Quite an eye opening article. Ha ha.
So intricate is the eye that its origin has long been a cause célèbre among creationists and intelligent design proponents, who hold it up as a prime example of what they term irreducible complexity—a system that cannot function in the absence of any of its components and that therefore cannot have evolved naturally from a more primitive form. Indeed, Charles Darwin himself acknowledged in On the Origin of Species—the 1859 book detailing his theory of evolution by natural selection—that it might seem absurd to think the eye formed by natural selection. He nonetheless firmly believed that the eye did evolve in that way, despite a lack of evidence for intermediate forms at the time.
Direct evidence has continued to be hard to come by. Whereas scholars who study the evolution of the skeleton can readily document its metamorphosis in the fossil record, soft-tissue structures rarely fossilize. And even when they do, the fossils do not preserve nearly enough detail to establish how the structures evolved. Still, biologists have recently made significant advances in tracing the origin of the eye—by studying how it forms in developing embryos and by comparing eye structure and genes across species to reconstruct when key traits arose. The results indicate that our kind of eye—the type common across vertebrates—took shape in less than 100 million years, evolving from a simple light sensor for circadian (daily) and seasonal rhythms around 600 million years ago to an optically and neurologically sophisticated organ by 500 million years ago. More than 150 years after Darwin published his groundbreaking theory, these findings put the nail in the coffin of irreducible complexity and beautifully support Darwin’s idea. They also explain why the eye, far from being a perfectly engineered piece of machinery, exhibits a number of major flaws—these flaws are the scars of evolution. Natural selection does not, as some might think, result in perfection. It tinkers with the material available to it, sometimes to odd effect.
I really do have to go… but…
>> # 36 Taxed Enough Already Dude said, on June 24th, 2011 at 9:14 am
>>>> #34 You shouldn’t concede anything to these blasphemers…
>> Reject the premises of their argument.
I often do! But, I am only being honest when I say that I am not 100% sure about stuff.
It’s arrogant for anyone to claim they have the corner on truth! As a Christian, it’s even a kind of heresy.
Bobbo and I have very strained interchanges. He loathes my religious beliefs but we often agree on social and political issues.
Bye, for real now.
“After all, God can’t make mistakes.”
You present this axiom and then on the very next post say:
Of course God uses “winning designs” elswhere
If Zeus can’t make a mistake, then why does he need to allow competition in outcomes to determine which is the best to use? Wouldn’t his first inclination be the best?
Me = Jesus Christ
seek therapy
Alfred’s comments are loaded with irreducible complexity.
I think the novel arguments for both Creationism v. Darwinism and Atheism v. Christianity where used up three or four or five years ago on this blog … maybe its time to start discussing something new … unless someone really does have something new to offer …
Bag of BS? Ha, ha. Alfie–thats almost funny. Boy, you do display levels of complexity.
Greg Allan–you say I am cock sure. Thank you, same as we all should be about what we claim.
to that end, cock sure for sure. About what is where you will fail to appreciate.
Cock sure the “god of the bible” cannot exist because such a thing is logically impossible as Epicurus instructed so long ago.
Some “other thing” that stands outside of space, time, logic, causality having an infinite amount of x, y, and z?
Sure, why not? Can’t be too cock sure when addressing that which cannot be comprehended.
Alfred, If cutting taxes and deregulating worked so well, then where are the jobs and economy after Bush spent eight years doing it?
Oh here we go again! Another article posted for the sole purpose of stirring up more hatred. What this website needs is a Editor. Dvorak doesn’t do it and the article posters are bigger trolls than the actual trolls.
TeaDud
If we were “intelligently designed” we were clearly God’s undergrad bio lab. So many noob mistakes – for an omni-potent/scient being anyway.
Maybe his post grad work in Andromeda was more refined.
Allow me to quote from Robert A. Heinlein’s first published science fiction story:
“There are but two ways of forming an opinion in science. One is the scientific method; the other, the scholastic. One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all-important, and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything, and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority.”
