In an early post John, who wants to be called doctor, urged readers to take a look at a little paper by Dan Nilsson and Suzanne Pilger. He says it is a good conceptual example of how natural selection acting on variation can gradually create a new feature.
Gee, that must be quite a paper. He says it can’t be beat! So what does their paper actually show? The paper is called , “A Pessimistic Estimate of the Time Required for an Eye to Evolve.” Well, that does sound interesting!
A light sensitive patch will gradually turn into a focus lensed eye in 100,000 years. But of course they are using a pessimistic estimate, probably would happen even faster! Wow.
In fact the paper is written in such a way as to make many people falsely believe that Nilsson and Pilger had come up with a computer model to show the steps of eye evolution, from “random” mutations. Now that is something.
But because they didn’t ACTUALLY make any computer model (who has time) the task was made much easier for Nilsson and Pilger. Just take an eye, unfold all the pieces, and put them back together, one step at a time. POOF! (Yes Patrick, that is a poof!). But let’s make it even easier, because well, time, and let’s start with light sensitive cells. Then just poof in a depression where the light sensitive cells are. Next poof in another, deeper impression. That sure does help focus the light doesn’t it? Let’s keep that mutation!
From there we can just keep poofing away. Fill the cavity with fluid. Poof in a lens. Make the lens better. Poof in some rods and cones. All at random mind you. Make them better…Keep those mutations (don’t let them mutate themselves, because they won’t help building an eye at all!) Rudyard Kipling would be so proud.
This fable has already been passed down to generations. Take a look, these brilliant scientist doctors say, an eye is not so hard after all. If only Darwin had known Nilsson and Pilger he never would have had reason to doubt himself. Its as easy as POOF!
Of course John is apparently intimidated to engage with people who actually challenge him . So what do you think?
I say all sorts of interesting things. So do you. But you’re the one with the doctorate in evolutionary biology from the University of Chicago (did I get that right?), thus when you say something stupid it’s far more interesting than anything that I say.
You ought to know better.
Who needs functional plumbing when you can fly?
I’d like for Richardthughes to think about this question and see if he can’t predict the answer.
Makes me laugh. No. Really. It. Makes. Me. Laugh. Eye Design.
It’s amazing, isn’t it, that the evolution of the eye would follow the same theoretical path one would take if one was to design an eye?
Are you an expert in eye design? If so, please don’t put me on ignore, I want to hear all about it.
Mung,
One of the possible paths. For average eyes.
No, one of the theoretically possible paths. Wishful thinking.
Neither you, nor anyone else, knows enough about the evolution of the vertebrate eye to declare with any degree of scientific rigor which paths are possible and which are not.
Plants have no need of discreet eyes, they track sunlight pretty well without them.
That’s interesting, I had never heard of the concept of additive genetic variance before. I had to look it up and I see now what it means.
Well, you learn something every day.
To be fair Harshman hasn’t (yet) said anything stupid here, and when you say something stupid it’s usually far more stupid.
So now you’re obsessing over the mere word “design” which basically just means “structure” in this context? Okay, to each his own as they say.
Uhh, if you were to design an eye you wouldn’t design it by forming a light-sensitive spot and incrementally producing an invagination over almost four hundred thousand iterations. What complete gibberish. You’d just make one entirely to begin with and insert a lens. What the hell are you blathering about?
So sayeth Mung, who haven’t actually bothered checking what anyone knows about vertebrate eye evolution.
Mung,
Please tell us the difference between ‘possible’ and ‘theoretically possible’. *Grabs popcorn.*
That makes sense, sure….
Backs away slowly.
That another part of the problem, isn’t it. Nilsson & Pilger were smart enough not to even try adding in the optic nerve parts, because even they knew how foolish it would be to suggest a random mutation for an optic nerve-with a complete pathway to the brain, and the requisite brain functions to be understand what the signals mean, all happening by a series of lucky accidents.
I think calling what they did a paper on eye evolution is itself a stretch. Its more like an imagined GIF of an indentation becoming an eyeball. Like describing a time lapse movie of a seed becoming an oak tree. Not much more than that.
Yes. When he, too rarely, chooses to do so he can write interesting, topical comments. For a recent example, he (and DNA_Jock) are describing entropy much more accurately than anyone else in the “In Slight Defense of Granville Sewell…” thread.[*] I’ll leave my views on the majority of his comments for Noyau.
[*] Source: I have a degree in chemical engineering, including graduate work in thermodynamics, but have no time to participate there for another couple of weeks. I present this solely as an argument from authority.
Thank you for so clearly stating your ridiculous opinions.
Peretty sure Phoodoo hasn’t read or even seen the paper. He consistently misspells “Pelger”, for example.
Are you peretty sure?
John Harshman,
Hey John, if someone makes a theory about the evolution of a leg, with detailed descriptions of each step along the way, but their description leaves out the existence of any bones in the leg, or any joints to allow the leg to move, is that really a feasible description of leg development?
By the way, do you think the lucky light sensitive spots started with two, placed directly in the middle of the head? More luck?
This is so dumb it defies belief. No seriously, this one is quite possibly the dumbest antievolution argument I have ever seen.
You MUST be joking.
Hey phoodoo, did our ape ancestor have eyes? Yes. Did the ancestors of primates have eyes? Yes. Ancestors of all mammals? Yes. Try to keep going phoodoo, it will make sense eventually. Or maybe it won’t, it’s you after all.
Rumraket,
Go ahead Rumraket….?
What organisms did the eyes start on? Was there one or two? If one, when did they become two? Another new light spot, or just doubled up? The light focusing eye was not originally used on the top of the organisms head, but natural selection favored this position?
