There is no chance the individual components of the eye would have evolved the way Darwin claimed. Individually, they don't provide a species with any kind of advantage.
Even Darwin mentioned eye evolution as a valid criticism of his theory saying it was "absurd in the highest degree".
KZ
14 comments
Really? This old chestnut again? The problem is: The watchmaker argument doesn't work because evolution of an organ isn't like constructing a watch. Animals didn't evolve eyes by adding the "individual components" of the "completed" eye together over time. In fact there is no "completed" eye in the first place. Certain cells responsible for some kind of sensory input mutated, became able to differentiate lighter/darker regions, which proved advantageous for the organism, but once its prey also got those, further mutations with additional advantages (protection of the optically sensitive cells, clearer differentiation of light and shadow, much later on the differentiation of different kinds of optical sensors etc.) slowly accumulated and were selected for. But none of these early eyes were incomplete. They were all organs capable of some kind of visual detection, and they all were advantageous to not having them (at least in light-filled environments, which is why organisms living in caves tend to slowly having their eyes reduced by natural selection). Our eyes are not even the best or the only possible variation of "eyes". Certain arthropods have trinocular sight, seeing colors much differently (and most likely better) than we do.
The evolution of the eye (both our backwards one and the octopuses' right-turned one) is clearly described by the fossil records.
Light-sensitive cells will be a definite advantage to a species living on a planet with a large star shining onto it all day.
You do know that Darwin's been dead for a century, right? The Theory of Evolution wasn't chiseled into stone at his passing, dearie. So much has happened to the ToE since his days, that Darwin might barely even recognize it, if he saw it now.
You don't need to look at the fossil record, even. Everything from 0.001% of an eye to 300% of an eye (assuming human eyes are "standard") exists among animals in the world today and are fully functional and useful for the vast majority of them (excepting things like cave fish). If you were going to pick an organ to try to disprove evolution, the eye would be among the worst choices possible.
Which came first; the left eye or the right eye?
Next; 1)The mud fits the puddle! 2)The chicken or the egg? (Hint; nobody ever asks,
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 degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibility.
READ what Darwin had to say on the subject, and since YOU have evolved eyes, I'm sure you can do it. Have someone help you with the hard words. He said it seemed absurd, then goes on to explain EXACTLY HOW IT COULD HAPPEN AND EXCUSE ME FOR SHOUTING BUT I AM UNABLE TO REACH THROUGH THE SCREEN AND SHAKE SOME SENSE INTO YOU, YOU BLITHERING IDIOT WHO CAN ONLY PARROT WHAT SOME PREACHER TOLD YOU WITHOUT LOOKING FOR YOURSELF!!!!!1!!1!ELEVENTYONE!!!
"There is no chance the individual components of the eye would have evolved the way Darwin claimed."
Very true. Mostly because Darwin never claimed that.
"Even Darwin mentioned eye evolution as a valid criticism of his theory saying it was 'absurd in the highest degree'."
No, he said it seemed absurd, if one didn't think about it. Have you actually read it, or did you just hear about it from a quote-mine that skipped the rest of the passage?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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