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The human eye is so complex that Darwin himself, even with his limited knowledge of chemistry, saw the human eye as an enormous problem for his theory.
Evolutionist F. Hitching was still pondering this in a 1982 book entitled The Neck of the Giraffe, "Is it really plausible that thousands upon thousands of lucky chance mutations happened coincidentally so that the lens and the retina, which cannot work without each other, evolved in synchrony? What survival value can there be in an eye that doesn't see?"

Does anyone feel that survival of intermediate species poses any problem for the evolutionary model?

Thanks in andvance for your answers.

2007-07-05 14:06:35 · 12 answers · asked by Graham 5 in Society & Culture Religion & Spirituality

Born Again Mullah, could you please expound on that answer?

2007-07-05 14:11:54 · update #1

I find it odd that a group of people who promote free thought and honest seeking have addressed me the way some of you have. The atheistic approach to Yahoo Answers seems to be to not only dictate the type of questions that may be asked, but also to dictate who may aske them. This question involved no doctrinal debate, no scripture quoting, and did nothing but give those believe in evloution a platform to address the question posed in a non-threatening way. As much as you may think me "deceitful" and "insincere", some people in YA actually want to learn something. I might suggest that in the future you leave your judgemental attitudes at the door, as you request that Christians do.

2007-07-05 14:29:59 · update #2

12 answers

Charles Darwin acknowledged the inadequacy of evolution when he wrote,

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. (Darwin 1872)

The quote is taken out of context. Darwin answered the seeming problem he introduced. The paragraph continues,

Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated; but I may remark that several facts make me suspect that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which produce sound. (Darwin 1872, 143-144)

Darwin continues with three more pages describing a sequence of plausible intermediate stages between eyelessness and human eyes, giving examples from existing organisms to show that the intermediates are viable.

2007-07-05 14:11:09 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 7 0

While the eye is complex, it's evolution is more or less understood and it does not present a problem for evolutionary theory.

There was never an eye that couldn't see in the way that you seem to be claiming. There was never a half-eye. What there was at the beginning were patches that were heat sensitive that eventually developed light sensitivity. Once light-sensitivity occurred, the patch invaginated which provided directional information to the light. Over time, a membrane that became the outer lense developed over top.

That gives the core structure of an eye and the rest is just fine-tuning. The survival benefits of sight (or any light sensitivity is obviously significant, and this drove the complexity.

2007-07-05 14:11:01 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 3 0

Darwin did NOT see the eye as a huge problem for his theory. Darwin is a favorite... and easy... target for creationist liars who employ 'quote mining' in order to mislead their dumbass constituence, who they know would never even DREAM of following up to make sure that a quote is reliable and taken IN context.

Darwins writing style, when he was trying to describe something that he thought might be controversial, was to anticipate and address all of the criticisms that he thought might be leveled at it. He wrote such a paragraph about the developmental path of the eye:

"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree." - Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, 1st Ed., p. 186.

That is the part that the creationist quote-miners cite. What they DON'T cite is the fact that Darwin spends the next 6 pages describing EXACTLY the intermediate steps that led to the development, in great detail... and showing that it is not in the least bit absurd.

There is a brief youtube video by Dawkins that describes these steps... just search: dawkins evolution eye

Hitching is a freaking idiot, if he wrote what you say he wrote. I will reserve final judgement on that, though... since you misrepresented what Darwin wrote, chances are you are misrepresenting Hitching, as well.

Anyway... there are many organisms... alive... in nature... today... that possess organs that are representative of all intermediate steps that were involved in the evolution of the eye.

Get an education, fer crissake... and rely on REAL scientists for information about science... not the pseudoscientists and liars whose mission in life is to keep you scientifically ignorant, for the glory of christ.

You people make me sick.

2007-07-05 14:25:30 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 2 0

Actually, the Darwin quote says that at first, it SEEMS daunting, but on closer inspection, it's gradual development by small improvements can be explained.

There are creatures (e.g. the chambered nautilus) that have a retina, but no lens, so we can actually observe a working eye. Where you truncate the second quote, Hitching goes on to discuss the merits of a simple optical system that is only capable of distinguishing light and shadow.

Thank you for yet again demonstrating that Creationists must resort to flagrant deceit to support their totally discredited doctrines.

2007-07-05 14:17:00 · answer #4 · answered by novangelis 7 · 3 0

"Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.

In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species. The existence of this range of less complex light-sensitive structures supports scientists' hypotheses about how complex eyes like ours could evolve. The first animals with anything resembling an eye lived about 550 million years ago. And, according to one scientist's calculations, only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch."

2007-07-05 14:15:01 · answer #5 · answered by meissen97 6 · 4 0

No.
Look it up at the site below. It's answered in great detail.
Also, while Darwin saw it as problematic, he believed that science would solve the problem.

2007-07-05 14:16:44 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1 0

The human eye is what makes me an agnostic. That is one of the only things in my life that makes me think there may be a higher power.

2007-07-05 14:11:54 · answer #7 · answered by Heidi K 3 · 1 1

Evolution of the eye. Enjoy http://youtube.com/watch?v=furcepFlfZ4

2007-07-05 14:14:26 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 2 0

1

2016-06-19 07:48:27 · answer #9 · answered by Sheri 3 · 0 0

Asking this in R&S proves your question in insincere.

2007-07-05 14:17:43 · answer #10 · answered by Dark-River 6 · 1 0

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