zorro Posted October 17, 2012 Share Posted October 17, 2012 (edited) And you know that how? Elaborate on this please, it sounds nonsensical... moon A"voice" telling you to "kiill your children" is insane and Satanistic. ..... Most geniuses were considered wakos at sometime in their lives. ... I site: Copernicus, Galileo, Feynman, Einstein, Spinoza .. This is also true of Religious humans as Jesus, the Apostles. Paul, Billy Graham, Evangelics, Martin Luther, ..... Intellectuals and religionists zealots have a hard time reinventing their dogma and prefer to demonize with power others and their new thinking. zorro ..... Edited October 17, 2012 by zorro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted October 17, 2012 Share Posted October 17, 2012 moon A"voice" telling you to "kiill your children" is insane and Satanistic. ..... Most geniuses were considered wakos at sometime in their lives. ... I site: Copernicus, Galileo, Feynman, Einstein, Spinoza .. This is also true of Religious humans as Jesus, the Apostles. Paul, Billy Graham, Evangelics, Martin Luther, ..... Intellectuals and religionists zealots have a hard time reinventing their dogma and prefer to demonize with power others and their new thinking. zorro ..... Why is it Satanic now but it wasn't when God told Abraham to kill his son? God commanded the deaths of a great many people in the past and it is assumed to be true by believers, why is it satanic now? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg H. Posted October 17, 2012 Share Posted October 17, 2012 Its not an assumption, it will be a self evident fact that he has made all of us in his own image that each one of us has the potential in us to create a whole new universe. Without a Self(soul) revelation of God is not possible. Its wise to abide in the truth and not turn away from it. This world belongs to God, the child belongs to God, he is the one who gives it and he is the one who takes it back because it always belonged to him. So we are not here to live our life the way we want based on our personal desires, we are here for the greater good of this world not for your own personal attachments and desires. And what makes your God any more self-evident or correct than any other deity? I mean, let's look at it logically - there are thousands of Christian denominations world wide. If it's so self-evident and correct, why all the difference of opinion on it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zorro Posted October 17, 2012 Share Posted October 17, 2012 Why is it Satanic now but it wasn't when God told Abraham to kill his son? God commanded the deaths of a great many people in the past and it is assumed to be true by believers, why is it satanic now? moon: God can do anything He wants. ...So what. ....He tossed Sodom and Gamora fire and brimstone, flooded at Noah. killed the first male children of Egypt, tossed Adam into nature. In your Abraham case, God was known by Abraham to be God so he proceeded to obey, but God interceded and prevented Isaac's death. God was severe then but Jesus / Christ moved humanity into "Grace" and gave us the Good News at God's will. The severity of OT laws are not applicable now. At Judgment, God will again be very severe to evil. zorro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john5746 Posted October 17, 2012 Share Posted October 17, 2012 Its not an assumption, it will be a self evident fact that he has made all of us in his own image that each one of us has the potential in us to create a whole new universe. Without a Self(soul) revelation of God is not possible. Its wise to abide in the truth and not turn away from it. This world belongs to God, the child belongs to God, he is the one who gives it and he is the one who takes it back because it always belonged to him. So we are not here to live our life the way we want based on our personal desires, we are here for the greater good of this world not for your own personal attachments and desires. Why does God need me to kill my son? This is all your opinion. You are making the justification. Overriding your higher moral sense. Yes, we want to contribute to the greater good, hopefully enjoying it along the way. But, you are more interested in satisfying your opinion of God. You wouldn't even ask the question. You fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted October 17, 2012 Share Posted October 17, 2012 moon: God can do anything He wants. ...So what. ....He tossed Sodom and Gamora fire and brimstone, flooded at Noah. killed the first male children of Egypt, tossed Adam into nature. In your Abraham case, God was known by Abraham to be God so he proceeded to obey, but God interceded and prevented Isaac's death. God was severe then but Jesus / Christ moved humanity into "Grace" and gave us the Good News at God's will. The severity of OT laws are not applicable now. At Judgment, God will again be very severe to evil. zorro You realize of course you are asserting that there is such a thing as god to begin with and that it is your particular version of god that is in control of the world when in fact a great many other gods have been believed just as surely as yours by a huge number of people and all of them have exactly the same basis in reality... none. You really don't have a leg to stand on when you assert any of this stuff as part of reality... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zorro Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 You realize of course you are asserting that there is such a thing as god to begin with and that it is your particular version of god that is in control of the world when in fact a great many other gods have been believed just as surely as yours by a huge number of people and all of them have exactly the same basis in reality... none. You really don't have a leg to stand on when you assert any of this stuff as part of reality... moon my friend, you still refuse to listen and continue to project yourself onto me. I assert that God is One, now at rest, and is the God of many and of many religions back to Adam. Since God is at rest, Satan has much of an open field in this world with "free Will". If it were not for the Angelic Holy Ghost, all would be evil. Many "other" gods have surfaced even most Caesars demanded to be worshiped as god. To claim to be God will get you incinerated as a blasphemer. ..so what ... God is the creator of reality, God is reality, God created the Universes and your basis ancestors. Look at your eye, or the eye of a Nautilus, there you will see God's miraculous work and perfect reality. I walk with God and also Christ, I don't need legs, and fear no evil. zorro ..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arete Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 God is the creator of reality, God is reality, God created the Universes and your basis ancestors. Look at your eye, or the eye of a Nautilus, there you will see God's miraculous work and perfect reality. Or convergent evolution, and nautilus's have poor eyesight to boot. "Unlike many other cephalopods, they do not have good vision; their eye structure is highly developed but lacks a solid lens. They have a simple "pinhole" eye open to the environment." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 moon my friend, you still refuse to listen and continue to project yourself onto me. I assert that God is One, now at rest, and is the God of many and of many religions back to Adam. Since God is at rest, Satan has much of an open field in this world with "free Will". If it were not for the Angelic Holy Ghost, all would be evil. Many "other" gods have surfaced even most Caesars demanded to be worshiped as god. To claim to be God will get you incinerated as a blasphemer. ..so what ... God is the creator of reality, God is reality, God created the Universes and your basis ancestors. Look at your eye, or the eye of a Nautilus, there you will see God's miraculous work and perfect reality. I walk with God and also Christ, I don't need legs, and fear no evil. zorro ..... The eye has evolved independently several times on the earth, no god needs to be involved with anything and there is no support for the existence of your god any more than Zeus or Thor or Adriana. If you are going to assert the reality of a god or gods you need to support it with evidence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zorro Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 (edited) Or convergent evolution, and nautilus's have poor eyesight to boot. "Unlike many other cephalopods, they do not have good vision; their eye structure is highly developed but lacks a solid lens. They have a simple "pinhole" eye open to the environment." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus hello, arete: I generally agree, ....We are talking 500 million years ago when the Nautilus eye was exquisite and hadn't time to evolve this way from the creation of the earth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus Fossil records indicate that nautiloids have not evolved much during the last 500 million years. Many were initially straight-shelled, as in the extinct genus Lituites. They developed in the Late Cambrian period and became a significant group of sea predators during the Ordovician period. Certain species reached over 2.5 metres (8 ft 2 in) in size. The other cephalopod subclass,Coleoidea, diverged from the nautiloids long ago and the nautilus has remained relatively unchanged since. Nautiloids were much more extensive and varied 200 million years ago. Extinct relatives of the nautilus include ammonites, such as the baculites and goniatites. ................. Instead of vision, the animal is thought to use olfaction as the primary sense for foraging, locating or identifying potential mates.