As discussed here, even the so-called third eye, which merely provides light sensitivity to its owner such as the iguana, involves incredibly complex biochemistry. Whereas evolutionists have always envisioned a neat ladder-like pathway of increasing functionality in vision systems, even rudimentary vision such as the third eye reveals stunning complexity. This notion of increasing functionality and complexity was advanced by Darwin who, after admitting that the evolution of the eye seemed absurd in the highest possible degree, decided that unless a critic can falsify his evolutionary thought experiment it must be a perfectly reasonable idea:If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.
In short order Darwin converted the profound into the mundane. But the facts of biology wouldn't cooperate. The farther back evolutionists peered in time the more complexity they found.
The third eye is a good example but new research takes the complexity farther back yet to 600 million years ago. The research found that the light sensitivity of the humble hydra is based on the same type of key opsin protein used in human vision.
We must believe not only that such an incredibly complex protein evolved somehow, but that it just happened to work splendidly in the as yet unforeseen incredible mammalian vision system. Imagine if a contraption your 5-year-old banged together in the basement just happened to work perfectly in a jet airliner. As the lead researcher commented:
This work picks up on earlier studies of the hydra in my lab, and continues to challenge the misunderstanding that evolution represents a ladder-like march of progress, with humans at the pinnacle. Instead, it illustrates how all organisms -- humans included -- are a complex mix of ancient and new characteristics.
It was all just a misunderstanding--now we understand. But with each new surprise, evolution becomes less likely and more complex.
Allow me to tell you about what probably is my most favorite fossil...
ReplyDeleteThe animal in question is called Vernanimalcula guizhouena, Latin for “small spring animal” - a nod by the discovery team to the “spring” following the so-called “Snowball Earth” time period that ended roughly 600 million years ago when it’s theorized that most of the planet was entombed in ice.
Vernanimalcula guizhouena - which was about the size of four human hairs laid side by side - is thought to have survived that period of extreme cold, Bottjer said.
“It was a little button-shaped organism that probably scooted along the sea floor,” he said. “It had a little mouth, sort of like a vacuum cleaner. It was tiny, but microbes are even smaller so it probably sucked them up so it could eat them.”
Aside from a mouth, Vernanimalcula guizhouena had an anus and paired external pits that the researchers theorized it used to sense environmental conditions, such as light.
http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/10275.html
Here is the 2004 paper, the 2009 update isn't available for public access.
https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/sdornbos/www/PDF's/Chen%20et%20al.%202004.pdf
The existance of this complex animal impacts a lot of hypotheses. Mike Gene points to it as supporting evidence for Front Loaded design. I point to it as supporting evidence of Quantum self organizations. Others point at it as data to explain the Cambrian Explosion.
Frankly, I agree it helps explain the Cambrian Explosion regardless of which of the above three hypotheses is presumed. Of course, I biasedly think the explaination is stronger if one presumes interconnected self-organizing quantum effects are driving life.
The more complicated life is, the more likely it is quantum-based, in my opinion.
What hypothesis do you...
Oh, never mind.
Dr. Hunter writes;
ReplyDelete"[E]volutionists have always envisioned a neat ladder-like pathway of increasing functionality in vision systems..."
In my reading of the popular literature on evolution, I have not come across anyone attempting to explain the evolution of a vision system. I have seen Darwin's eye sequence recalled, but as I have argued in other blogs, describing the evolution of the eye apart from its place in a vision system (nerves, blood vessels, muscles, etc.) doesn't make for a convincing story.
Has anyone attempted to describe the evolution of a vision system?
Hi Doublee,
ReplyDeleteHave you tried Google Scholar?
It's helpful in finding publically available scientific papers. For example...
Evolution of binocular vision
http://www.uq.edu.au/nuq/jack/BinocVisEvol.pdf
THE EVOLUTION OF COLOR VISION IN INSECTS
http://www.biology.qmul.ac.uk/research/staff/chittka/2001/BriscoeChittka_AnnRevEnt01.pdf
Fruits, foliage and the evolution of primate colour vision
http://vision.psychol.cam.ac.uk/jdmollon/papers/Regan(2001)PTRSB.pdf
Has anyone came up with a plausible scenario for the evolution of vision at the molecular level?
