For Christians (or anyone else) who deny Darwinian evolution.

[The Grand Nudger]

I missed the part where you explain how the eye and the associated neural function developed through successive small changes where both are needed to provide a survival benefit. Further, just recognizing light is not a survival benefit. The organism has to be able to do something about it. So, what function evolved first when all three require the others for any survival benefit? 

Tell that to plants.  They don't recognize light, they can't "do anything" about it, they have no nervous system whatsoever...and yet the chemical inevitability of auxin transfer means that they grow toward and track the sun....a hell of a survival benefit for a photosynthesizing organism.

All that's required for auxin transfer to be beneficial is for auxin to be a photophobic growth hormone..which it is. As far as we can tell, auxin was present in the algae forerunners of plants and not at all used for phototropism, but a much more general form of regulating morphogenesis.

A plants photosynthetic apparatus is a collection of modified light sensitive cells, supported by photophobic morphogens capable of conferring benefits without the addition of any of those other things you imagine to be so crucial for eye spots to be a survival advantage.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Richard Dawkins explains the process of how the eye evolved (and a visual representation of a fitness landscape I mentioned earlier)





Specific examples of how it actually happened with references:






Or are you going to claim the links don't work like last time Stevell so you continue to pretend that the steps aren't known?

If so then there is a wikipedia article for it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

Or if you want to laugh at a wikipedia article not being trustworthy, then why not use google scholar to look for a book on the subject?

https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&l...ed&f=false

... which you can buy on amazon

Evolution's Witness: How eyes evolved

You may wonder how I found all these links. Well I use a web browser you see and there are things called search engines. If I type in a question or a particular subject into a little box in my web browser or go to the web page of the search engine, then the search engines will give me a whole load of relevant links. It's pretty amazing. I reckon it must be magic. I would suggest that you should try it some day but you are staying deliberately ignorant.

If you have trouble clicking on links because your sensori-motor coordination means that it is difficult for you to place a mouse cursor over a link and click then I am sure we can copy and paste some relevant text.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...160756.htm

[SteveII]

I missed the part where you explain how the eye and the associated neural function developed through successive small changes where both are needed to provide a survival benefit. Further, just recognizing light is not a survival benefit. The organism has to be able to do something about it. So, what function evolved first when all three require the others for any survival benefit? 

Tell that to plants.  They don't recognize light, they can't "do anything" about it, they have no nervous system whatsoever...and yet the chemical inevitability of auxin transfer means that they grow toward and track the sun....a hell of a survival benefit for a photosynthesizing organism.

All that's required for auxin transfer to be beneficial is for auxin to be a photophobic growth hormone..which it is.  As far as we can tell, auxin was present in the algae forerunners of plants and not at all used for phototropism, but a much more general form of regulating morphogenesis.

A plants photosynthetic apparatus is a collection of modified light sensitive cells, supported by photophobic morphogens capable of conferring benefits without the addition of any of those other things you imagine to be so crucial for eye spots to be a survival advantage.

I was not talking about light spots. I specifically said "eye and associated neural functions" as an exact quote of DBP's statement: "From there you can evolve the eye and associated neural functions." A magic wand was waived and I want details how component systems evolved functions when they are dependent on each other to confer a survival benefit. 

[The Grand Nudger]

Your own ignorance leads you to separate the two. Your eye is a modified light spot. Light spots are modified photoreceptive cells. The lineage is positively ancient, it goes back to the nexus between plants and animals...and it's been providing a survival advantage all the way along. This is what eye spots developed out of in the first place. I suppose it might seem strange to you that a trees leaves and your eyes share a developmental pathway, but they do - the opsins which your eye is built out of came to you by way of your blue green algae ancestors, and the same is true of a leaves chloroplasts. Your's have since been replaced by type 2 opsin, while plants largely diverged out to phytochrome.

[Sal]

Tell that to plants.  They don't recognize light, they can't "do anything" about it, they have no nervous system whatsoever...and yet the chemical inevitability of auxin transfer means that they grow toward and track the sun....a hell of a survival benefit for a photosynthesizing organism.

All that's required for auxin transfer to be beneficial is for auxin to be a photophobic growth hormone..which it is.  As far as we can tell, auxin was present in the algae forerunners of plants and not at all used for phototropism, but a much more general form of regulating morphogenesis.

A plants photosynthetic apparatus is a collection of modified light sensitive cells, supported by photophobic morphogens capable of conferring benefits without the addition of any of those other things you imagine to be so crucial for eye spots to be a survival advantage.

