This statement is completely false. We can see this, for example, in the mollusk family.
Posted on 08/17/2009 1:26:14 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
The evolution of the eye has always been a dilemma for evolutionists from Darwin’s time to the present. Although Darwin, Richard Dawkins and other evolutionists have tried to explain how an eye could evolve, their solutions are clearly unsatisfactory. Many kinds of eyes exist, but no progression of eye designs from simple to complex can be produced in the natural or fossil world. Furthermore, the simplest ‘eye’, the eyespot, is not an eye but pigmented cells used for phototaxis; yet even it requires an enormously complex mechanism in order to function as a vision system...
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
This statement is completely false. We can see this, for example, in the mollusk family.
The situation of neo-Darwinian evolution with respect to the creation of the eye has gotten far worse, not better, since the time of Darwin. Indeed, I think it is now safe to say that the problems the eye poses for Darwinian evolution is completely insurmountable by natural/inanimate selection.
The one thing we have learned, especially in the last 100 years, is that the more we know, the more we know we don’t know.
A discussion about the science is fine, but I hope you can recognize childish quote mining when you see it. Longhair_and_Leather knowingly or not attempted to use an out of context quote to suggest that Darwin himself recognized the absurdity of the eye evolving through natural selection, which we all know never happened (the quote, not the evolution of the eye).
I normally pass on these but this is so low. Faith is a gift and efforts to validate a belief system with science lessen this gift.
There are no hard tissues in the eye to help facilitate a fossil record of its development.
mnehring's illustration is helpful to explain such development. Biological transducers are complex structures. But just because something is complex does not mean a magician in the sky is directly responsible for it.
Researcher Sebastian Shimeld from Oxford approached this question by examining the evolutionary origin of one crystallin protein family, known as the βγ-crystallins. Focusing on sea squirts, the researchers found that these creatures possess a single crystallin gene, which is expressed in its primitive light-sensing system. The identification of this single crystallin gene strongly suggests that it is the gene from which the more complex vertebrate βγ-crystallins evolved.
Perhaps even more remarkable is the finding that expression of the sea squirt crystallin gene is controlled by genetic elements that also respond to the factors that control lens development in vertebrates. This was demonstrated when regulatory regions of the sea squirt gene were transferred to frog embryos where they drove gene expression in the tadpoles' own visual system, including the lens.
The researchers say this suggests that prior to the evolution of the lens, there was a regulatory link between two tiers of genes, those that would later become responsible for controlling lens development, and those that would help give the lens its special physical properties. This combination of genes appears to have then been selected in an early vertebrate during the evolution of its visual system, giving rise to the lens.
Forgot my link and blockquote formatting.
Here is the link to most of the last:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20050822230316data_trunc_sys.shtml
Child’s play. Didn’t you read the article? Complex eyes burst onto the fossil record, fully formed and fully functional. There is not evidence that they evolved. Showing pictures of different kinds of eyes or eye spots in the mollusk family, or any other family does not change this glaring fact, nor does it explain the complexity of these eyes. Surely you can do better?
PS Even from an evolutionary point of view, how do you know the eyes in your series didn’t degenerate (loss of information) from fully functioning eyes over time? Why do you assume everything is alway getting more complex?
See 7, this is a graphical representation of something that is not only observational in transition, but also the genes that made these changes were mapped to show the progression of change.
Thanks for posting... interestng article.
Again, did you bother to read the article, or are you limiting your comments to mnehring’s drawings?
Message to self.
Don’t have multiple conversations going or you’ll end up posting comments to the wrong thread.
From a science point of view, there is no built in goal to either get more complex or less complex. If a change happens, it as simple as is that change passed along to a later generation. If, in the eye example, it started as a complex, then became less complex, it could result in a handicap of the organism in its environment and thus, there may be less of a chance of passing that change along to the next generation. (ie, if an organism looses eye sight it had through a genetic change, it may be less able to survive long enough to pass along the genes. If, however, the change improves sight or light sensitivity, it may improve its survival ability and increase the chance of passing the change along.)
It is very rare that you have mineralization of soft tissue (only a few cases have been found). The cases where eyes are in the fossil record are as they became more pronounced and were able to either mineralization or were pronounced enough to leave an imprint. Not finding early forms is like saying dandruff didn't exist because we don't find fossil evidence of it. The fact that we have genetically mapped the changes and have organisms that display these transitions is far more proof than for most other items.
The eye and it's optical nerve system leading to the brain - and then the part of the brain that evolved so it could interpret the signals.
Or, the part of the brain that was waiting for the eye and the optical nerve system to evolve and connect to it, so it could translate the signals from the eye into useful information.
Again, how do you know your eye pictures are in transition, and even if it is in transition, how do you know it is going from the simple to the complex? The same question applies to the genes. And further, how do you know that gene sequences in question do not reflect efficiencies connected with modular design? And, speaking of genes, DNA is a digital code, and digital codes have ONLY been observed being created by intelligent minds. Finally, you never answered my question about reading the article, nor have you explained how creatures with complex eyes appear suddenly in the fossil record, without evolutionary antecedents.
Yes, but the loss of information/function can also benefit an organism in certain environments. But what I’m trying to figure out is what criteria you are using to determine A) that the eyes in question are part of a evolutionary sequence and B) even if your drawing represent gradual change over time, how are you determining that said gradual change is going from the simple to the complex.
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