Re: Results of the Great Evolutionist/ID Debate Thread

ave1 wrote:
hersheyhv wrote:
ave1 wrote:
hersheyhv wrote:
ave1 wrote:
Logos wrote:
Well, can't fault me for tryin'.

Yesterday I tried to start a respectable debate here. But first I laid a
few ground rules, one of which was no ad hominins or flamings. Well, it
wasn't long before I encountered such witless put-downs as "Didn't your
mother tell you to stay out of the deep end of the gene pool?" and "What the
*** is 'evolutionism?'"

Even in the more civil threads, I could sense a hostility straining beneath
the surface of your "Please and thank you" replies.

I was indeed taken aback by all the anger and mean-heartedness. I wondered
what could have happened in your lives to make you all such bitter people.

And then I realized: Darwinism is sinking. The tide has turned against it.
Everyone senses it. And that has to be a very bitter pill to swallow for
those who have hitched their wagon to the wrong star.

So I can't be angry, and in fact feel a little pity for all of you. I'll
pray for you tonight.

Many of these t.o. regulars have dedicated their lives to what they're
taking a stand on here. They live, eat, and breathe what they believe
is pure science. Unfortunately this pure science is often nothing
other than just storytelling. Look at this video (don't worry it's
quite short):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dwVGUTXJt4&search=evolution%20eye

Many find this kind of explanation to be a very valid scientific
response to complaints of people who aren't buying common descent
evolution. They *BELIEVE* that this eye evolving can be accounted for
through blind processes.

In the video, there's a distinct lack of scientific discussion of the
details that would have to be gotten right all at once in order for
each step to properly occur. I noticed that there was no discussion
about how light detecting cells could have sprung up in the first
place-- and that's exactly what these Evolutionist explanations
typically tend to avoid-- the nitty gritty molecular details of how
specified molecules could get put together in just the right way in
order to get things working right.

As a matter of fact, the nitty gritty molecular details of how vision
(not the eye itself, which is what was being discussed in the above,
but the way that photons hitting a cell get transmuted into electrical
nerve impulses) arose is quite an interesting story, because it arose
at least twice (in invertebrates and in vertebrates). The story starts
with vitamin A, a ubiquitous chemical found throughout life, which is a
short modification away from cis-retinol. Cis-retinol has the property
of changing shape once it absorbs photonic energy. That is the basis
of all vision.

Once the absorption of photonic energy occurs there have to be feedback
loop system in place to regulate the process.

"11-cis-retinal functions in the retina in the transduction of light
into the neural signals necessary for vision. 11-cis-retinal, while
attached to opsin in rhodopsin is isomerized to all-trans-retinal by
light. This is the event that triggers the nerve impulse to the brain
which allows for the perception of light. All-trans-retinal is then
released from opsin and reduced to all-trans-retinol. All-trans-retinol
is isomerized to 11-cis-retinol in the dark, and then oxidized to
11-cis-retinal. 11-cis-retinal recombines with opsin to re-form
rhodopsin."
http://www.pdrhealth.com/drug_info/nmdrugprofiles/nutsupdrugs/vit_0260.shtml

An even better description is found at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/evod3.htm (an excerpt from
Darwin's Black Box):

Retinoids (and opsins, the proteins that bind them) initially evolved
as membrane components in *bacteria*, not earthworms. They still serve
this initial purpose in eucaryotes, which is why vitamin A is a
necessary vitamin for us poor higher eucaryotes. In addition, other
retinoids act as developmental hormones and as *pigments* (the
carotenoids) that absorb light in plants. They also serve as
antioxidants and as protection of eggs from proteases.

Acting like evolution is the only logical way to view the fact that
similar components get used in different manners, is just not going to
fly here.

The *fact* that retinoids have uses other than vision and the *fact*
that the primary (essentially universal) function of these molecules is
in membrane support was used to support the claim that it is, in fact,
possible (even likely, given the primary function of retinoids) for the
visual function to be an exadaption of a pre-existing compound rather
than requiring a process that involves poofing such a compound into
existence by magic. The last is what the creationist argument
requires: that there be some system that *requires*, as a matter of
necessity, the entire system to be produced by magic in one swell foop.
By demonstrating that the system need not be produced in one swell
foop, but that there is *evidence* that it could be exapted from a
pre-existing useful function that could reasonably be expected to be
present in reasonable ancestral organisms, I am presenting *evidence*
against the primary requirement of ID and creationism: that there be
ignorance of any workable pathway (well, they actually have to present
*evidence* that there is no possible pathway, but seem to be quite
content with personal ignorance of such). ID is the assertion that an
unknowable disembodied "intelligence" with unknowable motives working
by an unobservable mechanism that differs from any mechanism that can
currently be observed produces whatever the claimer asserts he is too
ignorant to explain otherwise.

We see wheels and cogs getting utilized in watches just as
they get used in machinery that makes automobiles and washing machines.
This makes sense in a design context, no less than it might make sense
in a blind-processes context.

Except that if there are wheels and cogs lying around that can be
co-opted or modified to make automobile wheels and cogs, that means
that a claim that wheels and cogs *must* be made from scratch by a
disembodied "intelligence" to make a car is a false claim.

None of the retinols involve unusual or highly complex changes from vit
A. I think I remember that there are precisely two enzymatic steps
involved, neither being particularly unusual or uncommon in organisms.

But once the retinol is there, you need to consider many other factors
that need to come about-- things like how the signals get to the proper
neuroprocessing area, and not only that, but how these signals might
result in an action that translates to better survivability.

In bacteria or eucaryotic protozoans (some of both respond to light by
specifric behaviors), of course, there is no "neuroprocessing" area,
there is only biochemistry within the cell. So the question then
becomes: In these organisms, how can a photon-asorbing molecule cause
a change in behavior through biochemistry? The answer is surprisingly
simple. The photon absorption causes a mechanical change in the
retinoid, this leads to a change in the 3-D structure of the opsin,
typically leading to a change in the level of an allosteric regulator
molecule like cGMP. This change in level, in turn, interacts with a
*pre-existing* sensory chain of molecules and leads (in the case of
bacteria) either to flagellar rotation clockwise or counter-clockwise,
leading to random or directional movement (either toward or from the
light source, depending on which direction is selected against).

In simple multicellular organisms, light-sensing links the initial
steps to *pre-existing* sodium channels in the neural network.
Light-sensing cells are part of this neural network. Again this will
lead either to movement toward or away from the light source, depending
upon which direction is selected against. [More accurately, in those
organisms where the signal generated selectively occurs in those
neurons that produce a signal leading to movement in the right
direction, this trait, to the extent that it has a heritable basis,
will be selectively passed on to the organism's progeny. This can be
due to the simple expedient of increasing the amount of retinol and
associated proteins in one type of nerve cell rather than another.]

The probable *initial* pre-adaptive or exapted function of carotenoids
involved in vision was as a light-absorbing pigment that signalled
bacteria that they were too close to the surface.