[13] ........... zorro ..... Edited October 18, 2012 by zorro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 (edited) hello, arete: I generally agree, ....We are talking 500 million years ago when the Nautilus eye was exquisite and hadn't time to evolve this way from the creation of the earth. You need to back up the assertion that the nautilus could not have evolved in the 4 billion years before it existed this needs to be supported by evidence... Edited October 18, 2012 by Moontanman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zorro Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 (edited) You need to back up the assertion that the nautilus could not have evolved in the 4 billion years before it existed this needs to be supported by evidence... I am conversing with Arete here and didn't invite you yet. In the meantime, you could research your reply on the "everything from nothing" debates. zorro From my iPhone Edited October 18, 2012 by zorro -3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 I am conversing with Arete here and didn't invite you yet. If you want to have a private conversation with Arete i suggest you use the PM system, this is an open forum. In the meantime, you could research your reply on the "everything from nothing" debates. zorro From my iPhone In the meantime you can back up that outrageous assertion... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
immortal Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 Why does God need me to kill my son? This is all your opinion. You are making the justification. Overriding your higher moral sense. Yes, we want to contribute to the greater good, hopefully enjoying it along the way. But, you are more interested in satisfying your opinion of God. You wouldn't even ask the question. You fail. Did Jesus asked why I need to suffer on the cross? Why I need to suffer for your sins? No, he didn't. He himself ordained to die on the cross, righteous people don't conduct themselves according to the moral standards established by a society, they conduct themselves based on the truth and the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, they are neither selfish nor are they altruistic, they just abide in the truth and conduct themselves according to it, this is the reason it is said that work is worship. If you're not sure about the source of the information ordering to kill your son then don't kill him, its fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mooeypoo Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 ! Moderator Note Zorro, in this forum you don't just assert, you claim and provide evidence to your claims. Proselytizing and preaching is against our rules.Please do not make things worse by replying to this moderation note. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 ! Moderator Note Also, as Moontanman has noted, that this is a discussion forum where everyone is free to participate (within the rules. of course); no invitation is necessary. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ydoaPs Posted October 18, 2012 Author Share Posted October 18, 2012 I am conversing with Arete here and didn't invite you yet. In the meantime, you could research your reply on the "everything from nothing" debates. zorro From my iPhone I didn't know threads worked like that. Who invited you to my thread? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arete Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 (edited) Look at your eye, or the eye of a Nautilus, there you will see God's miraculous work and perfect reality. To expand and forgive me if I'm missing your point, but eyes seem like a horrible example if you're aiming to provide an example of God's "perfection". a) Human eyes are rather flawed. They project upside down, have limited spectral range, don't function very well in low light conditions, wear out, have their photocells pointing away from the light, have a natural blind spot, etc and so on. The eyes of a nautilus are even less perfect. In fact it is relatively trivial for us measly, insignificant, flawed humans to produce an optical sensory device (i.e. a camera) which outperforms the human eye in almost every capacity. So, the human and the nautilis eye are a long way from perfect optical sensory organs. b) Human eyes aren't even very good by the standards of vertebrates. I'm not sure if you were trying to hold up humans and nautili as two ends of a distribution of optical perfection, but there are many many vertebrates who can see with better resolution, have broader spectral sensitivity, better field of vision, better light sensitivity, etc, etc, than humans - the diversity of vision in birds is a good example - http://en.wikipedia....ki/Bird_vision. There are plenty of molluscs which see considerably worse than nautili. I generally agree, ....We are talking 500 million years ago when the Nautilus eye was exquisite and hadn't time to evolve this way from the creation of the earth. Ok, so another way of looking at it is God has had 500 million years to get the nautilus eye right and still hasn't managed it. Dragonflies arose 700 million years ago and have exceptional vision, seeing considerably more of the spectrum than humans: http://skurvits.trip...ossils/id1.html http://scienceblogs....ve-dragonflies/ Crocodilians have better eyesight than humans: http://books.google....Omn-ZiguLgIu-28 and are over 200 million years old. Phylogenetic age doesn't correlate with ocular prowess very well at all. I'll offer a couple alternative things which I find evident when looking at these eyes: 1) Similarities in anatomical arrangement suggests that there is common ancestry between the nautilus and the human. 2) Photons are scarce in the environment which nautilus inhabit (generally the mesopelagic zone below 100m http://en.wikipedia....t.2C_and_status) and are of generally very limited range. Even animals with excellent vision would be able to see very little in these conditions. As such, selection simply does not favor advance optical sensory organs - they would not work in the environment which the nautilus lives. As such, the nautilius has not evolved advanced vision. In fact heavy investment in an organ which would confer negligible selective advantage is selected against, maintaining a simple eye structure in the nautilus. 3) Humans live in an environment in which vision is far more important, but certainly haven't evolved the best eyes in the animal world. 4) Better vision than human eyes provide has been evident in the animal kingdom for a vastly longer period than humans have been around for. Edited October 18, 2012 by Arete 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zorro Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 To expand and forgive me if I'm missing your point, but eyes seem like a horrible example if you're aiming to provide an example of God's "perfection". a) Human eyes are rather flawed. They project upside down, have limited spectral range, don't function very well in low light conditions, wear out, have their photocells pointing away from the light, have a natural blind spot, etc and so on. The eyes of a nautilus are even less perfect. In fact it is relatively trivial for us measly, insignificant, flawed humans to produce an optical sensory device (i.e. a camera) which outperforms the human eye in almost every capacity. So, the human and the nautilis eye are a long way from perfect optical sensory organs. b) Human eyes aren't even very good by the standards of vertebrates. I'm not sure if you were trying to hold up humans and nautili as two ends of a distribution of optical perfection, but there are many many vertebrates who can see with better resolution, have broader spectral sensitivity, better field of vision, better light sensitivity, etc, etc, than humans - the diversity of vision in birds is a good example - http://en.wikipedia....ki/Bird_vision. There are plenty of molluscs which see considerably worse than nautili. Ok, so another way of looking at it is God has had 500 million years to get the nautilus eye right and still hasn't managed it. Dragonflies arose 700 million years ago and have exceptional vision, seeing considerably more of the spectrum than humans: http://skurvits.trip...ossils/id1.html http://scienceblogs....ve-dragonflies/ Crocodilians have better eyesight than humans: http://books.google....Omn-ZiguLgIu-28 and are over 200 million years old. Phylogenetic age doesn't correlate with ocular prowess very well at all. I'll offer a couple alternative things which I find evident when looking at these eyes: 1) Similarities in anatomical arrangement suggests that there is common ancestry between the nautilus and the human. 2) Photons are scarce in the environment which nautilus inhabit (generally the mesopelagic zone below 100m http://en.wikipedia....t.2C_and_status) and are of generally very limited range. Even animals with excellent vision would be able to see very little in these conditions. As such, selection simply does not favor advance optical sensory organs - they would not work in the environment which the nautilus lives. As such, the nautilius has not evolved advanced vision. In fact heavy investment in an organ which would confer negligible selective advantage is selected against, maintaining a simple eye structure in the nautilus. 3) Humans live in an environment in which vision is far more important, but certainly haven't evolved the best eyes in the animal world. 