(From “Life-Line” ©1939, Street & Smith, Inc., reprinted in “Isaac Asimov Presents The Golden Years of Science Fiction, Bonanza Books, 1983, ISBN 0-517-401479)
Taxed Dude starts out his argument by quoting from a 2000-year-old letter, a clear Argument From Authority. From “Argument from authority (also known as appeal to authority) is a fallacy of defective induction, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative.” He has allowed his mind to be made up for him. Since none of us is 2000 years old, we have little chance of changing his mind by appealing to mere physical evidence.
This ought to fit in somewhere, somehow on the next thread on the same topic. You can read it now, and see it again later:
“I know I evolved, still waiting on YOU.”
Ha, ha.
Ah, eye see…
Nice one Uncle Dave. I’m betting +100.
The eye of the octopus is designed inversely to the mammal eye. Another fact that supports evolution. Why would Jesus Christ need to make two different types of eyes?
Or his father, or the ghost guy?
Tax blathered: “Its perfectly made for what God wanted it to do, ”
Yes, like ring worms and parasitic wasps. Perfectly made to eat their hosts alive from the inside out.
“what precisely that is…you couldn’t possibly know.”
More intellectual laziness from Tax: The universe is unknowable… A dogma to make the world safe for willful ignorance.
Tax creates a God of Idiots and Sadists in Taxes’ own image.
http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/bethell200512010829.asp
That phrase — “it was selected for” — is regarded as a sufficient explanation for . . . everything. The same mundane phrase is given as the explanation for everything under the sun. How did the bats get sonar? “It arose by an accidental mutation of the genes and was selected for. Next question?” How did the eye develop? “Piecemeal. There was a random mutation and it conferred an advantage so it was selected for. Then the same thing happened over and over again. Next question?” How did the camel get its hump? “Random mutations conferred some advantage and so they were selected for. Next question?”
This is the science before which all knees must bend? These explanations are no better than “Just-So stories” (as one or two Harvard professors have rightly said). No actual digging in the dirt is needed: The theorist merely contemplates the trait in question and makes up a plausible story as to how it might have been advantageous.
Less talk. More rapturing.
Mike N said: “The same mundane phrase is given as the explanation for everything under the sun.”
Obviously, you haven’t spent time studying genetic drift, which accounts for a substantial portion of evolution.
Further, the shorthand “it was selected for” is no different from saying the best teams in any sport are the ones who win more games. Of course, that’s a truism. Only the lazy or indifferent let those truisms rest at that.
Handwaving that a truism is a truism, does not somehow magically make the underlying processes false or unimportant.
#49, If cutting taxes and deregulating worked so well, then where are the jobs and economy after Bush spent eight years doing it?
Um, Athena forbid I come to TEAD’s rescue here, but Bush did NOT reduce regulation. He increased it. This was reported in 2008, the year before he left office.
* Regulatory Budget and Staffing Levels: Appropriations for federal regulatory agencies increased 44% under Bush from $27 billion to $44.9 billion. Even excluding the federal takeover of airport screeners, the increase in regulatory budgets went up 30% and non-Transportation Security Administration staff rose 11%.
* Regulatory Page Counts: In 2007 the Federal Register (the publication all proposed and finalized rules must be published in) had 72,090 pages, higher than any year before 2000. In 2007, the Code of Federal Regulation (essentially the regulatory statute book) had 145,816 pages, more than 4,500 pages longer than when Bush took office.
* The Number and Cost of Major Rules: 98 rules had an economic impact on the United States greater than $100 million. Of those 98, 75 increased the regulatory burden and 23 decreased it. More than half of the cost saving rules came from the FCC and SEC, two independent agencies Bush could not directly control.
* Cost Estimates: Under Bush, more than $28 billion in new regulatory costs were inflicted on the American people. Only in 2001 when Bush repealed President Bill Clinton’s costly ergonomics rule, did overall regulatory costs decrease.
