May 09, 2008

How Did The Eye Evolve?

A common argument from creationists comes in the form of an argument from design; "it looks like it was designed, So it must have been".

This type of argument usually takes an organ that appears (and is) complex such as the eye, And then this organ is pointed at by the creationists while they scratch their head and proclaim "man, that looks hard as shit to make". They then make the case that because they can't imagine how natural selection could have produce it that their particular god must have.

The truth is, No matter complex an organ is, Natural selection is perfectly equipped to produce it so long as this organ can be built in gradual steps with each step being beneficial. And the eye is an organ which can be produced like this (just like all organs in every organism).

The evolution of the eye is fairly simple once we understand how evolution works. It can even be seen in the development of a human fetus.

12 comments:

  1. You fail to communitcate your point.

    I it says is that the eye evolved. Solid...

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  2. What are you talking about? Have another go at producing a coherent sentence.

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  3. "And the eye is an organ which can be produced like this (just like all organs in every organism)."

    Simply false. There are many irreducibly complex processes involved that natural selection can in no way account for.

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  4. And we have to take your word for it alan? Give some examples if you are going to make such statements.

    By the way, Don't use the bacterial flagellum or the clotting mechanism, Not unless you want your argument torn to shreds. Also, make sure you understand WHY your example should be irreducibly complex and why it would be impossible for gradual changes to have produced it.

    You don't get to parrot rhetoric gathered from filthy creationist sites on this blog and not be questioned on it.

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  5. And then there was a lens LOL

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  6. ( insert comical time-lapse cartoon here... )

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  7. hello people. is there any good theories for how any complex organ evolved? (heart, wings on birds, ears, nose etc.). and if these theories involve lots of little steps over millions of years are they well supported by the fossil record?

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  8. Anonymous,

    A lens is not a complex structure. For a lens to come about, an organism has to evolve a clear patch of cells over the pigment eye cup. What does this do to benefit the organism? Well, it protects the proto-eye. Now all that is necessary is for nature to select the organisms that developed a convex curvature of the lens as a result of a mutation.

    I wish this vid had been more descriptive in the steps. But there are many other videos on the web that delve into the eye's evolution much deeper.

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  9. Darwin said,

    "To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivance 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 possible degree."

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  10. I dont see you awnser there.....you have failed to tell us how it "evolved". So I will tell you how we have a REALLY complexed eye.
    * The eye contains 137 million optic nerves in ONE square inch that is connected to the brain so that you can have INCREDIBLE detail.
    *It is estimated tat the amount of data that you eye takes in every secound would take up 100 megabytes of space on your computer

    See our eye is very complex. If the eye was evolving, it would never be in good use if you have it 99% evolved to what it is now. That is because there might be a optic never connected to teh wrong side. So you eye would be usless......You atheist dont belive in GOD......but when God will come back to earth to take the people that he loves to him....you will be in great trouble.

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  11. This is ridiculous!

    all evidence about the eye points to a designer!, not pure blind chance.

    Take the humble trilobite, Sir Fred hoyle studied it and found out its eye where the most complex of any creature, he said its eye looked as if they had been designed by a phycisist, not time and chance, the Human eye alone is 20x more advanced than any camera, no man has been able to reproduce on a machine what the eye does in 0.2 miliseconds, ask any photographer, the eyes complexites are mind boggling, it can see over 10,000 different colours lights and shades, regenerates daily, and has its own cleaner, sound accidental to you??, rubbish!.

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    Replies
    1. The paramount issue for me has always been, why an eye? Why would 'life' need the eye? Please, do not answer to 'see'.

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