4) Better vision than human eyes provide has been evident in the animal kingdom for a vastly longer period than humans have been around for. We seem to agree a bit, arete: It is a miracle that the Nautilus has made it for some 500 million years. The Eye is a miracle creation by itself even Darwin and others agree:: DARWIN ON THE EYE "Tosuppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting thefocus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and forthe correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed bynatural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, thecommon sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Voxpopuli, vox Dei ["the voice of the people = the voice of God "], asevery philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that ifnumerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfectcan be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainthe case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, asis likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to anyanimal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing thata perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not beconsidered as subversive of the theory." The Quote: From theOrigin of Species, CHAPTER VI - DIFFICULTIES OF THE THEORY ……………………………… Jewish World Review Oct. 16, 1998 / 26Tishrei, 5759 http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0798/genesis1.asp ….. 3) Has theBible missed on evolution? The Bible is well aware of evolution although it isnot very interested in the details of the process. All of animal evolution getsa mere seven sentences (Genesis 1:20-26). Genesis tells us simple aquaticanimals were followed by land animals, mammals and finally humans. That is alsowhat the fossil record tells us but of course with much more detail than thesefew biblical verses provide. Not withstanding the claims by misguided clerics,the Bible makes no claims as to what drove the development of life and sciencehas yet to provide the answer. In case you haven't studied biology in a while, letme provide a brief update on paleontology's record of life's evolution. Firstcame the discovery that life appeared on the Earth almost 4 billion years ago,immediately after the molten globe had cooled sufficiently for liquid water toform. This contradicted totally the theory of life's gradual evolution overbillions of years in some nutrient-rich pool. The rapid origin of life remainsa mystery. Then we learned that some 550 million years ago, in what is known asthe Cambrian explosion, animals with opticallyperfect eyes, gills, limbs with joints, mouths and intestines burstupon the fossil scene with not a clue in older fossils as to how they evolved.It is no wonder that Darwin, in his Origin of Species, repeatedly implored hisreaders (five times by my count) to ignore the fossil record if they were tounderstand his theory. The overwhelming weight of scientific evidencetells us that something exotic, unexpected, and as of yet unexplained, happenedto produce life as we know it. ….. New JWRcontributor Gerald Schroeder earned his BSc, MSc and PhD at the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology, with his doctorate in the Earth Sciences and NuclearPhysics. He is the author of Genesis and the Big Bang : The Discovery of HarmonyBetween Modern Science and the Bible; now in six languages; and TheScience of God : The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom ……………………………………………………….. -2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zorro Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 (edited) ……………………………………………………….. http://creation.com/...shall-interview An eye for creation An interview with eye-disease researcher Dr George Marshall, University of Glasgow, Scotland Dr George Marshall obtained his B.Sc. (Hons.) in Biology at the University of Strathclyde in 1984. He conducted research into bone marrow cancer at the University of Sheffield for three years until invalided out with a serious, normally incurable illness. He was dramatically healed of this in November 1987 and soon obtained an M.Med.Sci. from Sheffield. He then worked at the University of Manchester before taking up a post at the University of Glasgow in 1988. He obtained his Ph.D. in Ophthalmic Science at Glasgow in 1991 and was elected to chartered biologist (C.Biol.) status and to membership of the Institute of Biology (M.I.Biol.) in 1993. He is now Sir Jules Thorn Lecturer in Ophthalmic Science. Dr George Marshall, an eye-disease researcher from the University of Glasgow, Scotland Creation magazine [CM]: Dr Marshall, you wrote to us to comment on the article Seeing back to front which appeared in the March–May 1996 issue of Creation magazine. What was your comment? Dr George Marshall [GM]: I pointed out that the principal reason as to why the eye cannot be regarded as being wired backward (as some evolutionists claim) was hidden in a footnote in your article. CM: Would you care to elaborate? GM: The light-detecting structures within photoreceptor cells are located in the stack of discs. These discs are being continually replaced by the formation of new ones at the cell body end of the stack, thereby pushing older discs down the stack. Those discs at the other end of the stack are 'swallowed' by a single layer of retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. RPE cells are highly active, and for this they need a very large blood supply—the choroid. Unlike the retina, which is virtually transparent, the choroid is virtually opaque, because of the vast numbers of red blood cells within it. For the retina to be wired the way that Professor Richard Dawkins suggested, would require the choroid to come between the photoreceptor cells and the light, for RPE cells must be kept in intimate contact with both the choroid and photoreceptor to perform their job. Anybody who has had the misfortune of a hemorrhage in front of the retina will testify as to how well red blood cells block out the light. Then what do you think of the idea that the eye is wired backward? The notion that the eye was wired backward occurred to me as a 13-year-old when studying eye anatomy in a school science class. It took me two years of lecturing on human eye anatomy to realize why the eye is wired the way it is. The idea that the eye is wired backward comes from a lack of knowledge of eye function and anatomy. How do you react to the notion that the human eye is the product of evolution? The more I study the human eye, the harder it is to believe that it evolved. Most people see the miracle of sight. I see a miracle of complexity on viewing things at 100,000 times magnification. It is the perfection of this complexity that causes me to baulk at evolutionary theory. Can you give our readers some idea of just how complex the eye is? The retina is probably the most complicated tissue in the whole body. Millions of nerve cells interconnect in a fantastic number of ways to form a miniature 'brain'. Much of what the photoreceptors 'see' is interpreted and processed by the retina long before it enters the brain. A computer program has allegedly 'imitated' the evolution of an eye. Do you accept this? Those who produced this model would acknowledge that the model is such a gross oversimplification that it cannot be cited as a proof. May I quote a colleague's reaction [Dr John Hay, B.Sc.(Hons), Ph.D., M.Sc., C.Biol., F.I.Biol.]: 'Computer simulation of evolutionary processes such as that described have three important flaws. First, the findings imply that the development which is being measured over so many generations is independent of development of other structures which are necessary for function. Second, the changes observed from the simulation are dependent on the original data input which clearly is consequent to human design of the sequences/regions to be worked on and also the program(s) which are used for the simulation. These are not, therefore, random. The third aspect of all this is that there is translation error in such simulations involving computer hardware/software. This can take the form of electronic error in single bits which are coding for a particular digit. Over many loops in this performance, intrinsic error can be magnified considerably. Was the simulation repeated using different PCs etc.? One feels that these three arguments are essential to any computer simulation package of evolutionary processes. 'My first point indicated that even if there is an eye, it will be useless unless the organism has the neural and/or the mental processes to utilize information perceived by the eye. How can a chance mutation provide this complexity in several different structures? The argument has usually been that there is a plausible intermediate series of eye-designs in living animals, e.g. Euglena has an eyespot; other organisms have a "cup" which acts as a direction finder. 