RE: The Missing Link and the Irreducible Complexity of the Eye
May 8, 2017 at 9:42 pm
(This post was last modified: May 8, 2017 at 9:57 pm by Thumpalumpacus.)
(May 8, 2017 at 11:52 am)alpha male Wrote: Yes, if: a cell becomes photosensitive through a copying error; the cell is hooked by nerves to a brain; and, the brain by chance directs useful behavior based on the information from the cell, then you have something. Needing all those things is why it's irreducibly complex. You could have a photosensitive cell on your elbow right now. It wouldn't change a thing, because your brain isn't wired to process input from your elbow visually. If the evolutionary view is true we should have eyes on the back of our heads or in other places.
Consider: Most animals having a neurosystem have nerves at the skin for heat detection. The odds are that that photosensitive cell would be linked to a nerve at one point or another. And given the complexity of even nonhuman brains, and their plasticity, I don't see that a scaffold has not already been built.
(May 8, 2017 at 1:34 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: The question isn't always whether there is or is not a developmental path for a feature; but rather, whether or not it is possible to overcome the physical constraints to get there within the time it supposedly took to develop. It doesn't seem like anyone really knows how many fitness-enhancing mutations must happen and if that number can be attained by chance alone.
Given the fact that evolution works in populations, based on the intermingling of genetic material through sex, it's obvious that even when you're working on chance alone, you must compute the odds in parallel, rather than serially. The larger the population, the more likely the mutations are, and the larger the pool they have in which they may spread -- and more importantly, interact.
Also, when you consider that the time that evolution has had on Earth is now suspected to be upwards of three billion years, working on enormous numbers of "dice rolls", it doesn't strike me as "peculiar" that complex life might arise.
Is it likely? Your guess is as good as mine. But we're certain that it has happened in at least one instance.
(May 8, 2017 at 2:52 pm)alpha male Wrote:(May 8, 2017 at 2:49 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: WELL DUH.
So you're just assuming that the information would automatically lead to advantageous behavior?
When early (read: before procreation) death culls the stupid, sure.