Okay, and why would closeness to the surface be a problem for bacteria?

Initially on the biotic earth there was little ozone in the upper
atmosphere and the amount of DNA-damaging UV light close to the surface
would have been intense. Photosynthetic bacteria would have to find
the mini-max solution that puts them neither too close nor too far.
This would be a good reason for evolving pigments.

Don't they survive in all sorts of environments (light and dark)
without a problem?



That is, the initial
function 'visual' function preceded multicellularity or the presence of
nervous tissue. Again, retinol is particulaly useful for the
absorbtion of visible light but it, and related compounds are not
somehow limited to eye tissue. They are common to many tissues and
merely are more concentrated in eyes and nervous tissue of higher
organisms *because* these tissues can make more use of the information
about the amount of light hitting the organism.

The word "information" is often used in a context where data or
specified patterns are being associated from a sender to a receiver.
What would be the receiver of this information in an initial bacterial
candidate for light-detection (which has undergone a Vitamin A
mutation)?

The information is the amount of photons received. This, in the cell,
would be translated into a change in the level of some allosteric
regulatory molecule. The consequences of the change in the level of
that molecule would depend on the particular cell and how selection
shaped it. In some organisms it could, for example, lead to the
organism moving away from the light. In others, moving toward it. It
is silly to call this a "neural center". Bacteria do not have neural
centers. They do have sodium channels.

In other words, why would there be any reason to think that
the neural center would come to translate the electrical signals as
having some meaning for the organism without having that pre-encoded to
occur in the first place?

Why would the "meaning" have to be "pre-encoded" in the sense of the
cell having a teleologic knowledge that such a "meaning" would be
useful? If, in a particular organism, the change in level of
allosteric molecule causes the organism to move in the wrong direction
(that is, the "meaning" "pre-encoded" in that organism is worse than
useless, that organism will be selected against. But it is not hard,
if you already have a system for responding to a molecule, for
mutations to cause the opposite response. If such mutations exist (or
were already useful), then the organism's response would lead to its
being selectively favored. So yes. In those organisms exapted to
respond in a selectively useful way to signals related to the level of
photons impinging on the cell, selection will favor such organisms and
produce a *system* of beneficial response to light in those organisms.
The "meaning" that was "pre-encoded" was not teleologic because there
is no guarantee that it would be useful. But only the useful
pre-encoded meanings continue to exist. They do so *because* they are
beneficial, not because there was any design plan that they necessarily
must be beneficial.

What we're getting into here is a conversation about originating
instincts and/or behavior. I'd like to know whether or not there's
observational evidence of blind-process evolution originating a new
instinct in any organism.

I did a Google search using the key words "instinct evolution" and
after wading through a couple pages of listed websites, I decided this
wasn't producing anything significant. I then went ahead and tried
some searches of the Talk Origins website (keywords "a new instinct"
and "instinct evolution" and came up with nothing at all). Maybe you
have some evidence worth presenting that might pertain to our
discussion, because right now this isn't looking too hopeful.

Obviously the place to look for the role that genetics plays in
evolving "instinct" (the hard-wired responses to stimuli) rather than
"learning" (flexible responses to stimuli) is in simple organisms like
C. elegans and bacteria. Unless your claim is that "instinct" is not
genetic, which would be silly, it must be the case that "instinct" or
hard-wired responses to stimuli are capable of undergoing modification
by mutation and for populations to change the frequency of such alleles
in response to environmental conditions. I would suggest that you look
up selection experiments involving geotaxia and phototaxia in
fruitflies (both are multigenic traits rather than single-gene traits).
It is quite possible to breed in "instinctual" preferences for either
going up or down or going toward or away from light in fruitflies.
Obviously it is also possible to breed out (or in some cases breed in)
some innate level of "agression" from domestic animals even before we
humans were aware of doing so. If it is possible for artificial
selection to affect such "instinctual" behavior, it is surely possible
for nature to select for such behavior as well. Your claim that
evolution does not occur for "behavior" is utterly without merit.

To show you that *real* scientists have been discussing the evolution
of 'instinct' for some time, I direct you to examine the Baldwin
effect.

http://www.apperceptual.com/baldwin-editorial.html

"When a photon hits the retina, it interacts with a small organic
molecule called cis-retinal, causing its rather bent shape to
straighten out. This changes the shape of the protein rhodopsin, which
is bound to it, and exposes a binding site that allows the protein
transducin to stick to it. Part of the transducin complex now
dissociates and interacts with a protein called phosphodiesterase,
which then acquires the ability to cut a molecule called cyclic-GMP and
turn it into 5'-GMP.

It is after this point that the vertebrate and invertebrate vision
biochemistry parts ways.

To be fair, it doesn't have to be stated in that manner ("parts ways").
It could just as easily be stated that the biochemistry is preset to
do things via innate pathways that differ once you get to a certain
point. I'm just saying. . .

I was merely saying that the *biochemistry* of visions differs after
that point. All biochemical pathways are innate to the organism that
has them. That doesn't mean that they can't or don't or haven't
changed over all kinds of different time scales. Biochemistry can be
adaptive within the life of an organism due to regulation.
Biochemistry can change from generation to generation by mutation (and
even some quasi-mutational events). Biochemistry can evolve by
changing in populations over time. But I was merely pointing out the
*fact* that the same allosteric regulator, cGMP, hooks into different
mechanisms for sending nerve signals in invertebrates and vertebrates.
Both systems work well. There is no reason to think that one
biochemical mechanism is physiologically "better" than the other. In
evolutionary terms, this would make the vision system of vertebrates
(after the cGMP step) an *independently* evolved system. Like the
eubacterial and archaeal flagellae. Or the pterodactyl and bat wings.
Or the squid and whale morphological eye. Such independent
convergences upon similar solutions is an expectation of a historical
pattern of vertical descent when the common ancestors lack the feature
in question. It is less clear why a *single* designer would produce,
so frequently, such convergent solutions when, unlike historical
vertical descent, such a designer has the option of borrowing
horizontally.

Each utilizes a *different* pre-existing
pathway for transducing electral impulses down a nerve. But both start
by recognizing a change in the level of c-GMP, which is the common
allosteric regulatory molecule in vision. AIR, one system uses a
turn-off of sodium channels and the other uses a turn-on of sodium
channels, each activated by changing c-GMP levels.

Some of this sticks to another protein called an
ion channel. Normally the ion channel allows sodium ions into the cell,
but when the concentration of cyclic-GMP decreases because of the
action of the phosphodiesterase, the cyclic-GMP bound to the ion
channel eventually falls off, causing a change in shape that shuts the
channel. As a result, sodium ions can no longer enter the cell, the
concentration of sodium in the cell decreases, and the voltage across
the cell membrane changes. That in turn causes a wave of electrical
polarization to be sent down the optic nerve to the brain. The system
then has to regenerate and return to the starting point ready for the
next incoming photon.4 When the electrical signals are processed,
integrated, and interpreted by the brain (and mind), vision results."

