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From: beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (beth d. christy)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Jai Alai
Message-ID: <551@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-May-85 00:38:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.551
Posted: Fri May 24 00:38:21 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 26-May-85 21:26:41 EDT
References: <1091@uwmacc.UUCP>
Organization: U. Chicago - Computation Center
Lines: 94

[keep :-)ing]

In Message <1091@uwmacc.UUCP> dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) writes:
>Lisa J Shawver, "Trilobite eyes: An impressive feat of early evolution".
>Science News, 105(5), 2 Feb 1974.
>
>"Although extinct for more than 300 million years, their fossil remains
>indicate that in one respect, the trilobites may have been superior to
>current living animals.  They had, in principle, perfect vision:  They
>possessed the most sophisticated eye lenses ever produced by nature."
>
>(The "in principle" is because the nervous system is what does the
>actual "seeing".  It doesn't do much good to have a perfect eye if you
>are blind, for instance.)
>
>Shawver describes a discovery by Riccardo Levi Setti of the University
>of Chicago and the Fermi Institute, who realized that lenses of a
>certain class of trilobites were nearly identical to aspheric aplanatic
>lenses (lenses which minimize spherical aberration).  Levi Setti
>arrived at the conviction that "trilobites had solved a very elegant
>physics problem and knew about Fermat's principle, Abbe's sine law,
>Snell's laws of refraction and the optics of birefringent crystal."
>(This is quoted from his book _Trilobites_.) Of course Levi Setti is
>speaking very loosely when he talks about trilobites "knowing", but
>we'll pass over that, since evolutionists allow each other to talk
>this way.  The important point is that these are rather interesting
>structures.  The article further quotes:  "'Nature has developed a
>process of optimization, which in this case, produced these incredible
>sophisticated shapes,' says Levi Setti.  'It didn't happen by
>accident.  It proves that evolution can produce this kind of thing
>... the lenses look like they were designed by a physicist.'"
>
>One gets the impression that Levi Setti was impressed.  Noteworthy is
>the statement that the eyes not happening by accident is proof of
>evolution.  Design is evidence of no designer.  I suspect that more
>reserved evolutionists would regard this as a rash statement.
>
>Levi Setti seems to have fallen into the curious mode of thinking in
>which the greater the sophistication of a structure, the stronger is
>the evidence that is shown for evolution.  The more unlikely something
>is to have been produced, the "fact" that it did evolve shows how every
>powerful evolutionary processes are.  If you can put yourself into the
>position of the creationist for a moment, you will begin to understand
>how ludicrous this seems to us.
>
>[more stuff detailing how terrific these particular eyes were -bdc]
>
>It should be noted that no known arthropod living today possesses
>similarly sophisticated visual structures.
>
>[ditto -bdc]
>
>Keeping these things in mind, thee are some questions that must be
>asked:
>
>In what sense are these eyes "half-developed"?
>
>What are (were) they developing toward/from?
>
>Remembering that these were fairly early organisms, what sort of
>phylogeny shall one construct to show the development of these
>structures?
>
>Yes, it is true that some organisms have *very* simple eyes.  But some
>early organisms have very unsimple eyes.  So statements about
>half-developed and simple eyes don't show much *unless* the line of
>descent is demonstrated.
>
>Paul DuBois     {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois        --+--

Those eyes were developing into fossils for us to find.  They were
"half-developed" because at the time they existed there wasn't anyone
who seriously questioned evolution, and hence they weren't yet useful
as evidence to prove it.  Now there are, and now *they* are.

Now I have a question for you:  Given that there are thousands of
species with eyes, and given that a designer clearly had a concept
and an implementation of such a perfect eye, *why* is there such vast
diversity in the types and relative quality of eyes?  Why didn't the
designer recognize a good thing when s/he had it and stick with it?

The "curious mode of thinking" that Levi Setti has fallen into is
probably a result of taking things in context - something that often
*does* confound creationists on this net.  He recognized that there
were an *awful lot* of comparitively imperfect eyes (dare I say
"imperfectly designed" eyes?!), and appreciated finding a single,
isolated counter example.  Simple as that.

-- 

--JB                                             "The giant is awake."

Disclaimer?  Who wud claim dis?