: Monarch Publications, 1994, British edition, pp. 34-35.

 

[Tommunist]

Originally posted by: Riprorin
The more pressing difficulty [of Darwin's theory of evolution] was theoretical. Many organs require an intricate combination of complex parts to perform their functions. The eye and the wing are the most common illustrations, but it would be misleading to give the impression that either is a special case; human and animal bodies are literally packed with similar marvels. How can such things be built up by "infinitesimally small inherited variations, each profitable to the preserved being?" The first step towards a new function--such as vision or ability to fly--would not necessarily provide any advantage unless the other parts required for the function appeared at the same time. As an analogy, imagine a medieval alchemist producing by chance a silicon microchip; in the absence of a supporting computer technology the prodigious invention would be useless and he would throw it away.

Stephen Jay Gould asked himself "the excellent question, What good is 5 percent of an eye?," and speculated that the first eye parts might have been useful for something other than sight. Richard Dawkins responded that

An ancient animal with 5 percent of an eye might indeed have used it for something other than sight, but it seems to me as likely that it used it for 5 percent vision. . . .
The fallacy in that argument is that "5 percent of any eye" is not the same thing as "5 percent of normal vision." For an animal to have any useful vision at all, many complex parts must be working together. Even a complete eye is useless unless it belongs to a creature with the mental and neural capacity to make use of the information by doing something that furthers survival or reproduction. What we have to imagine is a chance mutation that provides this complex capacity all at once, at a level of utility sufficient to give the creature an advantage in producing offspring.

Dawkins went on to restate Darwin's answer to the eye conundrum, pointing out that there is a plausible series of intermediate eye-designs among living animals. Some single-celled animals have a light-sensitive spot with a little pigment screen behind it, and in some many-celled animals a similar arrangement is set in a cup, which gives improved direction-finding capability. The ancient nautilus has a pinhole eye with no lens, the squid's eye adds the lens, and so on. None of these different types of eyes are thought to have evolved from any of the others, however, because they involve different types of structures rather than a series of similar structures growing in complexity.

If the eye evolved at all, it evolved many times. Ernst Mayr writes that the eye must have evolved independently at least 40 times, a circumstance which suggests to him that "a highly complicated organ can evolve repeatedly and convergently when advantageous, provided such evolution is at all probable." But then why did the many primitive eye forms that are still with us never evolve into more advanced forms? Dawkins admits to being baffled by the nautilus, which in its hundreds of millions of years of existence has never evolved a lens for its eye despite having a retina that is "practically crying out for (this) particular simple change."

***** From Dr. Alan Hayward (a British physicist), Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the Bible, Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers, Bethany House Edition, 1995, pp. 38-39:

okay.....

do you have anything to say about this? i'm trying to read your mind and not getting anywhere....

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: Tommunist

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: Riprorin
How can an unintelligent process like natural selection which demands progress at every step of change account for the formation of an eye? What evolutionary advantage did a non functioning transitional "eye" have?

You really don't work very hard at this, do you? Did you ever try reading a book on the subject or even just googling?

From PBS, the first result from googling evolution of the eye:

Here's how some scientists think some eyes may have evolved: The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator. Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made "vision" a little sharper. At the same time, the pit's opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera.

Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.

In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species. The existence of this range of less complex light-sensitive structures supports scientists' hypotheses about how complex eyes like ours could evolve. The first animals with anything resembling an eye lived about 550 million years ago. And, according to one scientist's calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch.

another reason to continue funding PBS....

What did Darwin say about the eye?

"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 [note that he doesn't say "is", for reasons we can understand if we finish the passage], I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

Why don't you finish the quote?

. . . . Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound. [Darwin, 1872]

Quote mining--selective editing of scientist's words to make them seem to oppose evolution--is a common dishonest creationist debate tactic which we shouldn't tolerate.

Other posters have already pointed out the fallacy of treating science like religion. Unlike religion, science isn't based on the argument from authority, so Darwin isn't a divine authority, who if attacked could somehow discredit evolutionary biology. Arguing that Darwin didn't understand the details of the evolution of the eye will no more disprove evolution than arguing that Newton didn't understand curved spacetime will disprove gravity.

