Slime-oozing fish sheds light on eye evolution
22 November 2007
The eye has always been a thorn in the side of anyone believing evolution. Since evolution does not create highly complex organs all at once there would have had to been thousands of intermediate stages that vary from light responsive cells to fully developed retinas. Recently they dusted off the old argument that we can look at animals that are alive today and determine what happened in the past by lining them up in an order that looks like it is simplest to most complex. This would be the equivalent of me lining up a Hot Wheel, RC car, riding lawn mower, and a car all in a line and saying that they all had a common ancestor because the wheels are all slowly getting more complex. Ignoring the fact that they were not there and therefore can not tell if we have a common ancestor, where did the additional information come from in the later generations to make the eye more complex? It would require thousands of changes to happen all at once to make a more complex eye yet if any one of those changes happened without the others it would render the entire eye useless. Was the animal blind while the eye changed from the less complex form into the more complex form?
Darwin thought that if you could produce a series of logical steps that the evolution of the eye could be explained; however, looking at all the working eyes in the world today and lining them up does not give any insight on how the eye evolved. There are many species of animals that each have similar eyes to others in their kind and that probably does indicate they had a common ancestor; however, observable, empirical, testable science shows us that nothing gets better over time. Either they have a complex eye because their parents did, or they have a less complex eye because they have lost the genetic information that produces the complex eye. The fish that exist that have eyes yet are blind are the result of a loss of information, not a random gain.
People for a long time have tried to discredit the complexity of the eye by saying that it is a poor design because the photocells (rods and cones) point away from the source of light, yet they don't think of why they are like that. Not only is the retina is capable of producing a higher resolution that the lens can even deliver but it is also capable of seeing one photon which is the smallest measurement of light so there is no reason to have the photocells turned around because they work excellent as they are. If you were to move the photocells the other way around that would require the blood supply to be on the top and therefore blocking all of the light, rendering the eye useless. All vertebrates have the photocells pointing to the back of the eye including animals like an eagle that can see a fish under water over a mile away (Origins TV episode - The Seeing Eye). If someone can develop an artificial eye that fits inside your head that can see better than an eagle and can grow out of just two cells containing DNA, then I would say that the designer got it wrong. As it stands right now, they have not even invented an artificial eye that works at any resolution, and they have not developed a camera of any size that competes with the eye. Nice try, but the eye is still a trump card.
1. Were they there? How do you know we share an ancestor with hag fish?
2. Science shows complex information does not just appear from nowhere.
3. Some less complex eyes are the result of loss of information.
4. The human eye works great as it is.
http://www.biotechnews.com.au/index.php/id;1938611542;fp;2;fpid;1
