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Do complex life-forms in this universe automatically develop a pair of eyes?

 
 
jeeprs
 
  1  
Reply Mon 17 May, 2010 02:14 am
@steffen phil,
that is, if any are left after the Spill.......
0 Replies
 
Nullifidian
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2010 04:52 pm
@steffen phil,
steffen;125699 wrote:
Looking at the forms that life has developed on this planet, it seems as if there is something involved that is not based on coincidence, but on unavoidable logic. For example: A pair of organs for visual perception.

All vertebrates, fish, mammals,birds, reptiles, amphibians, are using this tool (with few exceptions of later atrophy), as well as most of the more complex invertebrates. And they all are using a pair of such organs. It doesn't matter if you look in the face of a bird, a lizard, a snail or an ant, you will always see this pair of visual organs.


It's difficult to quantify the term "complexity" with any rigor when applied to biological organisms, which is one of the things that makes speaking to intelligent design creationists so annoying. Nevertheless, it is true that binocular vision is common in the animal world, and that confers several advantages. A creature is not totally blinded if one of its eyes is damaged, obviously, and it provides a greater field of vision than a single eye. Less obviously, but no less importantly, it can also give "binocular summation", which enhances one's ability to detect faint objects in the distance, and it provides stereopsis by parallax, so that the brain can better calculate depth from the slightly different images reaching each individual retina.

Other organisms do have single eyes, however, like the copepods. Others have what is technically more than one eye, like the compound eyes of the arthropods. A fly may look like it has two eyes, but in fact it has hundreds, each ommatidium functioning as a single eye which conveys either a single pixellated image or multiple images.

Interestingly, though most vertebrates have two eyes, the first chordates were blind, so vision was lost in the line leading to vertebrates and then subsequently regained. Thus, while vertebrate camera-type eyes and invertebrate camera-type eyes (such as those of the octopus) were evolved convergently, they all use the same basic signalling pattern in development (the "hox genes").

So I wouldn't say that it's necessarily "logic" that causes animals to develop two eyes, but merely that there are a limited number of potential solutions to the problem of vision, some of which are constrained by physics and others by evolutionary history, and yet there's a very strong adaptive reason for solving that problem.

On another planet, if it were earthlike, then it may well be that other creatures would develop two eyes like our own, since the physics would be the same and the advantage to being able to resolve faint objects or see with better depth perception would be the same. Nevertheless, if there's one thing I know from studying organisms is that they are always capable of surprising one, so on a planet that was not earthlike and yet capable of sustaining life, I cannot even begin to guess what their systems of vision would be like.
0 Replies
 
jeeprs
 
  1  
Reply Tue 25 May, 2010 06:20 pm
@steffen phil,
Nullifidian;168800 wrote:
on a planet that was not earthlike and yet capable of sustaining life, I cannot even begin to guess what their systems of vision would be like.


But you can infer what people think they might be like from watching science fiction movies. (Just saw Avatar 3D. Fantastic!)

What if, however, it was found that the basic tendencies for evolutionary development were similar to those governing (say) crystal formation, albeit at a higher level of complexity. It would follow that if you were to discover another carbon-based life-form (and the possibility of there being silicon-based life-forms is science fiction at this point) on another planet, it might bear surprising similarities to those here, as well as differences.

And if this were so, would it indicate the existence of 'laws of biological form' analogous to the laws of chemistry, but again at a higher level?
Alan McDougall
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 May, 2010 01:59 am
@steffen phil,
The problem of creating a complex eye by the process of evolution is in my opinion the "irreducible complexity of the eye"
0 Replies
 
Nullifidian
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 May, 2010 03:40 am
@jeeprs,
jeeprs;168839 wrote:
What if, however, it was found that the basic tendencies for evolutionary development were similar to those governing (say) crystal formation, albeit at a higher level of complexity. It would follow that if you were to discover another carbon-based life-form (and the possibility of there being silicon-based life-forms is science fiction at this point) on another planet, it might bear surprising similarities to those here, as well as differences.

