“Evidence”(?) for the evolution of the vision system
“Evidence”(?) for the evolution of the vision system
Andrea Bottaro said the following over at the panda’s thumb:
IOW the only evidence for the evolution of the vision system is that we have observed varying degrees of complexity in living organisms, from simple light sensitive spots on unicellular organisms to the vision system of more complex metazoans, and we “know” that the first population(s) of living organisms didn’t have either. Therefore the vision system “evolved”.
Isn’t evolutionary “science” great!
I say the above because if Dr Bottaro is correct then we really have no idea whether or not the vision system could have evolved from a population or populations that did not have one.
Andrea Bottaro said the following over at the panda’s thumb:
Eyes are formed via long and complex developmental genetic networks/cascades, which we are only beginning to understand, and of which Pax6/eyeless (the gene in question, in mammals and Drosophila, respectively) merely constitutes one of the initial elements.
IOW the only evidence for the evolution of the vision system is that we have observed varying degrees of complexity in living organisms, from simple light sensitive spots on unicellular organisms to the vision system of more complex metazoans, and we “know” that the first population(s) of living organisms didn’t have either. Therefore the vision system “evolved”.
Isn’t evolutionary “science” great!
I say the above because if Dr Bottaro is correct then we really have no idea whether or not the vision system could have evolved from a population or populations that did not have one.
posted by Joe G @ 7:37 AM
11 Comments:
At 8:27 PM,
Unknown said…
Do you think your god fairy magically created eyes?
At 7:20 AM,
Joe G said…
What "god fairy"?
I was unaware that I had one so if you could please support yor ignorance laiden claim that would help.
However that is a moot point.
MY point is that no one can claim that the vision system "evolved" from a population or populations that never had one if no one can demonstrate what is required- ie what stretches of DNA- to form the vision system.
And it is obvious that bob is clueless because if he knew all he had to do is post it and refute my claim.
Yet all he can do is make up a straw man and post that.
At 5:09 PM,
Joe G said…
I wonder if the bob fairy thinks that Stonehenge was also created "magically"?
The bob fairy probably thinks that engineers use magic to design and build their respective projects.
No, fairy bobmother, only the anti-ID position requires magic.
At 5:35 PM,
Rich Hughes said…
"No, fairy bobmother, only the anti-ID position requires magic."
Although I see you recently got schooled that ID requires a supernatural explanation!
At 5:38 PM,
Hermagoras said…
Hi Joe! I went over to the link and noticed that you didn't mention anything about the article you quote, a brutal smackdown of the latest book by Giuseppe Sermonti, an author you've cited approvingly. How about the sentence that precedes your quote? "[Sermonti's] argument is so intellectually and scientifically crude, any college student armed with an introductory developmental biology textbook would be able to debunk it." Ouch!
At 6:24 PM,
Joe G said…
Hi Rich!
No, ID does not require a supernatural explanation.
At 6:28 PM,
Joe G said…
hermagoras,
It would have been a smackdown had Bottaro presented some actual data that shows we know what determines form.
But heck he admits no one knows what is responsible for our eyes!!!
Ya see hermy- I consider the source. And Bottaro isn't in any position to smackdown anyone.
All his "review" amounts to is whining.
At 8:44 PM,
Rich Hughes said…
Can you expound a bit between "natural", "non-natural" and "Supernatural"?
At 6:54 AM,
Joe G said…
Rich,
Can YOU explain why YOUR position doesn't also regress to something beyond nature?
Can you expound a bit between "natural", "non-natural" and "Supernatural"?
Buy a dictionary.
At 6:56 AM,
Joe G said…
But Doesn't Intelligent Design Refer to Something Supernatural?:
From an ID perspective, the natural-vs.-supernatural distinction is irrelevant. The real contrast is not between natural laws and miracles, but between undirected natural causes and intelligent ones.
Mathematician and philosopher of science William Dembski puts it this way: "Whether an intelligent cause is located within or outside nature (i.e., is respectively natural or supernatural) is a separate question from whether an intelligent cause has operated."
Human actions are a case in point: "Just as humans do not perform miracles every time they act as intelligent agents, so there is no reason to assume that for a designer to act as an intelligent agent requires a violation of natural laws."
On the other hand, even if an object were miraculously created, it could still be studied. Take the flagellum, for example. No matter what its origins, a flagellum is a flagellum. We can take it apart, we can examine its components, we can modify it, we can figure out how it works. And we can do that whether it evolved over eons or popped into existence two seconds ago.
In the world of human technology, this is called reverse engineering. But the same process is also used in biology.
"That’s basically what everybody at the bench is doing," said Scott Minnich, a microbiologist at the University of Idaho. "We don’t have the blueprints in the true sense. We have the DNA code for a lot of organisms, but in terms of the assembly of these molecular machines, it’s a matter of breaking them apart and trying to put them back together to figure out how they function."
This is also the kind of work that will be done with the human genome. Speaking to the New York Times in late June, when the human genome breakthrough was announced, Harold Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health commented, "The important thing is having pieces of DNA in your hand, and being able to figure out how they work by modifying and mutating them. That's where the game is now."
Fittingly, the metaphor he used to describe this process was examining a clock: "You can take the clock apart, lay the pieces out in front of you, and then try to understand what makes it tick by putting it back together again."
At 6:57 AM,
Joe G said…
But anyways- back to the topic of this thread.
I understand why Richie and hermie would want to change the subject, but that will not happen any longer.
Stay on topic or don't bother posting.
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