Some new usefull info for debates with creationists

[Az]

One of the standard arguments creationists like to through up against evolution is the complexity argument. They make claims that some aspects of life are irreducibly complex. They claim organs such as the eye are so complex that there is no reasonable path for them to evolve along. Remove anything from it and you have a nonfunctional organ with no reason to have evolved.

Well scientists have discovered an itermediary in the evolution of the eye. Reported here it comes in the form of a Jellyfish.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg18624995.700

DARWIN famously wrote in On the Origin of Species that the eye is so complex that its evolution by natural selection seems "absurd". The key to the puzzle, he argued, was to find eyes of intermediate complexity in the animal kingdom that would demonstrate a possible path from simple to complicated. Now, a detailed study of the eyes of the box jellyfish (Tripedalia cystophora) has thrown up one of these fascinating intermediate stages.

Box jellyfish, or cubozoans, are bizarre, highly poisonous predators (New Scientist, 8 November 2003, p 34). "These are fantastic creatures with 24 eyes, four parallel brains and 60 arseholes," says Dan Nilsson, a vision expert from the University of Lund in Sweden.

The eyes occur in clusters on the four sides of the cube-like body. Sixteen are simply pits of light-sensitive pigment, but one pair in each cluster is surprisingly complex, with a sophisticated lens, retina, iris and cornea, all in an eye only 0.1 millimetres across.

The lens structure is unusual because the refractive index - the extent to which it bends light - is graded from one side to the other. Because the image is focused way behind the retina, it appears blurry. So cubozoan eyes are good for spotting large, stationary objects, while filtering out unnecessary detail such as plankton drifting with the current. From here it would be an easy step to evolve an image-forming eye.

[Beetwasher]

1. 60 Arseholes???

That could get kinda messy...

Cool article!

[Sabriel]

2. I don't debate

I just stare in disbelief and walk away. It's very effective.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. "four parallel brains and 60 arseholes"

Looks like the US Senate to me.

[GOPFighter]

5. Yeah, except for the brains...

:evilgrin:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

7. Boxer and Byrd seem to have a brain.

Are there two more? :silly:

[Warpy]

4. Cool beans, but if the DNA argument didn't get them

then nothing will. These people believe, dammit, and nobody's gonna make them crank up all those rusted solid brain cells to think about anything. That science stuff was hard, and there's no way any of you godless commies is gonna make 'em repeat any of it.

That's why pointing out that we have so much DNA that is in common with all other creatures, right down to bacteria, didn't do it for them.

God did it. That way, they never have to bother to think.

[Az]

9. Its not necessarily the one's running the argument

The trouble is the more vocal ones affect others around them. A real fanatic won't be swayed. But they can sway others. Evidence like this helps to fill in the gaps that they like to hide in. As soon as you hear them running up an argument that in the past we had no direct evidence for you can trot out the new evidence and put a stake in it. It won't convince the fanatic but the audience gets the picture. And the more times we do this to them the less credibility they have.

Thats the trouble with how ideas spread. As much as we would like to to be based on reason and well thought out delivery it more often is based on how a person feels about whoever is making the claims. There are a couple of ways of dealing with this when facing a creationist. Heading off their arguments discredits them in the eyes of those listening. It also throws them off their rhythm.

Creationists thrive by creating uncertainty. Where there are doubts they can move in with emotional appeals. Thus in the past when they point to the complexity of the eye we have usually been left with theoretical paths that evolution could have taken. But for the audience what it comes down to is they can see an eye, they cannot see a theory. The creationist argument seems to be more real to them. Thus a refutation such as this one gives them something concrete to thwart the creationists argument with.

[southpaw]

6. Thanks Az

I like to have an almost inexhaustable supply of refutation handy for such debates. It feels good to be able to offers example upon example to support evolution while the creationists bumble through a few pseudo-scientific talking points before ultimately unleashing old 'faith' smokescreen.

[progressoid]

8. Sounds like the work of SATAN to me.

Just like them there dinasore fosils he planted. Its just a nother trick by Beelzebub to make us stray from the fold.

REPENT!!!