'However, the organism which defies this evolution is Nautilus. It has a primitive eye with no lens, which is somewhat surprising considering that its close relative, the squid, has one. This organism has (apparently!) been around for millions of years but has never "evolved" a lens despite the fact that it has a retina which would benefit from this simple change.' What exactly does your work involve? Lecturing to doctors in medicine who have specialized in ophthalmology and are attempting to gain fellowship with the Royal College of Ophthalmology (FRCOphth). However, my main remit is research into eye diseases using a combination of transmission electron microscopy and immunocytochemistry—a technique that uses antibodies to locate specific proteins such as enzymes. Do you believe that accepting creation as portrayed in Genesis is essential to your Christian faith? Yes! On not literally accepting the Genesis account of creation one is left with a major problem—what Scriptures do you accept as true and what Scriptures do you reject as false? Only by accepting the whole of Scripture as the inspired Word of God does one avoid this dilemma. There are Scriptures that are a source of stumbling to the intellect. My practice is to 'pigeon-hole' them temporarily and never allow them to be a stumbling block to my faith. It's amazing how many of these knotty problems have subsequently resolved themselves. Thus Genesis creation may initially appear to be hard to accept, but it strikes me that evolution is equally if not more problematic to believe. How useful do you find Creation magazine? Its principal value is that it challenges what is uncritically accepted. Watch any TV program involving nature and you would think that evolution is an established fact. People get bombarded with this so often that they accept it without thinking. Creation magazine makes people realize that it is only a proposal and not fact. There are numerous places in my hospital where I can leave copies on coffee tables to get people to think for themselves. What advice would you have for Christian students, or for Christians in a science course or teaching situation? First, recognize that science can become a 'religion' in its own right. Scientists say something, so the general public (the 'worshippers') accept it without question. Scientists are much more cautious about one another's findings. Second, science is not static. The science of today is quite different in many ways from the science of yesterday, and will probably bear little resemblance to the science of tomorrow. People once believed in 'spontaneous generation' which could be 'proved' by putting an old sack and a few bits of cheese in a dark corner. Mice spontaneously generated out of the sack. We laugh at such notions, but I suspect that in a hundred years' time people will laugh at some of our scientific notions. Third, one can still become an eminent scientist without accepting evolutionary dogma; the ability to produce sound science in the laboratory is not diminished by one's stance on creation. Dr Marshall, thank you very much. [Ed. note: For a more technical account of the retina's amazing design, see Is Our 'Inverted' Retina Really 'Bad Design'? by ophthalmologist Peter Gurney, an article highly commended by Dr Marshall.] ..................................................................................................................... http://www.detecting...m/humaneye.html The Evolution of the Human Eye Sean D. Pitman M.D. © May. 2001 Updated October 2008 Table of Contents • Introduction • Numerous Gradations • A Closer Look • The Nilsson & Pelger Theory ◦ Problems with the Paper Theory • The Design Flaw Argument • Verted vs. Inverted • Living Optical Fibers • The Error of Presumption • Detecting Design • Not Much Else to Go On No discussion of evolution seems complete without bringing up the topic of thehuman eye. Despite its deceptively simple anatomical appearance, thehuman eye is an incredibly complicated structure. Even in this age ofgreat scientific learning and understanding, the full complexity of the humaneye has yet to be fully understood. It seems that with increased learningcomes increased amazement in that the complexity that once seemed approachablecontinues to be just as incomprehensible as ever, if not more so. It is well documented that Darwin stood in wonder at the complexity of the eye,even from what little he knew of it in comparison to modern science. Andyet, though he could not explain exactly how, he believed that such amazingcomplexity could be developed through a naturalistic process ofevolution. Very small changes, selected as advantageous, could be passedon and multiplied over many generations to produce major miracles of complexitysuch as the human eye. NumerousGradations Obviously,Darwin was not crazy. His proposed theory of evolution and his basicexplanations concerning the gradual development of complex structures, such asthe eye, have convinced the vast majority of modern scientists. So, whatexactly did he propose to explain the complexity of such structures as thehuman eye? Consider the following quote from Darwin. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simpleand imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each gradebeing useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eyeever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the caseand if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditionsof life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye couldbe formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, shouldnot be considered as subversive of the theory.1 Darwinwas at a loss to explain exactly what was happening, but he proposed a stepwiseevolution of the human eye by showing examples of differences in the eyes ofother creatures that seemed to be less complex. These differences wereordered in a stepwise fashion of progression from the most simple of eyes tothe most complex. There did in fact appear to be a good number ofintermediaries that linked one type of eye to another type in an evolutionarypattern. Some of the most "simple" eyes are nothing more than spots of asmall number of light sensitive cells clustered together. This typeof eye is only good for sensing light from dark. It cannot detect animage. From this simple eye, Darwin proceeded to demonstrate creatureswith successively more and more complex eyes till the level of the complexityof the human eye was achieved. Thisscenario certainly seems reasonable. However, many theories thatinitially seem reasonable on paper are later disproved. Such theoriesneed direct experimental evidence to support them before they are acceptedoutright as "scientific". Do complex structures such as eyes actually evolve in real life? As faras I could find, there is no documented evidence of anyone evolving an eye oreven an eye spot through any sort of selection mechanism in any creature thatdid not have an eye before. Also, I have not seen documented evidence forthe evolution of one type of eye into a different type of eye in anycreature. As far as I can tell, no such evolution has ever been directlyobserved. Of course the argument is that such evolution takes thousandsor even millions of years to occur. Maybe so, but without the ability fordirect observation and testing, such assumptions, however reasonable, mustmaintain a higher degree of faith. A Closer Look Thenecessary faith in such a scenario increases even more when one considers thefact that even a simple light sensitive spot is extremely complicated,involving a huge number of specialized proteins and proteinsystems. These proteins and systems are integrated in such a waythat if one were removed, vision would cease. In other words, for themiracle of vision to occur, even for a light sensitive spot, a great manydifferent proteins and systems would have to evolve simultaneously, becausewithout them all there at once, vision would not occur. For example, thefirst step in vision is the detection of photons. In order to detect aphoton, specialized cells use a molecule called 11-cis-retinal. When aphoton of light interacts with this molecule, it changes its shape almostinstantly. It is now called trans-retinal. This change in shapecauses a change in shape of another molecule called rhodopsin. The newshape of rhodopsin is called metarhodopsin II. Metarhodopsin II nowsticks to another protein called transducin forcing it to drop an attachedmolecule called GDP and pick up another molecule called GTP. TheGTP-transducin-metarhodopsin II molecule now attaches to another protein calledphosphodiesterase. When this happens, phosphodiesterase cleaves moleculescalled cGMPs. This cleavage of cGMPs reduces their relative numbers inthe cell. This reduction in cGMP is sensed by an ion channel. Thision channel shuts off the ability of the sodium ion to enter the cell. This blockage of sodium entrance into the cell causes an imbalance of chargeacross the cell's membrane. This imbalance of charge sends an electricalcurrent to the brain. The brain then interprets this signal and theresult is called vision. Many other proteins are now needed to convertthe proteins and other molecules just mentioned back to their original forms sothat they can detect another photon of light and signal the brain. If anyone of these proteins or molecules is missing, even in the simplest eye system,vision will not occur.2 Thequestion now of course is, how could such a system evolve gradually? Allthe pieces must be in place simultaneously. For example, what good wouldit be for an earthworm that has no eyes to suddenly evolve the protein11-cis-retinal in a small group or "spot" of cells on its head? These cells now have the ability to detect photons, but so what? Whatbenefit is that to the earthworm? Now, lets say that somehow these cellsdevelop all the needed proteins to activate an electrical charge across theirmembranes in response to a photon of light striking them. So what?! What good is it for them to be able to establish an electrical gradient acrosstheir membranes if there is no nervous pathway to the worm's minutebrain? Now, what if this pathway did happen to suddenly evolve andsuch a signal could be sent to the worm's brain. So what?! How isthe worm going to know what to do with this signal? It will have to learnwhat this signal means. Learning and interpretation are very complicatedprocesses involving a great many other proteins in other unique systems. Now the earthworm, in one lifetime, must evolve the ability to pass on thisability to interpret vision to its offspring. If it does