Lyin’ Mike==you say: “That phrase — “it was selected for” — is regarded as a sufficient explanation for . . . everything.” /// Yes, isn’t that sublime in its beauty, simplicity, TESTABILITY, and common sense–once you know the answer?
Imagine a great hole opened up in the earth belching forth CO2 to such a level that “it selected for” those animals that could survive high CO2 levels. We would all die. The environment in which we live would no longer select “us.” And the environment is doing that all the time, every day, eon after eon. Hot direct sun–selects for dark skin. Indirect sun–selects for pale skin.
See the beauty?
#61–LL==so what you would like us to believe is that cutting taxes and increasing regulations does not create jobs. And of course, noting how many pages of regulations exist or how much money is spent is not an exact measure of “how much regulation” there is==those things are but proxies.
Lots of “confusion” about “big government” as defined simply by how much tax revenue it generates ((its going down!)) or how many people it employs ((its going up!)) when in all these issues the relevant factor is how well it does its assigned duties which is an entirely different issue.
The USA is taxing at the lowest levels in 80 years WHILE AT THE SAME TIME, the top 1% of wealth aggregators are taking larger and larger shares. Societies don’t last long when that happens. In fact, it does takes a government regardless of size to mismanage basic economics to get that result. The lower taxes regardless of issue type of non-think that has held sway the last 30 years.
Small government is right around the corner. Like Somalia small. I wonder if you will recognize your misplaced values even then?
The GOP will totally fix the economy by canceling funding for Planned Parenthood.
foobar–yes the anti-regulation GOP was aptly reported on Rachael Madow last night. Seems the Republican led legislature in Kansas issued new regulations for number/size of rooms an abortion clinic is required to have on Monday with enforcement to begin on Wednesday. Two days to get into compliance. So–the 3 abortion clinics in Kansas will be no more because of: government regulation created out of right wing religious debasement of the Republican Party.
Its ALL hypocrisy.
Yea, verily.
#31
Evolution cannot be seen happing in a laboratory because it doesn’t happen outside of it.
Once again, completely wrong and evidence of your ignorance. Beyond the fossil record which alone is sufficient, we have evidence of evolution in action. An obvious example is the regular mutation of the flu virus. However, there are other examples.
On the island of Galapagos in 1977, there was a severe drought which reduced the supply of seeds. The finch normally prefers small soft seeds which were now in short supply. What was left were larger, harder seeds. Within a few generations, the finches beaks grew 10% and their body mass increased. Creationism (e.g. “god made them as they are and they won’t change”) provides no means to predict this change but evolution does.
There are numerous other examples where scientists were able to observe species evolving within our life time.
RE: Human eye
Actually, the human eye is an example of an average quality design from a functional standpoint A better design would be to have the blood vessels behind the retina instead running across it where they can leak and impair vision.
#39
So Jesus Christ believed God created Adam and Eve, and if He is wrong about that, then He is wrong about everything.
Indeed.
After all, God can’t make mistakes.
Check. Priests raping little boys was by design.
#58
You are oversimplifying the argument. “How did bridges come into being? Man made it. How did automobiles come into being? Man made it. Geeze, you keep using that same answer for everything!” Just because we might claim that evolution is the result of both camel humps and eyes, doesn’t mean that the process or length of time was identical or even related. The (very) general process is the same but the path to the ends are completely different.
At this point its becoming increasingly difficult to determine if alfie is responding to someone else or to himself. I would hope the latter but the incoherent rambling of disorganized mush makes me suspect the latter. alfie just check out those two books I recommended and it will all become clear, even through your non evolved ocular devices.
Intelligent design.
OOPPPS from fox news no less.
http://tinyurl.com/6gt6x9v
The Miss America thread was hysterical. However Alfie, you got humped like an ass bandit in prison. You should pick another thread.