And if this were so, would it indicate the existence of 'laws of biological form' analogous to the laws of chemistry, but again at a higher level?


Well, obviously in this hypothetical it would indicate just that, almost by definition. After all, what are laws except mathematical generalizations that represent certain "tendencies", like the tendency of objects to fall with an acceleration of 9.32 m/s^2?

And it's not an intrinsically silly idea either. Developmental biologists of the late 19th/early 20th century spent a lot of time seeking the "laws of form" for organisms. One of the greatest exponents of this view is D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, and his On Growth and Form is the Bible of this movement in developmental biology, and still much respected by certain biologists (myself included). Much of their work has been superseded by evolutionary developmental biology, which is the more fruitful research program, and yet there is a core there of basic reality that we should not throw out: namely, that there are physical constraints that shape the final organism, like the ability of proteins to diffuse across a gradient and so on.

Nevertheless, in the real world, I don't think it would turn out that these physical constraints would be sufficient to produce alien beings that look at all like Earth creatures.

---------- Post added 05-26-2010 at 03:06 AM ----------

Alan McDougall;168954 wrote:
The problem of creating a complex eye by the process of evolution is in my opinion the "irreducible complexity of the eye"


There is no such problem. Your beliefs have been presumed upon by propagandists with ideological problems with evolution.

There are, however, numerous problems with the notion of "irreducible complexity". First, it's based on a fallacy. The argument can be boiled down to the following syllogism:

P1) Designed objects exhibit irreducible complexity.
P2) Certain biological systems exhibit irreducible complexity.
C) Certain biological systems are designed objects.

That's the fallacy of the undistributed middle, so no matter how much 'evidence' Behe piles up for the minor premise, the conclusion will not follow. Not that Behe's evidence amounts to anything other than noting that evolutionary explanations then didn't exist for the systems he cites, which is nothing more than the fallacy of arguing from ignorance, which is a dangerous place to be arguing from. Much of the argumentative ground under his feet has been eroded by subsequent research (e.g. an evolutionary pathway for photosynthesis was found in 2002* as a result of whole-genome analyses of photosynthetic prokaryotes [organisms without a true nucleus]).

Furthermore, the argument to irreducible complexity assumes a view of evolution that is teleological, knocks it down, and then uses that as an argument for... teleology!

The only way Behe's "irreducible complexity" makes sense is if evolution operates by the successive addition and perfect of biological "parts" to a given end, which is teleological by definition. Behe observes that evolution doesn't work this way and declares victory, which is an act of unprecedented chutzpah. But as one can see above from the photosynthesis example, evolution that is not teleological fits the evidence best and is not affected in the slightest by Behe's argument.

Furthermore, the evolution of eyes is a subject that's been adequately dealt with since I was in high school (and even before Behe published Darwin's Black Box, which appeared in print at the start of my junior year in high school). A friend of mine maintains an excellent and well-laid out website, and he's got this argument addressed on his site:

Evolution -- Evolution of the Eye

* Raymond J, Zhaxybayeva O, Gogarten JP, et al. (2002) "Whole-Genome Analysis of Photosynthetic Prokaryotes." Science 298: 1616-1620. (link opens a PDF file)
jeeprs
 
  1  
Reply Wed 26 May, 2010 05:06 am
@Nullifidian,
Nullifidian;168969 wrote:
Well, obviously in this hypothetical it would indicate just that, almost by definition. After all, what are laws except mathematical generalizations that represent certain "tendencies", like the tendency of objects to fall with an acceleration of 9.32 m/s^2?

