Intelligence, Eyes and Epilogue

Okay okay...one last volley.

A key element for me, as stated is simple observation of incredible order. My own body knows how to repair itself with systems I have no conscious knowledge of; I interact with other living systems all of which have incredible complexity and beauty. Maybe this is why it is so much easier to see God in nature than it is on a paved city street.

I read once that the human eye made Darwin "shudder". And I think I know why. But here is a quote:

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. [Darwin, 1872]

The point is fairly simple...no benefit could be gained by the slow mutated development of what several millions years later might begin to register some input (not the word) on the first live optic nerve.

Once the doggone things exists, in some form, sure, then natural selection would have something to work with.

But you don't just "blammo" have a fully function eye tied into a cerebral cortex.

The same goes for many other organs in the human or animal body that needed each other all at once to function independently at all.

It's pretty common sense, though I have recently heard some pretty great arguments from Evolutionists, which I will share here.

And I once again remind you dear readers that I really do not give a Galapagos Finch's ass about either camp or politics. I just wanna explore what is right in front of us.

Their politics be damned. Look at what is, not what others want us to see.

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First, Darwin's quote above is one isolated quote and not in it's overall context (I suspect). Later he may have had more information, or we may have more today. If so, please post it here respectfully and we'd all like to hear it.

All I am suggesting is it is easier sometimes to attack the man rather supply new science.

I don't wanna be guilty of that. So I am gonna print the above with an asterisk and ask for responses.
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Time magazine rightly points out in a sidebar that the issue of the "eye" brings both sides into sharp focus. Personally, I did not know the editorial board there had any sense of irony, but apparently they do.

They work of of Michael Behe's work, and I have read him before (he is one who weighed in at the link in the last article...we will return to that).

In the Time article, he asks the simple question, "where did the first eye come from? How could a process of gradual improvements produce a complex organ that needs all its parts-pinhole, lens, light-sensitive surface-in order to work?"

To this we might also add, protective coverings, an aperture, saline from formed ducts to wash the eye, etc...

For those of you interested, I'd like to see a timeline explaining the coming together of such a marvelous apparatus...and then that it was across special lines and therefore independent?

The response in Time magazine is ascribed to no one, but is a general overview of evolutionary thought where a random mutation might have produced a patch of light-sensitive cells that helped a primitive creature tell day from night. From there they extrapolate.

A similar argument is used, and I think quite effectively in a rebuttal to Behe's assertions about needing "all the pieces" by Dr. Kenneth Miller who simply suggests that the various pieces of the puzzle can exist for other purposes before being combined.

I think it a good argument myself.

You can read it here.

But Miller intriguing answer aside, what follows at the end of Time magazine's synopsis is pretty crucial.

"The fact that there is no fossil evidence of the interim steps cannot be taken as proof that a designer-intelligent or otherwise-deliberately skipped them."

This statement not only utterly misses the scientific evaluation, it borders on a religious statement itself.

Science is about observation and evaluation based upon that. Philosophy and theology may play and dance about meaning and motive.

But in this we have the reverse.

The fact that there is no fossil evidence...NONE...ZIPPO...NADA for any intermediary stages of the formation of ANY eye that has ever existed (not to mention the task of species to species evolution) is where this folks turn an ironic blind eye.

That fact that there is no fossil record leaves us solely with conjecture and the begging question "where are the artifacts?" That's a scientific question.

The statement that the absence of any scientific data cannot be used to infer a designer exists is purely religious in nature.

We do not need one people. Take the holes in your fossil record and deal. And note that especially when you push your glasses up on your nose, because no one has yet been able to explain your beautiful eyes, why you dream what you dream, or the organic mystery of simply being alive.