Greg Laden's Blog

This doesn't convince me in all honesty. I'm open to the idea of evolution but he leaves a lot to be desired in his explanation. How does the nervous system connect up and how does processing of the image occur? It's all good and well you have photo-receptors in a camera and the lens but how do they all connect up together, process the images and store it on a memory stick without a microprocessor and the wires that connect it all up? Really, his explanation is like he's saying magic occurs and we get a fully functional, perfect eye.

Posted by: Shadow Caster | February 12, 2009 6:27 AM

If you guys want to be taken seriously, please submit your evidence how this could occur. Read this to give you a guideline:

This was an attempt by PZ Myers with a critique of it below:

“This ancient animal probably had very simple eye spots with no image-forming ability, but still needed some diversity in eye function. It needed to be able to sense both slow, long-duration events such as the changing of day into night, and more rapid events, such as the shadow of a predator moving overhead. These two forms arose by a simple gene duplication event and concomitant specialization of association with specific G proteins, which has also been found to require relatively few amino acid changes. This simple molecular divergence has since proceeded by way of the progress of hundreds of millions of years and amplification of a cascade of small changes into the multitude of diverse forms we see now. There is a fundamental unity that arose early, but has been obscured by the accumulation of evolutionary change. Even the eyes of a scorpion carry an echo of our kinship, not in their superficial appearance, but deep down in the genes from which they are built.”
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/03/eyeing_the_evolutionary_past.php?page=3

Critique:

1. “ … but still needed some diversity in eye function. It needed to be able to sense …”
An organism senses a need? This suggests that a particular need produces change:
“Contrary to a widespread public impression, biological evolution is not random, even though the biological changes that provide the raw material for evolution are not directed toward predetermined, specific goals.”
“Science, Evolution, and Creationism,” 2008, National Academy of Sciences (NAS), The National Academies Press, 3rd edition, page 50.
2. “ … very simple eye spots,”
Refer to above “Example #1.”
3. “ … simple gene duplication event”
There is NO scientific proof that gene duplication can create genes with more complex functions. Research papers reflect this admission by using words “most likely”:
“Duplicate gene evolution has most likely played a substantial role in both the rapid changes in organismal complexity apparent in deep evolutionary splits and the diversification of more closely related species. The rapid growth in the number of available genome sequences presents diverse opportunities to address important outstanding questions in duplicate gene evolution.”
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2F
journal.pbio.0020206&ct=1&SESSID=9999360a804131d0f0009da33ced0db9
An erroneous example cited is the claim that, over 100 million years ago, two genes of the yeast S. cerevisiae supposedly evolved from one gene of another specie of yeast (K. lactis).
Refer to:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7163/abs/nature06151.html
What is the evidence for their claim? Nothing but the presupposition that Darwinism is true so the very existence of two genes that total the same functions of the one gene proves that they must have evolved from each other:
”The primary evidence that duplication has played a vital role in the evolution of new gene functions is the widespread existence of gene families.”
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2F
journal.pbio.0020206&ct=1&SESSID=9999360a804131d0f0009da33ced0db9
Also, what Darwinists fail to present is a feasible step-by-step scenario how each gene could:
- split their functions in a precise manner so that neither function would be disabled until ‘random chance’ completed the event;
- become fixed in the population during each new step:
“A duplicated gene newly arisen in a single genome must overcome substantial hurdles before it can be observed in evolutionary comparisons. First, it must become fixed in the population, and second, it must be preserved over time. Population genetics tells us that for new alleles, fixation is a rare event, even for new mutations that confer an immediate selective advantage. Nevertheless, it has been estimated that one in a hundred genes is duplicated and fixed every million years (Lynch and Conery 2000), although it should be clear from the duplication mechanisms described above that it is highly unlikely that duplication rates are constant over time.”
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2F
journal.pbio.0020206&ct=1&SESSID=9999360a804131d0f0009da33ced0db9
4. “concomitant specialization”
This apparently means that, “rather than having two copies of a gene do two things poorly, they both specialize on one substrate.”
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/03/pz-meyers-casey.html#
more Comment #145689
Evolutionists devise all sorts of redundant and scientific sounding terms when they want to make something sound complicated. This term adds nothing to describe how the genetic process occurred.
5. “of association with specific G proteins”
Because of the split in function between the two genes, the molecular switch (G protein) must also be modified to coincide with the specific regulation needed to precisely regulate the new gene. There is NO explanation of how that might occur:
• “Moreover, in order for the organism to respond to an every-changing environment, intercellular signals must be transduced, amplified, and ultimately converted to the appropriate physiological response.”
http://edrv.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/24/6/765
See movie on G-proteins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB7YfAvez3o&feature=related

Posted by: who is your creator | February 12, 2009 8:21 AM