I was not talking about light spots. I specifically said "eye and associated neural functions" as an exact quote of DBP's statement: "From there you can evolve the eye and associated neural functions." A magic wand was waived and I want details how component systems evolved functions when they are dependent on each other to confer a survival benefit. 

What's stopping co-current systems evolving at the same time? If they're dependent of the other, both think of it as an AND function, where the off-spring that has both the increments "neural functions" and "eye function" have a better chance of furthering their genes than off-spring that only have 1 of the benefits. It's not that hard to understand.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think that Steve might not understand the importance of morphogenic regulation when it comes to making all those other things he thinks are required for an eye, or eyespot, or light spot, or photoreceptive cell to be beneficial.  Morphogens are the things that control the shape of an organism.  Asking how morphogens could attach a flagella to an eyespot, for example..is ludicrous..that's -exactly- what they do. Morphogens are what;s responsible for flagella in the first place, and morphogenic regulation is one of the most archaic functions of the compounds associated with light sensitive cells and apparatus. Not only do we know that they performed this function in the ancient past, they continue to perform this function today.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Seems you ignored the evolutionist who couldn't make things fit because of the information at hand.

Because these points you make are not worth responding to. It just adds noise to the discussion, which is what religionists want because it means that it looks like there is a real debate between creationists and scientists.

So you claim that there is one evolutionary scientist who has has trouble reconciling his faith with the science? So what? There are many thousands of scientists who don't have this problem.
It does not nullify the scientific literature because scientific papers that pass peer review and get published need to meet a certain standard. The results stand by themselves.

 Thank you for admitting you know nothing about the breeding of Rottweilers, they were brought back from a gene pool of 19 dogs and are now healthier and certainly happy dogs who serve the human race in beneficial ways, so just lay off the crap we are hurting dogs because you hate this particular Christian. I have several vets who have been impressed with the care we give our Rottweilers. 
Breeding dogs to a certain physical standard if for their benefit and in many ways I know you can't understand so i want even bother to confuse your mind with such necessary things as good posture in a dog helps it live a more productive and healthy life with far less pain in it's older age. Breeding dogs to a standard has nothing to do with their longevity. There are dogs that have been breed for looks alone and suffer a great deal and most of the responsible breeders do not like it, we can't stop it so it will go on. 

Hmm, serve the human race. A very christian sense of entitlement you have there.

What you say about breeding healthy dogs would all sound very convincing were it not for the fact that you said that you're trying to breed out white patches. Why not keep the white patches if health and function are your only criteria? And why not breed those 19 original rottweilers with other breeds rather than keep the gene pool so small? My criticism stands and your responses reveal how you are two-faced about what you believe and do. It also further nullifies your point about the information not being lost because you can't breed out a recessive gene. A gene pool of 19 rottweilers means that you have very little variation to work with.

I've breed and been involved in breeding Rottweilers for many years and they are still dogs and not only that they are still Rottweilers. We breed out certain things we do not want in the breed, yet they keep popping back up after hundreds of breedings, the info was never lost it just wasn't dominate until the right dogs were breed and bang there is that old thing we were trying to breed away into a recessive gene that wouldn't rear it's ugly head. We even have data bases with dogs to help us to breed out traits we do not want to have such as the white patches that come up on their chest from time to time, this gene is hundreds of years old and try as we may it is still rearing it's ugly head, even in the highest quality Rottweilers.

[downbeatplumb]

There are a number of reasons why your argument here fails:
A: Something that appears irreducibly complex may not in fact be so.
B: Evolution can discard parts as well as add.
C: Parts can change their usage.



The eye has probably one of the best known evolutionary paths and I know you have been told about this on a number of occasions in the past.

But here we go.

Firstly a brief explanation of the evolution of senses. All senses rely on a similar process, electrical impulses. At the simplest level you can see paramecium use the deformation of its surface to sense hitting something by changing the level of negative and positive electrons internally and this reverses the pulses of its flagella by using waves of electricity, nothing that compares to a nervous system but you have the basis of sensing and reacting. From this you can evolve a brain.

The simplest known proto eye is an eyespot or light  sensing organelle found on algae and other unicelled creatures that senses when its dark or light and can use similar methods to the paramecium to move towards light/away from dark.

From there you can evolve the eye and associated neural functions.

I missed the part where you explain how the eye and the associated neural function developed through successive small changes where both are needed to provide a survival benefit.

Look again because I addressed this at the beginning.

