Posted by
Reid
Intelligent Design - the idea that life is so complex that it could not have come to be without the help of divine intervention. To put it more "scientifically", life appears to be irreversibly complex. According to ID lore, certain things cannot come to be as a whole through selection of their parts since their parts are not in themselves useful. Instead, these entire parts must be created before hand by an intelligent source, and then it's off to the evolutionary races. Hell, according to some, the eye could have never evolved...too bad these people haven't looked at flat worms.
Those are ancient eyes on it's head. Sure, it can't see everything we can, but it has an advantage over other creatures - it can see lights and dark. It a world without sight, this would be a huge advantage. Any moderate tweaks of sensitivity would provide another advantage, and the perpetual evolution machine takes off. Not that this eye is reduced in complexity and still yields a benefit to the species.The other common example given for irreducible complexity is the flagellum (pictured below). How could this possible work at all without all the pieces first being in place? Well, it wouldn't have to. If I could only swim with one arm that would be better than no arms, although it wouldn't be as good as it could be if I had flippers. Nonetheless, my chances for survival goes from zero to something.
Where did those parts come from though? Like the proteins and stuff?
Flagellum use dyenin arms and tubulin. These are essential to cellular function with lysosomes and organelles. So these were already kicking around...all that was needed was some externalization.
All arguments against evolution seem to fall short, and often the inadequate speak. Sadly, their voices are being heard and people are spreading "The Word (TM)". The only argument that the non-evolutionists have anymore is that we don't know how the chemicals came together in the first place...well, we don't know precisely, but we have an idea. Another rant possibly? If people push their stupid ideas, then yes.
Never forget, evolution does follow The Second Law of Thermodynamics.
5 comments:
Once again, you provide the scientific gold that is missing from my rants. Bravo.
So, are the eyes on the flatworm an old development? Like, do we know at what period in time the flatworm did not have eyes?
I completely agree that the inadequate are the ones who often speak against evolution. Unfortunately, they are usually the only ones with enough resources to speak.
People like Pat "MF" Robertson, Billy Graham, and Jerry Falwell are just some of the fuckwits that represent the anti-scientific community, and they also hold some of the most extreme views conceivable.
They make all kinds of crazy accusations that belong in another century (like, in the past). For example, saying 911 was caused by God as a punishment for our rampant sexuality (Robertson, Falwell). These are not sane comments. This is not how normal people talk or think.
On the one hand, it makes me cry to think that people like this actually exist. But on the other hand, I'd have no one to make fun of if they didn't exist, which means this blog probably wouldn't exist.
A dilemma, a dilemma....
The eyes on the flatworm are indeed an old developement...however even if they were new, it would provide an introductory step for eye developement.
The flatworm is thought to be the first creature to have a brain having shown up around 550 million years ago. Before them existed cndarians (jelly fish type creatures), which was about 580 million years ago. Cndarians have nerves and muscles, but no processing. It took about 20 million years to develop the ability to process the information and have light sensing nerves. I think a lot of people fail to realize how long 20 million years is. Look what we've created in the last 100...
The earliest hominids showed up around 4 million years ago. We went from barely walking up straight to creating a complex cuture and the internet in 1/5th the time it took for eyes to develop.
Pat MF Robertson is a dangerous man. Most of the radical right is dangerous, as is the radical left...hey, do we count as moderate lefts? Or most centre?
Hmm, it's hard to say where on the political spectrum we stand.
There are so many spectra: political, economic, religious... And these change from country to country.
On the US scale, I'd say we're centre-left on the political/economic spectrum and very left on the religious spectrum.
I don't really know what the Canadian scale is.... We're all hovering around centre, not picking sides.
Wishing to add to this wonderful forum of ID-bashing, I, Brett, Reid's brother have some statements to make.
First of all, the eye is clearly designed by the head of engineering, God. Who else would design such an impeccable organ. With such intelligence, this divine engineer has created an organ in which the most important component, the retina, is "protected" (as we'll call it) by several impeding layers. First of all, the blood vessels that supply the rods and cones on the retina are infront of the retina itself. Secondly, the remainding length of these rods and cones (specialized nerve cells) come from the bottom of the cell and reach out infront of the retina, joining the blood vessels in this "protective" layer infront of the retina. Lastly, as if to increase efficiency, these cells do not accept light immediately, as it has to be reflected off of the choroid layer (a layer of dense blood vessels) before the nerve cell is stimulated.
These "protective" measures add up to 3 distinct means of impeding the retina's function, and I'm not including the ingenious blind spot.
Only the most capable engineer could design such a minisculely convoluted masterpiece. This engineer must be God. I wonder how much he complains about taking engineering in University, for him to be that intelligent.
Next time, the clearly designed Glycolosis and Kreb's cycles, by which we gain the energy it takes to survive from glucose. (not including the steps to form glucose from the sugars we eat)
-Brett
Woah... apparently Stephen Colbert reads my blog... and has inhabited the body of Brett McDonald. Nice satire, Brett.
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