There have been arguments both for and against god nestled in the complexities of the human eye.
My own knowledge of the eye kind of slid down the slope of disinterest with the first diagram I saw in Biology class. I took the view, “As long as it works, I'm not fussed why! And I’m never going to take mine apart, so what’s the point of knowing the names of its components?” Yeah, yeah, I know, kinda childish but hey, I was a child.
However, the god-squad makes a fuss about the miraculous mechanics of the human visual system, so I thought I'd cast a beady eye across the subject… (You can probably expect more rubbish optic-puns.)
Many sources detail the imperfections of the human eye, very clearly detailing the flaws, or you can watch the first 3 mins 30 secs of this video “Intelligent Design (2): The Human Eye”
http://www.youtube.com/embed/CZkPAanGXsc
So, it seems clear that the Octopus eye, with its blood vessels on the sensible side of the retina and no blind-spot, is better than the human eye but also, if one was setting out to design the ‘perfect’ human eye, why would a creator not include access to the full ultra-violet to infra-red electromagnetic spectrum like the Mantis Shrimp?
The evidence against intelligent design of the human eye seems incontrovertible, you'd have to be an the exact opposite of intelligent, an idiot, to rig up the human eye the way their god is supposed to have, but I’m going to focus my conjecture here on lens design.
You're probably aware that a design “feature” of the eye is that the image is projected onto the retina in an upside down and left to right switch. This strikes me as an odd “feature” to build into an organ which has the expressed purpose of delivering to the brain, clear images of the current actual environmental circumstances.
Seems to me, whether concave or convex, there would be clear benefits to having a second lens.(If you want, have a look at the Refracting Telescope Designs on Wikipedia.)
As the image would be displayed correctly on the retina, the 'newborn' brain wouldn't have to learn how to correct the image. And this benefit would extend to the entirety of the lifespan; a second lens would release the portion of each brain’s available processing power that is permanently allocated to performing this image correction process.
Wouldn’t any designer worth his salt easily spot that an additional, simple, energy-efficient bio-mechanical subsystem (lens and ciliary body mechanism) would eliminate this constant drain of more valuable system resources? Indeed, you could say that a definitive role of any designer is to make structural changes which clearly improve energy and resource efficiency. The improvement to the overall system performance that a second lens would bring, makes it worthy of inclusion regardless of any extra survivability benefit for the newborn.
So, for my perfect design, I’d include a secondary lens to correct the inverted image and, as a little tweak to the whole rig, I'd add a set of inter-ciliary body muscles, to change the distance between the lenses and provide zoom capability. What the hell, it’s just a conjecture. Or is it?
Check this out...
The human pituitary gland is located in the brain between the eyes.
Now, I don't know the science, which is probably why I’m leaning toward the next conclusion, but is it not likely that the current pituitary position is responsible for the formation of the lens we have? And, is it therefore, not a possibility that a future human evolutionary mutation could bring an individual’s pituitary gland into closer proximity than 'normal' to the eyes and form a secondary lens?
Watch that space!
No don't actually, you'll go cross-eyed and give yourself a headache!
But, oh, wait, what if going cross-eyed and giving your self a headache would cause the pituitary mutation and give us a second lens??
Right, I know, half of you actually watch that space and half of you watch it metaphorically. ;)
As final flight of fancy…
In a future time a new race comes to visit our planet. In the course of our friendly initial interactions it’s discovered that we have similar monotheistic biblical creation myths, a rapport develops.
Later, in an exchange of medical knowledge, it’s discovered that the visitors have a second lens which displays the universe “the way god meant it”.
We ‘see’ it inverted and so, in their eyes, we are the spawn of Satan.
But hey, that could never happen, could it?
More on the eye here
This is one of the Too Many Questions
My own knowledge of the eye kind of slid down the slope of disinterest with the first diagram I saw in Biology class. I took the view, “As long as it works, I'm not fussed why! And I’m never going to take mine apart, so what’s the point of knowing the names of its components?” Yeah, yeah, I know, kinda childish but hey, I was a child.
