This is how the "argument from imperfection" arose. Creationists
have been talking for a long time about how life must have been
designed, because it works so perfectly. Then others responded by
pointing out many instances in which the fucntioning of organisms
is (sometimes significantly) less than perfect.
>For example, one says "the eye would obviously be better designed
>without a blind spot". This involves the implicit (and ridiculous)
>assumption that one can change one aspect of a complicated design
>keeping everything else constant.
It was done with the squid. Squids don't have a blind spot.
>Of course, one could say that
>God could accomplish this feat if he wished. But now you're supporting
>your argument with theology. This is taking the easy way out that
>creationists are so often condemned for. To really support the
>case that the blind spot is bad, one has to come up with an alternate
>design and demonstrate that it is better. No one has done this.
Nature has. We have merely pointed it out.
>What I mean here, of course, is an alternate design of a human
>eye, and not something completely different like a cephalopod
>eye.
Why not? The designs (so to speak) are very similar.
>I'm pretty sure that I still have all the relevant posts from the
>t.o thread that I could forward to you if you are interested in
>all the gory details. If memory serves the crucial points were:
>
>1) a complicated interdependence between the various structures.
>included in this is the importance of the relative locations of
>some of the structures. One cannot simply change or move one thing
>without producing a whole host of changes in other things. To
>remove the blind spot one would have to move a lot of stuff.
So it is your argument that it would be impossible to make this
minor change in the layout of blood vessels in the retina?
>2) The current "odd" arrangement allows the pigment epitheleum
>to perform several different functions at once. To remove the
>blind spot one would have to add something else to maintain
>the functionality presently provided by the P.E. In engineering
>terminology, tradeoffs.
Hmm, interesting. I haven't heard about this.
>The resident t.o "eye expert" lent his support to the basic
>ideas I've presented here. His expert opinion was that the
>eye probably could have been designed better, but that the
>issues were so complicated that this conclusion is not in
>any way obvious.
_____________________________________________________________
| Russell Stewart |
| http://www.rt66.com/diamond/ |
|_____________________________________________________________|
| Albuquerque, New Mexico | diamond@rt66.com |
|_____________________________|_______________________________|
If Rush is Right, then I'll take what's Left.