not pass on thisability, the offspring must learn as well or vision offers no advantage tothem. All of these wonderful processes need regulation. No functionis beneficial unless it can be regulated (turned off and on). If thelight sensitive cells cannot be turned off once they are turned on, vision doesnot occur. This regulatory ability is also very complicated involving agreat many proteins and other molecules - all of which must be in placeinitially for vision to be beneficial. Now,what if we do not have to explain the origin of the first light sensitive"spot." The evolution of more complex eyes is simple from thatpoint onward. . . right? Not exactly. (See discussion of theNilsson and Pelger paper below): The Nilsson and Pelger Theory of Eye Evolution In1994 Nilsson and Pelger published what was to become an oft-referenced classicpaper on the evolution of the complex camera-type eye starting from a simplelight sensitive eyespot.22 In their paper they argued that aseries of insensible gradations, 1829 steps in all separated by 1% changes invisual acuity, could be crossed by an evolving population in about 350,000generations - - or around 500,000 years. The following figures illustratetheir theory: Theillustration above is layered with a dark backing and has a translucentepithelial covering in front of the light sensitive cells. Examples ofcreatures with simple flat eyespots include cnidarian medusa, turbellaria(flatworms that have eyespots that function as both photo- and chemoreceptors),annelids (i.e segmented worms), caterpillars, and starfish. Earthwormsand sea urchins have eyespots consisting of single-celled photoreceptorsscattered all over their surface epithelium ( Link ). The entire bodies of somecreatures with eyespots are largely translucent. Some of these creatureshave no associated pigmented cells and therefore cannot tell any sort of directionalityfor determining the source of light. All they can tell is if the environmentaround them is light or dark. However, other largely translucentcreatures do have pigmented cells. This feature allows for the directionof the source of light to be determined so that the creature can deliberatelyhead toward or away from the source of light. Next, the eyespot dimples inward. This increases visual acuity byallowing the eye to sense the direction the light is coming from better than aflat eyespot. Planarians (flatworms) have such dimpled eyes. Next, the rim of the pit begins to constrict to form a narrower opening or"aperture". Around this point the pit begins to fill with a clear jelly-likematerial. It is thought that producing this jelly would be rather simplefor most creatures - probably no more than one or two mutations. It issuggested that this jelly or slime helps to hold the shape of the pit, andhelps to protect the light sensitive cells from chemical damage. And, the jellymight also keep mud and other debris out of the eye. The aperture continues to decrease. Visual acuity increases until the aperturegets so small that it begins to shut out too much light. There will come a pointwhen the aperture is the perfect size. A bigger aperture gives worse eyesight,and a smaller one gives worse eyesight. (The exact size that is"perfect" depends on the brightness of the lighting in a particularenvironment.) An example of a narrow aperture lensless eye is found inthe chambered nautilus. Next, a lens is needed. To get a lens, a ball-shaped mass of clear cellswith a slight increase in the refractive index is needed. Once this mass isformed, it can be refined with very slight increases in the refractive index toproduce greater and greater visual acuity. An example of such an eye with a "primitive" lens is found in theRoman garden snail (Helix aspersa ) or slug. Now that the eye has a lens, the aperture is in the wrong place. The eye willbe more acute if the lens moves towards the center of curvature of thelight-sensitive surface. So, over time, the lens not only moves, butincreases in refractive index with a great index in the center of the lens vs.the edges of the lens. This is possible because the lens is made from amixture of proteins. The ratio of the proteins can be different in differentplaces, so the lens material is not optically uniform. It is common for abiological lens to have a higher refractive index at the center than at theedges. This "graded index" significantly improves image quality inthat it is able to correct for distortion. Andviola! - the evolution of a camera-type eye is complete after a series of Darwin's"insensible gradations". Thethe following video where Nilsson explains his eye-evolution theory: Problems with the Paper Theory Thereare just a few problems with this "theory" of eye evolutionhowever. The argument is that the morphologic gaps are so narrowthat it would be a very simple process to step from one gradation in visualacuity to the next with no more than one or two genetic mutations. Infact, it is often argued that these gradations already exist in a population thatexpresses one of the above listed steps. For example, a population thathas flat eyespots is said to have at least some individuals within thepopulation that have slightly dimpled eyespots. If a change in selectivepressures favored a dimpled eyespot with a slight increase in visual acuity,pretty soon the majority of the population would have dimpled eyespots. The problem with this notion is that no population of creatures with flateyespots shows any sort of intra-population range like this were even a smallportion of the population has dimpled eyespots to any selectable degree. This is a common assertion, but it just isn't true. Now,if these 1,829 gradations really evolutionary steps that are in fact smallenough to cross in fairly short order (a few generations each under selectiveconditions), it seems quite likely that such ranges in morphologic expressionwould be seen within a single gene pool of a single species. But, theyaren't. Species that have simple flat light-sensitive eyespots only haveflat light-sensitive eyespots. No individual within that species showsany sort of dimpled eye that would have any selective advantage with regard toincreased visual acuity. This fact alone suggests that these seeminglysmall steps probably aren't that simple when it comes to the coordinatedunderlying genetic changes that would be needed to get from one step to thenext. Abig problem with these morphologic steps is that they do not take intoconsideration the fact that vision is more involved than what goes on justwithin the eye. In order to take any advantage of improved visual acuitywithin the eye, the brain must also change in such a way that it is able tointerpret the information the eye is sending it. Otherwise, if the brainis still step up to appreciate only differences in light from dark sent fromthe eye, without being able to interpret specific patterns of light and dark onthe retina, there would be no selective advantage from a dimpled vs. a flateyespot. Because of this requirement, whatever evolution happens to takeplace in the eye, must be backed up by equivalent evolution in braindevelopment and interpretive powers. Anotherinteresting problem with the argument for a selective advantage for a dimpledeye over a flat eyespot is the fact that determining the general direction of alight source can be achieved with a flat eyespot. Dimpling is not neededto determine the relative direction from which a beam of light is coming. All that is needed is an ability to rotate the eyespot relative to the sourceof light combined with the brain's ability to associate differences in theintensity of light with the change in orientation of the eyespot relative tothe source of light. This sort of associative ability could produce essentiallythe same effect of being able to localize and even follow or move toward asource of light without the need for producing a dimpled or cup-shapedeye. In fact, the species Euglena, with just a flat patch oflight-sensitive cells, can swim toward a source of light - - no dimpling needed( Link). In fact, some creatures, like starfish and sea urchin have no eyespotsat all yet are still sensitive to light to the degree that they can move towardsources of greater light intensity ( Link ). Anotherpotential problem is getting thousands of light-sensitive cells to worktogether in coordination at the same time to produce a dimpled effect. What sort of simple mutation would produce such an effect among thousands ofcells where each must be specifically oriented relative to all the others toform a "dimple" instead of a "protrusion" or some sort ofother irregular surface? - at exactly the right spot to affect thelight-sensitive spot in an orderly manner? Some argue that one or twomutations can and often do produce large morphologic changes. The problemwith this argument is that all examples of large morphologic changes thatresult from small mutations are based on losses in pre-established morphologicfeatures. There simply are no examples where a small mutation produces alarge morphologic difference where an entirely new unique system of function isproduced or a new structural modification, not just a loss of pre-existingstructures, actually results in an improvement of function. When it comesto producing actual gains in novel beneficial structural alterations involvinglarge numbers of cells (or even subcellular building blocks) the underlyingcoded information involved simply isn't that simple. The same thing istrue for producing a lens or lens-like structure - even a "primitive"one. Getting a bunch of translucent epithelial cells to form a sphericalstructure and then to develop an increased refractive index isn't so easy - toany selectable