The feedback loop is going to have to be functional from the very start
if vision will occur AT ALL.

The pre-existing enzymes simply restore the level of c-GMP/5'-GMP to
the status quo ante. The retinol structural change has already
occurred.

Without this regulatory process encoded in the genome of the organism,
this restoring would not be occuring in any controlled manner. It
takes preset genetic encoding for vision to even have a chance at being
helpful to the organism. In other words, once the proper receptors are
present on the organism, you also need another mutation to occur at the
same time to get the feedback loop in place.

If you really want to know what's wrong with an idea that evolution
could get vision-processing going in a step by step manner, a quick
visit to Dr. Sean Pitman's website is all that is needed:
http://www.detectingdesign.com/humaneye.html

Sean's level of ignorance is good for the soul.

Does saying things like that make you feel really good about yourself?
I'm going to have to work on that.

". . . what good would it be for an earthworm that has no eyes to
suddenly evolve the protein 11-cis-retinal in a small group or
"spot" of cells on its head?

It might be useful to evolve a pigment for defensive purposes (in a
world with visual predators). [Of course, for an earthworm, which
tries to live entirely underground, what use would there be for vision
at all?] And why do the pigments have to be in a small group or spot
of cells initially? My guess is that earthworms already make vit A and
use it as membrane support. Now at this point, the pigments that are
in the nervous system might, advantageously, interact with the already
present nervous system's pre-existing impulse generating activity

So membrane supporting Vit A somehow would (very vague term ahead-->)
"interact with" the nervous system. . . This kind of conjecture is
essentially in pseudoscientific territory. It reminds me of the
content of the Discovery Channel's "The Future Is Wild" series of
programs-- wild speculation.

The very complexity of interactions in a cell is why a sufficiently
large amount of a photo-absorbing molecule (not vit A) might, typically
indirectly rather than directly, have an effect on membrane potential
of the nerve cell it is in under some conditions. After all, that
absorbed light energy has to have *some* consequences to the cell it is
in.

(in some subset of nervous tissue) by causing the worm to dig down
everytime it 'sees' too much light.

Here you're proposing that evolution can bring about new instincts (or
at least a new organism pattern of action that relates to a new
stimulus it is beginning to encounter).

The latter. The instinct or hard-wired behavior to move in a
particular direction already exists. What is different is that a new
stimuli (light) is triggering nerve cells that cause this behavior. It
does so by causing, directly or indirectly, a *sufficient* change to
cause these cells to undergo a change. The simple expedient of
increasing the amount of light-absorbing molecules in these neurons may
be sufficient to accomplish this by causing enough change to reach the
threshhold level required to activate the change in membrane charge.

The problem with this is that
all instincts we know of in organisms are occuring because the parents
of the organism had the instinct and passed down those genetic
instructions. (Of course I'm aware that there's some plasticity in
instincts (ie. birds of a feather, when separated for a while can have
variations in their songs), but we're not merely talking about
adjustments of instincts here, but the coming about of *new*
instincts.)

Actually, old instincts triggered by a different stimuli.

When a worm would get the signal (assuming the regulatory feedback loop
was somehow evolved just in time) from newly evolved photoreceptors
(which passed the stimulus through a very hypothetical-- already
somehow constructed-- neural pathway) down to the neural processing
center, what would be a key piece of evidence that might make us think
it would "dig down" in response to getting that stimulus?

If you want me to think that some worms might get the stimulus wired up
in various ways initially in the neural center, I'll consider that.
Let's say some of the worms-- upon receiving that stimulus-- are wired
up to do one action, while others are wired up for another, while yet
others do something else. You might say that there'd be some with
inherent instructions to "pee", while others might have instructions to
"be hungry", while others might have instructions to "waggle their
behind vigorously", while others might have instructions to "go
faster", while others might have instructions to "undergo an autoimmune
response that makes them puff up", while others might have instructions
to "dig down".

You need to deal with earthworms and their behavior rather than pretend
that they are elongated humans.

Now we'll entertain the idea that the ones which tend to survive are
the ones which "dig down" (as opposed to the ones that "pee").
Eventually there's been an evolution of a brand new instinct. Wow,
that was easy, wasn't it? Well, we need to look at it critically
before declaring victory.

Do we really have evidence that instincts can evolve in this manner?
Do brains of multicellular animals as well as unicellular creatures
undergo wiring for instincts in a large variety of ways-- via a blind
process-- and the best ways end up getting selected?

Unicellular creatures do not have brains. Where did you learn your
biology that you think that unicellular creatures have brains? But
yes, simple multicellular animas do indeed have hard-wired nervous
systems. Even more complex behaviors can have substantial genetic
influence and mutations do occur that alter instinctual behavior. And
indeed selection results in organisms that are optimally adapted to
local conditions. One can even artificially select for altered
instinctual behavior (especially in multigenic traits).

We need
observational evidence from the field of biology for this to be thought
of as a legitimate mechanism by which evolution can create new
instincts.

Let's look at Archer fish. Here we have an instinct for fish to go
about obtaining food in a very difficult manner-- spitting at insects
that might be walking on branches or leaves hanging above the water (as
opposed to just finding a foodsource in their water environment). They
not only have to shoot water at a high rate of speed out of their mouth
(where'd they come up with this idea?) while pointing their heads
upward when they are near the surface of the water, but they also have
to see the insect of course and process the distorted image properly as
a foodsource. Then there's one more very complex association which
must occur for the success in the shot-- an accounting for the index of
refraction (water to air) so the angle of the shot won't end up going
the wrong direction (remember, their view under the water is a
displaced view).

Do you have any evidence for when, where, and how the designer designed
the archer fish? What is your alternative? What makes you think that
there is no pathway of *useful*, but not at the level of the modern
archer fish, intermediates between a fish with none of these traits and
the current one with all of them? That is what you need. Evidence
that there are no possible intermediate state that would be useful to
the organism that has that intermediate state. I am no genius, but I
can think of several intermediate states that would be useful. Not as
good as the current situation, but still useful relative to not having
the capability. It is not like fish cannot push water out of their
mouths. And once a useful pathway starts (in this case opening up a
food resource that would otherwise be unavailable), selection tends to
try to optimize it within the constraints of modifying pre-existing
systems.

But unless you have some direct evidence that *favors* the idea that
the archer fish was specifically designed at x time and place by the
following manufacturing process by the following design and
manufacturing agent, I don't see how its existence supports ID. All I
see is an assertion that your level of ignorance allows you to claim
that "goddidit".

Here's what Darwin had to say about contrivances like this: "Many
instincts are so wonderful that their development will probably appear
to the reader a difficulty sufficient to overcome my whole theory."
(brought to my attention at
http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/dasc/EATB404.HTM )

That's exactly what this example accomplishes. In fact, I'd contend
that the "dig down" idea is also "wonderful", in that this would
accomplish what evolution has never been (to my knowledge) seen to do
before-- make a new helpful-for-survival instinct that the predecessor
organisms didn't have.

