Post by Pahu79 on Jan 16, 2013 15:15:16 GMT -5
Fully-Developed Organs 2
There are no examples of half-developed feathers, eyes (b), skin, tubes (arteries, veins, intestines, etc.), or any of the vital organs (dozens in humans alone). Tubes that are not 100% complete are a liability; so are partially developed organs and some body parts. For example, if a leg of a reptile were to evolve into a wing of a bird, it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing (c).
b. Asa Gray, a famous Harvard botany professor, who was to become a leading theistic evolutionist, wrote to Darwin expressing doubt that natural processes could explain the formation of complex organs such as the eye. Darwin expressed a similar concern in his return letter of February 1860.
“The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder, but when I think of the fine known gradations[/i] [Darwin believed possible if millions of years of evolution were available], my reason tells me I ought to conquer the cold shudder.” [/i] Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 2, editor Francis Darwin (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1899), pp. 66–67.
And yet, Darwin admitted that:
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” [/i] Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 175.
Darwin then proceeded to speculate on how the eye might nevertheless have evolved. However, no evidence was given. Later, he explained how his theory could be falsified.
“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” [/i] Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 179.
“It’s one of the oldest riddles in evolutionary biology: How does natural selection gradually create an eye, or any complex organ for that matter? The puzzle troubled Charles Darwin, who nevertheless gamely nailed together a ladder of how it might have happened—from photoreceptor cells to highly refined orbits—by drawing examples from living organisms such as mollusks and arthropods. But holes in this progression have persistently bothered evolutionary biologists and left openings that creationists have been only too happy to exploit.” [/i]Virginia Morell, “Placentas May Nourish Complexity Studies,” Science, Vol. 298, 1 November 2002, p. 945.
David Reznick, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California (Riverside), explained to Virginia Morell:
“Darwin had to use organisms from different classes, because there isn’t a living group of related organisms that have all the steps for making an eye.” [/i] Ibid.
To solve this dilemma, Reznick points to different species of a guppylike fish, some of which have no placenta and others that have “tissues that might become placentas.” However, when pressed, “Reznick admits that the [/i] [guppylike fish’s] placenta might not be as sophisticated as the mammalian placenta” [/i] [or the eye of any organism]. Ibid.
“The eye, as one of the most complex organs, has been the symbol and archetype of his [/i] [Darwin’s] dilemma. Since the eye is obviously of no use at all except in its final, complete form, how could natural selection have functioned in those initial stages of its evolution when the variations had no possible survival value? No single variation, indeed no single part, being of any use without every other, and natural selection presuming no knowledge of the ultimate end or purpose of the organ, the criterion of utility, or survival, would seem to be irrelevant. And there are other equally provoking examples of organs and processes which seem to defy natural selection. Biochemistry provides the case of chemical synthesis built up in several stages, of which the intermediate substance formed at any one stage is of no value at all, and only the end product, the final elaborate and delicate machinery, is useful—and not only useful but vital to life. How can selection, knowing nothing of the end or final purpose of this process, function when the only test is precisely that end or final purpose?” [/i] Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1959), pp. 320–321.
c. “Of what possible use are the imperfect incipient stages of useful structures? What good is half a jaw or half a wing?” [/i]Stephen Jay Gould, “The Return of Hopeful Monsters,” p. 23.
[From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown]