Nathan Lents: How Did The Eye Evolve?

No one at all. I was kidding! You know that right?? I even said “easy steps” to make it obvious that I was being silly!

But, as Joshua mentioned, I am very interested in the subject, from your perspective. I am very much open to learning how something like this can occur, and my own personal stumbling block (beyond a lack of technical knowledge) is that I have a need to picture or visualize how such a thing can occur, in order to believe that it can occur. (I don’t believe I’m unique in this regard.)

My serious obstacle to this is not any single stepwise change (mutation or other) that can occur along the way, but rather how many stepwise changes can occur, undirected, in concert with so many other physiological changes that must also take place. For eyes, there is not just the myriad disparate cells that have different functions, but their construction order, connections to other kinds of cells, and the like. And then, the eyeball is not an island unto itself, but rather there are muscles that move them, lids that cover them, glands that water them, vessels that feed them, ducts that drain them, lashes that shade them, bones that contain them, and so on and so on. This is why I struggle to accept an unguided methodological process having caused them to exist, and this does not even begin to consider the chemical message that is transcribed by the brain to convey the optical image that the eye sees.

I share this with you because I’m not against what you say or teach or evangelize. It’s just that, for me and others like me, it is much easier to accept that a perceived design flaw might be a misunderstood advantage, than to see how an unknown number of events came together, just so, and resulted in vision. That said, I’m open minded and willing to learn what is known!

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