The link provided above has some good info about beaver dam production
and what evolutionists have said about it. Please check that out.

Also, here's some observational evidence which shows what can happen
when alterations in instincts occur (you could say this might qualify
as an instance of blind processes at work in nature-- where things just
don't turn out right): http://www.aulis.com/twothirds2.htm

"When widely divergent species of animal are crossed and subsequently
observed in the laboratory the offspring are frequently found to have
inherited conflicting sets of instincts, evolved in their parents'
separate evolutionary pasts.

As an actual instance we have the offspring of the cross between a
Peach-Faced Lovebird and a Fischer's Lovebird. The Peach-Faced
Lovebird when building its nest carries leaves and strips of bark
tucked into its rump feathers. The Fischer's Lovebird however
transports these items in its beak. The hybrid cross is found to
possess both sets of instinctive instructions. So the unfortunate
offspring tears itself a strip of bark. The Peach-Faced instinct now
tells the bird to insert this into its rump feathers, which the
youngster does.

But at this point the Fischer's instinct intervenes and instructs the
bird not to let go of the material because it has not yet arrived at
the nest site. So the youngster resumes the ready-to-fly position with
the bark still in its mouth. But then the Peach-Faced instinct, noting
the bark in the mouth, once again intervenes and reminds the bird to
place the bark in its rump feathers. This the youngster again attempts
to do. But now once more the Fischer's instinct reminds the bird that
it is not yet at the nest site-so the ready-to-fly position is again
resumed with the bark still in the youngster's beak . . .

The see-saw process continues on and on and on-with the young bird
exhibiting ever greater confusion and distress."

And this is a problem for evolution how...? It clearly is an argument
in favor of reproductive isolation and speciation. And just because
current *modern* species produce this effect does not tell us that the
process by which the isolated populations acquired this difference was
not stepwise. The first requirement to show that there is no possible
intermediate state would be showing that the trait in question was due
to a single gene difference. Is that the case?

Simply as a result of the
interaction of the opsin with the retinoid leading to changes in c-GMP
levels in those cells.

Not so simply. You have to consider the aspects of wiring in stimulus
and the complexities of what would need to occur in the neural
processing center of the earthworm to generate a new helpful instinct.

Again. I am assuming that the changes in cGMP levels are occurring in
a nerve cell. The wiring already exists. All I need is sufficient
effect of cGMP levels to induce the triggering of the membrane effect.

This could then be the keystone event that
leads to more sensitive response to light by those nervous cells (the
simple expedient of increasing the amount of pigment in these cells
would do this nicely) and the related directional 'knee-jerk' reaction.

Nice story, but without real evidence it's not anything worth getting
excited about.

It is a lot more evidence than exists for your designer. I am quite
clear that I could demonstrate that an artifical increase in the level
of visual pigment that produced a significant change in cGMP levels in
response to light in a nerve cell that has the remaining pathway but
does not ordinarily respond to light would trigger the nerve to fire in
response to light. Such experiments may have already been done. But
the fact remains that *I* can think of ways to test my claims. You
cannot think of any way (other than by expressing ignorance) to test
your claim that these systems were designed by some agent.

These cells now have the ability to
detect photons, but so what? What benefit is that to the earthworm?
Now, lets say that somehow these cells develop all the needed proteins
to activate an electrical charge across their membranes in response to
a photon of light striking them.

What I am saying is that most of this did not need to be developed
*for* the purpose of 'vision'.

So why would there be all sorts of preset Vit A membrane-support
connections to the neural processing center?

The connection is via the level of cGMP. And retinol is derived from
vit A. It is not vit A. Since vitA is ubiquitous, I do not need to
imagine some cell connecting to the nervous system. The *selectively
successful* examples of this change involve the change occurring *in* a
type of nerve cell. In humans and all sighted chordates, it occurs in
the nerve cells that are part of the brain that became the optic
vesicle.

It was borrowed from pre-existing
biochemical pathways and became jury-rigged to react to visual stimuli.

Let's say (just for fun) I go along with an idea that Vit A
membrane-support was already prewired up to the neural processing
center in some less-than-specialized way (for what reason I don't
know). Wouldn't the processing center become a bit confused with
membrane-support electrical impulses being fed in while this new
light-detecting apparatus would also be sending electrical impulses?

Again, the light-absorbing visual pigment is not vit A. It is derived
from vit A.

I
would think that this confusion of signals would be detrimental to the
organism, unless it had an innate capability to weed out the light
sensing impulses from the standard innervation impulses. The problem
here is that there would be no genetic instructions present to let the
neural processing center in on the little secret that there's a
difference between one signal or the other! This is the kind of
confusion which would serve to short-circuit the standard information
processing for the organism creating nothing but a problem.

So what?! What good is it for them
to be able to establish an electrical gradient across their membranes
if there is no nervous pathway to the worm's minute brain?

Annelids have a pre-existing nervous system. A nervous pathway and the
biochemistry of such pathways do not have to be evolved to respond to
visual clues.

This is not true. A neural center has to carry out a proper reaction
when a certain type of stimulus occurs. Genetic instructions need to
provide for a well-specified pathway here.

Again, the response pre-existed. All that has changed is that it now
responds to a different input.

The pre-existing pathways need to be connected to some
signal that are generated by photons striking some pre-existing nerve
cells. Say by noticing a change in the level of cGMP in certain nerve
cells, since cGMP levels are one of the pre-existing allosteric
activators of sodium channels.

See above.

Now,
what if this pathway did happen to suddenly evolve and such a signal
could be sent to the worm's brain. So what?! How is the worm going
to know what to do with this signal? It will have to learn what this
signal means. Learning and interpretation are very complicated
processes involving a great many other proteins in other unique
systems.

If an earthworm receives a signal from certain nervous tissue, it
responds by digging (down).

This is a bald assertion unless you wish to provide some good evidence
from the field of biology that instincts can be created from scratch,
naturalistically.

The instinct to dig down pre-exists in earthworms. All that is needed
is to trigger the nerves that cause the response to fire.

If it receives a signal from other nerves,
it responds by stopping digging (down). Yet others, it may dig up.
Why does this have to be "learning" rather than a rote mechanical
reflexive response? How smart does an earthworm have to be?

Archer fish have a very complex and accurate instinct. How smart were
they to come up with such a unique way of getting a snack? I'd say
they were either smarter than people generally are (most people
instinctively aren't good at archery or accurate spitting for that
matter) or else we're dealing with genetic information that came from a
very smart source.

As far as Earthworm intelligence is concerned, I'd say that a digging
down response would be about the last thing we'd expect blind processes
to accomplish. Confusion in signals would be a reasonable expection
there. For a worm to dig down would require a bunch of other mutations
to occur all at once (besides the one that would change Vit A into
11-cis retinol), and thus create a new instinct from scratch.

Earthworms already have the instinct to dig down. We are talking about
linking that pre-existing instinct, a consequence of certain neurons
firing, to a new stimulus, one which involves a pre-existing potential
of a light-absorbing molecule that changes shape.

