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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jul 21, 2008 - 04:18pm PT
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Losing Sight of Progress
How blind salamanders make nonsense of creationists' claims.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, July 21, 2008, at 11:34 AM ET
It is extremely seldom that one has the opportunity to think a new thought about a familiar subject, let alone an original thought on a contested subject, so when I had a moment of eureka a few nights ago, my very first instinct was to distrust my very first instinct. To phrase it briefly, I was watching the astonishing TV series Planet Earth (which, by the way, contains photography of the natural world of a sort that redefines the art) and had come to the segment that deals with life underground. The subterranean caverns and rivers of our world are one of the last unexplored frontiers, and the sheer extent of the discoveries, in Mexico and Indonesia particularly, is quite enough to stagger the mind. Various creatures were found doing their thing far away from the light, and as they were caught by the camera, I noticed—in particular of the salamanders—that they had typical faces. In other words, they had mouths and muzzles and eyes arranged in the same way as most animals. Except that the eyes were denoted only by little concavities or indentations. Even as I was grasping the implications of this, the fine voice of Sir David Attenborough was telling me how many millions of years it had taken for these denizens of the underworld to lose the eyes they had once possessed.
If you follow the continuing argument between the advocates of Darwin's natural selection theory and the partisans of creationism or "intelligent design," you will instantly see what I am driving at. The creationists (to give them their proper name and to deny them their annoying annexation of the word intelligent) invariably speak of the eye in hushed tones. How, they demand to know, can such a sophisticated organ have gone through clumsy evolutionary stages in order to reach its current magnificence and versatility? The problem was best phrased by Darwin himself, in his essay "Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication":
To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.
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His defenders, such as Michael Shermer in his excellent book Why Darwin Matters, draw upon post-Darwinian scientific advances. They do not rely on what might be loosely called "blind chance":
Evolution also posits that modern organisms should show a variety of structures from simple to complex, reflecting an evolutionary history rather than an instantaneous creation. The human eye, for example, is the result of a long and complex pathway that goes back hundreds of millions of years. Initially a simple eyespot with a handful of light-sensitive cells that provided information to the organism about an important source of the light …
Hold it right there, says Ann Coulter in her ridiculous book Godless: The Church of Liberalism. "The interesting question is not: How did a primitive eye become a complex eye? The interesting question is: How did the 'light-sensitive cells' come to exist in the first place?"
The salamanders of Planet Earth appear to this layman to furnish a possibly devastating answer to that question. Humans are almost programmed to think in terms of progress and of gradual yet upward curves, even when confronted with evidence that the past includes as many great dyings out of species as it does examples of the burgeoning of them. Thus even Shermer subconsciously talks of a "pathway" that implicitly stretches ahead. But what of the creatures who turned around and headed back in the opposite direction, from complex to primitive in point of eyesight, and ended up losing even the eyes they did have?
Whoever benefits from this inquiry, it cannot possibly be Coulter or her patrons at the creationist Discovery Institute. The most they can do is to intone that "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away." Whereas the likelihood that the post-ocular blindness of underground salamanders is another aspect of evolution by natural selection seems, when you think about it at all, so overwhelmingly probable as to constitute a near certainty. I wrote to professor Richard Dawkins to ask if I had stumbled on the outlines of a point, and he replied as follows:
Vestigial eyes, for example, are clear evidence that these cave salamanders must have had ancestors who were different from them—had eyes, in this case. That is evolution. Why on earth would God create a salamander with vestiges of eyes? If he wanted to create blind salamanders, why not just create blind salamanders? Why give them dummy eyes that don't work and that look as though they were inherited from sighted ancestors? Maybe your point is a little different from this, in which case I don't think I have seen it written down before.
I recommend for further reading the chapter on eyes and the many different ways in which they are formed that is contained in Dawkins' Climbing Mount Improbable; also "The Blind Cave Fish's Tale" in his Chaucerian collection The Ancestor's Tale. I am not myself able to add anything about the formation of light cells, eyespots, and lenses, but I do think that there is a dialectical usefulness to considering the conventional arguments in reverse, as it were. For example, to the old theistic question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" we can now counterpose the findings of professor Lawrence Krauss and others, about the foreseeable heat death of the universe, the Hubble "red shift" that shows the universe's rate of explosive expansion actually increasing, and the not-so-far-off collision of our own galaxy with Andromeda, already loomingly visible in the night sky. So, the question can and must be rephrased: "Why will our brief 'something' so soon be replaced with nothing?" It's only once we shake our own innate belief in linear progression and consider the many recessions we have undergone and will undergo that we can grasp the gross stupidity of those who repose their faith in divine providence and godly design.
