Irreducible Complexity.

[Tiberius]

The eye is the most commonly used (and un-refuted) example of a bad design in humans. Our eye flips the image upside-down, sends it to the brain, which then has to flip it back the other way in order to process it. This does not show "design", it shows incompetence...or "Evolution".

Another few bad designs (in humans anyway) include the oesophagus, which allows both air and food / water down. The problem with this is that food can get accidentally sent down the "wrong tube" and into the lungs, causing choking. Many evolutionary biologists have come up with "improvements" on this system, ranging from having separate tubes, to having a single tube but repositioning the entry to the lungs. Either way, we seem to have out-designed our "designer".

[CoxRox]

Adrian, I've just been checking my book 'The Case for a Creator' - Lee Strobel and he mentions the supposed bad design of the eye. In chapter 4 he interviews Stephen C. Meyer Phd and they discuss the eye. Meyer in response to Strobel remarking about the 'botched design' says:
' There's an important physiological reason as to why the retina has to be inverted in the eye....Within the overall design of the system, it's a trade-off that allows the eye to process the vast amount of oxygen it needs in vertebrates. Yes, this creates a slight blind spot, but that's not a problem because people have two eyes and two blind spots don't overlap. Actually, the eye is an incredible design.'

The book also goes on to mention biologist George Ayoub a professor whose expertise is the cellular physiology of the retina, who wrote an article to refute the claim that the eye was badly created. Ayoub concludes:

'The vertebrate retina provides an excellent example of functional - though non-intuitive - design. The design of the retina is responsible for its high acuity and sensitivity. It is simply untrue that the retina is demonstrably suboptimal, nor is it easy to conceive how it might be modified without significantly decreasing its function.'


I'm checking to see if I can find anything about the air way problems.

regards Catherine

[leo-rcc]

Catherine,

I am sure you are aware that the retina is basically the wrong way round with the light sensitive parts pointing the wrong way?

Another example: In African locust, the nerve cells that connect to the wings originate in the abdomen, even though the wings are in the thorax. This strange "wiring" is the result of the abdomen nerves being co-opted for use in flight. A good designer would not have flight nerves travel down the ventral nerve cord past their target, then backtrack through the organism to where they are needed. Using more materials than necessary is not good design particularly in flying organisms where every gram of weight counts.

[CoxRox]

Leo, if a god did design us, there must be a good reason why the retina is inverted: I've found this article: http://www.trueorigin.org/retina.asp which mentions '..the need for protection of the retina against the injurious effects of light, particularly with the shorter wavelengths, and of the heat generated by focused light necessitates the inverted configuration of the retina in creatures possessing it.'

Another interesting article on the University of Cambridge's web site:

http://www.pom.cam.ac.uk/research/guidinglight.html (An advanced understanding of the 'inverted retina' has now been revealed by Dr Jochen Guck, newly arrived at the Cavendish Laboratory, while working with a team of scientists at the University of Leipzig, Germany.)

I've a very limited knowledge of things biological, so your opinion on these articles would be most welcome.

[Tiberius]

CoxRox,

Very interesting article concerning the way the eye is wired, but unfortunately it does not help explain my original point about how the signal is sent to the brain (i.e. inverted), which is still a bad design. Meyer and Strobel are not biologists, so I fail to see how anything they say is not simply a result of their faith.

[CoxRox]

Hi Adrian, does the Cambridge University article not cover this?

[Tiberius]

No, the Cambridge article covers why the light receptors are back to front, not why the image is sent to the brain the wrong way around. It explains why there is no distortion in the image (when science originally thought there would be), because each cell channels the light down. The image is sent to the brain the wrong way around because of the lens used (see picture below)



The current explanation for this by Evolution is that the eye started off more like (A), which didn't invert the image, and then evolved into (B), developing a lens and flipping the image. However instead of rewiring the eye to make the image send to the brain correctly, the brain evolved to interpret the picture the other way up. The Evolutionary step to (D) also kept the brain's interpretation.

The "better" design is quite obviously rewiring the eye, because all you would have to do would be to rotate the retina (and all connections going into the optic nerve) by 180 degrees. This would mean the picture is sent perfectly to the brain, where no processing is needed. It's a simple change that makes seeing a much more efficient process. Of course, Evolution doesn't work like this.

Here is a Java applet to help understand how we see: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/...index.html

I found a load of information collected here: http://www.educypedia.be/education/senseseye.htm
One of the links on the above page contained a massive amount of interesting info: http://webvision.med.utah.edu/

[leo-rcc]

Hey Catherine,

Leo, if a god did design us, there must be a good reason why the retina is inverted

That to me ranks right up there with "The lord works in mysterious ways". The fact is that there are many other configurations that would have resulted in a better eye than the one we have now, gives you two possibilities:

1. The designer had no clue how to do it better, making her not omnipotent.

2. The design is not a design at all, but a very gradual rearranging and rewiring of existing parts, where perfection never gets obtained but leaves you with an advantage over other species with even less perfect eyes.

[CoxRox]

Hi Adrian and Leo,

I'll read your links Adrian and come back to you. Leo, I see what you're saying. I'll check these points and come back to you both.

[Jason Jarred]

Aarrrrgghh! I can't believe I'm say this but... Leo that's a false dichotomy in my view and not entirely correctl. Let's be completely objective and distance ourselves from the usual theist/atheist struggles. If I had to assess the situation I would start with the following possibilities.

Either:
1) God exists (and created everything, assumedly)
2) God does not exist

If number 1 is true, then the following possibilities might folllow:

1) God did not know how to design the eye better
2) God knew how to design the eye better, but had a reason for not doing so

I hate this arguement as much as any other atheist, but I think you have to aknowledge that the possibility exists even if it is incredibly remote.
Let's pretend God exists, that we've found evidence that proves his existence and he created all of nature. I'm certain that those of us who were atheists would not discontinue our scientific approach, we would accept that yes - he seems to exist, now let us examine *why* he has done such a bad job. But that then is getting into the realm of assessing God's character, judgement and personality isn't it? And how could we possibly do that unless we spoke to him? Unless we were able to assess and test him *directly*?

In short, if God existed the possibility exists that he would deliberately design things in a less than optimal manner for reasons that only he would know. However it's silly to proceed down that path before determining and proving his existence, which hasn't been achieved yet.

To warp up my thoughts... the burden of proof still lies on theists to prove the existence of God before anything can be attributed to him.