Evolution of the eye

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janesixposted 9 years ago
Eyes supposedly evolved over millions of years in stages. If mutations are random, how likely is it that each new part "randomly" evolved in the exact spot it needed to be in to make the eye work?

And for each type of eye, this supposedly happened multiple times independently. That's even MORE unlikely.

Same goes for birds. How likely is it that the same type of animal just happened to evolve feathers, lightweight bones, wings etc, enabling them to fly? Unlikely.

How do you explain these things?
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1. 62
  Claire Evansposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  It's because it's nonsense. Let's see how a hawk survives without 20/20 vision. It would be a disaster.
  
  I think the idea of this evolution is more absurd than believing in intelligent design.
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Start with a flying squirrel (that doesn't actually fly at all). Gradually turn it into a bat. Then add a few feathers and tail. More feathers, lighter bones. Pretty soon you have a bird.
  
  Now I know it didn't happen that way, but it might be an indication of how things evolve.
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  janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Yes, I get that. What I don't get is how things always evolve right where they need to be. New eye parts evolve where they need to be to enhance vision. You don't see corneas evolving on your liver or your elbow. Where do you see a cornea and a lens evolving? Right where they need to be to make vision possible.
  
  Same with flight. feathers evolve on animals that eventually evolve into birds, along with hollow bones and wings.
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  mishpatposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Its all a reasoning process on the part of the creature. For instance, the firefly at one time did not have a "headlight" and kept bumping into trees. After considering the issue, it decided it would either have to fly during the day or evolve with a headlight.
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  janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  That's cute, but something is obviously going on that has nothing to do with random mutations. And it's not God, so there has to be something else.
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Take your "unlikely" and multiply it by millions of years. Then multiply it again by billions or trillions of gametes each year. Suddenly it isn't so "unlikely" at all.
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  janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Then we should have had plenty of time to evolve corneas on our noses, right?
  
  Why did corneas evolve independently multiple times, and always on the eye?
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Who says they DID evolve only on the eye? Maybe there was a cornea on the nose, that nature found to be counter-productive in the race to reproduce.
  
  Don't forget that while mutations may be random, the long term results and reproduction of those mutations most definitely is NOT.
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  janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Creatures get what they need to adapt to their environment. A bacteria needs to be able to digest sugar, the right mutation happens to make that possible. A bacteria needs to swim faster, it evolves more tails to swim faster. Same for higher animals. It's even predictable, there are studies showing this.
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  No, creatures get whatever the forces of mutation give them. Ever seen a two headed calf? A person with but one arm? Not sure, but think the very first hemophiliac was a queen of England. Mutations don't care what it is, it just happens.
  
  Your bacteria may have mutated to have tails in the front. A bird may mutate back to heavy bones.
  
  Whereupon the forces of evolution take over and the bad mutations die out with the positive ones surviving to reproduce. The bacteria and bird die without ever passing the mutation along, and we never see it.
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  janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  How are mutations random if they are predictable?
  
  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/15/scien … .html?_r=0
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  You will never be able to predict the next mutation (unless you cause it via GMO). But it is probably possible to predict that sometime in the next million or so gametes one will survive with this or that mutation that is "clearly" beneficial and easy (simple gene change, not complex). Hard to do, though, considering that every change we make to the environment ends up disastrous.
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  janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Why not? 24 times in 24 tries seems pretty predictable to me. Why wouldn't you predict that the 25th try wouldn't have extra tails?
  
  edit
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Ah, but you are predicting based on knowledge of what nature finds useful. My point was that we can never be sure of that...until AFTER we see the results. We aren't smart enough.
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  janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Or we simply don't know enough yet about how evolution works.
  
  We didn't know much of anything about epigenetics (which show that adaptation isn't all about random mutation) ten years ago, or dna forty years ago. We learn new stuff all the time.
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  No, I don't think it's ALL about random mutation. We know, for instance, that specific chemicals will cause specific mutations. And we certainly learn new stuff all the time.
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  Slarty O'Brianposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Mutation is not random, it's chaotic. The difference being that random can't exist in a cause and effect universe, and chaos is all about order and how the simple quickly becomes the complex.
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  janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Thank you for your correction.
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  janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I know you're smart. Can you address what I said in the OP and tell me why I'm wrong to think what I think?
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  Slarty O'Brianposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Chaos works by simple rules that repeat under changing condition to produce complex systems.
  Weather is a chaotic system we all experience. We can’t predict the weather because it is interconnected with everything going on on the planet. But the weather we get is inevitable because it is based in cause and effect.
  
  Why do all trees not look the same? Every one is different. Yet trees grow by very simple rules: grow a little, and divide. But how it grows is determined by exactly where it stands and all the conditions it endures. Hence no two trees are exactly alike.
  
