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David Lee, John Prewett, et al. have posted here that
organisms are too complex to have appeared without a master plan
of an intelligent designer. In my latest issue of Technology
Review (Feb/Mar 94), Kenneth Miller, Professor of Biology at
Brown University and co-author of "Biology," a high-school
textbook, argues that such seemingly perfect examples as the
human eye and the genetic code actually display numerous mistakes
and serendipity that could only reflect the opportunistic forces
of natural selection.
Either that, or else the Grand Designer was rather sloppy.
In the human eye, light must pass through neural mass to
reach the light-sensitive rods and cones. While the optic
neurons are almost transparent, they still scatter and diffuse
the light and produce a blind spot where all the neurons head for
the brain. A much more efficient design would put the rods and
cones in front of the neurons, and indeed squid and octopus eyes
are designed this way. It would seem that an intelligent
designer would have used the most efficient design everywhere.
Evolution, which works by repeatedly modifying existing
structures, can explain the inside-out nature of our eyes quite
simply. Vertebrate retina evolved as a modification of the outer
layer of the brain by making part of it more and more light-
sensitive over time. Conversely, mollusk eyes are wired right-
side-out because they evolved from skin cells, which retain their
original orientation: the neural "wiring" is beneath the surface.
The panda's opposing "thumb" is another illustration: it
evolved from a wrist bone, rather than from one of the five
digits (the panda has five regular "toes" as well as its thumb).
A proponent of intelligent design must maintain that the
absence of teeth in birds is because the designer equipped them
with beaks and gizzards that are superior for lightweight flying
organisms. But then why would the designer have chickens
carry a gene for making nice pearly white teeth? They do. OTOH,
evolution provides the simple explanation that birds descended
from organisms that once had teeth; therefore they retain tooth
genes, even if other genetic changes turn off their expression.
"Birds thus have a genetic mark of their own history that no
designed organism should ever possess."
Another DNA example is the five genes for making beta-globin
in the human blood when only two are required: one for adults and
one for fetuses; the actual count is two and three. The fetus
uses its tight-binding forms to draw oxygen from the mother's
blood; adult forms need only draw oxygen from the atmosphere.
Evolution can explain this combination by accidental duplication
of ancestral genes. In addition there is a sixth beta-globin
"pseudogene"; it became non-functional somewhere in evolution,
but it is still carried along for the ride.
To me, this means that the ULP god wrote the Ultimate Laws
of Physics some 20 billion years ago (or maybe before), ignited
the Big Bang, went off to do something else, and really doesn't
care if we abort fetuses or not [last comment made only to keep
this on topic B-)].
I really don't want to reignite the creationism/evolution
argument (although I guess I have), and I reserve the right not
to reply to any comments on this posting.
My purpose in posting this is to say that if anyone net-
mails, internets, or otherwise makes me aware of a snail-mail
address, I'll be happy to send a copy of the article.
Pat
NETMAIL address: 1:161/42
Internet: patrick.spangler@intellisoft.com
P.S. My spell-checker wanted to substitute "cretinism" for
"creationism."