level of improved visual acuity. Theseare just a few of the reasons why the work of Nilsson and Pelger is stillnothing more than a "paper theory" all these years later. Whatseems to work very well on paper may not work so well when it comes to puttingthe paper theory to a real life test. No such tests have actually beensuccessful even though testing this theory isn't so hard to do. All thatwould have to be done is to take a creature with a flat eyespot and have itproduce a bunch of offspring, artificially select the offspring with the mostdimpled eyespots, have them produce the next generation, again select thoseoffspring with the most dimpled eyespots, and so on. Very quickly, withina few generations, it should be very easy to demonstrate the evolution ofdimpled eyespots and to show that these eyespots are actually functionallyadvantageous with respect to localizing sources of light vs. the use of asimple flat eyespot in the evolved creatures. Suchexperimental demonstration has yet to be done. If it were ever done,successfully, it would certainly create a sensation within the scientificcommunity. Creationism and intelligent design theorists would take a hugehit if such an experiment were actually successful. Until this actuallyhappens, however, the eye-evolution theory of Nilsson and Pelger isn't really atrue scientific theory since it hasn't actually been subject to any potentiallyfalsifying real life test. It remains, therefore, a working hypothesis -a paper theory at best. The"Design Flaw" Argument Oh,but what about the "design flaws" of the human eye? It is acommon argument in favor of evolution that no intelligent designer would designanything with flaws. Evolution on the other hand, being a naturalisticprocess of trial and error, easily explains the existence of flaws in thenatural world. Although many are convinced by this argument, thisargument in and of itself assumes the motives and capabilities of thedesigner. To say that everything designed should match our individual conceptionsof perfection before we can detect design, is clearly misguided. Somemight question the design of a Picasso painting, but no one questions the factthat it was designed, even having never met Picasso. A child might builda box car for racing the neighborhood kids in a box car derby. His carmight not meet anyone’s idea of perfection, but most would not questionthe idea that it was designed. Or, someone might deliberately alter thedesign of a previous designer for personal reasons. This alterationitself is designed by a new designer and can be detected as such. Although not "beneficial" to overall function or the intentions ofthe original designer, the alteration might still be understood to bedesigned. For example, if someone slices the tires on a car with a razorblade, would it be accurate for someone walking by afterward to automaticallyassume that an evolutionary process was at work because of the presence of thiscurrent supposed design flaw? While a sliced up tire might not seem logicalfor a designer of tires to create, the flaw itself does not automatically ruleout a designer. A very intelligent designer of flaws might be at work andthe calling card might be the abundant evidence of high intelligence andpurpose. Or, design flaws might be the result of natural decay and notrepresentative of the original purpose or creation of the designer. A cartire that has 50,000 miles on it might have a few more "flaws" thanit had when it was first made. Everything wears out. People growold, have low back pain, arthritis, senile dementia, and dental decay. Are these design flaws or the wearing out of a great design that just did notlast forever? Simply put, just because someone can think of a better design oran improvement upon an old design, does not mean that the old design was notdesigned. Anotherproblem with finding design flaws in nature is that we do not know all theinformation there is to know. What seems to us to be a design flawinitially, might turn out to be an advantage once we learn more about the needsof a particular system or creature or designer. In any case, lets take acloser look at the supposed design flaws in the human eye. Inhis 1986 book, "The Blind Watchmaker," the famous evolutionarybiologist Richard Dawkins posses this design flaw argument for the human eye: "Any engineer would naturally assumethat the photocells would point towards the light, with their wires leadingbackwards towards the brain. He would laugh at any suggestion that thephotocells might point away, from the light, with their wires departing on theside nearest the light. Yet this is exactly what happens in allvertebrate retinas. Each photocell is, in effect, wired in backwards, with itswire sticking out on the side nearest the light. The wire has to travelover the surface of the retina to a point where it dives through a hole in theretina (the so-called 'blind spot') to join the optic nerve. This meansthat the light, instead of being granted an unrestricted passage to thephotocells, has to pass through a forest of connecting wires, presumablysuffering at least some attenuation and distortion (actually, probably not muchbut, still, it is the principle of the thing that would offend any tidy-mindedengineer). I don't know the exact explanation for this strange state ofaffairs. The relevant period of evolution is so long ago." 3 Dawkins'sargument certainly does seem intuitive. However, the problem with relyingstrictly on intuition is that intuition alone is not scientific. Many awell thought out hypothesis has seemed flawless on paper, but in when put tothe test, it turns out not to work as well as was hoped. Unforeseenproblems and difficulties arise. New and innovative solutions, notpreviously considered, became all important to obtaining the desiredfunction. Dawkins's problem is not one of reasonable intuition, but oneof a lack of testability of his hypothesis. However reasonable it mayappear, unless Dawkins is able to test his assumptions to see if in fact"verted" is better than "inverted" retinal construction forthe needs of the human, this hypothesis of his remains untested and thereforeunsupported by the scientific method. Beyond this problem, even if he wereto prove scientifically that a verted retina is in fact more reasonable forhuman vision, this still would not scientifically disprove design. Aspreviously described, proving flaws in design according to a personalunderstanding or need does not disprove the hypothesis that this flawed designwas none-the-less designed. Sincea designer has not been excluded by this argument of Dawkins, the naturalistictheory of evolution is not an automatic default. However true the theoryof evolution might be, it is not supported scientifically withouttestability. This is what evolutionists need to provide and this isexactly what is lacking. The strength of design theory rests, not in itsability to show perfection in design, but in its ability to point toward thestatistical improbability of a naturalistic method to explain the complexity oflife that is evident in such structures as the human eye. Supposed flawsdo not eliminate this statistical challenge to evolutionary theories. Dawkins's error is to assume that the thinking, knowledge and motivation of alldesigners are similar to his thinking, knowledge and motivation. Dawkins'sproblems are further exacerbated by his own admission that the inverted retinaworks very well. His argument is not primarily one that discussesthe technical failures of the inverted retina, but of aesthetics. Theinverted retina just does not seem right to him regardless of the factthat the inverted retina is the retina used by the animals with the mostacute (image forming) vision systems in the world. Vertedvs. Inverted Themost advanced verted retinas in the world belong to the octopus andsquid (cephalopods). An average retina of an octopus contains 20 millionphotoreceptor cells. The average human retina contains around 126million photoreceptor cells. This is nothing compared with birds who haveas much as 10 times as many photoreceptors and two to five times as many cones(cones detect color) as humans have. 4,5 Humanshave a place on the retina called a "fovea centralis." Thefovea is a central area in the central part of the human retina called themacula. In this area humans have a much higher concentrationphotoreceptors, especially cones. Also, in this particular area,the blood vessels, nerves and ganglion cells are displaced so that they do notinterpose themselves between the light source and the photoreceptor cells, thuseliminating even this minimal interference to the direct path of light. This creates an area of high visual acuity with decreasing visual acuity towardsthe periphery of the human retina. The cones in the macula (andelsewhere) also have a 1:1 ratio to the ganglion cells. Ganglion cellshelp to preprocess the information received by the retinalphotoreceptors. For the rods of the retina, a single ganglion cellhandles information from many, even hundreds of rod cells, but this is not trueof cones whose highest concentration is in the macula. The macula providesinformation needed to maximize image detail, and the information obtained bythe peripheral areas of the retina helps to provide both spatial and contextualinformation. Compared with the periphery, the macula is 100 times moresensitive to small features than in the rest of the retina. This enablesthe human eye to focus in on a specific area in the field of vision withoutbeing distracted by peripheral vision too much.6 Birdretinas, on the other hand, do not have a macula or fovea centralis. Visual acuity is equal in all areas. Octopus retinas also lack a foveacentralis, but