Now the earthworm, in one lifetime, must evolve the ability
to pass on this ability to interpret vision to its offspring. If it
does not pass on this ability, the offspring must learn as well or
vision offers no advantage to them. All of these wonderful processes
need regulation. No function is beneficial unless it can be regulated
(turned off and on). If the light sensitive cells cannot be turned off
once they are turned on, vision does not occur. This regulatory
ability is also very complicated involving a great many proteins and
other molecules... all of which must be in place initially for vision
to be beneficial."

The above ridiculous non-evolutionary thought process is brought to you
by the letter "I", which stands for Idiotic or ID.

So are you denying that regulation of the light sensing at the level of
the receptor itself is irrelevant? Why would you think this?

No. I am denying the idea that the earthworm must go from no vision to
being able to interpret images in one generation. There is no
"interpretation" involved in "instinct". There is a hard-wired
stimulation of particular neurons leading directly to a behavioral
response.

Why, what possible
evidence, is there that the above is what *any* self-respecting
biologist would claim as the way 'vision' evolved?

The only self-respecting biologists I've ever read eye-evolving science
literature from were ALWAYS leaving out things like regulation (which
would be required from the outset of this evolving process) and pathway
explanations (that explain how things would not be getting confused in
the neural processing center-- leading to significant problems for the
organisms) and instinct production (and how we'd expect this to be
accomplished neurologically). . .

You obviously are confusing vision with image-formation and instinct
with learning.

It is nothing but a
strawman argument, posing a silly process that no intelligent person
would propose as reasonable because Sean can only make an argument
against such a silly alternative.

What's silly is that you aren't seeing how many things would need to
mutate just right all at once in order to get the first organism wired
up properly for vision to be a helpful trait.

That is right. I do not see how you or Sean can simply assert that all
these things must occur "all at once" and claim (falsely) that that is
what evolution proposes. And thus that if you can argue against the
strawman idea that everything must occur "all at once", you are arguing
against evolution. Let me give an idea that apparently has not
penetrated. Evolution involves modification of pre-existing genes, not
the miraculous creation of new ones. Creation and ID involve the
miraculous creation new genes directly from random sequences for the
teleologic purpose the proposer says it has, not evolution.

ALL of these features would have to be arranged at the start for vision
to occur in any helpful way to the survival of the organism population
with the first vision system.

So Sean asserts. Wrongly, of course.

These aren't assertions. He has brought forward details which need to
be accounted for.

No. He has simply muddled together all the features of *modern* eyed
organisms and *asserted* without any evidence that all of these
features *must* occur simultaneously. And falsely claimed that that is
the evolution "model".

Another thing that needs to be mentioned
is that all the heritable mutations which have to simultaneously occur,
here, are going to have to not interfere with other processes as they
get into their appropriate arrangements.

This would be a mighty tall order-- or should I say a tall tale.

I reject Sean's "tall tale" because it is built from straw.

Totally erroneous accusation.

If he
wants to argue against *real* evolution, he has to argue against a
*real* or *realistic* proposal, not a bogus fantastical one of his own
choosing.

What's "real" or "realistic" about saying that blind processes can
create new instincts from scratch? What's "real" or "realistic" about
saying an eye spot doesn't need multiple other mutations to occur
before "vision" becomes helpful for the organism?

What is real or realistic is that I can generate changed instinctual
behavior by mutation (a blind random process). I could undoubtedly
generate a new instinctual response by introducing genes that
significantly change cGMP levels in particular neurons when the
organism is exposed to a particular chemical. I could undoubtedly
cause neurons other than the standard one to fire when exposed to light
by arranging genetic changes that significantly affect cGMP levels in
those cells when they are exposed to light. What experiments can you
provide that would test the idea that eyes were poofed into existence
by an undetectable something that did something at some unspecified
point in time at some unspecified point in space by some unspecified
mechanism to produce whatever you *want* it to do?

Evolution does not and never has proposed that *any* system
evolved in a poof of magical coming together of a thousand mutations.
The mechanism that proposes that a system is produced in a poof of the
magical coming together of a thousand subparts is *creation* or
*intelligent* manufacture. Evolution is NOT intelligent manufacture
minus an intelligent agent. It is an entirely different algorithmic
step-wise mechanism.

When it comes to the Archer fish, it would be a magical poofing of a
spitting instinct coupled with deciding to find prey outside its
immediate environment coupled with accounting for the index of
refraction in the water and getting past the optical displacement
effect. A bunch of mutations would have had to occur to get these fish
adapted for this instinct.

Why wouldn't evolution just get the fish to jump out of the water to
knock the insects off the leaves? Why such a complex behavior of
spitting at just the right angle when you might accomplish just the
same thing by popping out of the water for a second???

Unless you have a better evidenced explanation, pointing out an area of
current ignorance is not evidence that your preferred fall back
explanation ("I don't know." or "God did it." are equivalent
explanations) is correct.

But after one more step, the pathways for generating
neural signals differs in vertebrates and invertebrates. A common
chemical generated by the change in shape of cis-retinol essentially
hooks into a *pre-existing* signalling neurotransmission pathway
(different in invertebrates and vertebrates). Of course, since that
initial hookup, some cells have become more and more specialized for
transmitting signals induced by photons.

. . . in this fictional story.

As opposed to the fictional story that Sean proposes?

We apparently are at an impasse.

Then what we need to do is look at the places where there is evidence.
We have real evidence that natural selection occurs. We have real
evidence that mutation is the mechanism that produces variance in
populations. We have real evidence that many biological systems
appear, structurally, to be derived from more ancestral systems (that
often still exist). To argue otherwise is to claim that the
similarities are pure chance rather than modification and descent. We
have real evidence that the rate of change permitted by even neutral
change over time is more than adequate to explain the amount of change
seen in organisms, given the time since divergence.

OTOH, there is no mechanism proposed for intelligent design. It exists
only as a false dichotomy dependent on personal ignorance of any other
explanation.

Or the fictional
story of a supposed invisible something that somehow does something at
some time and some place to somehow produce whatever someone (namely
you) want produced?

I'd invite you to read the content of the website in my sig. There is
evidence of God being present in our universe. Once you've read it,
I'd invite your comments here:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/17627ce405b39064?hl=en&;


We call such cells retinal
cells. The evidence, in other words, shows a process that evolved and
*became* "the right way", not one that was *created* in just the right
way.

Saying it *became* is no more helpful in understanding this unseen
event (or series of events if you prefer) than saying that God wired it
all up. In fact, the God explanation is much less nonsensical.

Saying that "vision" occurs when there is a link between a pre-existing
change in cGMP levels due to interaction of a pigment with photons and
the opening and closing of sodium channels that are regulated by
changes in cGMP levels is *becoming*.

See my comments above on all the things that would have to "become"
just right all at once in order to get vision processing to be a
valuable trait in a once-not-seeing organism.

