Trilobite eyes (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, March 24, 2013, 06:21 (4054 days ago) @ David Turell

I wanted to touch a bit more on the article that David linked, because it is really beautiful in some ways, particularly in my 'Grand Designer' world view.-Discussing the design of the eye: "They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period."-Think about the implications of something being "as good as they can be, period". It is one thing to say that random chance was able to cobble all of this together over time, and even that is a stretch. However, it is an entirely different thing to say that, given enough time, random chance would stumble blindly into the absolute perfectly optimized design. I can't even begin to guess at how to quantify that probability of that, so I will not try beyond stating my extreme doubt that it is remotely possible given the timelines that we have.-"In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn't get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants."-A set of systems across multiple species that are perfectly designed. If the chance of it happening once on accident is low, what are the chances of it happening many times? Even an intelligent human designer would be hard pressed to intentionally design multiple systems that are perfectly tuned, if even possible at all. -"So we reach the counterintuitive conclusion," he said, "that the optimal way to control movement allows a certain amount of fluctuation and noise" — a certain lack of control.-"The brain, too, seems built to tolerate bloopers and static hiss. Simon Laughlin of Cambridge University has proposed that the brain's wiring system has been maximally miniaturized, condensed for the sake of speed to the physical edge of signal fidelity."-Apparently not only does the 'mucking about' seem to be intentional, it seems to be the absolute best possible design their could be given the physics of the universe. How much more evidence does it take? If they proved that every system was as optimally efficient, would that make a believer of you, or would you still find some reason to disbelieve that which is painfully obvious?

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.