ReplyDeleteThought Provoker-
ReplyDeleteDo any of the papers you list contain experiments which verify the premise?
Or are those papers all about speculation based on tghe assumption?
IOW how can we test the premise that eyes and vision system evolved from organisms that never had either?
As for an alternative hypothesis:
The Design Hypothesis
Hi Joe,
ReplyDeleteFor your sake, I hope you realize you can be extremely frustrating.
In the past, and presently, you indicate a willingness to do a compare and contrast of different hypotheses. But, when I try to take you up on this kind of offer, you attempt to control both sides of the debate.
I find it telling you offer a general "Design Hypothesis" here where I did not offer one. However, I did offer one in another thread. That hypothesis is of similar generality as yours is.
If you are truly interested in engaging in a "level playing field" compare and contrast, I suggest you post your best shot on the other thread where I posted the "God Hypothesis". If you don't have any distinguishing differences from this Hypothesis, then please say so.
Thanks
laugh out loud asks an excellent question.
ReplyDeleteI was blown away by Michael Behe's description of the biochemistry of vision. Any description of the evolution of a vision system, it seems to me, would have to begin with an understanding of how the light sensitive spot evolved.
To paraphrase the other excellent question, what good is a light sensitive spot? Detecting light is only the first step of vision. *What does detecting light do for the organism and how does that affect its survivability?
Do not all of the parts of the vision system have to arise at once in order to have a selectable function? How many components are there in the vision system and what is the size of the genome needed to specify all the components? What is the probability that all these components could arise at once? If all the components do not have to arise at once, what are the plausible intermediate steps? What is the probability of each intermediate step occurring? Must the steps occur in a certain sequence to provide selectable functions? What is the probability of the correct sequence occurring?
And these are the simplistic questions from a curious layman. But I am not alone asking these questions. Casey Luskin at Evolution News & Views has posed the same questions in his February 24 post.
Any account invoking blind, unguided, random mutations to evolve a gene from Function A to Function B must address at least these three questions:
• Question 1: Is there a step-wise adaptive pathway to mutate from A to B, with a selective advantage gained at each small step of the pathway?
• Question 2: If not, are multiple specific mutations ever necessary to gain or improve function?
• Question 3: If so, are such multi-mutation events likely to occur given the available probabilistic resources?
*After I posed this question, I did a search for eyespot and found this.
http://staff.jccc.net/pdecell/protista/euglena.html
One really cool feature of Euglena and other related organisms, is the presence of a pigmented organelle, or eyespot, that allows the organism to orient toward or away from light. This is a sensible adaptation since these organisms carry out photosynthesis… The eyespot itself is not sufficient to help the organism turn toward light since the cell is transparent. So the outside of the eyespot is covered by a black pigmented area. The Euglena determines which way to turn by turning to the direction in which the eyespot is receiving the least light. In this direction the pigmented eyespot is most directly shaded by the black pigmented area.
The eyespot and the pogment are also not sufficient to help the organism to turn toward the light. It also needs some mechanism of propulsion, and for the Euglena that mechanism is the flagellum. The flagellum, which is irreducibly complex, is itself a component of an irreducibly complex system.
Until science can develop a plausible explanation for the evolution of the visual system in the Eulglena, I will remain a skeptic.
Thought Provoker,
ReplyDeleteDealing with you is extremely frustrating.
Dealing with evolutionists is close to impossible.
I don't try to control anything in any discussion beyond what MY PoV is.
I told you before I am only interested in debating against those who hold to the blind watchmaker thesis.
If that is not your position I am not saying you have to adopt it just to satisfy me.
If that is not your position then I don't know if we have anything to debate.
I have been over this before with you and you didn't "get it" then and most likely you will not "get it" now.
One thing at a time- first it is the blind watchmaker- and if that is not your position then just wait.