  Atoms follow one basic rule: they must find their lowest possible output of energy. That goal changes all the time due to the interaction of other atoms. Because of this rule atoms are often forced into mergers with other types of atom. When that happens on the atomic level, new substances become present on this level.
  
  Those substances interact creating new compound substances which interact with others, always gaining in complexity. Each result being inevitable due to every participants nature, as well as that simple first rule that literally effects the behaviour of everything in the universe.
  
  So rather than being unlikely, the bird and they eye and you and me were inevitable though probably not predictable.
  
  And who said the ideal spot for eyes is where they are?
  
  As to dinos, there were plenty of hollow boned ones before there were birds.
  
  I’m not a biologist and wasn’t there as things evolved, and share your wonder and awe at what nature does. But from a physics stand point I have no problem seeing that the nature of what makes us and everything, is a most amazingly creative force capable of all of this just by flawlessly following very simple rules that are it’s nature.
  
  There does not seem to be an outside force required.
  
  Whether there is one or not is anyone’s guess.
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  janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  "And who said the ideal spot for eyes is where they are?"
  
  I was saying the ideal spot for eye parts are on the eye.
  
  Photo receptors develop, then a cup begins to form, then a cornea, lens, etc, all right where they need to be.
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  mishpatposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  And don't forget, they are where they can perceive where you're going, not where you've been. Saves a lot of noggin knots.
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  mishpatposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Ever wonder why there is such a "gap," a series and marked periods of identifiable mutations/evolvements between the creatures of the past and those of today? Can anyone say that things have changed significantly on Earth in the last 6k years? Where is the breakpoint the last 6000 years and the previous eons? It's always "millions of years ago" or in the "jurassic age" and the like or simply "in time past." We are expected to believe without identifiable proofs, there is a link. And, yet, each time a new "link" appears on the books, it is quickly defeated by the alternate camp of the same searchers. And God, well, he doesn't exist, its not His workmanship... but if it is, He certainly screwed things up.
  
  Lord, what fools these mortals be.
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Outside of a bunch of extinctions (mostly caused by man), what big changes are you looking at in the last 6000 years? The ones man domesticated and bred? Something else?
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  mishpatposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I was kinda looking for some connection between the worlds past, if any, and the present world. Seems all present history, Biblical and secular, begins about the time of Eden. There is an huge amount of time between the "verifiable" dinosaurs and the Garden. Then, of course, there are several unexplained time lapses in our present "world", but mainly what happened in the times between Fred Flintstone and Dino, and the present historical age?
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Man learned to talk, communicate and write. He also learned to live in larger groupings, passing along knowledge and history.
  
  Did I understand your question this time?
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  mishpatposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I'm not aware of any reliable sources that indicate "modern" man existed prior to Eden. There is a lot of guesswork, postulate, etc. that would move man back a couple thousand years, but nothing verifiable. So it really comes down to who do you believe, or want to believe, regarding the disagreement. My position is, as usual, the Bible. It is quite a history book and has been proven correct in many instances, by folks trying to disprove it. At the same time, these same naysayers have not been able to find error in it, just distain, which is not a proof of anything.
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Best guess, from scripture, appears to be that Eden was around 8000 years ago. Man migrated to the Americas long before that and were in Australia 30,000 years before. Cave art in Europe far predates that, as does the use of tools. Otzi, in the Alps wasn't much younger, meaning a civilization existed long enough to travel from Africa to there. Does that count as evidence of modern man? If not, what were the differences in skeletal or DNA remains? Or are you merely talking culture, and assuming that the people of Eden had a culture outside of fig leaves?
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  mishpatposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I've seen some of the pictures used to support the extended periods. Similar to those children make in kindergarten.
  
  I don't keep up with the "latest" dates proposed by "science" any longer, other than cursory note of "news" items. But I am glad to see the 8000 year thing. At least they are getting closer in their work.
  
  But where can one find a continuous chronology of man's history for all those time periods? Why are there always those great big gaps of thousands of years and thousands of miles. Seems if man is unchanged in DNA and skeletal construct from the eons past, prior to Eden, and considering all man has done in 6000 years, it would seem plausible that pre-Edenic man would have been able to, at least, construct a printing press let alone a new computer wrist watch. Or is that assuming too much of man and science?
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Can you construct a faster than light drive, and travel to the stars tomorrow (after loading up your food and extra socks?) No? Then you must not be "modern". You have not gathered a sufficient knowledge base to warrant that term.
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  mishpatposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  That is quite a measure. However, I would say that any modern man, that has a "normal" capacity of thought and interest in those things that are possible could accomplish them. Personally, I have no interest in that which does not affect me directly. We speak of "science" here so lets not take too much license with the statement.
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I'm not sure at all that I'm following your line of thought here. It sounds like you're expecting a nomadic tribe of 10 people, fighting for their very survival with stone age spears, to also have the time and inclination to study chemistry and physics while smelting aluminum dug from the bauxite mine 5,000 miles away.
  
