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To: Ichneumon
Even by Behe's definition (in particular, *especially* by Behe's definition), evolution is perfectly able to produce "irreducible complexity".

Then explain to me how transitional stages of development would benefit the creature (increase its ability to survive) in the following cases:

• The woodpecker's tongue that wraps around (over) its head. What would the intermediate stages have looked like (including the supporting biological systems) and how would they have benefitted the bird?

• The human eye. What would the intermediate stages have looked like (including the supporting biological systems) and how would they have benefitted human beings?

55 posted on 12/20/2003 9:02:40 AM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: Aquinasfan; PatrickHenry; Right Wing Professor; js1138; longshadow; happygrl; Mr. Silverback
[Even by Behe's definition (in particular, *especially* by Behe's definition), evolution is perfectly able to produce "irreducible complexity".]

Then explain to me how transitional stages of development would benefit the creature (increase its ability to survive) in the following cases:

• The woodpecker's tongue that wraps around (over) its head. What would the intermediate stages have looked like (including the supporting biological systems) and how would they have benefitted the bird?

Intermediate stages would have looked like a tongue that wrapped only *partway* around the head -- like a chicken's tongue, for example:

"Supporting biological systems" would have been the same hyoid bone that other birds use to guide their tongues -- the woodpecker's tongue works exactly the same as other birds' tongues, just greater in length. How would they have benefitted the bird? Because a longer tongue is better in bark-probing birds, even if it's not quite as long as the most extreme examples found in modern woodpeckers.

For pete's sake, was that so hard to figure out for anyone who knew even the SLIGHTEST, most ELEMENTARY information about bird anatomy? (I guess this leaves out all the creationist sources which still wave the woodpecker around as if it somehow used an impossible "new" tongue structure.)

What exactly led you to believe that this was in any way "irreducibly complex"? Did you use the same system that other creationists (including Behe) use, which is to say "I don't know the answer off the top of my head, therefore it must be impossible?"

• The human eye. What would the intermediate stages have looked like (including the supporting biological systems) and how would they have benefitted human beings?

The eyes of "human beings" are the same as ape eyes, which we inherited them from, therefore it's silly to ask how "intermediate stages" of the eye would have benefitted *humans*, as if you're under the bizarre impression that humans (*as* humans) had to evolve their eyes from scratch while human.

But to answer your question in its more sensible form, the evolution of modern mammalian-style eyes (which of course includes "human eyes") is well understood. Basically they arise from a primitive eyespot through a gradual sequence schematically represented as:

Eyes easily evolve through the following intermediate stages, each of which is a step up in visual ability from the stage before, and therefore would have obviously benefitted the creature which had them compared to the eyes of its ancestors:

1. Light-sensitive nerves, such as in the dinoflagellate Gyrodinium dorsum, the pulmonate Lymnea stagnalis, the marine gastropods Aplysia and Onchidium and the bivalves Spisula and Mercenaria, the hydra, and so on.

2. Light-sensitive spots (composed of a patch of the light-senstive nerves from stage #1) as in many unicellular organisms esp. eukaryotic algae, and multicellular creatures like Leeches, the bivalves Lima, Mya, and Tridacna, etc.

3. Cup-shaped light sensitive spots (composed of the spots in #2 with the addition of a transparent protective covering which becomes thicker, pushing the light-sensitive spot itself downward into a cup-shaped depression), as in turbellarian worm Planeria gonocephala, nemertime worm Drepanophorus, the limpet Patella, etc.

4. A deepened cup-shaped light-sensitive spot which has deepened to the point that the cup becomes more spherical and the opening which accepts light has begun to narrow, forming a primitive pinhole camera, as in the cephalopod Nautilus, etc.

5. Modification (shape, material, etc.) of the transparent material in the light-admitting aperture, in a way that better shapes the incoming ilght (i.e. a "lens"), as in abalone, ragworm, polychaete worm Vanadis, and so on.

6. Addition of a method (muscles, generally) to reshape the lens as needed for changing focal requirements.

Also somewhere in there at any point is the incremental addition of the ability to widen/narrow the light aperture to better adjust for changing brightness (i.e. which through refinement becomes the iris or some similar structure), and an ability to skew the "aim" of the eyespot/eye without having to move the body it rests in (i.e. muscles or some other structure to rotate the eye).

Voila, there's the mammalian eye structure, having arisen by gradual modifications, which of which improves vision acuity, yet each step is still fully functional.

You know, if you spent even a fraction of the time looking for answers as you do looking for what you hope will be "stumper" questions, you'd have known all this already.

For example a Google search for "evolution woodpecker tongue" turns up many good websites on the anatomy and evolution of woodpeckers, including this excellent page, and a Google search for "evolution eye" turns up more fascinating information on evolution of the eye than you can shake a stick at, and also excellent books such as Cronly-Dillon, JR. & Gregory, RL., eds. Vision and Visual Dysfunction Vol. 2: Evolution of the Eye and Visual System. Boca Raton: CRC Press. 1991.

It never ceases to amaze me how often creationists propose "problems" with evolution that are no such thing, and in fact are well-understood areas of biology.

Is it too much to ask that creationists *learn* something about biology before they attempt to refute it, or that Freeper creationists take a moment to peruse some *science* sources before they post what they have read in their tunnel-visioned reading of *only* creationist sources?

62 posted on 12/20/2003 2:29:29 PM PST by Ichneumon
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