Vision and Evolution (A Critique of Dawkins)

[Nay_Sayer]

It is amusing. Next weekend, I will be on a road trip with three compadres. 

There will be me, the accredited engineer,
The actual tenured professor from a university.
The graduate from a business uni who makes more loot than any of us combined.
And a pure mathemetician.

In order, we will refer to each other as ...
Glorified electrician.
Cheesemonger.
Crap chef
Traitor to the ECB.

Point is that our crank du jour somehow thinks that qualifications are somehow holy. And they are not. The only explanation for that is that he/she is unable to get one. 
Or alternately, crank du jour reverses and says qualifications mean nothing. He/she can't make up it's mind

As evidence? Well the stream of moronic posts borne out of jealousy.

It is at least a little sad, but my sympathy has a limit.

Lol I agree, qualifications aren't holy. Though not as irrelevant as religion to this conversation, they don't affect how true any of the statements on this thread are. But its understandable why the forum would ask me what degree I had, where I went to school, and such, so I've told them what seemed relevant.

But hey, given that I don't need my degree to defend my arguments let's do this. From now on, my education level is just a basic high school diploma. I just tore up my degree (you'll have to take my word for it, I already threw it away). So there, I'm not Christian, and I'm uneducated. Let's proceed with the conversation.

---

Good luck getting that out of him.

Evolution isn't a political stance one can take a position on. Its just a scientific theory; its a tool for formulating hypothesis and explaining bodies of observation.

http://www.notjustatheory.com/

Ramen.

[chimp3]

[quote pid='1924218' dateline='1565010372']

Again, John, I ask you to support this statement. You are proficient enough in shifting the burden of proof. Please explain why the eye and the neural network must evolve simultaneously in order to convey any advantage. This is your claim.

I wouldn't say they need to evolve simultaneously to convey an advantage, only that both need to be present for the system to work. Evolutionists are great at imagining advantages out of thin air, so for all I know even cancer of the retina has some advantage. So perhaps evolving cones, even without a brain that can represent color, has the advantage of making the eye heavier, even though it has no advantage in terms of color vision (assuming heavier eyes are for whatever reason advantageous, perhaps females love males with droopy eyes,  I'm not as creative as evolutionists, sadly).
[/quote]

How do "heavier" eyes make your eyes droopy? LOL!

[Abaddon_ire]

@John 6IX Breezy

Go on then, and get an advanced degree in evolutionary biology. When you’re done, come back and share with us idiots what you’ve learned. I can’t be sure, but I have a feeling that your course work wouldn’t be encompassed by ten teachers standing in a lecture hall, telling you, “there’s no way the human eye could have evolved, LOL! Here’s your diploma.”

I'd love to get such a degree. Would you able to make a donation so we can make that happen?

And there we have it. You simply cannot be arsed putting in the effort. You want somebody, anybody to donate it to you. 

Well news flash. Nobody can donate you a fucking brain.

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

Wait.

Is Mr Breezy now asking how all the different bits of the eye (Though they really should specify which one or 'Type'. Molusc, Insect, Trilobite, Nautilus, Mammal etc so people at least have a ghost of a chance for giving an answer.) came about?

Jus' sayin'.

Yes and no; I am interested in how all the different bits of the eye came about, so long as the rest of the visual system is accounted for. I am interested in the human eye, but don't mind discussing any other's for simplicity.

So in general, I was expecting two different responses from the forum. The first are people arguing that you don't need the rest of the visual system for the eye to evolve, making Dawkins-like narratives good reference. The second are people that agree with me that its misleading and the whole system needs to be accounted for together, and want to present any paper that outlines the evolution of vision not just the eye, or wants to present their own hypothesis of how it happened

Sadly, I didn't realize how shell-shocked the forum would be with religion; so a simple, straight-forward conversation on the evolution of vision has been difficult.

---

 Well... you don't need 'everything' or 'the rest' of the 'system'.

My pointing out an animal that pretty much just has eyes driving it's motive system with no nervous system in between is an example of that.

Then you have the critters that have managed to develope mulitple, different, eye systems at the same time along with  a neural system.

As I think has been pointed out before.

Things started off pretty much at the chemical level.
Then things developed into a cellular level (Singular)
Then multiple cells aggregated untill they became so interdependant as to be a 'whole' comprised of many parts.
It's during this development that the many developing/specializing cells did their seperate things along side one another.
So... visual systems developing along side neural systems (Generally).

The 'Eye as camera' is but one of many sensory systems. Of which there are about a dozen (Half a dozen ?) litterally different types of eye 'types'.

Along with and besides visual sensory systems that don't use eyes at all....

I don't agree with you that Dawkin's 'Every man' explanation of eye development is misleading.

His Youtube comments are at the same level as telling children that "The world is round".

The statement is really, roughly true.
But you can express it in language that's far closer to reflecting reality such as "The Earth is an oblate sphereoid".

Both are correct.... For a very different level of 'closest to reality'.


As an aside... what are your thoughts on organisms that don't have eyes...But others of the same species do have eyes?

---

Evolution isn't a political stance one can take a position on. Its just a scientific theory; its a tool for formulating hypothesis and explaining bodies of observation.

Wait?

Isn't this completely @ss backwards?

You come up with an hypothesis.... Do tests, experiments etc and... should said hypothesis survive falsification it's accepeted as a theory?

Which is always subject to being continuously tested TO try and continue to falsify said theory?

Cheers.

Not at work.

[Abaddon_ire]

It is amusing. Next weekend, I will be on a road trip with three compadres. 

There will be me, the accredited engineer,
The actual tenured professor from a university.
The graduate from a business uni who makes more loot than any of us combined.
And a pure mathemetician.

