I don't really buy that the loss of eyesight in any animal is considered "degenerated". Maybe the eyes themselves are degenerate, but the organism itself is just as likely more derived, as in the degenerate eyes are apomorphic. This is plainly obvious in deepwater fishes and even invertebrates that trace their ancestry to shallow water relatives. They later lost their eyesight as evolutionary processes (mutation and selection) acted strongly against eyes in the pitch dark.
You forgot one thing, that the suns ultraviolet light rays destroy eye sight by penetrating and damaging the lens, cornea and retina. Try staring at the sun for a couple of months at a frequency of about five minutes a day and you'll see what I mean(I haven't tested this, just look at the statistics). Thus, adding this to your logic of the Darwinian evolutionary process, neither pitch dark nor light can really trigger eye sight (and thus has a tendency to lack any systematic process to creating eyes) since both are negating factors anyway, rendering them degenerate and leaving the question of what does
generate besides these obvious speculations and assumptions.
As a side note, Scientists are working on something called the Bionic eye to replace damaged retina cells, this is a small microchip that is implanted to correct the persons central vision. Another is to implant an actual camera which will interface its circuitry (the camera acting as the artificial eye) with the brains circuitry (the optic nerve channel which connects to the brain). If you know how the eye works, then you know that the signal has to be inverted when the brain processes the image. For example, the eye takes in an image upside down and then the brain processes that image and changes it state by flipping it right side up again.
The eye is a signaling system which gives input to which the brain further processes and creates the final mental image (output). Without the brain , eyes would be useless complex structures, thus eyes are part of vastly larger and more complex system. I would see it much easier for an eye to evolve backwards and not forwards given its modularity and dependencies. Darwinian Evolutionary theory which predicts both degenerative and generative functions doesn't mean it happens both ways, you have to have concrete evidence it happens both ways in accord with the same process that the Salamander lost its eyes.
I still consider these flaws as evidence against design. Why have an organism invest energy in, or reduce it's fitness, with a useless feature if it could have been designed better. Why do the above fish with eyes need eyes?
Why have the fish designed better at all? Is this just a matter of your opinion of what design should and should not be? I think it is. The fish above here with eyes don't need eyes at all. If there is some sort of
need involved, then you are stepping into the zone of
purposeful causation. In Darwinian Evolution, there is no need for anything, it simply happens. In fact, many Evolutionists believe that if evolution were stepped back in time and the dice would begin rolling again, the results would quite different.
ALSO, if it wasn't for ID and creationists, evolutionary biologists would be able to fully focus their attention on finding additional evidence for DE. The ID movement "calls them out" and they have to defend themselves. i hardly see the Evo's doing the attacking
They continue too, in fact I think they should be thankful they are corrected time and time again. Tax dollars are going into evolutionary research, unlike Intelligent Design. You should go up to the Discovery Institute office yourself and see just how powerful they really are in comparison. Intelligent Design brings up a lot of valid questions especially about topics related to information theory. Evolutionary Biologists only believe they are being attacked because they have a hard time trying to answer points such as these:
provide me one example of a reactive process that creates complex specified information processing systems in three dimensional form
So, do you believe that each species is created special? What is the extent to which a species can be modified? The problem with this view is that the definition of species is so vague that you cannot define what is a species, subspecies, form, race, or population in many cases. So what is the result of evolution and what is "created"? When does God decide to create a new species? What are the predictions of ID?
For some reason, I get the sense that you think ID is about God intervening during the evolutionary process.(or I'm not really understanding what your saying) God could have done that, but God could have set it up from the beginning, I have stated this before, I don't think we will ever be able to fully understand how God did it.
Intelligent Design is about design detection, following what we know about human designs we find that in the universe, mind has the only capacity to create these types of systems. Thus, it is valid hypothesis to state that biological systems which share vast similarities to what humans design, would be part of a very similar process. I think one of the first questions in ID was: where does information come from? A lot of interesting things follow this question, such as predictions that are completely out of line with the chance and luck happy theory of Darwinian evolution.
Himantoluphus, its quite apparent (judging by your anti-design comments) that you have adopted the fully-fledged neo-Darwinian view as David Blacklock has. I am really interested how you tie God and your other belief system together. Perhaps you could visit Zoegirls thread as she is contemplating the very same issue, and for good reasons which she is (I bet) perfectly aware of. You should know, that I respect everyone's views here. Many members here (if not most at this point in time) support Darwinian Evolution, they call themselves theistic evolutionists. I myself support a OEC model, I have my ways to interleave my faith with this model, but that does not mean that this model has any impact on my faith, so I'm assuming this is very similar to the way theistic evolutionists cooperate theirs.
After reading this question by Himantoluphus:
So, do you believe that each species is created special?,it made me think about the following:
The Bible makes it clear that God created us (ie: man) in his image, whatever that means, there is much we can deduct from that one verse. It may mean we are distinct from the rest of the animal kingdom, this is true in many ways such as when we talk about intelligence. But, it may also mean we are distinct from His creation process.
Thus, if God created man in his image, then perhaps "the god of chance" would only be applicable to anything but man. This is speculative, but I want to hear peoples opinions on this, especially those who have adopted a purely evolutionary viewpoint.
"Is it possible that God is not just an Engineer, but also a divine Artist who creates at times solely for His enjoyment? Maybe the Creator really does like beetles." RTB