When it comes to evolutionary explanations of the eye, Michael Behe
gives a good analogy to these evolutionist's attempts: "This can be
compared to answering the question 'How is a stereo system made?'
with the words 'By plugging a set of speakers into an amplifier, and
adding a CD player, radio receiver, and tape deck."

The conditions which need to be met are typically ignored, and a story
(devoid of the really important details) is all we get.

I am not ignoring the pre-conditions. I am pointing them out.

Well, you're managing to miss some of the most important stuff then.
Hopefully we'll get this conversation back on track with some
realizations that need to be made.

ID OTOH, fails to present any evidence or preconditions necessary for what
happened. It invokes magic.

This is totally untrue. Intelligent Design theory makes scientific
observations and then evaluates the data via the analogical method
(abductive inference) to get at whether something might be likely to
have been originated via a process that involved intelligence. This is
a well-thought-of scientific endeavor, because it is employed in
archaeology and forensics.

No, it is not. There is nothing about the abductive inference that ID
uses that is actually useful in science.

Also, be aware that the SETI program seeks for evidence of
intelligence, and it has much in common with Intelligent Design.

No it does not.

If
you wish to grapple with all facets of this, I'll point you to an
involved discussion I've had here at t.o. a couple years ago:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/00f1ff39327585e5?hl=en&;

This is just one of many threads I pursued in that topic back then.
Other threads hold more info on my position (which I managed to uphold
quite well). Some of the people I was having rather involved
conversations with, just walked away-- it was actually rather
surprising.

In my case, I ran into some difficulty in posting at all.

The ID response to the question of how a
stereo system is made is that "God made it" somehow, somewhere, by some
unknowable mechanism. Not humans by human manufacturing processes.
God.

Actually, a stereo is something which can be observed, and ID is-- in
part-- about getting to the details of observational data. Stereos can
be seen in the assembly process,

And how is that useful wrt vision?

and there's much that can be gained
from this observing. We can see how multiple items that are necessary
for function coming together all at once will account for that which
has high information.

We can observe that the process is controlled by and often done by
humans.

Of course, then there's the analogical method which was discussed
above. . .

Analogy is only useful to the extent that the systems are analogous.
Living things are not manufactured by anything like the process by
which stereos are manufactured. Yet your claim is specifically that
living things are manufactured just like stereos are. Well, the claim
is that the first living organism(s) [can't even agree on what
organisms this involves] was created just like *all* stereos are,
despite the fact that no *known* living thing has ever been created
just like *any* stereo.

To ID, the stereo system just is there, with everything already
plugged in.

Not at all true. Various aspects of it's components can be discussed
when bringing forward the evidence of intelligent design-- everything
from parts used in other devices to the arrangement of the laser
assembly in the cd-rom drive being irreducibly complex. There's alot
to be discussed when it comes to stereos.

And nothing of relevance wrt evidence to living things.

There is also no discussion of how
and why evolution would establish appropriate neuropathways (and new
novel neurotransmitters) for such intricately detailed and precise
processes such as vision transmission.

Anyway, the presentation starts with already formed light detecting
cells in "primitive" worm creatures which live underwater, and then
some variation process occurs and a cupping of that tissue seems to
take place enabling them to have some sort of advantage because the
vision is now directional. Then we've got a claim that the eye cupped
even more to form a hollow ball with an opening at the front (an iris
that opens and closes-- Hey how'd the organism get those muscle fibers
to develop connections with the brain to be able to do that????).

The shape of the eyeball is due to differential growth during
development, not muscle fibers.

Read my statement again. I was bringing up the coming about of the
iris (which is comprised of muscle).

Only some organisms have irises in their eyes. And isn't the
musculature of the eye's irises a rather unsurprising feature?

I see the feature as quite amazing in that the constricting and
dilating can not only help in the adjustment to various light levels,
but also to depth of field in the focussing department (our pupils
constrict when we look at things that are near, and that's done for a
purpose). The muscle apparatus is intricately constructed (dare I say
"designed"?) to be highly effective in what it does.

Yet it, like everything else in life, is a modification of pre-existing
systems. In this case, muscles similar to those in skin that cause
your hairs to stand up.

And the fact that organisms actually
exist that have these putative intermediate states

Do you really think there's a creature out there with an iris
(comprised of muscles) which is there but lacks the wiring for the
actions of constriction and dilation? That would be a good
intermediate for you to show me.

Intermediates in the shape of the eye cup. I would suppose that some
of these have muscles that help to regulate the shape of the opening.

But what known creature has muscle without innervation for
constricting/dilating?

Muscles and their innervation go together. Nerves find (during
development) muscles to innervate. What you are talking about is what
triggers those particular nerves.

and we know enough
to be able show what kind of advantage a pinhole or cup-shaped eye
would produce seemingly is not knowledge you are aware of.

Well, I'm aware that there are a good variety of eyes out there.

Are you aware that Cambrian trilobites with double lensed eyes have NO
precursor in the fossil record?

And? Trilobites, of course, actually precede extensive fossilization
because some precede shelly parts.

There are a number of examples of jellyfish in the fossil record, so

Are you aware of how *few* jellyfish there are in the fossil record!

where are the many precursors of trilobites (with their very simple
eyes)? Let me guess: You will claim that evolution can make rather
fast strides (geologically speaking) to accomplish changes that end up
unrecorded in the fossil record. To that I only have this as a
response:

It is demonstrablely true that the amount of change possible by
selection can be so fast that it could not be recorded by the fossil
record *for most organisms* that only rarely become fossilized. So
you need to look at change in the types of organisms that *are*
fossilized well, such as the foramniferans. In science, we try to draw
inference from places with the best evidence rather than from places
with the least.

"Any claim that natural selection operated with great effect exactly
where it was least likely to be documented-- in small, localized,
transitory populations-- would have seemed to render Darwin's new
theory almost preposterous as a scientific proposition." S.M. Stanley,
"Macroevolution: Pattern and Process (San Francisco: Freeman, 1979), p.
6.-- Brought to my attention in Lester and Bohlin's "The Natural Limits
to Biological Change".

Sounds like a quote-mine to me. In fact, the evidence (in those
organisms with the best fossil record rather than the worst) says that
small isolated populations are indeed a major source of variation.
This is also consistent with the observation of founder effects on
islands.

Of course sea water is the basic fluid of the eyeball at this point,
but there's not a mention of how this fluid was replaced with clear
vitreous fluid-- a very specific fluid that happens to need to be
clear, and not opaque. . . There is nary a mention of the cells that
would have to come about in order to accomplish the intricate process
of producing this fluid.

Cell exudates tend not be opaque.

http://library.thinkquest.org/25607/anatomyParts.php3
Regarding the aqueous humor, we find this statement: "It has a chemical
composition similar to blood plasma but lacking the high protein
content of the latter"

And blood plasma is relatively clear. Especially if it lacks high
protein levels.

