You are retreating to the stereotypical ID'creationer "it's complicated, therefore the odds are it didn't happen'', meme.Ah. The all-knowing, all-seeing eye. Only the gods could have developed the eye. That's one of the classically retrograde arguments of the ID creationer ministries.Enzymes are easy to make from basic chemicals ... one of the more profound pieces of evidence that supports evolution ... just two methanes and an ammonia
Apparently, not this enzyme as it could only be produced in the ovaries of a hen.
Besides, the egg with the chick inside is a complex system similar to the eye. It would have to be developed as a fully functional organic system.
Claim CB301:
The eye is too complex to have evolved.
Source:
Brown, Walt, 1995. In the Beginning: Compelling evidence for creation and the Flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation, p. 7.
Hitching, Francis, 1982. The Neck of the Giraffe, New York: Meridian, pp. 66-68.
Response:
- This is the quintessential example of the argument from incredulity. The source making the claim usually quotes Darwinsaying that the evolution of the eye seems "absurd in the highest degree". However, Darwin follows that statement with a three-and-a-half-page proposal of intermediate stages through which eyes might have evolved via gradual steps (Darwin 1872).
- photosensitive cell
- aggregates of pigment cells without a nerve
- an optic nerve surrounded by pigment cells and covered by translucent skin
- pigment cells forming a small depression
- pigment cells forming a deeper depression
- the skin over the depression taking a lens shape
- muscles allowing the lens to adjust
- All of these steps are known to be viable because all exist in animals living today. The increments between these steps are slight and may be broken down into even smaller increments. Natural selection should, under many circumstances, favor the increments. Since eyes do not fossilize well, we do not know that the development of the eye followed exactly that path, but we certainly cannot claim that no path exists.
Evidence for one step in the evolution of the vertebrate eye comes from comparative anatomy and genetics. The vertebrate βγ-crystallin genes, which code for several proteins crucial for the lens, are very similar to the Ciona βγ-crystallin gene. Ciona is an urochordate, a distant relative of vertebrates. Ciona's single βγ-crystallin gene is expressed in its otolith, a pigmented sister cell of the light-sensing ocellus. The origin of the lens appears to be based on co-optation of previously existing elements in a lensless system.
Nilsson and Pelger (1994) calculated that if each step were a 1 percent change, the evolution of the eye would take 1,829 steps, which could happen in 364,000 generations.
You posted this before. Not only is my argument is from incredulity, but argument that the eye or ear just can't happen from parts lying around. The chances of it are practically zero as we do not know how it happened except that animals have complex parts such as eyes to see and ears to hear. Your side hasn't been able to produce even a photosensitive cell from chemicals or primordial soup. Not even a protein from amino acids.
So, lets look at an example. The odds of you winning the lottery are 1 in 100 million,. If you win, and are convinced that the incredible odds against your winning are evidence that there was some sort of 'intelligent design' acting on you behalf, that would be a rather nonsensical explanation, and irrational.
I have to note that the example above is pretty meaningless because biological organisms interact in complex ways and all those interactions are taking place simultaneously so the ''odds'' are greatly in favor of natural, biological evolution as opposed to various gods you can't hope to demonstrate.
More importantly, any true calculation of ''odds'' carry some obvious limitations. The most obvious limitation is that for any calculation of chance, you must assume that all present functional life forms are the goal, and not the result of the process, and then calculate backwards.