And it's not an intrinsically silly idea either. Developmental biologists of the late 19th/early 20th century spent a lot of time seeking the "laws of form" for organisms. One of the greatest exponents of this view is D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, and his On Growth and Form is the Bible of this movement in developmental biology, and still much respected by certain biologists (myself included). Much of their work has been superseded by evolutionary developmental biology, which is the more fruitful research program, and yet there is a core there of basic reality that we should not throw out: namely, that there are physical constraints that shape the final organism, like the ability of proteins to diffuse across a gradient and so on.

Nevertheless, in the real world, I don't think it would turn out that these physical constraints would be sufficient to produce alien beings that look at all like Earth creatures.



But we might see convergent tendencies, nonetheless. I mean, antelope and deer are not related, but adaptive necessity has produced a very similar form in their case. I suppose you could then compare a kangaroo, which occupies a similar environmental niche, but has evolved along separate lines in order to exploit it. So obviously the same general requirements can produce very divergent forms, in some cases, but very similar forms, in others. I do wonder how 'alien' alien life would be, but am resigned to the fact that we will probably never know the answer to that question. Unless the tardigrade came in via comet, as some suggest.
steffen phil
 
  1  
Reply Sat 29 May, 2010 03:34 pm
@jeeprs,
Nullifidian wrote:
Quote:

It's difficult to quantify the term "complexity" with any rigor when applied to biological organisms, which is one of the things that makes speaking to intelligent design creationists so annoying. Nevertheless, it is true that binocular vision is common in the animal world, and that confers several advantages. A creature is not totally blinded if one of its eyes is damaged, obviously, and it provides a greater field of vision than a single eye. Less obviously, but no less importantly, it can also give "binocular summation", which enhances one's ability to detect faint objects in the distance, and it provides stereopsis by parallax, so that the brain can better calculate depth from the slightly different images reaching each individual retina.

Other organisms do have single eyes, however, like the copepods. Others have what is technically more than one eye, like the compound eyes of the arthropods. A fly may look like it has two eyes, but in fact it has hundreds, each ommatidium functioning as a single eye which conveys either a single pixellated image or multiple images.

Interestingly, though most vertebrates have two eyes, the first chordates were blind, so vision was lost in the line leading to vertebrates and then subsequently regained. Thus, while vertebrate camera-type eyes and invertebrate camera-type eyes (such as those of the octopus) were evolved convergently, they all use the same basic signalling pattern in development (the "hox genes").

So I wouldn't say that it's necessarily "logic" that causes animals to develop two eyes, but merely that there are a limited number of potential solutions to the problem of vision, some of which are constrained by physics and others by evolutionary history, and yet there's a very strong adaptive reason for solving that problem.

On another planet, if it were earthlike, then it may well be that other creatures would develop two eyes like our own, since the physics would be the same and the advantage to being able to resolve faint objects or see with better depth perception would be the same. Nevertheless, if there's one thing I know from studying organisms is that they are always capable of surprising one, so on a planet that was not earthlike and yet capable of sustaining life, I cannot even begin to guess what their systems of vision would be like.



The history of life on this planet is extremely multisided and complex. Countless designs have been tested by nature and there are clear results, one of them is two eyes, with all vertebrates and insects have them and 99,9 % are using them (btw. What do you mean when you say "most vertebrates have two eyes" , are there any without?)

It is something like a knee-jerk reflex to peg anybody into the creationists -drawer if he or she is telling the truth. There is no major alternative to the two-eyes concept when it comes to a complexity as the life-formes have reached it here on the sun-lit planet earth, this is a matter of logic.

Would you say that it is just by random that men have found the round wheel as major tool for transportation? No you wouldn't, because there is no logical alternative.

Can you imagine any basis for the huge variety of life-forms as here on earth other than a sunlit planet? What could that be, a planet covered with dark clouds for billion of years but still holding a tempered climate? Or an ocean ground covered with hot vents?

You will not be able to deliver any logical alternative, and instead you will loose yourself in contorted movements.

In fact, our scientists are indirectly but fatally restricted by the ridiculous creationists.

_________________________
www.basicrule.info
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