Aineo wrote:*Snip unnecessary description of the eye*
To say then that the human eye is definite proof of a lack thoughtful design, is a bit presumptuous I would think. This seems to be especially true when one considers the fact that the best of modern human science and engineering has not produced even a fraction of the computing and imaging capability of the human eye. How can we then, ignorant as we must be concerning such miracles of complex function, hope to accurately judge the relative fitness or logic of something so far beyond our own capabilities? Should someone who cannot even come close to understanding or creating the object that they are observing think to critique not to mention disparage the work that that lies before them? This would be like a six-year-old child trying to tell an engineer how to design a skyscraper or that one of his buildings is “better” than the others. Until Dawkins or someone else can actually make something as good or better than the human eye, I would invite them to consider the silliness of their efforts in trying to make value judgments on such things… such things that are obviously among most beautiful and beyond the most astounding works of human genius and art in existence.
The good doctor then quotes Dawkins:
In his 1986 book, “The Blind Watchmaker,” the famous evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins posses this design flaw argument for the human eye:
What a weak argument. So we can't criticise something that is obviously flawed? How about whales? What kind of designer makes a marine lifeform that can
drown? Either it was natural selection, or the creator'sa blithering idiot.
To say we haven't made something better than an eye is patently false. I assume you know what a camera is and UHDTV which achieves a resolution
beyond that of the human eye. A pathetic argument which suspends disbelief to an amazing degree. And when we do create an eye, then what? Can we then laugh at the designer?
I also believe it was you, Aineo, that argued for simplicity being superior. Then why would we
want to replicate a horribly complex organ like the eye when we can achieve better results with modern optical recorders?
Dawkins’s argument certainly does seem intuitive. However, the problem with relying strictly on intuition is that intuition alone is not scientific. Many a well thought out hypothesis has seemed flawless on paper, but in when put to the test, it turns out not to work as well as was hoped. Unforeseen problems and difficulties arise. New and innovative solutions, not previously considered, became all important to obtaining the desired function. Dawkins’s problem is not one of reasonable intuition, but one of a lack of testability of his hypothesis. However reasonable it may appear, unless Dawkins is able to test his assumptions to see if in fact “verted” is better than “inverted” retinal construction for the needs of the human, this hypothesis of his remains untested and therefore unsupported by the scientific method. Beyond this problem, even if he were to prove scientifically that a verted retina is in fact more reasonable for human vision, this still would not scientifically disprove design. As previously described, proving flaws in design according to a personal understanding or need does not disprove the hypothesis that this flawed design was none-the-less designed.
Since a designer has not been excluded by this argument of Dawkins, the naturalistic theory of evolution is not an automatic default. However true the theory of evolution might be, it is not supported scientifically without testability. This is what evolutionists need to provide and this is exactly what is lacking. The strength of design theory rests, not in its ability to show perfection in design, but in its ability to point toward the statistical improbability of a naturalistic method to explain the complexity of life that is evident in such structures as the human eye. Supposed flaws do not eliminate this statistical challenge to evolutionary theories. Dawkins’s error is to assume that the thinking, knowledge and motivation of all designers are similar to his thinking, knowledge and motivation.
Brilliant. Do you know what this argument is, ladies and gentlemen? Why, it's the unfalsifiability one, a.k.a. the "moving the goal posts" argument. So not finding a flaw means a designer, but when we
do find a flaw, we can't rule out design either because we don't know the purpose of that flaw because the designer is so beyond human comprehension. Sounds like garbage to me. I'll ignore the fact that a verted retina would be superior because of lack of extra tissue to penetrate. Anyone that disputes that is just an idiot grasping at straws or someone that would argue a layer of Vaseline on a camera lens is somehow better suited to the thing.
My problem with teaching Darwinian evolution, macroevolution, or the origin of species by whatever name you choose to use is the lack of “testability” of what is taught as a scientific fact.
Guess what? You can't test for a designer either. Guess that makes us even then, oh wait, evolution is documented. Supernatural deities aren't.
EDIT: Additionally, this still doesn't explain why vertebrate fish have the same inverted eyes we have
yet live in the same conditions as the cephalopods. The designer must have a bad memory too.