In order, we will refer to each other as ...
Glorified electrician.
Cheesemonger.
Crap chef
Traitor to the ECB.

Point is that our crank du jour somehow thinks that qualifications are somehow holy. And they are not. The only explanation for that is that he/she is unable to get one. 
Or alternately, crank du jour reverses and says qualifications mean nothing. He/she can't make up it's mind

As evidence? Well the stream of moronic posts borne out of jealousy.

It is at least a little sad, but my sympathy has a limit.

Lol I agree, qualifications aren't holy. Though not as irrelevant as religion to this conversation, they don't affect how true any of the statements on this thread are. But its understandable why the forum would ask me what degree I had, where I went to school, and such, so I've told them what seemed relevant.

But hey, given that I don't need my degree to defend my arguments let's do this. From now on, my education level is just a basic high school diploma. I just tore up my degree (you'll have to take my word for it, I already threw it away). So there, I'm not Christian, and I'm uneducated. Let's proceed with the conversation.

---

Good luck getting that out of him.

Evolution isn't a political stance one can take a position on. Its just a scientific theory; its a tool for formulating hypothesis and explaining bodies of observation.

Gravity is "just a theory". Wanna go walk off your nearest cliff? After all, gravity is "just a theory". Should be a breeze to you.

[John 6IX Breezy]

http://www.notjustatheory.com/

Ramen.

My bad, its "triumphantly" just a theory. Thanks.

---

Gravity is "just a theory". Wanna go walk off your nearest cliff? After all, gravity is "just a theory". Should be a breeze to you.

Gravity isn't a theory lol. Its a natural phenomenon that different theories have tried to explain (i.e. general relativity?).

[GrandizerII]

http://www.notjustatheory.com/

Ramen.

My bad, its "triumphantly" just a theory. Thanks.

---

Gravity is "just a theory". Wanna go walk off your nearest cliff? After all, gravity is "just a theory". Should be a breeze to you.

Gravity isn't a theory lol. Its a natural phenomenon that different theories have tried to explain (i.e. general relativity?).

So is evolution.

[John 6IX Breezy]

---

Evolution isn't a political stance one can take a position on. Its just a scientific theory; its a tool for formulating hypothesis and explaining bodies of observation.

Wait?

Isn't this completely @ss backwards?

You come up with an hypothesis.... Do tests, experiments etc and... should said hypothesis survive falsification it's accepeted as a theory?

Which is always subject to being continuously tested TO try and continue to falsify said theory?

Cheers.

Not at work.

No, although you are correct that hypotheses are what you run tests and experiments with, they don't generally become theories thereafter (at least not directly or as a consequence of passing the experiment).

Theories tend to have a different purpose than hypotheses, they have an explanatory role. Take sunrises and sunsets for example, these are observations we can make given our vantage point. A theory can be built to explain these observations, in fact we can even make more than one. My theory might explain the observation by suggesting the earth is stationary and the sun orbits around it; whereas your theory might say the sun is stationary and the earth orbits around it as it revolves around its own axis.

From those theories we can begin deducing hypotheses that we can run tests on, and allow us to falsify each theory. For example, given your theory that the earth orbits the sun, we can hypothesis that there is a parallax effect when looking out at the stars. In other words that the distance between them shifts from side to side as the earth moves back and forth, similar to how you see things shift when you close each eye back and forth. My theory wouldn't make such a prediction since a stationary earth doesn't produce a parallax effect, like having just one eye open.

So we can run the experiment, make measures between the stars throughout the year, and see if there's a parallax. If there is, then my theory is falsified. I can either discard it, or modify it to account for the new data.

[Peebothuhlu]

No, although you are correct that hypotheses are what you run tests and experiments with, they don't generally become theories thereafter (at least not directly or as a consequence of passing the experiment).

Theories tend to have a different purpose than hypotheses, they have an explanatory role. Take sunrises and sunsets for example, these are observations we can make given our vantage point. A theory can be built to explain these observations, in fact we can even make more than one. My theory might explain the observation by suggesting the earth is stationary and the sun orbits around it, whereas your theory might say the sun in stationary an the earth orbits around it while revolving around its own axis.

From those theories we can begin deducing hypotheses that we can run tests on, and allow us to falsify each theory. For example, given your theory that the earth orbits the sun, we can hypothesis that there is a parallax effect when looking out at the stars. In other words that the distance between them shifts from side to side as the earth moves back and forth, similar to how you see things shift when you close each eye back and forth. My theory wouldn't make such a prediction since a stationary earth doesn't produce a parallax effect, like having just one eye open.

So we can run the experiment, make measures between the stars throughout the year, and see if there's a parallax. If there is, then my theory is falsified. I can either discard it, or modify it to account for the new data.

 Nooo... I definately think you're doing it wrong.

 



  I'll let those of a scientific bent weigh in on the finer points of the matter however.

Now... about those brainless eyed critters and those critters who don't use their eyes to respond to their environment....

Not at work.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Now... about those brainless eyed critters and those critters who don't use their eyes to respond to their environment....

Not at work.

I thought I already responded to that elsewhere, but its ok. First, keep in mind we're talking about how things change or evolve. Pointing to a species with brains and no eyes isn't useful unless you're using them as a predictive step in our evolution, for example. What good is a species with no eyes, in a discussion about eyes lol. Clarify that for me a little more, so we're on the same page. For now my answer is that brains can do other things besides seeing. And as far as eyes with no brains, I would ask if you're using brains in a specific sense, or as a general description of whatever processes information? Are you talking about organisms with eyes whose visual information leads absolutely nowhere?

But I agree that Dawkins' video is meant for children, I believe they are Christimas lectures even lol; I've said previously that my statements shouldn't be controversial.