Eye Mock Stupidity

I’m all in favor of mocking stupidity, and here’s something definitely worth mocking.

In arguing for evolution, author Alan R. Rogers appeals to the Nilsson and Pelger paper on how simple it is to evolve an eye. He writes:

If eyes evolve, they must do so often and easily. Could it really be so easy?

Dan-Eric Nilsson and Susanne Pelger have answered this question. They constructed an evolutionary story much like the one that I told above.

– The Evidence for Evolution. p. 42.

And what did he write about the story that he told above?

This story is of course a fabrication. p. 40

I’m serious! Can it get any more stupid than that?

Do evolutionists believe fabrications? When it comes to how to evolve and eye it would certainly seem so.

524 thoughts on “Eye Mock Stupidity

  1. Rumraket: If you toss heads 100 times in a row with a coin, twice, you should start to consider the option that the coin isn’t fair. In other words, that the assumption that the outcomes are equiprobable, is mistaken.

    I’m really beginning to think that you’re just praying for a miracle.

    See here.

  2. Mung: Is that how evolution works?

    It is the way design of the lottery works. The more possible winners the more probable the the improbable event.perhaps you should be arguing the fact it is more probable is evidence of design.

  3. newton: It is the way design of the lottery works.

    Yes, lotteries are designed. The way lotteries work is designed. The way casinos make money is designed. People who gamble think they can “beat the odds” just like Darwinists think that evolution can “beat the odds.”

    If Darwinists had to put up their hard earned money they would soon go broke and Darwinism would be long dead. I have a standing $10,000 challenge here at TSZ that no one has ever taken me up on.

  4. Rumraket: Hello everyone, my internet handle is phoodoo and I have a problem with analogies.

    Hello everyone, my internet handle is Mung and I have a problem with analogies.

  5. Mung: Yes, lotteries are designed. The way lotteries work is designed. The way casinos make money is designed. People who gamble think they can “beat the odds” just like Darwinists think that evolution can “beat the odds.”

    If Darwinists had to put up their hard earned money they would soon go broke and Darwinism would be long dead. I have a standing $10,000 challenge here at TSZ that no one has ever taken me up on.

    Oh yes. That challenge. The one for which no one can figure out what Mung wants us to bet on.

    It is in the “Richard Dawkins Software” thread of 14 months ago. It started with me offering a $100 bet. See that here. I made it extremely clear what I was betting on, which involved a Weasel program finding its target a lot faster than pure random sampling from the space.

    Mung, pressed on this, refused to bet, saying here

    “You want to wager over something that was never in dispute?”

    Mung then countered by offering a bet of $10,000. Mung was pressed to define what the terms of the bet were, what the issue was. But this never was made clear.

    It was pretty hilarious. The most impressive display of meaningless footwork I have seen.

    But Mung is convinced that we are all avoiding his bet. Bunch of cowards, we are.

    For the record, I can’t afford to bet $10,000 of my family’s money on anything, but would be willing to consider a $100 bet, if Mung could finally make it clear what Mung wanted us to bet on.

  6. Joe Felsenstein: But Mung is convinced that we are all avoiding his bet. Bunch of cowards, we are.

    Not avoiding it, just not trying very hard to win it.

    Chalk it up to a dearth of imaginative ways to demonstrate the fact, Fact, FACT of evolution.

  7. Joe Felsenstein: Oh yes. That challenge. The one for which no one can figure out what Mung wants us to bet on.

    To be honest, at this point I’ve forgotten myself what the original wager was supposed to be about, and I’ve changed computers a couple times. Don’t have tons of time on my hands for doing forensic analysis. Besides, that’s what keiths is for.

    But the 10 grand is still sitting there, awaiting an interesting proposal.

    Know of any evolutionists who have offered an opportunity for a 10k wager to any ID supporter? That could be interesting.

  8. Joe Felsenstein: It was pretty hilarious. The most impressive display of meaningless footwork I have seen.

    And I thought I had wasted my time reading all that evolutionist material!

  9. …most living cells on earth evolved DNA repair enzymes long ago to fix the damage done to DNA molecules constantly bombarded by harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

    Blatantly teleological language.

