Helping the Blind Watchmaker
by MikeGene
Students of nature once considered the vertebrate eye to be too complex to explain naturally, but subsequent research has led to the conclusion that this remarkable structure can be readily understood as a product of natural selection. This shows that what may appear to be "irreducibly complex" today may be explained naturalistically tomorrow. -Here
While I can appreciate the point they are making, what about this "conclusion" that the vertebrate eye is a "product of natural selection?" Surely natural selection was involved in the evolution of the eye, and played a role, but these authors make it sound as if natural selection was the cause. Natural selection simply selects the products that something else provides. And in the case of the vertebrate eye, it looks like natural selection just might have had some help. 
I'll see if I can get that story up this weekend.
February 10th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Quotes from Robert Maxwell Young, Intelligent Design: A Symptom of Metaphysical Malaise, in The Panda's Black Box.
Comment by Mung — February 10, 2008 @ 12:16 am
February 10th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Well, I never did get to it.
It wasn't the best of weekends for me.
Comment by MikeGene — February 10, 2008 @ 9:34 pm
February 11th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
What they are saying is simply that the eye and other IC systems do not require a Designer. They cannot scientifically assert that no designer was involved without first inventing a time machine and studying the event directly. But pondering all the possibilities really isn't what science cares about, science is fairly reductionist and only cares about defining the minimal requirements. Its more the role of philosophy or theology to ponder possibilities.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — February 11, 2008 @ 4:20 pm