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UncleDoug
Social climber
N. lake Tahoe
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Jul 21, 2008 - 04:36pm PT
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Bump....
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Bart Fay
Social climber
Redlands, CA
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Jul 21, 2008 - 04:46pm PT
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Wait for the knee-jerk... wait for it...
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Jul 21, 2008 - 04:51pm PT
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Ho Hum ...: )
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jul 21, 2008 - 05:07pm PT
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Creation and evolution aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Jul 21, 2008 - 05:52pm PT
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I don't understand why creationists try to "prove" their beliefs. I even saw a guy in the coffee shop a few weeks ago with a book he claimed "proved empirically" that there was a God. Unfortunately he wasn't trolling.
Belief is a wonderful thing. But believe what you believe because you believe it. Religion isn't based on evidence, so don't try to defend your beliefs with empiricism or faux-science. You either believe it or you don't.
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Grant Meisenholder
Trad climber
CA
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Jul 21, 2008 - 06:03pm PT
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What you fail to realize is that god has extra parts stashed around for use in an emergency. These salamanders are just hanging around for Armageddon when there will obviously be plenty of eyeballs needing to be installed.
Since we've only just barely scratched under the surface of the Earth, it should come as no surprise that we will increasingly discover these caches.
Sheesh! Heathen!
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Jul 21, 2008 - 06:28pm PT
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Pretty much what I'd expect from Christopher Hitchens. . .
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rockermike
Mountain climber
Berkeley
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Jul 21, 2008 - 06:44pm PT
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hmmmm
Ann Coulter, design but not intelligent, knee jerk... Anyone who dares to answer at this point has already received an ad hominem slap from the scholastics of the 21st century. Its called group think. ha
Let's clear up a few things; there are no doubt "creationists" who so overly simplify the argument as to be embarrassing. There are also (even more I suspect) neo-evolutionists who so oversimplify their purely mechanistic views as to be an embarrassment to true always open minded science. And I'm not arguing here that the forms of species don't change over the eons, but can that change be explained simply by neo-Darwinian theory. And if not then how?
Darwin argued for changes in the dominant traits of a particular species in response to the environment and improved survival advantages of particular traits. Brown rabbits survive better in the forest than florescent red ones. And if an ice age comes the species will trend toward white. fair enough.
But neo-evolutionists are no longer talking about changes in superficial traits. They are forcefully - dogmatically I'd say -arguing that all life in all its variability and complexity is the mere outcome of Darwin's accidental mutation combined with "the weak are killed off" pruning mechanism.
So that brings us to Ann's eye (I do sooo hate to be on her side on this one); Irreducible complexity is a serious argument;
Even if cosmic radiation (or whatever) caused a mutation is the DNA of a particular cell of a particular individual, and even if that cell could suddenly "sense light", what would that mutation achieve? There also needs to be an impulse sent from that cell to the conscious center of the creature, an optical nerve (made up itself of millions of cells) to carry that signal, a brain (made up of billions of cells) to receive the signal, intelligence (what ever that is) to interpret the signal - all resulting and pushing toward the unconscious result of increased survival and reproduction (the "selfish gene" is a complete misconception - the "Darwinian evolution argument" is an a-teleological mechanism - that is it has no pre-existing "goal" - only accident, but that's another story). Without all of these simultaneous mutations, one light sensing cell alone adds no survival or reproductive advantage to the individual. He/she dies off like all the others in its species and the one freak light sensing cell mutation is lost to the stream of life as the original dominant structure of the species returns. Remember, it is only IF the mutation increases reproductive success that the mutation becomes standard.