I explained how senses worked then and gave an example along with how those simple sense affected behaviour and assumed you would understand that from that evolution could commence, I then went on in detail to give an explanation of how the eye works.

Further, just recognizing light is not a survival benefit. The organism has to be able to do something about it. So, what function evolved first when all three require the others for any survival benefit?

I gave the an example where elecrical implulses were used to reverse flagellum movement by the changing of the negative and positive electrons so you have the mechanism to change direction now combine that with a sense of light and the paramecium being a photosynthesising creature you get evolutionary pressure that would favour paramecium able to move towards light. You have the ability the senses and the result right there. 

From a light sensing spot if you add a bit of a dip you can sense the direction the light is and that gives more information for the evolving creature to use with its evolving neural system

The deeper the dip, the better the information, until you get a sphere.

Then you can have a number of light sensing spots, people grow extra heads from time to time so adding extra things is a common mutation, adding spots gives the ability to see  shapes.

There are several things wrong with that sentence, but let's stick to the one point. You would need a massive increase in complexity in the processing center to go from the binary light/no light to recognizing shapes and doing something about it that would be a survival benefit.


What survival benefit preserved the increasingly complex (but useless) eye until the organism developed the vastly improved processing center? 

At no stage is the ability useless as mentioned above.

.

I am not the one claiming something!! People left and right here claim evolution is a scientific fact.

It is

It is NOT. It is a philosophical claim. This is not a difficult concept. 

Just because you cant understand something does not make it "not science".

I'm not even saying that evolution is a bad theory. It's absolutely the best naturalistic theory we have. To deny there are large gaps of knowledge in how it works and how it played out is just stupid. I for one am waiting until we either fill in the gaps with facts (or better theories) or fail to. My beliefs don't hang on it either way.

Evolution is the best explanation and all the problems you seem to have with it go away after a few moments study.

[Abaddon_ire]

There are a number of reasons why your argument here fails:
A: Something that appears irreducibly complex may not in fact be so.
B: Evolution can discard parts as well as add.
C: Parts can change their usage.



The eye has probably one of the best known evolutionary paths and I know you have been told about this on a number of occasions in the past.

But here we go.

Firstly a brief explanation of the evolution of senses. All senses rely on a similar process, electrical impulses. At the simplest level you can see paramecium use the deformation of its surface to sense hitting something by changing the level of negative and positive electrons internally and this reverses the pulses of its flagella by using waves of electricity, nothing that compares to a nervous system but you have the basis of sensing and reacting. From this you can evolve a brain.

The simplest known proto eye is an eyespot or light  sensing organelle found on algae and other unicelled creatures that senses when its dark or light and can use similar methods to the paramecium to move towards light/away from dark.

From there you can evolve the eye and associated neural functions.

I missed the part where you explain how the eye and the associated neural function developed through successive small changes where both are needed to provide a survival benefit. Further, just recognizing light is not a survival benefit. The organism has to be able to do something about it. So, what function evolved first when all three require the others for any survival benefit? 

From a light sensing spot if you add a bit of a dip you can sense the direction the light is and that gives more information for the evolving creature to use with its evolving neural system

The deeper the dip, the better the information, until you get a sphere.

Then you can have a number of light sensing spots, people grow extra heads from time to time so adding extra things is a common mutation, adding spots gives the ability to see  shapes.

There are several things wrong with that sentence, but let's stick to the one point. You would need a massive increase in complexity in the processing center to go from the binary light/no light to recognizing shapes and doing something about it that would be a survival benefit. What survival benefit preserved the increasingly complex (but useless) eye until the organism developed the vastly improved processing center? 

I'm sure you can take it from there. I have shown you how to evolve a working eye, sensing apparatus and neural network there.

You can find similar processes for everything if you care to look.

By the way, what is your suggested alternative? I want an answer at least as detailed as the one I gave above.

I am not the one claiming something!! People left and right here claim evolution is a scientific fact. It is NOT. It is a philosophical claim. This is not a difficult concept. 

I'm not even saying that evolution is a bad theory. It's absolutely the best naturalistic theory we have. To deny there are large gaps of knowledge in how it works and how it played out is just stupid. I for one am waiting until we either fill in the gaps with facts (or better theories) or fail to. My beliefs don't hang on it either way.

Except that evolution is a fact and not a philosophy. 

Oh, I know you desperately want it to be a mere philosophy.

But it isn't. It is a fact that can be verified in laboratory experiments. You know, that science thingy that you hate.