In message , James Brown
writes
In message , Martin Brown
writes
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.

I don't think for one moment that I have Martin. I cannot imagine how
you think an organism with a single working photosensitive cell but
without ALL the necessary brain already in place to process the data
could possibly have an advantage in the survival of the fittest - and
you haven' told me how the cell got photosensitive - or IR sensitive etc.

Argument from incredulity is a fallacy. There is a literature on the
evolution of sight. Have you read any of it?

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

You may - with your amazing stereoscopic orbs consider that you would
have done a better exit route for the optic nerve etc. But I wonder if
you haven't just got a bigger blind spot somewhere ;-))

Cephalopods manage without a blind spot. They put the "wiring" (neurons)
behind the detectors (rods and cones in vertebrates; I don't know the
terminology for cephalopods), instead of in front of them.

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

I would hope not. Nor try to answer the question - why?

Regards,
James

Regards,
Martin Brown


--
Stewart Robert Hinsley