So let's say we have an eye that just had a cornea go from not quite
fully covering over a sea-water-filled open-system eye to (in one
generation) completely enclosing the front of the eye. And let's say
plasma (instead of sea water) was what managed to fill this
unprecedented closed-system eyeball. I'm not sure where this plasma
would be coming from,

Do you think your coelom is filled with air?

but maybe there's a mutation that goes along with
the corneal covering mutation which causes some blood vessels to leak
plasma into the eyeball until it's filled. It may not be as clear as
the sea water, but it might be clear enough to let the organism still
live a reasonably decent life.

Now the plasma would be sitting there in the eye while the corneal
cells, various retinal cells, and uvea, and or iris cells slough off
and subsequently degenerate without a way to be removed. (Remember that
the precursor organisms had a free flow of sea water in the eye, so
this wasn't such an issue.) There would be no outlet system
established yet. (nothing like Schlemm's canal). Just an inlet for the
plasma fluid (which, by the way would not have a way out other than the
rather slow process of reabsorption into tissue or blood vessels that
happen to be around. What's to keep the pressure in this eye from
building up above a level which might staunch appropriate blood flow in
the retinal tissue? This is a glaucoma problem just waiting to happen
right off the bat.) Anyway, the main point is that within a few days
of the birth of this creature, the vitreous would be starting to cloud
with metabolic byproducts and sloughed off cell material.

In other words we'd have a creature with eyes that are WORSE than the
eyes of its parents. Doesn't selection weed out orgaanisms that aren't
as well suited for survival?

Well, *IF* your completely hypothetical problems were, in fact, REAL
problems rather than purely hypothetical ones, there might be a need
for an explanation. Why do I need to come up with real solutions to
imaginary problems?

If there were a high protein content, the vision would be much worse
off for the organism. In fact, it would seem to me that the sea water
(open eye vision system, as opposed to a closed eye vision system)
would be considerably better.

Also it must be pointed out that the vitreous and aqueous humor fluid
of the eye are not just "cell exudates" as you're purporting.

"The fluid also provides nutrition for the lens and also for the
cornea, both of which are devoid of blood vessels; the steady renewal
and drainage serve to bring into the eye various nutrient substances,
including glucose and amino acids, and to remove waste products of
metabolism."

The vitreous fluid is a fluid with some very fine-tuned properties.

Of course. Evolution is in the business of optimizing features for
particular function. I would be surprised if, by now, it had not
optimized those features it could, such as clarity.

Clarity would be out the window rather quickly in this eye evolving
scenario.

This purely hypothetical scenario. In fact, although the chambered
nautilus eye is a pinhole eye, I would imagine that most eyes that are
sealed from the outside by the ectoderm never experienced the pinhole
state of being open to the outside environment.

Also, I need to point out here that without an inflow and outflow
regulator for that fluid, a creature that was undergoing an evolving of
an open eye (with sea water directly in the enclosed area) to a closed
eye (with magically appearing vitreous humor) would have no inflow and
outflow regulators established to keep the intraocular pressure from
getting too low (where there's a problem with potential eyeball
deflation) or too high (which can cut off blood supply in the nerve
tissue and render the organism blind). Have you even thought of this
at all?

Why do you think that this would be a problem? Tissues absorb and
exude liquids all the time. That is a process hardly unique to eyes.

But there wouldn't be time to establish the rates of inflow or outflow
in this initially evolved creature. We'd have a very high likelihood
of things going wrong with this prime example of evolution on a
macro-scale.

Because you want there to have been a problem? Sorry. That does not
mean that there must have been a problem.

Then we're supposed to think that a clear dome (cornea) just shows up

It is creationists who think that the cornea "just shows up", being
poofed into existence by their favoite fairy.

The only way one can go from an optic pit (over many generations) to a
partial corneal covering to a completely closed-system eye would be for
this corneal tissue to have grown in via evolving processes. If that's
not "just showing up" (at least in a gradual manner), I don't know what
is.

I think the cornea
evolved from overlying transparent skin, which became better and better
adapted to its current function.

What you need to acknowledge here is that you understand that in one
generation there had to be an open-system seawater-filled eye having to
jump immediately into a closed system plasma-filled eye.

No. In fact the open seawater filled eye may not have actually existed
for most eyes. The fact remains that the cornea *is* evolved/derived
from overlying transparent extoderm, as is the lens. That is what
developmental biology tells us.

Then you need to acknowledge the problems which would have to be
overcome at this particular step.

You mean the purely hypothetical problems you propose that may or may
not actually have ever been real problems?

for some reason and stays clear all on its own (and for some reason
there's no mention of how the epithelium, stroma, and endothelium of
the cornea established a way of keeping sea water from getting into
that tissue and constantly clouding it up. But I digress. . .

No. You do not digress. You are simply ignorant and inconsistent.
First you claim that sea water was useful because it was clear (unlike
cell exudates)

well, yes it doesn't have a cornea to cloud up in an organism with no
cornea.

and now if sea water gets in it will constantly cloud
things up. Choose one or the other but not both.

The mutated-into-place transparent membrane of tissue covering over the
eye wouldn't have a way of keeping itself from becoming opaque without
the pre-established mechanisms of the endothelium (which have an exact
pump capability to keep things in balance). . . but you already knew
that.

And since the cornea had the pre-established mechanisms of endothelium
rather than merely being poofed into place by a fairy in a fairy tale,
this is a problem because...?

The corneal endothelium that might have been present (in a
growing-inward process) before the eye became a closed system would
have been dealing with nothing other than one particular salinity--
that of seawater (whether it was outside the eye or within the optic
cup). Once the eyeball became a closed system, though, we'd have to
have endothelium pump capability going on pretty much from day one (or
else the cornea would not be very clear for the fledgling organism).

Face it-- this creature is dead in the water. BLIND AS A BAT!

Corneas, of course, can become opaque
eventually, but usually only after reproductive age (when the usual
selective pressure weakens).

I'd say the creature might have a few days of clear vitreous/plasma and
clear cornea after its birthday, but shortly thereafter-- it's curtains
for old blindy. And I think it's time for you to admit it's curtains
for your dismally simple ideas of eye evolution.

So you keep claiming...without even a hint of actual evidence that it
would be a real problem.

Oh, and then there's this neat little story about a lens which just
somehow evolves into a place that had no such tissue there a number of
generations ago -- and the storyteller again avoids giving any
description of how the lens manages to maintain the proper balance of
hydration so it doesn't cloud up, or have opaque cells. There's also
no mention of the lens zonules and what created them from thin air(or
should I say vitreous fluid)or how cells could go about producing them
(after some co-opting process "pressed them into a new function").

Producing clear cells is not that hard when there is constant pressure
to keep the layers clear and even to optimize them for greater vision.
What do you think would happen if there were a mutational change that
caused a lens to become opaque?

Of course it would end up not being helpful for vision.

Indeed. So the fact that clarity is present is hardly surprising given
that any change from clarity would be selected against.

What I have a hard time swallowing here is that mutations alone can
account for forming a lens in a place where once there was no lens in
the members of the precursor population of organisms.