All of the organs in advanced life are similarly not single cells and therefore not available or useful to single cell mutations and can't be explained by "one cell at a time" mutations over millions of generations. They are incredibly complex systems that only work as a functioning unit. A spark plug has no "survival value" to a car without simultaneously the existence of a cylinder and of fuel. So one cell at a time adds no advantage and can't explain the eye. Another tact is to argue that thousands or millions of cells could all mutate accidentally in one generation - thereby giving an individual an advantage - but this also requires an almost religiously fanatical faith in a purely mechanistic universe - and also has been demonstrated to be a statistical near impossibility. In fact at that point,IMHO the argument moves from science to militant a-theism. They are digging deep not in search of the truth but only to try to explain away any concept of God or higher purpose in the univers.
And all this isn't even to touch on the arguments of the very source of life itself. (nor the source of the first atom of the material universe) A pool of amino acids and a stroke of lightning. "abiogenesis". That's a Frankenstein theory that was once left behind in the middle ages.
At some point humans have to confront the wonder of reality without explaining it away. Yes the concept of preexisting consciousness and purpose may seem outrageous. But no more so and certainly no more naively so than claiming amino acids and lightning leads to slime mold leads to sharks leads to crying babies sucking on their mother's breast - all by accidental mutation and dog-eat-dog competition.
Reality is divine, and we are always in the hands of a gracious God. That's my final opinion.
carry on
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Jul 21, 2008 - 06:59pm PT
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"So that brings us to Ann's eye (I do sooo hate to be on her side on this one); Irreducible complexity is a serious argument;
Even if cosmic radiation (or whatever) caused a mutation is the DNA of a particular cell of a particular individual, and even if that cell could suddenly "sense light", what would that mutation achieve? There also needs to be an impulse sent from that cell to the conscious center of the creature, an optical nerve (made up itself of millions of cells)..."
The complexity isn't irreducible. The eye didn't have to start out as a complex multi-cellular organ in complex organisms and it didn't. Some single-cell organisms that have primitive eyes in the form of photo receptive proteins and the complex eye evolved from something like that.
The "impossibility" of the evolution of the eye is an old out-dated argument. It falsely assumes that a complex eye had to spontaneously develop in one mutation. Now that eyes at all levels of complexity from eyes like ours to the very primitive have been identified and so its just not a plausible argument anymore.
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Bart Fay
Social climber
Redlands, CA
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Jul 21, 2008 - 07:04pm PT
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Damn you Evilution ! Florescent red rabbits would have been so cool.
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jstan
climber
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Jul 21, 2008 - 07:45pm PT
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Norton:
Getting a statement and particularly a statement this ambivalent from an expert is rather an accomplishment. I would guess, sooner or later, you will see your logic appear in print. Props.
If we divert our attention for a moment from "the invisible friend for adults", of course there is no difficulty at all understanding why an organ becomes vestigial when a new environment does not require it. As I understand it the human image processing system takes a very substantial portion of our resting energy budget. If an organism living in the dark no longer has this overhead they stand a better chance of success when food is scarce.
I would make one other comment about the argument that we "cannot conceive of how monkey's evolved into humans so therefore we may rule out that eventuality." (In many cases even the absurd challenge of asking how an individual monkey could suddenly become an individual human the next day is posed. Here one need merely avoid having one's time wasted.)
I think the answer to the more general challenge is to say, "If I have it correct you are saying you expect there is nothing in this world to which the answer is not clear to you at this moment. You cannot conceive of it so it cannot be. You expect that you understand everything - just as does god. So is it not fair to say your objection means you believe you are on a par with god?"
Now when god-created events cause us to suffer cruelly, and if we are creatures on a par with god, must we not conclude he is not being exactly friendly toward us? If we are on a par with him we surely cannot plead we just are too stupid to figure out his plan. We cannot have it both ways.
Some part of your wonderful tapestry has to be given up. Which part would you like to cast aside?
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Jul 21, 2008 - 07:47pm PT
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"The "impossibility" of the evolution of the eye is an old out-dated argument. It falsely assumes that a complex eye had to spontaneously develop in one mutation."
that's not the objection...the ID theory uses the complexity of the eye to argue against darwin's natural selection...the eye is not simply a complex structure but an irreducibly complex system...a mousetrap has 5 parts: base, bar, spring, catch, and latch; remove any ONE of these parts, and the trap becomes just a pile of useless pieces; which means that any ONE part of the system offers no evolutionary advantage; which means, according to darwin, that the mutation would not survive
so, say you have a simple organism called a base; one base mutates and develops a spring; without the other three parts, the spring serves no advantage to the base's survival and, therefore, would not be passed on...or, if it were passed on for some unexplained reason, it would remain useless until all three additional mutations occured--in a single organism...this really doesn't make any sense
i do not doubt evolution...i see it almost everyday with the black squirrels that have become rather common in my area over the last 20 years...however, evolution does not explain everything...so i keep my mind open
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Jul 21, 2008 - 07:48pm PT
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I AM PROUD THAT I COME FROM A TREE SHREW! GIVE ME AN AMEN!