Someday, if I care, I may get to yours.
Hi Doublee,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote...
"Until science can develop a plausible explanation for the evolution of the visual system in the Eulglena, I will remain a skeptic."
Being skeptical isn't a problem, at least not with me. I am skeptical of the suggestion mass is the source of gravitational force. I think it is more likely gravity (curves in space-time) is the source of mass or, at least, they mutually "source" each other.
However, as to light sensitivity of Euglena, do you have a problem accepting plants probably evolved to bend towards light sources?
Euglena are part plant in that they use photosynthesis. Rather than bending, it is suggested Euglena evolved to swim toward the light.
Believe it or not, I can understand how people can think the Random Mutation/Natural Selection alone explains evolution. In fact, I think there is a good argument a major biological organizing process has eluded Evolutionary Biologists for decades if not centuries.
Recent discoveries have demonstrated both photosynthesis and vision heavily rely on Quantum Mechanics. It is quickly becoming a mainstream presumption.
I am not at all surprised vision is a prolific and well organized biological system.
Thought Provoker writes:
ReplyDelete"[D]o you have a problem accepting plants probably evolved to bend towards light sources?"
Whether or not I have a problem with plants evolving to bend toward light sources is not the point of my post. I do accept that such evolution might be possible.
But what is possible is not always plausible. I am asking that the plausibility questions be answered. If the putative mechanism of evolution is not plausible, then an alternatve explanation must be sought.
Hi Doublee,
ReplyDeleteI was trying to get a feel for your threashold of "plausible".
Do you think the evolution of plants bending towards light is "plausible"?
If not, I would suggest we start there.
If you haven't figured out by now, I am all for hearing alternate explainations.
Even if we are convinced current explainations are plausible and likely, we should still be seeking other alternatives.
For example, what do you think of my God Hypothesis in the previous thread?
http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2010/03/evolution-creates-evolution-as-fire.html?showComment=1268512821057#c4401994234143392014
Thought Provoker, to quote, "I find it telling you offer a general" 'evolution hypothesis, with no specific details and not testable or falsifiable pathway. However, I have always liked 'just so' stories.
ReplyDeleteSince I believe in God, and since he is an agent capable of affecting the material world like human agents, he can pretty much do whatever he likes to get life started. He appears to prefer to take his time and use secondary or immediate causes (one of Aristotle's four types of causes), so we're pretty much free to research and discover how he did it. Was it front loading? Evolution? Occasional use of his creative aspect? (like humans, who love to create and watch and develop things). The jury is still out, though it's looking worse and worse for neoDarwinism.
Thing is, deists or theists are more likely to find out the truth than atheists, because they have not ruled out apriori possible solutions, but are open to all kinds adn to following trails of evidence to where they lead (rather then writing them off as impossible).
regards,
#John
And I, for one, am very skeptical of plants being able to evolve to bend toward the light. Such bending is quite complex, and without any plausible evolutionary pathway (via neoDarwinism).
ReplyDeleteregards,
#John
Thought Provoker:
ReplyDelete"Do you think the evolution of plants bending towards light is "plausible"?"
On the surface such evolution would seem plausible. Then I wonder about the plants that did not bend toward the light. An "unbending plant" is the logical precursor to a plant that does bend. The unbending plant obviously had to survive long enough for it to evolve into a bending plant.
This is where I run into a mental roadblock and begin to marvel at the magic of evolution. If the unbending plant can survive as is, what "motivation", if you will, is there for the plant to evolve a bending capability? You would no doubt answer that there is no motivation, yet some mutation serendipitously occurs that puts the plant on path to where it ends up bending toward the light.
How many mutations were required to move the unbending plant to the bending plant? Was one mutation sufficient? If multiple mutations were required, must they have occurred all at once? If so what is the probability that they occurred all at once?
If the multiple mutations could have occurred in sequence, what is the probability that they occurred in the correct sequence? What was the selective advantage of each step? What is to say that the selective advantage of each step was that the plant moves more efficiently toward the light?
