Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Don’t ask us how the most complex eyes appeared at the beginning. Instead, we offer to solve a tautology for you.

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Thumbnail for version as of 16:27, 24 July 2008
This trilobite eye is probably diurnal, features eyeshade/ Psuedomorph

In John R. Paterson’s “Modern optics in exceptionally preserved eyes of Early Cambrian arthropods from Australia (Nature, 30 June 2011)

from Nature by, we learn of a particular, “exceptionally preserved” trilobite-like eye from South Australia that predates other known finds from 85 million years later:

The arrangement and size of the lenses indicate that these eyes belonged to an active predator that was capable of seeing in low light. The eyes are more complex than those known from contemporaneous trilobites and are as advanced as those of many living forms.

Well, that raises a question, doesn’t it? At the dawn of multicellular life, we find – not primitive fixes – but …

Then the authors deftly write,

They provide further evidence that the Cambrian explosion involved rapid innovation in fine-scale anatomy as well as gross morphology, and are consistent with the concept that the development of advanced vision helped to drive this great evolutionary event.

So they simply avoid discussion of the obvious problem by citing what sounds like a hypothesis but is actually a tautology.

Of course, the complex eyes helped drive the “great evolutionary event,” for the same reasons as – at a hockey match – the Away Team’s crowd helps fill the arena. Does anyone care to dispute it? (Abstract)

Here’s a great site on trilobite eyes.

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Comments
This encapsulates Darwinian unfalsifiability:
Here was PZ's reply: "I wish I could get that one thought into these guys heads: evolutionary theory predicts differences as well as similarities." This is rich: If PZ is right, and evolutionary biology predicts both similarities and differences between vertebrate embryos, then it would seem that evolutionary biology really predicts nothing at all about development and is unfalsifiable regarding the evidence from vertebrate development. According to PZ, evolutionary theory predicts whatever it predicts, conserves whatever it conserves, and modifies whatever it modifies. Some theory.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/demystifying_the_debate_with_p048011.htmlMung
June 30, 2011
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As "they" say when most people are in the affirmative-> "The eyes have it."Joseph
June 30, 2011
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Here's the first sentence of the abstract: Despite the status of the eye as an “organ of extreme perfection”, theory suggests that complex eyes can evolve very rapidly. This encapsulates Darwinian unfalsifiability: the "perfection" of the eye can either happen gradually---as Darwin insists---, or it can happen in an instant---as "theory suggests". What theory? It's certainly not Darwinian. Is it neutral theory? Darwinian theory thus says: If it turns out to be X, then here's the explanation; if it turns out to be not-X, then here's this other explanation. How is it possible to falsify such a "theory"?PaV
June 30, 2011
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Evolution is unfalsifiable. Here is your Cambrian rabbit. Where was that article recently that claimed science had the evolution of the eye all figured out? This must be a bit embarrassing. I'm sure it kind of throws the timeline off a bit. But they can always get out their magic wand of convergent evolution to make it fit the theory. Evolution is so flexible that it can explain anything and therefore, it really explains nothing.tjguy
June 30, 2011
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News,, you may want to correct this: we learn of a particular, “exceptionally preserved” trilobite eye from South Australia that predates other known finds from 85 million years later: It IS NOT a trilobite eye, they were merely comparing it to a trilobite eye,,, one article says it could have been a shrimp-like animal, science daily said,,, ,,,Science Daily said the fossils look like “squashed eyes of a recently swatted fly.” How could evolution explain this? The headline put forth its thesis: “New Fossils Demonstrate That Powerful Eyes Evolved in a Twinkling.” Stuff happens, and it happens quickly. http://crev.info/content/110629-complex_arthropod_eyes_found_in_early_cambrianbornagain77
June 30, 2011
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Though they try to downplay the complexity of trilobite eyes, they are mistaken in doing so; The Optimal Engineering Of The Trilobite Eye – Dr. Don Johnson https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1TiZcs0eginyh6rijCGd3kwC3CeawjQV1AsC6Xvvnx44 Evolution vs. The Trilobite Eye – Andy McIntosh http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4032589/bornagain77
June 30, 2011
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