Your problems with swallowing are not my concern. I suggest you look
at how and from what tissue lenses are derived developmentally. Lenses
are modified ectoderm.

School textbooks are removing much of their content on recapitulation I
hope you know. Why are they doing this? It's because quite a few
people were not at all happy about all these schoolkids learning things
that just weren't true.

Lenses are still modified ectoderm even when recapitulation is removed.
I wasn't proposing this as recapitulation. It is a *fact* that lenses
are modifed ectoderm. It developmentally derives from embryonic
ectoderm (as does the cornea) by budding off from the embryonic
ectoderm. It would be modified ectoderm if recapitualtion were true.
It would be modified ectoderm if recapitualtion were false. Do you
know *any* developmental biology of the eye? Or is developmental
biology another area of your personal ignorance. The eye ball itself,
including the retina, of course, is derived from the developing brain.
Hence the optic vesicle.

Saying evolution is supported at all by prebirth development is just
not a very strong argument at all.

And the fact remains that the lens is *still* modified ectoderm.
Knowing, for example, that the retina does not need to "connect" with
the nervous system, but developmentally is derived from the developing
brain does help one to understand that some of the "problems" you claim
for the evolution of the eye are just personal ignorance on your part.

The optic vesicle contacts overlying ectoderm
and induces it to invaginate to generate the lens placode (initially a
hollow ball, which fills in as the cells elongate to form first primary
lens fibers). After the initial contact, the optic vesicle recedes to
form the optic cup. *Any* ectoderm can be induced to form a lens if it
comes in contact with the tissue of the optic vesicle at the right
stage, including a lens on yer arse, so to speak. In fact, if you
remove the lens from a salamander, the lens will regenerate from the
surrounding iris ectoderm. A lens *is* modified ectoderm.

It certainly has to come about via a process, I'd agree with you there.
But I'd also point out that there's a blueprint for this masterfully
designed equipment like the lens (and all the other parts).

Where is this blueprint and what does it look like?

Modifying
pre-existing material is what evolution does.

Prebirth development involves specialization of cells with all sorts of
potential, directed by genetic instructions. Evolution is basically an
inference that requires much more than observation of how a zygote or
fetus develops. There is a faith involved.

And whining "Ain't so." is not a very impressive argument. Evolution,
of course, *has* to be consistent with development. And development
can be such a jury-rigged, illogical process that it would make the
idea of such a manufacturing process being "designed" a slur on the
competence of the designer.

It is creationism and
its *** and abandoned child, ID, (at least creationists keep
claiming that ID is not their child, despite Judge Jones' determination
of paternity) that think that lenses poof into existence.

Well, then we'll just say it-- in the evolutionary viewpoint-- had to
have come from a state of nonexistence to a state of existence over the
course of many, many generations, and leave it at that.

Again, I'll point you to the trilobites (with well-arranged eyes) which
generally show up without precursors in the fossil record.

Do you think it would persist in the
population (assuming vision had selective value)?

I don't think lenses would ever have a chance of forming at all. But
if you want to believe that, I'd say that's fine. People believe all
sorts of things without any observational data. . .

I do not have to believe that lenses are modified ectoderm.

No, but you have to believe that a creature that used to have no lens
had offspring a number of generations later which DID have crystalline
lenses.

I can certainly see a pathway of increasing doable step-like
improvement by which overlying ectoderm can *become* a modern lens. I
do not see a modern lens simply poofing into existence. A creationist
does.

Developmental biology show me it is. I have *observational data* that
says that lenses are nothing but modified overlying ectoderm.

I have evidence that it takes genetic instructions to build that
structure in a way that isn't going to ruin other systems and other
structural development.

So, for the lens, what genetic instructions would that be?

Where is
your evidence that some fairy poofed lenses into existence at some
unspecified place and time?

I'd say that's more of a question for you to answer, because according
to the theory of Evolution things that used to not be there can--over
many generations-- spring forth naturalistically.

Which is not the mechanism of magical poofing. Lenses exist *because*
there is a pathway by which doable step-wise events (starting with a
clear overlying ectoderm) can improve the lens-like function in ways
that some environments favor. If there were no such pathway or no such
environments favoring such events, lenses could not exist.

All we have is a nice little story so kids and true believers can get
indoctrinated about how blind processes are an amazing tool utilized by
nature.

All this from a short journalistic account, not the actual paper.

I'll give you a challenge, Howard. Show me an actual paper that does
anything other than speculate with words like "might have", "could be",
and vague "co-opted it" statements. Show me an actual paper that
addresses the things Sean Pitman brought up above.

Sean Pitman is an expert at creating strawmen that he can demolish.
Alas, demolishing strawmen will not get you a spot on an amateur boxing
card, much less a bout with a contender.

No strawmen here. Just accounting for details that can't be shoved
under the rug.

A hodge-podge of claims that all the features of a modern eye must poof
into existence in one swell foop is a strawman argument.

Any good scientific paper that deals with things that must be inferred
from evidence and knowledge of how things work today *should* be
phrased in words like "might have" and "could be". It is only papers
that propose supernatural entities doing things for which there is NO
evidence whatsoever

Again, see the evidence in my sig.

that seem to imply that they actually *know* the
answer with such certain that they have no need for such qualifiers.

ID deals in probabilities, not absolutes.

ID deals in false dichotomies, bogus ordering of tests, and using their
favorite superstition as a "fall-back" explanation rather than the
equivalent "We don't know."

When an identification of
"intelligently designed" is stated, it definitely should be prefaced
with a mention that science is tentative, and that the analysis is only
an inferred indication of a good probability that it would have to be
something that's designed (with a consideration of how long the Earth
has been in existence employed in the analysis).

And, of course, the strawman argument against pure non-step-wise
simultaneous multiple changes or its equivalent.

If any of you here find that description/story to be a convincing or
impressive display of "science", I'd say you are gullible. Learn more
about the eye, and you'll see it's incredibly more difficult to arrange
the tissue and molecular components than they are making it out to be
in that video.

It's like this: Evolutionists say, "Hey, if we can convince elementary
school children to think evolution on a macro scale is a fact, we won't
have to worry about them later when that which threatens the belief
system might present itself to them. They'll already be brainwashed
enough to not give it any credence."

And such is the state of so-called "science" in our present day. . .

Only if you think that pedagogical simplifications and journalistic
accounts represent science in our present day rather than representing
pedagogical simplifications and journalistic accounts. *snip*

The journalistic or "youtube" accounts may, on the surface, seem less
scientific, but once you see the speculation involved in the science
literature it doesn't take long to realize that they are all on the
same abominable level.

As opposed, of course, to the clearly nonspeculative fully evidenced
idea that some sort of unseeable and unknowable something did something
at some time and some place by some unknowable mechanism to poof into
existence whatever the asserter of such things wants to be poofed into
existence?

Sig time, Howard.

Steve
---
Did mind come before matter in the universe or matter come before mind?
Chapters 1 and 2 have your answer:
http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/reality/Intro.html

.

Loading