  That knowledge builds on knowledge should be a given, as well as that people have not always had the time necessary to devote to learning esoteric (how to improve their spear tip) studies with no practical use.
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  mishpatposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  My point is simple. If something happened before Eden, where are the hard facts that man is man in all ages, DNA and skeletal, as you seem to indicate. We have a few pictographs on a cave wall. Yet, with Eden as the starting point, man was confronted the same obstacles as those you suggest (twice if we use the Flood). In a week or so Apple will come out with a computer watch (praises be to Apple for supplying the necessities of life), all in 6000 years.
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Very true.
  
  Or, with the industrial revolution as the starting point in the 1700's, we went from using nothing but muscle power to making our own power systems. From riding horses to going to the moon. From Oxen pulling single bottom plows to massive 66 bottom plow pulled by a single tractor. From hand shovels to electric digging machines taking a bite the size of a house and literally moving mountains.
  
  And in less than 3,000 years. From making limited use of nature's gifts to designing and constructing our own.
  
  Or...in 100 years we went from travelling by steam engine to flying through the air (and space) at thousands of miles per hour.
  
  OR...in only 70 years we went from fire and moving water as a sole source of energy to harnessing the atom.
  
  The point is that anywhere you choose on man's timeline there is a succession of advances, and that succession is speeding up all the time. You can start 8,000 years ago, you can start 3,000 years ago or you can start 100 years ago. Or a million years ago; whatever the point used, we have developed on an ever steeping curve. Knowledge builds on knowledge, and that early man had a nearly flat knowledge curve simply means that there wasn't much base to grow with yet.
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  mishpatposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  We need a little shift sideways here to get back to the OP, and I am still with the 6000 years.
  
  The various "improvement" you speak of do not seem to include natural catastrophes and set backs do to the greed and avarice of man which we know as war, or annihilation of societies and there advancements simply because they did not fit with the conquerors interests. Had the Vikings, Huns, Mongols and the "church" not done their part in destroying documentation, maybe we would have had Pear Inc. 300 years ago instead of Apple today. (I'm not picking on them, just using a well known for comparative purposes.)
  
  Pictographs and ideographs only show a culture existed, not when. And I have to believe there was little or no advancement, not saying that is bad. To me, it indicates that these cultures did not have the same attributes as modern man.
  
  Now we come to the Bible (again), and my always point, man's relationship to God. Nothing that happened before Eden has any effect on our personal present state with regard to God, including the OP, "Evolution of the Eye." Theories of yesteryears may please or sway the mind, or cause dissension, but they will not change today. And they won't change tomorrow. Only what we do with what we have today will change tomorrow. And "tomorrow" is ever changing.
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  How can you possibly say that nothing prior to 6000 BC had anything to do with a god? We know that people long before that believed in the supernatural and an afterlife - it seems reasonable to think that belief included "gods" of one kind or another. Laying the groundwork for later developments in the field, from the thousands of natural gods to the god of the Jews and everything in between (or after).
  
  While saying that the species changed radically 8,000 years ago satisfies a belief of Eden, history does not support the idea and certainly not the idea that the first god appeared then. And certainly there is nothing to distinguish people of 6000 BC from those of 10,000 BC or even 20,000 years earlier. Outside, of course, the accumulated knowledge of the species that was ever growing.
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  mishpatposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I believe you misunderstand. God has always been there/here. Nothing that happened before Eden is of significance regarding ones personal state before God in the present. Nor will anything earthly that happens after I'm gone be of concern to me. The two become one and of no importance.
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  wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Possibly true (and possibly not - we don't know)...but only if the pre-existing god as assumed to exist. Something else we don't know.
  
  But I do agree that after you're dead none of it will matter in the slightest, at least to you. Others maybe, but not you.
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  61
  mishpatposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Ibid
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  janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  I really don't know what you're saying.
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Cgenaeaposted 9 years ago
I was told that the Lord created, with his hands, in one day, a living being, with dominion and power to rule over everything here... (stop that eyeball rolling... lol)
Could one (or two) logically do that without two perfectly working corneas??? The first man mostly blind??? As a Christian, I don't have MUCH critical thinking in my head but, maybe I misunderstood something? Eyes which had to evolve?
What about feet? I hope feet were not developed first and for eons, man actually DID walk by faith alone.
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1. 61
  janesixposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Do you actually believe God poofed the first man into existence? I hope you're joking.
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  Cgenaeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this
  Nope!!! ...says he poofed the world into existence. Lol... He took his time to shape, fashion, and form the dude. Poofed him some air...
  I know, I know... somebody somewhere tells a better story. But I believe the bible explanation. The particulars almost really don't matter.
  It's classified info.
  They'll keep guessing until...
  reply report

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