do have what is called a linea centralis. The lineacentralis forms a band of higher acuity horizontally across the retina of theoctopus. A unique feature of octopod eyes is that regardless of theposition of their bodies, their eyes always maintain the same relative positionto the gravitational field of the earth using an organ called astatocyst. The reason for this appears to be related to the fact thatoctopods retinas are set up to detect horizontal and vertical projections intheir visual fields.7 This necessitates a predictable way tojudge horizontal and verticalness. Octopods use this ability, not so muchto form images as vertebrates do, but to detect patterns of movement. It isinteresting to note that regardless of the shape of an object, octopods willrespond to certain movements as they would to prey that make similarmovements. However, if their normal prey is not moving, an octopus willnot generally respond.8,9 In this respect, the vision ofoctopods is similar to an insect-type compound eye. The octopod eye hasin fact been referred to as a compound eye with a single lens.10 In some other respects, it is also more simple in its information processingthan is the vertebrate eye. The photoreceptors consist only of rods, andthe information transmitted by these rods does not pass through any sort ofperipheral processing ganglion cell(s).11 Octopod eyes are notset up for the perception of small detail, but for the perception of patternsand motion thus eliminating the need for the very high processing power seen inhuman and other vertebrate eyes. Thehigh processing power of human and other vertebrate eyes is not cheep. Itis very expensive and the body pays a high price for the maintenance ofsuch a high level of detection and processing power. The retina has thehighest energy demands/metabolic rate of any tissue in the entire body. The oxygen consumption of the human retina (per gram of tissue) is 50% greaterthan the kidney, 300% greater than the cerebral cortex (of the brain), and 600%greater than cardiac muscle. These are numbers for the retina as awhole. The photoreceptor cell layer, taken alone, has a significantlyhigher metabolic demand.12,13 All this energy must be suppliedquickly and efficiently. Directly beneath each photoreceptor lies thechoroid layer. This layer contains a dense capillary bed called thechoriocapillaris. The only thing separating the capillaries from directcontact with the photoreceptors is the very thin (one cell thick) retinal-pigmentedepithelial (RPE) layer. These capillaries are much larger than averagebeing 18-50 microns in diameter. They provide a huge relative bloodsupply per gram of tissue and as much as 80% of the total blood supply for theentire eye. On the other hand, the retinal artery that passes through the"blind spot" and distributes across the anterior retinasupplying the needs of the neural layer, contributes only 5% of the total bloodsupply to the retina.15 The close proximity of the choroidalblood supply to the photoreceptor cells without any extra intervening tissue orspace such as nerves and ganglion cells (ie: from a "verted" system)allows the most rapid and efficient delivery of vital nutrients and the removalof the tremendous quantities of waste generated. The cells that removethis waste and re-supply several needed elements to the photoreceptors are theRPE cells. Everydayrods and cones shed around 10% of their segmented disks. Rods average 700to 1,000 disks while cones average 1,000 to 1,200 disks.16 This in itself creates a very large metabolic demand on the RPE cells who mustrecycle this huge number of shed disks. Conveniently, these disks do nothave to travel too far to reach the RPE cells since they are sloughed from theend of the photoreceptor that directly contacts the RPE cell layer. Ifthese disks were sloughed off in the opposite direction (toward the lens andcornea), their high level of sloughing would soon create a cloudy haze in frontof the photoreceptors, which could not be cleared as rapidly as would be neededto maintain the highest degree of visual clarity. This high rateof recycling maintains the very high sensitivity of the photoreceptors. RPE cells also contain retinol isomerase. Trans-retinal must be convertedback to 11-cis-retinal in the visual molecular cascade. With the help ofvitamin-A and retinol isomerase, the RPE cells are able to do this and thentransfer these rejuvenated molecules back to the photoreceptors.17 The funny thing is, the RPE cells in the retinas of cephalopods do not haveretinol isomerase.18 However, the retinas of all sightedvertebrates do have this important enzyme. All of these functions requirelarge amounts of energy and so the RPE cells, like the photoreceptor cells,must be in close proximity to a very good blood supply, which of course theyare. Also, as the name implies, RPE cells are pigmented with a verydark/black pigment called melanin. This melanin absorbs scattered light,thus preventing stray reflections of photons and the indirect activation ofphotoreceptors. This aids significantly in the creation of a clear/sharpimage on the retina. There is a different system for some othervertebrates such as the cat who have a reflective layer called the tapetumlucidus, which allows for better night vision (six times better than humans)but poor day vision.19 Sowe see that inverted retinas seem to have some at least marginal if notsignificant advantages based on the needs of their owners. We also havethe evidence that the best eyes in the world for image detection andinterpretation are all inverted as far as their retinal organization. Asfar as the disadvantages are concerned, they are generally not of practicalsignificance in comparison to overall relative function. Even Dawkinsseems to admit that his uneasiness is mostly one of aesthetics. Considerthe following admission from Dawkins: With one exception, all the eyes I have so far illustratedhave had their photocells in front of the nerves connecting them to the brain.This is the obvious way to do it, but it is not universal. The flatworm keepsits photocells apparently on the wrong side of their connecting nerves. So doesour own vertebrate eye. The photocells point backwards, away from the light.This is not as silly as it sounds. Since they are very tiny and transparent, itdoesn't much matter which way they point: most photons will go straight throughand then run the gauntlet of pigment-laden baffles waiting to catch them.20 Living Optical Fibers Asit turns out, the supposed problems Dawkins finds with the inverted retinabecome actual advantages in light of recent research published by KristianFranze et. al., in the May 2007 issue of PNAS (see illustration above; Link). As it turns out, "Muller cells areliving optical fibers in the vertebrate retina." 21 Consider the observations and conclusions of the authors in the followingabstract of their paper: Although biological cells are mostly transparent, they arephaseobjects that differ in shape and refractive index. Any imagethat is projected through layers of randomly oriented cellswillnormally be distorted by refraction, reflection, and scattering.Counterintuitively,the retina of the vertebrate eye is invertedwith respect to itsoptical function and light must pass throughseveral tissue layersbefore reaching the light-detecting photoreceptorcells. Here wereport on the specific optical properties ofglial cells present inthe retina, which might contribute tooptimize this apparentlyunfavorable situation. We investigatedintact retinal tissue andindividual Muller cells, whichare radial glial cells spanning theentire retinal thickness.Muller cells have an extended funnelshape, a higher refractiveindex than their surrounding tissue, andare oriented alongthe direction of light propagation. Transmissionand reflectionconfocal microscopy of retinal tissue in vitro and invivo showedthat these cells provide a low-scattering passage forlightfrom the retinal surface to the photoreceptor cells. Using amodified dual-beam laser trap we could also demonstrate thatindividualMuller cells act as optical fibers. Furthermore,their parallelarray in the retina is reminiscent of fiberopticplates used forlow-distortion image transfer. Thus, Mullercells seem to mediatethe image transfer through the vertebrateretina with minimaldistortion and low loss. This finding elucidatesa fundamentalfeature of the inverted retina as an optical systemand ascribes anew function to glial cells.21 And Dawkins would have us believe that no"intelligent" designer would have done it that way? Really? TheError of Presumption Tosay then that the human eye is definite proof of a lack thoughtful design, is abit presumptuous I would think. This seems to be especially true when oneconsiders the fact that the best of modern human science and engineering hasnot produced even a fraction of the computing and imaging capability of thehuman eye. How can we then, ignorant as we must be concerning suchmiracles of complex function, hope to accurately judge the relative fitness orlogic of something so far beyond our own capabilities? Should someone whocannot even come close to understanding or creating the object that they areobserving think to critique not to mention disparage the work that that liesbefore them? This would be like a six-year-old child trying to tell anengineer how to design a skyscraper or that one of his buildings is"better" than the others. Until Dawkins or someone else canactually make something as good or better than the human eye, I would invitethem to consider the silliness of their efforts in trying to make valuejudgments on such things such things that are obviously among most beautifuland beyond the most astounding