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Jul 21, 2008 - 07:51pm PT
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"if we are creatures on a par with god"
somebody correct me if i'm wrong, but i think religion is based on god's superiority; in other words, we are NOT "on a par with god"
the "unfriendly" suggestion is an oversimplification...again, i'm speaking from ignorance, here, but i think the idea is that god has shown us--repeatedly--how to save ourselves from misery, but we refuse to pay attention
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Jul 21, 2008 - 07:51pm PT
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Waiting for hair color to evolve so I can stop spending $$$'s to evolve it myself. I have noticed a slight change. Like the eyeballs the way they are hope they don't change. Do People Change ? hehe lrl
OOPs! Hope I am not being disrespectful.
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jstan
climber
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Jul 21, 2008 - 07:55pm PT
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Wonderful that you bring up tree shrews! My favorite speculation. If we were tree shrews we would have faced tree climbing snakes during the night as a serious predator. If that were true we would have today, hard wired in us:
hatred for snakes
a desire to be able to fly
a desire to see in the dark
None of these is true so we cannot have evolved from tree shrews.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 21, 2008 - 08:12pm PT
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People who were enculturized from childhood to believe in tooth fairies and santa claus should reach behind themselve's and feel their Coccyx, the remains of their tailbone, which is still a distinctly shaped part of the human skeleton, yet has not served any useful purpose since the earliest humans came down from the trees in Africa. Use it or lose it, and so "we" gradually are doing just that.
Evolution does NOT say that humans evolved from monkeys, or tree shrews, and lemmings, or ducks, so stop insisting that you know the definition of Darwinian evolution, you do NOT.
It does say that both humans and other primates had a common ancestor some 3 million years ago. BIG difference.
If logic and science can not be refuted, then one should always attack the messanger personally, such as in this case to say what do you expect from Christopher Hitchens, without any establishment of base evidence for that supposition.
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Floyd Hayes
Trad climber
Hidden Valley Lake, CA
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Jul 21, 2008 - 08:14pm PT
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Which is easier to explain: the gradual evolution of a lens eye or the gradual degeneration of a lens eye?
The processes are very different.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Jul 21, 2008 - 08:26pm PT
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"that's not the objection...the ID theory uses the complexity of the eye to argue against darwin's natural selection...the eye is not simply a complex structure but an irreducibly complex system...a mousetrap has 5 parts: base, bar, spring, catch, and latch; remove any ONE of these parts, and the trap becomes just a pile of useless pieces; which means that any ONE part of the system offers no evolutionary advantage; which means, according to darwin, that the mutation would not survive
so, say you have a simple organism called a base; one base mutates and develops a spring; without the other three parts, the spring serves no advantage to the base's survival and, therefore, would not be passed on...or, if it were passed on for some unexplained reason, it would remain useless until all three additional mutations occured--in a single organism...this really doesn't make any sense"
You are starting with a false conclusion, that it is irreducible. Even some algae have primitive eyes--a photoreceptive protein. Your argument is that the complex eye must have evolved fully formed in one overnight leap. As you say, that would not make sense.
What does make sense is how a photoreceptive protein could evolve, for example, from a protein involved in photosynthesis, and evolve over time.
The eyespot apparatus (or stigma) is a photoreceptive organelle found in the flagellate (motile) cells of green algae and other unicellular photosynthetic organisms such as euglenids. It allows the cells to sense light direction and intensity and respond to it by swimming either towards the light (phototaxis) or away from the light ("photoshock" or photophobic response). This helps the cells in finding an environment with optimal light conditions for photosynthesis. Eyespots are the simplest and most common "eyes" found in nature, composed of photoreceptors and a signal transduction system generating a phototactic response.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyespot_apparatus
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