On 14/09/2011 15:35, James Brown wrote:

It was. Try this for size. It's from a chapter Spencer wrote in "The
Evolution Crisis", a compilation of five scientists who reject
evolution:


Sometimes I think folk protest too much. Given the length of time it
would take by a process of unguided evolution for a single cell (coming
in any case from inanimate chemicals) to develop photosensitivity let
alone be part of such a complex item as an eye-ball - personally I find
that a leap of faith which neither satisfies at a scientific level nor
at the level of personal belief.

You have been tricked by the Intelligence Design fraternity - a thinly
disguised alternative bunch of science deniers in the USA who think
Bishop Ushers 6000 year old Earth is true because the Bible says so.

Evolution is not strictly unguided. It is guided by survival of the
fittest that then get to reproduce. In an environment before there are
any photosensors the first organism to develop the slightest capability
of phototropism has an enormous advantage over everything else.

The human eyeball is an odd design with a blind spot right in the centre
of the field of view. So you are left with either a God that is a lousy
design engineer or evolution as the mechanism. I think on balance I
prefer the latter interpretation. YMMV

Pit vipers and a few other snakes still have simple pit sensor "eyes"
for thermal IR to see warm blooded prey. A major advantage to them.

The ID brigade insist that because they don't understand science
Goddidit is the only possible explanation for everything.

Thankfully we don't have too much of this fish rot in the UK although
Tony B liar helped set up a private academy owned by a used car salesman
in Middlesbrough to promote it.

Paul of course you can and no doubt will continue to exclude people from
your list of friends who hold an alternative view, though I find this
selectiveness strange - almost as if you have become prematurely
narrow-minded. But to call people who hold a different and to my mind a
more rational understanding of the origins of life 'dangerous' is more
typical of the mind-set of someone who is alarmingly an extremist and
totalitarian in outlook. The world has enough of those already who say
'don't confuse me with the facts, I've made up my mind'.

No cheers
James

It isn't more rational to invoke a deity to make the universe you just
push the creation problem back one level. Who created the deity?

In the days before science the explanation for everything was either
"because the God(s) are angry/pleased*" * delete as appropriate.

Science doesn't seek to answer the question is there a God.

Regards,
Martin Brown