What's even more magical to me is that if the mutations occurred in sequence, each successive mutation must be chosen from a more restrictive set of mutations. A "design plan" had been established so to speak. The possible mutations that would continue the evolution of the plant to its ultimate light bending state would have to be serendipitously "chosen" from a smaller and smaller set of possible mutations. What is the probability of that happening? Is the probability of the mutations occurring in the correct sequence any different from the probability of the mutations occurring all at once?
And can all these mutations plausibly occur in the time available?
Casey Luskin (I know. You're not enthused about the Discovery Institute.) reports on a peer-reviewed article that discusses an objective method for determining plausibility. He asks:
[I]s “mere possibility” sufficient justification to assert “scientific plausibility”? A new peer-reviewed article in Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling asks just this question. The abstract states:
(quote from the paper)
Mere possibility is not an adequate basis
for asserting scientific plausibility. A precisely defined universal bound is needed beyond which the assertion of plausibility, particularly in life-origin models, can be considered operationally falsified. But can something so seemingly relative and subjective as plausibility ever be quantified? Amazingly, the answer is, “Yes.” A method of objectively measuring the plausibility of any chance hypothesis (The Universal Plausibility Metric [UPM]) is presented. A numerical inequality is also provided whereby any chance hypothesis can be definitively falsified when its UPM metric of ΞΎ is < 1 (The Universal Plausibility Principle [UPP]). Both UPM and UPP pre-exist and are independent of any experimental design and data set.
(David L. Abel, “The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) & Principle (UPP),” Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, Vol. 6:27 (Dec. 3, 2009).)
Thought Provoker:
If you haven't figured out by now, I am all for hearing alternate explanations.
Apparently we are having trouble figuring each other out. The purpose of my posts is not to provide alternate explanations.
The purpose of my posts is to ask if the theory of evolution can be considered complete if it has not answered the fundamental plausibility questions that I and others have asked.
Hi #John,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote...
"Thing is, deists or theists are more likely to find out the truth than atheists, because they have not ruled out apriori possible solutions, but are open to all kinds adn to following trails of evidence to where they lead (rather then writing them off as impossible)."
Ken Miller may agree with you.
I happen to think the evidence leads to a quantum-based explanation for life and life processes.
Hi Doublee,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote...
"Apparently we are having trouble figuring each other out. The purpose of my posts is not to provide alternate explanations.
The purpose of my posts is to ask if the theory of evolution can be considered complete..."
I was responding to your statement that ...
"But what is possible is not always plausible. I am asking that the plausibility questions be answered. If the putative mechanism of evolution is not plausible, then an alternatve explanation must be sought."
I agree the Theory of Evolution should not be considered complete and alternative explanations should be sought. So I am seeking alternative explainations.
Thought Provoker:
ReplyDeleteI agree the Theory of Evolution should not be considered complete and alternative explanations should be sought. So I am seeking alternative explainations.
If the theory of evolution is not complete, then in one sense it is premature to seek alternative explanations.
In another sense, seeking an alternative explanation may yield new questions and new insights that may aid in refining the original theory, if not replace it.
The alternative theory I am considering is intelligent design. The fundamental question that intellgent design asks is can random processes build complex things?
The theory of evolution has not answered this question yet. I assume that if it had, we would not be here debating alternative explanations.
Hi Doublee,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote...
"The alternative theory I am considering is intelligent design. The fundamental question that intellgent design asks is can random processes build complex things?
The theory of evolution has not answered this question yet. I assume that if it had, we would not be here debating alternative explanations."
I'm of the opinion that alternative explainations should always be sought. The Theory of Gravity is an example of one that is ripe for being changed.
I don't mind the SCIENCE of Intelligent Design. I have been building and modifying an ID hypothesis for several years now. It involves Quantum Biophysics and Quantum Consciousness.
BTW, I argue true randomness doesn't exist. If it doesn't exist, it is kind of hard to build anything, much less complex things.
Did you get a chance to read the Quantum primer I provided a link to?