However, the god-squad makes a fuss about the miraculous mechanics of the human visual system, so I thought I'd cast a beady eye across the subject… (You can probably expect more rubbish optic-puns.)
Many sources detail the imperfections of the human eye, very clearly detailing the flaws, or you can watch the first 3 mins 30 secs of this video “Intelligent Design (2): The Human Eye”
http://www.youtube.com/embed/CZkPAanGXsc
So, it seems clear that the Octopus eye, with its blood vessels on the sensible side of the retina and no blind-spot, is better than the human eye but also, if one was setting out to design the ‘perfect’ human eye, why would a creator not include access to the full ultra-violet to infra-red electromagnetic spectrum like the Mantis Shrimp?
The evidence against intelligent design of the human eye seems incontrovertible, you'd have to be an the exact opposite of intelligent, an idiot, to rig up the human eye the way their god is supposed to have, but I’m going to focus my conjecture here on lens design.
You're probably aware that a design “feature” of the eye is that the image is projected onto the retina in an upside down and left to right switch. This strikes me as an odd “feature” to build into an organ which has the expressed purpose of delivering to the brain, clear images of the current actual environmental circumstances.
Seems to me, whether concave or convex, there would be clear benefits to having a second lens.(If you want, have a look at the Refracting Telescope Designs on Wikipedia.)
As the image would be displayed correctly on the retina, the 'newborn' brain wouldn't have to learn how to correct the image. And this benefit would extend to the entirety of the lifespan; a second lens would release the portion of each brain’s available processing power that is permanently allocated to performing this image correction process.
Wouldn’t any designer worth his salt easily spot that an additional, simple, energy-efficient bio-mechanical subsystem (lens and ciliary body mechanism) would eliminate this constant drain of more valuable system resources? Indeed, you could say that a definitive role of any designer is to make structural changes which clearly improve energy and resource efficiency. The improvement to the overall system performance that a second lens would bring, makes it worthy of inclusion regardless of any extra survivability benefit for the newborn.
So, for my perfect design, I’d include a secondary lens to correct the inverted image and, as a little tweak to the whole rig, I'd add a set of inter-ciliary body muscles, to change the distance between the lenses and provide zoom capability. What the hell, it’s just a conjecture. Or is it?
Check this out...
"Secondary lens formation caused by implantation of pituitary into the eyes of the newt, Notophthalmus*1
Whole pituitary glands, as well as equivalent-sized pieces of kidney, liver, and adrenal tissue, were implanted into the anterior chamber of the adult newt eye. Secondary lens formation was present in 16 out of 17 cases of the pituitary implantation experiments in which the pituitary tissues were exposed to the anterior chamber fluid." Full Article - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0012160676900130
The human pituitary gland is located in the brain between the eyes.
Now, I don't know the science, which is probably why I’m leaning toward the next conclusion, but is it not likely that the current pituitary position is responsible for the formation of the lens we have? And, is it therefore, not a possibility that a future human evolutionary mutation could bring an individual’s pituitary gland into closer proximity than 'normal' to the eyes and form a secondary lens?
Watch that space!
No don't actually, you'll go cross-eyed and give yourself a headache!
But, oh, wait, what if going cross-eyed and giving your self a headache would cause the pituitary mutation and give us a second lens??
Right, I know, half of you actually watch that space and half of you watch it metaphorically. ;)
As final flight of fancy…
In a future time a new race comes to visit our planet. In the course of our friendly initial interactions it’s discovered that we have similar monotheistic biblical creation myths, a rapport develops.
Later, in an exchange of medical knowledge, it’s discovered that the visitors have a second lens which displays the universe “the way god meant it”.
We ‘see’ it inverted and so, in their eyes, we are the spawn of Satan.
But hey, that could never happen, could it?
More on the eye here
PEACE
Crispy
Crispy
Please leave a comment - Anything will do
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!
The best communications are often,
THREE WORDS OR LESS
OR ONE OR MORE FINGERS!