  10. These worms extend their tentacles up to sample the water and collect food particles. Interestingly, they’ve evolved compound eyes on their tentacles that can detect shadows, and therefore motion, to protect themselves from any approaching threats. The researchers used a sequencing approach to study the genes expressed in the fan worm’s eyes known as transcriptomics. Remarkably, they found that the proteins involved in light-detection in this invertebrate more closely resembled proteins found in the retinas of many vertebrate animals. Their results suggest that this fan worm’s unusual eyes most likely emerged independently to suit their needs.

    Yet more blatantly teleological language.

    It’s as if evolutionists can’t avoid it.

  11. Mung,

    Not only that, but if a specific type of eye is particularly good at collecting and processing visual information, we would expect to see it evolve independently in many living organisms.

    Also blatant after the fact revision of evolutionary predictions.

    “Yep, that’s just what we would expect, heck Darwin I think predicted eyes evolving many many times, now let’s go see if its true. Oh, look, look, yep, they evolved many times! ANOTHER evolution prediction verified.”

  12. Interestingly, they’ve evolved compound eyes on their tentacles that can detect shadows, and therefore motion, to protect themselves from any approaching threats.

    I think this guy needs to take a developmental biology course of the kind recommended by Rumraket. Eyes aren’t going to just show up on kneecaps and the back of our eyes, who the hell thinks the theory of evolution would allow for that. Rumraket must be having a hell of a laugh at this.

  13. So that’s the simplest light detecting apparatus you can get – a simple light-sensitive spot that can detect very rudimentary directional information. We can imagine now that having a sheet of light-sensitive cells (photoreceptors) would be the next step up, because it would allow us to collect more light, thus increasing sensitivity. But how can evolution improve on a sheet of photoreceptors? If some random mutations somehow caused an indentation in that sheet, that would provide considerably more visual information.

    That’s it, indentations. Accidental light spots, followed by accidental indentations to those light spots. I have a couple of indentations near my tricep, I just need a light spot to poof! I can go around corners elbows first!

  14. Mung:
    Need an eye? POOF!!! An Eye!

    I just love evolution.

    Its even better than that: Don’t need an eye, poof, you get some anyway.

    Turns out, you will figure out a use for it.

  15. phoodoo: So that’s the simplest light detecting apparatus you can get – a simple light-sensitive spot that can detect very rudimentary directional information. We can imagine now that having a sheet of light-sensitive cells (photoreceptors) would be the next step up, because it would allow us to collect more light, thus increasing sensitivity. But how can evolution improve on a sheet of photoreceptors? If some random mutations somehow caused an indentation in that sheet, that would provide considerably more visual information.

    That’s a caricature of evolution, how dare this creationist wannabe!

    Rummy is going to really scold him.

  16. Mung: Blatantly teleological language.

    Yes but you’re a smart guy, you can figure out how to put it into non-teleological terms.

  17. phoodoo: That’s a caricature of creationism, no one believes that!

    Larry Arnhart writes: “After Michael Behe’s lecture, some of us pressed him to explain exactly how the intelligent designer created the various “irreducibly complex” mechanisms that cannot–according to Behe–be explained as products of evolution by natural selection. He repeatedly refused to answer.

    But after a long night of drinking, he finally answered: “A puff of smoke!” A physicist in the group asked, Do you mean a suspension of the laws of physics? Yes, Behe answered.”

  18. Rumraket: Larry Arnhart writes: “After Michael Behe’s lecture, some of us pressed him to explain exactly how the intelligent designer created the various “irreducibly complex” mechanisms that cannot–according to Behe–be explained as products of evolution by natural selection. He repeatedly refused to answer.

    But after a long night of drinking, he finally answered: “A puff of smoke!” A physicist in the group asked, Do you mean a suspension of the laws of physics? Yes, Behe answered.”

    Where does it say poof? Never said it.

    But by the way, I remember one time when Larry Arnhart was drunk. He said materialist atheists are the stupidest fucking organisms on the planet. He said salmonella are smarter 9.6 times smarter than they are (He actually meant ten times smarter, but he didn’t know the difference). He said they are so stupid they believe salmonella means little salmon. Then he said, “Give me another tequila”, and then threw his glass at a photo of Alfred Russel Wallace, and said, “Who invited him!”

    Then he said the eye evolved by a bunch of lucky accidents that just so happen to be useful.

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