A problem for evolution...?

Question

has been the fact that all parts of such organs have to work together for sight, hearing or thinking to take place. Such organs would have been useless until all the individual parts were completed. So the question arises: Could the undirected element of chance that is thought to be a driving force of evolution have brought all these parts together at the right time to produce such elaborate mechanisms?

Answer 1

HUH?????

Answer 2

This claim is an instance of the argument from incredulity. In all specific instances of this claim, there are ways for the organs and organ systems to evolve gradually.

The idea that they could not evolve usually involves one or more of the following errors in thinking:

1. that organ parts appear suddenly. This seems to be an artifact of creationist thinking. Evolution, however, is not creationism; parts change gradually.
2. that organs less developed than what exists now must be completely useless. This is nonsense. A light-sensitive patch on the skin may not be as useful as the eyes we have now, but it is better than nothing. And just a little bit better is all that is required for the trait to evolve.
3. that parts must evolve separately. Coordinated innovation between parts of an organ or organ system is possible. Indeed, if the parts evolve gradually, it is inconceivable that parts that interact would not coevolve in such a way that changes are coordinated via natural selection.
4. that parts do not change function. Many organs do not start from nothing. Rather, they start as a part that serves a different function and gradually gets co-opted for a new function. For example, tetrapod legs evolved from fins.

Answer 3

"Could the undirected element of chance that is thought to be a driving force of evolution have brought all these parts together at the right time to produce such elaborate mechanisms?" Apparently, since it happened. You assume that since there is great complexity in life that it had to have a creator. You need to prove the existence of that creator first without assuming that complexity requires one.
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Answer 4

That is the only real argument against evolution.

I don't see why you need to argue against it. Isn't it possible that god created organisms with the ability to evolve? Does it say anywhere that god directs micro-evolution?

Anyway yes these things can evolve, it started with a brain, then probably a single sensory nerve could detect light (no color). I'm just throwing out ideas, obviously I don't know. I'm not going to say I don't think god directed evolution. You could be right, but not necessarily.

Are you in the science field? If one species goes extinct, that proves evolution. Obviously many species have gone extinct over the years, like dinosaurs.

There are some things that can't see anything besides the presence or absence of light. There may have been a stage where only one color was visible, then two colors. When things got the ability to see two colors, anything only being able to see one color couldn't survive (outcompeted by 2-color seers).

Answer 5

Since they werent brought together at any 'right time' but instead gradually evolved over millions of years to be what you see as complete systems, then yes, of course it could. Also, it is not a directed or undirected element of chance that did it, it is the simple fact that those individuals of any given species without certain qualities did not survive to breed, while other individuals WITH certain traits DID survive to breed. Cull out the non-functioning ones and increase the number of functioning ones over a few million years and bingo. No luck involved. You have a winner.

Answer 6

yes. chance drives evolution because the organisms with the random mutations that help thier survival will reproduce more organisms with the same inherited mutation. But your assumption that a living organism must have all of it the parts that are typical of it's species to survive is shortsighted. There are people born without certain parts all the time. And there are people who later in life lose parts like limbs, tonsils, eyes, etc, and still survive. But humankind is no longer evolving because we do not allow our weak members to die without reproducing. Down's syndrome and epilepsy are genetic mutations, which under natural law, eliminate themselves from the human race through natural selection. now evolution does not attempt to say that these adaptative mutations, and the evolutionary process itself happens quickly. creationism attempts to say that all of this, everything in this world as we see it today happened in seven days. A seed cant even germinate in seven days so how could homo sapiens have developed language and society in seven days? Rather, evolution says that the state of organisms today took millions of years to take place in a rapidly changing environment.

Answer 7

actually that isn't the fact, irreducible complexity is not credible, these organs do not suddenly appear in their current state, they have evolved slowly over millions of years to become the highly complex things we see today, the eye is a good example, ID proponents like to use it as an example, but the truth is the eye has existed (and still does) as a number of simpler things such as just a group of light sensitive cells

Answer 8

This would have been a valid question in the '50s. Irreducable complexity has been debunked for a long time. Rather than answer this again, I will simply say go to talkorigins.com and look up irreducable complexity for the answer. I have grown a bit cynical from answering this and many other evolution questions over, and over...

Answer 9

If given enough time all things are possible. Where have I heard that expression before?

God: "Yeah, I recall the history of our planet's early evolutionists, when we were young like Earth, the evolution philosophers would conclude some really outrageous theories."

Natalie: "Then, they would crawfish back into answering the question "How was that possible?" by telling our ancient ancestors that the time frames were in millions or billions of years."

When asked, "Will windshield wipers work on a Billy Goat's butt?" Our early evolutionists replied, "Sure they will, if given enough time to hook them up right."

Answer 10

From my point of view it seems that these organs could have possibly been together since the beginning, otherwise our ancestors would not have survived and we would not have all these theories and laws in existence today.

Answer 11

Evolution is not based on chance. Nature slowly rubs out wasteful things, and leaves only the workable stuff behind.