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Abstract
It is estimated that nearly half of the brain’s neurons are connected directly to the retina and involved in the processing of vision, attesting to the paramount importance of vision in brain functioning. For more than a century, scientists have investigated the visual system through studies of its complex anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology. Although we are still at the early stages of understanding vision, great progress is being made toward deciphering how the brain interprets shapes, objects, movement, location, and facial recognition. The optics of the cornea and lens project focused images of the external world onto the retina. However, the experience and conscious interpretation of visual phenomena involve structures in the cortex and brain stem. Scientists have only begun to decode and build neural network models to simulate and explain how what we experience as vision is processed and interpreted by the brain.
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The human brain contains approximately 86 billion neurons. This figure is widely accepted among neuroscientists and has been established through rigorous scientific research
An amazing number of connections are made among all the specialized parts in the construction of the eye and brain for sight, and all of this is done correctly in a few months while we are in our mother’s womb. It is either fine-tuning during human birth or an unguided process brought together without outside interference. Which is more reasonable: chance or fine-tuning by design?
@KellyJay saidCheers KellyJay, hope you're having a nice holiday weekend.
From off the web
Abstract
It is estimated that nearly half of the brain’s neurons are connected directly to the retina and involved in the processing of vision, attesting to the paramount importance of vision in brain functioning. For more than a century, scientists have investigated the visual system through studies of its complex anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology. ...[text shortened]... t together without outside interference. Which is more reasonable: chance or fine-tuning by design?
The "fine-tuning" wasn't done in nine months — it was done over half a billion years.
An ancestor with a slightly better light-sensitive patch spotted the predator first, survived, and reproduced. The one without that edge didn't. Repeat that across hundreds of millions of generations and you don't need a designer — you need time and selection pressure.
Every step from a single light-sensitive cell to a full vertebrate eye still exists in living animals today: flatworms detect light from dark, nautiluses use pinhole eyes, octopuses see in sharp focus.
The eye isn't proof of design. It's a fossil record written in flesh.
@Bish saidI’m not overly concerned about how much time, as in age, you think the universe has had to do all that takes place. I’m more concerned about timing, which we see in the here and now, while age can be debated with no conclusion reached, we know what is going on in the here and now. In a very short amount of time in the months of human development, an incredibly large number of events are taking place with highly specific types of biology connecting at specific places to achieve an amazing sight.
Cheers KellyJay, hope you're having a nice holiday weekend.
The "fine-tuning" wasn't done in nine months — it was done over half a billion years.
An ancestor with a slightly better light-sensitive patch spotted the predator first, survived, and reproduced. The one without that edge didn't. Repeat that across hundreds of millions of generations and you don't need a designe ...[text shortened]... opuses see in sharp focus.
The eye isn't proof of design. It's a fossil record written in flesh.
Like the age, you can debate how long, just as you can debate this eye was before that one, this fossil shows us this or that, and you can be shown you’re wrong, how? Without any means to validate your stance, one way or another, let’s just look at what we do see and ponder that. We see simpler eyes in the here and now, a wide range of variations in features and forms, seeing them all in the here and now, and that takes another leap to suggest this one led to that one.
What we do know is how complex and specialized it all is, and you think fossils contain the answers, by looking at stones and other eyes we see today, as living examples that can show us how all of this functionally integrated complexity came about, really?
@KellyJay said"Chance or fine-tuning by design?" Maybe the question is more nuanced than that.
I’m not overly concerned about how much time, as in age, you think the universe has had to do all that takes place. I’m more concerned about timing, which we see in the here and now, while age can be debated with no conclusion reached, we know what is going on in the here and now. In a very short amount of time in the months of human development, an incredibly large number ...[text shortened]... ing examples that can show us how all of this functionally integrated complexity came about, really?
If the eye *were* designed, the designer made some odd choices.
Every image hits your retina upside down. Your brain has to flip it right-side up before you can use it. A designer wouldn't need that workaround. The retina is also wired backwards. Light has to pass through layers of nerves and blood vessels before reaching the photoreceptors. That's why we have a blind spot.
The octopus eye, which developed along a completely separate path, is wired the right way around — photoreceptors facing the light, no nerve tangle, no blind spot.
A designer wouldn't make that mistake twice. Natural selection, working with whatever happened to be lying around at each step, would.
The complexity of the eye isn't evidence of design. The clumsiness of it points to something else entirely.
You're skipping a third option that's been on the table since 1859.
@Bish saidActually reducing one piece to highlight another is a good design. Do you see?
"Chance or fine-tuning by design?" Maybe the question is more nuanced than that.
If the eye *were* designed, the designer made some odd choices.
Every image hits your retina upside down. Your brain has to flip it right-side up before you can use it. A designer wouldn't need that workaround. The retina is also wired backwards. Light has to pass through layers of nerves and ...[text shortened]... s to something else entirely.
You're skipping a third option that's been on the table since 1859.
@KellyJay saidMaybe you are right. Also maybe the design *is* natural selection.
Actually reducing one piece to highlight another is a good design. Do you see?
We can have our loving God without the Bible stories. They are two very different truths.
The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.
Off to plant some tomatoes and peppers — good talking with you this morning KellyJay.
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@Bish saidNatural selection is not a process that directs any modification to occur, moreover it is even a design terminology verbiage when the word “selection” is coined as that implies a choice has been made. At best instead of misrepresenting what is believed is a choice made. It best reflects a filtering of lifeforms that can not compete and survive. In that nothing about that process directs any alteration of any genetic code to create NEW features and forms.
Maybe you are right. Also maybe the design *is* natural selection.
We can have our loving God without the Bible stories. They are two very different truths.
The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.
Off to plant some tomatoes and peppers — good talking with you this morning KellyJay.
Without the just so stories people apply to things there is no creative mechanism to form anything new and lasting that would not kill off life.