We need an explanation for how the mammals got them there. Is this just another one of the little details that is not important. Luck did it?
Anyway, its a great paper. Can hardly be beat. Explains exactly the simple little steps needed. Poof, poof….I don’t see how you can disagree with a Doctor Rumraket.
They inherited them from their reptile ancestors. Holy FUCK are you dumb. Straight back to ignore with you. What a complete waste of time.
How does the origin of eyes work in phoodoo world?
Patrick,
That’s good enough for me!
phoodoo,
I dunno. When God made giraffes, did he start with the head kinda suspended in the air and built it downwards, or start with the feet? Did Creation make a popping sound, or was it more squelchy?
Allan Miller,
Yeah, and what did the flatfish do to piss him off?
Clearly created on the same post-pub Friday afternoon as the platypi.
Allan Miller,
I am not the one who presented a paper and said this is a great example of how new features could evolve. So what does creationism have to do with this? Why are you guys so loathe to defend your own theory?
If the eyes start on a paramecium bacteria, are we to believe that two started first? Or on a worm? Or did natural selection add a second later? They shift around with each generation, moving slightly closer and more symmetrical with time? Rumraket says the first twin eyes that were symmetrical on top of the head were on lizards. Was there a time when they weren’t symmetrical, and then those ones with unbalanced eyes got weeded out by natural selection? They just slowly drifted into the best possible position….
The story telling of natural selection as this great sculpting power of fine tuning is so ridiculous. With each slightly more level, slightly closer together pair of eyes, doing just a little better at getting the girl. “Think how much better you could avoid the tigerasaurus if your eyes were just a little more horizontal! The unbalanced eyes had no chance!!”
While i’m YEC still one can find in nature things are not as complicated as one might first think.
Complex beyond chance but still one can reduce things to more simple equations.
Is the eye more complex then the kidney? No ! Both are quite complex in the same degree.
Once one goes into the skull , I say, that nothing more happens except the info enters the memory and is read by the soul.
There is no machinery in the head to process sight info.
its just imprinting itself on the memory. the memory does all the processing.
The actual nuts and bolts of a eye is already encoded in the genes.
So indeed it can’t evolve but indeed can create itself.
So creatures have minorv representations of eyesight processes and the tuatara has a eye thing on its top of its head.
All biology is already finished. There is no evidence biology can create new features.
And yet there are people who are blind with perfectly functioning eyes. How come?
Regardless, it’s directly wrong. There is a visual cortex that directly treats and transmits visual information to other parts of the brain. In fact, researches have become so good at scanning this part of the brain they can literally “see what you see” when scanning your brain in real time.
phoodoo,
I’m not. But it’s hilarious when you demand some stupid clever-arsed detail that has little to do with theory, so it amuses me to do the same. Your response is always the same – a huffy “my theory has nothing to do with it!. Why are YOU so unwilling to defend your half-baked notions? I don’t have to defend mine”. It’s a bit like chucking a stick. GoFetch, boy!
You can’t offer such details on creation, of course, so why prod people about some irrelevant detail of a long-ago past? It is actually interesting. If one imagines creatures springing full formed, eyeballs in full working order and communicating fully with the brain, there must be a period between nothing and a working organism, a whirring of atoms, an order of construction and some effect on the world as the organism’s weight suddenly appears and they displace the air around them with a ‘pop’ and start blinking and processing photons. I don’t know why people never even contemplate that period. Perhaps because they’d realise how fucking stupid it would seem if they thought about it too deeply, I dunno.
phoodoo,
Well, I’d go for the multicellular bilaterian if I was looking for two, and the clue that you don’t need magic for two is in the name.
I certainly wouldn’t look on a ‘paramecium bacterium’, and doubt there is any continuity between a single-celled organisms’s eyespot and multicellular eyes.
Two of everything follows fro bilateral symmetry. I’m sure there’s some evidence of how that evolved. Not all animals have that symmetry, so there are forks in the road.
Allan Miller,
This is just one long winded post intended to say you have no idea how an eye forms, you are not interested in the details, you don’t even care to think about it, but you are sure it can happen somehow.
Why not just say you don’t like to challenge your own beliefs Allan, it would be a hell of a lot easier for you.
So now we have this out of the way, Allan has no idea, but he is confident just the same. Great. It does nothing to help the uselessness of Nillson’s paper.
Sure wish we could find more of these useless cornea mutations popping out randomly now and again in places they aren’t needed. It would make it so much easier to believe sometimes they pop up exactly where they are needed, just by accident.
Remember how you can draw on the pages of a book and then flip the pages to create an animation? I think one of them did that. Then the other got the bright idea to attach some mathematical statements to the animation. Personally, I think the paper was meant to be a parody of ID arguments.
Did it make a sound if no one was there to hear it?
No designer around? 😉
That explains my second nose, and ever so much more.
Two nostrils. Fortunately only one Mung! It is a nice one, though. Did the designer pick it?
Are we going to word lawyer “symmetry”?
Perhaps symmetry fails because faces aren’t perfectly symmetrical. Do IDists think the developmental variations responsible for lack of perfect symmetry are inheritable?
Mung,
Yes quite possibly. Or else they just had some old math numbers laying around and said, “Hey, what can we do with these?”
He let me pick my own nose. 😀
That is rather obviously false.
So Mung and phoodoo are not convinced bilateral symmetry explains how eyes come in pairs… I’m speechless
I actually agree with this, though I would say my dick so so big I might as well have two.
Okay I have terrible humor.
Ah ha, that explains two lips.
Glen Davidson
Does it have two “nostrils”?
dazz,
Which came first, the bilateral symmetry or the eyes?
“Bilateral symmetry” is a description. I guess when you’re short on explanation description has to suffice.