Saturday, January 25, 2014

The Brittlestar’s Distributed and Multifunctional Vision System

“Optimized by Phototropic Chromatophores”

Biology is full of unique and exotic solutions that appear in only one or a few species and a good example of this the brittlestar’s vision system. “System” is a good word for the vision capability in this relative of the starfish, for its arms are covered with precisely aligned microscopic calcite domes—structures that also serve as lenses, focusing light before it reaches photoreceptors. Here is how a 2001 paper described this finding:

The lens array is designed to minimize spherical aberration and birefringence and to detect light from a particular direction. The optical performance is further optimized by phototropic chromatophores that regulate the dose of illumination reaching the receptors. These structures represent an example of a multifunctional biomaterial that fulfills both mechanical and optical functions.

Designed? Optimized? An example of a multifunctional material? As one researcher exclaimed, “It's astonishing that this organic creature can manipulate inorganic matter with such precision - and yet it's got no brain.” Another research explained just how unique this design is:

It's bizarre - there's nothing else that I know of that has lenses built into its general body surface.

Nothing in biology makes sense in the light of evolution.

[h/t uncommondescent]
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7 comments:

  1. UnknownJanuary 25, 2014 at 1:54 PM

    Designed? Optimized?

    That's right. Try and describe these phenomena without employing teleological terminology. We are social animals so it's hardly surprising that our languages have evolved to describe the world around us in terms of intelligent agency. That is what we are dealing with most often. It doesn't mean we are all believers in Intelligent Design, however.

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    Replies
    1. Joe GJanuary 29, 2014 at 4:25 AM

      So we are too stupid to evolve the proper language? You would think that if our existence was due ti unguided processes that would just flow from our laguage.

      It's as if we were really designed by a designer...

      Delete
    2. UnknownJanuary 29, 2014 at 4:58 PM

      Joe G January 29, 2014 at 4:25 AM
      So we are too stupid to evolve the proper language? You would think that if our existence was due ti unguided processes that would just flow from our laguage.

      Just what would you expect to flow from our language if it was due to unguided processes?

      It's as if we were really designed by a designer...

      If we were, it looks like the work of a curate's egg of a designer.

      Delete
    3. Joe GJanuary 30, 2014 at 4:35 AM

      Ian, I don't expect anything but disease and functional failures from unguided evolution. And seeing that YOU cannot design any better does that make you less than a turtle's egg?

      It must. Nice job.

      Delete
  2. Glenn JJanuary 25, 2014 at 5:34 PM

    If it looks like a duck....etc..

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  3. UnknownJanuary 26, 2014 at 1:13 PM

    The Intelligent Designer is a DUCK? That certainly has the merit of novelty.

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  4. MSEEJanuary 31, 2014 at 9:58 AM

    Just what would you expect to flow from our language if it was due to unguided processes?

    I would expect what I have actually noticed all of my adult life. That scientists and journalists have been 'front-loading' phrases such as "have evolved" , "has evolved" "evolved" into every niok and cranny of every written piece on living things. That Instead of just writing 'is characterized by' or 'features' or 'contains' or 'has a remarkable ability'.

    Yes there has been a monumental effort by darwinists for many decades to push our language into an anti-design contextual framework but sometimes it all breaks down into absurdity.

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