 

[Tommunist]

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: Riprorin

Originally posted by: Tommunist

Originally posted by: cquark

Originally posted by: Riprorin
How can an unintelligent process like natural selection which demands progress at every step of change account for the formation of an eye? What evolutionary advantage did a non functioning transitional "eye" have?

You really don't work very hard at this, do you? Did you ever try reading a book on the subject or even just googling?

From PBS, the first result from googling evolution of the eye:

Here's how some scientists think some eyes may have evolved: The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator. Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made "vision" a little sharper. At the same time, the pit's opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera.

Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.

In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species. The existence of this range of less complex light-sensitive structures supports scientists' hypotheses about how complex eyes like ours could evolve. The first animals with anything resembling an eye lived about 550 million years ago. And, according to one scientist's calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch.

another reason to continue funding PBS....

What did Darwin say about the eye?

"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 [note that he doesn't say "is", for reasons we can understand if we finish the passage], I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

Why don't you finish the quote?

. . . . Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound. [Darwin, 1872]

Quote mining--selective editing of scientist's words to make them seem to oppose evolution--is a common dishonest creationist debate tactic which we shouldn't tolerate.

Other posters have already pointed out the fallacy of treating science like religion. Unlike religion, science isn't based on the argument from authority, so Darwin isn't a divine authority, who if attacked could somehow discredit evolutionary biology. Arguing that Darwin didn't understand the details of the evolution of the eye will no more disprove evolution than arguing that Newton didn't understand curved spacetime will disprove gravity.

pwnt. (i somehow feel pwnt too even though i agree with you)

 

[jackschmittusa]

Rip,

Just because you can envision improvements to an existing biological system from your viewpoint, it does not necessarily follow that it must evolve in that direction.

First of all, there is no reason to assume that that any particular mutation will definitly occur in any given species.

Secondly, if the current senses of a species are already quite sufficient to allow that species to survive in its envionment, there is no reason to imagine that a small improvement in one of them would offer any advantage to its survival. If it offers no distinct avantage, it is not likely to become a dominant trait.

Pretty simple really.

 

[shira]

1. Why is a person who helped formulate a theory 147 years ago being quoted as the ultimate authority on the modern theory of evolution? Would you quote Hippocrites as an expert on modern medicine? If you want to deal with modern evolutionary theory, look at what modern scientists have to say.

2. Why is term "natural selection" being used as though it were the same as modern evolutionary theory? Natural selection is one, limited mechanism that contributes to biological evolution. There are many others. STOP USING "NATURAL SELECTION" AS A SYNONYM FOR "EVOLUTION" AND STOP PRETENDING THAT EVOLUTIONARY THEORY HAS REMAINED UNCHANGED FOR 147 YEARS.

3. Why is the fact that modern scientists are "confused" by certain aspects of biological evidence being cited as "proof" that evolution is a bad theory. Do you think modern scientists don't have analogous confusion about the nature of biological mechanisms in the human body, the nature of matter, how the human mind works, earthquakes, the weather, economics, human relationships, . . . ? Do any of the know-nothing religion freaks who populate this site have any understanding that science "works" by a series of steps forward and backword, changing directions, abandoning/changing bad theories or forumating new ones, but ultimately moving in the direction of increasing knowledge?

 

[NJDevil]

Originally posted by: cquark
Why don't you finish the quote?

. . . . Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound. [Darwin, 1872]

Quote mining--selective editing of scientist's words to make them seem to oppose evolution--is a common dishonest creationist debate tactic which we shouldn't tolerate.

Other posters have already pointed out the fallacy of treating science like religion. Unlike religion, science isn't based on the argument from authority, so Darwin isn't a divine authority, who if attacked could somehow discredit evolutionary biology. Arguing that Darwin didn't understand the details of the evolution of the eye will no more disprove evolution than arguing that Newton didn't understand curved spacetime will disprove gravity.

:laugh: :beer:

Well done mate. I wonder how Rip will respond to this one.