works of human genius and art inexistence. DetectingDesign Ifand when humans do achieve and surpass this level of creativity and genius andare able to experimentally prove the existence of actual defects in thefunction of human eyes and other such marvels, would this evidence rule out adesigner? No. Intuitively, such complexity as we see in livingthings seems to speak for design in that it has the obvious appearance ofdesign. Richard Dawkins as much as admits this in the title of his book,"The Blind Watchmaker." For those who wish to propose anaturalistic mechanism to explain complexity, the burden of proof cannot berelieved by appealing to supposed design "flaws." The best thatevolutionist can do to disprove the theory of design is to demonstrate somereal examples of evolution in action where a purely naturalistic mechanismactually works to form a comparably complex function of interactingparts. I have yet to see this done. As it currently stands, the theory ofevolution is based only on correlation and inference, but not on actualdemonstration. The best examples of evolution in action deal with theevolution of very simple enzymatic functions, such as the evolution of theenzyme galactosidase in E. coli... and eventhis evolution has its clear limitations. I have yet to see an"irreducibly complex" system of function evolve were the function inquestion requires more than a few hundred fairly specified amino acid"parts" working together at the same time. For example, theflagellar bacterial motility system requires several thousand fairly specifiedamino acid "parts" in the form of a couple dozen individual proteins,working together in unified harmony at the same time. Of course, thereare many different kinds of bacterial motility systems possible, but all ofthem require several thousand fairly specified amino acids working together atthe same time before the function of motility can be realized. Such alevel of functional complexity has never been observed to evolve through anysort of naturalistic process. NotMuch Else to Go On . . . Ifone looks carefully at the average time required for the evolution of such amultipart system of function, Dawkins and other evolutionists will most likelybe waiting for a very long time for any experimental confirmation. Nowonder hypothetical claims of design flaws are so common. There does notseem to be too much else to go on as far as a significant example of realevolution in action. The statistics are against such a process actuallyworking in real life (kind of like a perpetual motion machine). So, evolutionistsare left with the design flaw argument - an argument that relies upon theassumed understanding of the identity, motives, and abilities of any possibledesigner or collection of designers. Such arguments prove nothing exceptfor the arrogance of those who use such arguments - especially when the veryones proposing such arguments cannot make anything even remotely comparable tomuch less better than that which they are disparaging. 1. Darwin, Charles. Origin ofSpecies (1872), 6th ed., New York University Press, New York,1988. 2. Behe, Michael J., Darwin's Black Box,Simon & Schuster Inc., 1996. 3. Dawkins, R., 1986. The BlindWatchmaker: Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design.W.W. Norton and Company, New York, p. 93. 4. J. Z. Young, "The Anatomy of theNervous System," Octopus Vulgaris (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1971), 441. 5. Frank Gill, Ornithology (New York:W. H. Freeman, 1995), 189. 6. Timothy Goldsmith, "Optimization,Constraint, and History in the Evolution of Eyes," The Quarterly Reviewof Biology 65:3 (Sept. 1990): 281–2. 7. Robert D. Barnes, Invertebrate Zoology(Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 1980), 454. 8. H. S. Hamilton, "Convergentevolution-Do the Octopus and Human eyes qualify?" CRSQ 24 (1987):82–5. 9. Bernhard Grzimek, Grzimek's AnimalLife Encyclopedia (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1972), 191. 10. B. V. Budelmann, "Cephalopod SenseOrgans, Nerves and the Brain: Adaptations for high performance and lifestyle," in Physiology of Cephalopod Mollusks, ed. Hans Portner, etal. (Australia: Gordon and Breach Pub., 1994), 15. 11. Martin John Wells, Octopus: Physiologyand Behavior of an Advanced Invertebrate (London: Chapman and Hall, 1978),150. 12. Futterman, S. (1975). Metabolism andPhotochemistry in the Retina, in Adler's Physiology of the Eye, 6thedition, ed. R.A. Moses. St. Louis: C.V. Mosby Company, pp. 406-419; p. 406. 13. Whikehart, D.R. (1994). Biochemistryof the Eye. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann, p. 73. 14. J.M. Risco and W. Noanitaya, Invest.Opthalmol. Vis. Sci. 19 [1980]:5. 15. Henkind, P., Hansen, R.I., Szalay, J.(1979). Ocular Circulation, in Physiology of the Human Eye and the VisualSystem, ed. R.R. Records. Maryland: Harper & Row Publishers, pp.98-155; p. 119 16. Dean Bok, "Retinal Photoreceptordisc shedding and pigment epithelium phagocytosis," in The RetinalPigment Epithelium, 148. 17. T. Hewitt and Rubin Adler, "TheRetinal Pigment Epithelium and Interphotoreceptor Matrix: Structure andSpecialized Functions" in The Retina, 58. 18. D. B. Bridges, "Distribution ofRetinol Isomerase in Vertebrate Eyes and its Emergence During RetinalDevelopment," Vision Research 29:12 (1989): 1711–7. 19. M. Ali and A. Klyne, Vision inVertebrates, New York: Plenum Press, 1985. 20. Richard Dawkins, Climbing MountImprobable (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), 170. 21. Kristian Franze, Jens Grosche, Serguei N.Skatchkov, Stefan Schinkinger, Christian Foja, Detlev Schild, Ortrud Uckermann,Kort Travis, Andreas Reichenbach, and Jochen Guck, Muller cells are livingoptical fibers in the vertebrate retina, PNAS | May 15, 2007 | vol. 104 |no. 20 | 8287-8292 (Link) 22. D.-E. Nilsson and S. Pelger, APessimistic Estimate Of The Time Required For An Eye To Evolve, Proceedingsof the Royal Society London B, 1994, 256, pp. 53-58. See also the DonLindsay archive ( Link ) ZORRO ....... I didn't know threads worked like that. Who invited you to my thread? We can participate on all threads but control our Post's zorro ..... Edited October 19, 2012 by zorro -3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Refsmmat Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 zorro, please do not copy and paste large tracts of (largely irrelevant) material from other sites. You can post links and excerpts, but entirely reprinting articles is bad form and generally considered a violation of copyright. Also, the question of the origin of the eye is off-topic. Can we return to the original question? If you hear a voice in your head claiming to be God and it tells you to kill your child (just like in the Bible), is it insane to listen? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ydoaPs Posted October 19, 2012 Author Share Posted October 19, 2012 DARWIN ON 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 forthe correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei ["the voice of the people = the voice of God "], asevery philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainthe case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory." The Quote: From theOrigin of Species, CHAPTER VI - DIFFICULTIES OF THE THEORY You underlined the wrong part. I added the emphasis where it needs to be. Can you guess what we see in nature even now? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arete Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 We seem to agree a bit, arete: Going by the wall-of-text copypasta of intellectually bankrupt creationist nonsense you just dumped on us, I sincerely doubt we agree on much at all. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john5746 Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Did Jesus asked why I need to suffer on the cross? Even if I believe this story, not sure that he didn't ask himself why he was doing this. He should have thought about it more, because it would have been much better to not have this crap about human sacrifice lingering on in the future. It is just stupid. If you're not sure about the source of the information ordering to kill your son then don't kill him, its fine. Even if I am sure about the source, I know it is evil. Only evil would ask one to kill their own son. If you are god and my son needs to die, then kill him yourself. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zorro Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 (edited) zorro, please do not copy and paste large tracts of (largely irrelevant) material from other sites. You can post links and excerpts, but entirely reprinting articles is bad form and generally considered a violation of copyright. Also, the question of the origin of the eye is off-topic. Can we return to the original question? cap'n: I am absolved of this foolishness. It is obvious from the above posts that moon derailed this thread and then butted into the conversation I had with areta with a challenge that I am bluffing. He then took his tears to the MOD "mooeypoo" who stated: "Zorro, in this forum you don't just assert, you claim and provideevidence to your claims. Proselytizing and preaching is against our rules." In response, I wanted to trump moon's bluff game and to adequately respond to the MOD". So pasted in a few tiny ref sources library, clipped the graphics, and kept within the Forum compression algorithms. As to your trite "(largely irrelevant) material from other sites. "; each and every sentence is pertinent and to the point. zorro ...... Edited October 20, 2012 by zorro -3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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