I have an idea for you Rip, if you don't like evolution, then don't study it! Leave science to the scientists.

 

[NeenerNeener]

Here's one thing I notice about the eye. The optical information that we recieve, is received upside down by our brains. This is because if we wanted to receive the same resolution of information in the other type of eye, (like the fly's eye) our heads would be gi-normous. I wonder how everything was inverted over time. Perhaps the lense inverted everything and the brain just resolved it.

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: NeenerNeener
Here's one thing I notice about the eye. The optical information that we recieve, is received upside down by our brains. This is because if we wanted to receive the same resolution of information in the other type of eye, (like the fly's eye) our heads would be gi-normous. I wonder how everything was inverted over time. Perhaps the lense inverted everything and the brain just resolved it.

probably the brain adopted, its amazing how it can adapt to just about everything

 

[imported_tss4]

Originally posted by: NJDevil

:laugh: :beer:

Well done mate. I wonder how Rip will respond to this one.

I have an idea for you Rip, if you don't like evolution, then don't study it! Leave science to the scientists.

I'll tell you exactly how he'll respond to this. He wont. He'll ignore it and then bring up some other point supported by half quotes to make his case.

 

[kogase]

Originally posted by: NeenerNeener
Here's one thing I notice about the eye. The optical information that we recieve, is received upside down by our brains. This is because if we wanted to receive the same resolution of information in the other type of eye, (like the fly's eye) our heads would be gi-normous. I wonder how everything was inverted over time. Perhaps the lense inverted everything and the brain just resolved it.

If you sit upside down for a couple days, you're brain will flip everything you see upside down. Then it will take a couple days after that for everything to flip back after you start walking right-side up again. Your brain automatically adjusts to make you more comfortable.

Of course, it's rather unhealthy to hang upside down for too long, so you may want to try other methods to reproduce this...

 

[NJDevil]

Originally posted by: kogase

Originally posted by: NeenerNeener
Here's one thing I notice about the eye. The optical information that we recieve, is received upside down by our brains. This is because if we wanted to receive the same resolution of information in the other type of eye, (like the fly's eye) our heads would be gi-normous. I wonder how everything was inverted over time. Perhaps the lense inverted everything and the brain just resolved it.

If you sit upside down for a couple days, you're brain will flip everything you see upside down. Then it will take a couple days after that for everything to flip back after you start walking right-side up again. Your brain automatically adjusts to make you more comfortable.

Of course, it's rather unhealthy to hang upside down for too long, so you may want to try other methods to reproduce this...

I believe this experiment has been done with glasses that flip the image.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: Riprorin
Organisms require basic intricate functions such as respiration and reproduction, correct?

How did lungs form if lungs are necessary for our lives from the start? How did we reproduce if it took millions of years for our reproductive system to evolve?

How can an unintelligent process like natural selection which demands progress at every step of change account for the formation of an eye? What evolutionary advantage did a non functioning transitional "eye" have?

Jebus chritstmas, Rip, you are NOT an intellectual man.

Why dont you take your idiotic questions eleswhere. Try here:

Talk Origins...

 

[rahvin]

I warned you all about trying to have a discussion with someone that doesn't even grasp the BASICS of biology. It's like trying to teach math to a pig which if you like pigs might be entertaining.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: NJDevil
Rip, I don't understand why Evolution and being religious are so mutually exclusive to some people.

Because they are. See my previous posts in this thread.

 

[NeenerNeener]

Originally posted by: kogase

Originally posted by: NeenerNeener
Here's one thing I notice about the eye. The optical information that we recieve, is received upside down by our brains. This is because if we wanted to receive the same resolution of information in the other type of eye, (like the fly's eye) our heads would be gi-normous. I wonder how everything was inverted over time. Perhaps the lense inverted everything and the brain just resolved it.

If you sit upside down for a couple days, you're brain will flip everything you see upside down. Then it will take a couple days after that for everything to flip back after you start walking right-side up again. Your brain automatically adjusts to make you more comfortable.

Of course, it's rather unhealthy to hang upside down for too long, so you may want to try other methods to reproduce this...

Neat!