Evolution is preposterous

Mr Lundbergh is absolutely accurate in his critique of the false pseudo-scientific religion of Darwinism.

The hysterical/irrational reaction of its adherents is similar in many ways to the reaction to Pope Benedict's brilliant Regensburg lecture.

For anyone with an open mind, neither historical evidence nor scientific experimentation lend any credibility to this "theory". It remains just that, a preposterous theory, not a matter of fact. It's very much a case of ideology masquerading as science, a crutch for closed minds, an ideology for the deluded.

There's nothing concrete or tangible about it. The contrast with the contribution of its adherents' great ideological enemy (Roman Catholicism) could not be greater. There you have tangible evidence of its reality. For example you can visit the great universities, Oxford, Cambridge, Bologna etc. You can see the Sistine Chapel. You can expand your mind by absorbing the genius of Thomas Aquinas and so on, and so on.

Bad "scientific" ideas (like all bad ideas) have bad consequences. ERIC CONWAY, NAVAN, CO MEATH * Redmond O'Hanlon writes that adherents of evolution rely on "a biased interpretation" (Letters, July 28).

This could not be futher from the truth. One of the main reasons so many books by atheist writers have appeared recently is because of the "intelligent design" concept in the USA.

Over the last few years hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in an attempt by scientists to find evidence for God's handy work in the natural world. They have even tried (unsuccessfully) to have intelligent design inserted into school science courses on the basis that both arguments deserve equall respect, even though Darwinian evolution has literally mountains of ancient evidence to back it up, and intelligent design has no evidence at all, only theory based on parts of evolution which have not been fully explained by conventional science, yet.

If people such as Mr O'Hanlon can't reconcile evolution with the existence of God, then this is as good as proof that God dosen't exist, in the same way we know the earth is not flat because we know its true shape. Proof is always positive which is why nobody can ever find evidence for the non-existence of God.


Here's a picture of the girl mods.

[Unless you want to count all of the errors she made because she just copied the standard long-since-refuted creationist propaganda.]

Cite the errors.

Here are a few of my short pieces on several of her bizarre claims, let me know how many more of Ann Coulter's errors, fallacies, and falsehoods about evolutionary biology you'd like me to provide for you...

Ann certainly isn't being dishonest.
She certainly is in the science chapters. I've lost count of the number of blatant falsehoods and gross fallacies and half-truths she employs. Let's check just one small passage, shall we? From page 225:
Instead of gradual change occurring by random mutation and natural selection choosing the most "fit" to survive and reproduce--in other words, "Darwin's theory of evolution"--Gould and Eldredge hypothesized that evolution could also happen really fast and then stop happening at all for 150 million years. Basically, what happens is this: Your parents are slugs and then suddenly--but totally at random--you evolve into a gecko and your brother evolves into a shark and your sister evolves into a polar bear and the guy down the street evolves into a porpoise and so on--and then everybody relaxes by the pool for 150 million years, virtually unchanged.
I count at least seven serious misrepresentations in these two sentences -- the kind that give a grossly incorrect impression to the reader about the actual science.
Okay, maybe she's not dishonest, maybe she's just parroting someone else's dishonest propaganda but is too ignorant of the topic to realize it. But neither option inspires confidence.
One way or the other, however, she's doing a remarkable Michael Moore impression when she attempts to discuss biology and other fields of science. The reader will actually know *less* about biology after reading her book than he did before, because the book contains very little accurate information about biology, while filling the reader's head with large volumes of misinformation. The reader will end up *farther* from an understanding of the issue than when they started, in the same sense that a liberal who knows very little about the Iraq war will be closer to an understanding of it than someone who "knows" nothing but giant loads of anti-war anti-Bush propaganda about it.
As an old saying goes, "it's not the things you don't know that get you into trouble, as much as the things you 'know' that ain't so". And there's a great deal of "ain't so" in Ann's chapters on science. In fact, I'm not exagerrating at all when I say that it's far harder to find things that she got *right* in those chapters.

And:

and accepted without discussion.
Horse manure. Go right ahead and discuss it. No one's stopping you. And no, the result of the Kitzmiller and other court cases is not to bar "discussion". Anyone who claims that it is is grossly misrepresenting the actual cases -- like, say, Ann is doing on pages 223-224... Not only does she grossly misrepresent what can and can't be presented in classrooms, she misrepresents a number of cases such as that of Roger DeHart -- she pretends that he was removed from teaching biology simply because he wanted to present his students some fossils from China. The degree of this misrepresentation is shocking. For a more complete account of Dehart's problems with his school, see this, and then ask yourself whether Ann's description of this incident in her book is even remotely honest: "Meanwhile, when a high school biology teacher in America tries to tell his students about the Chinese fossils, he is banned from teaching biology".
Ann sort of "forgot" to mention that it wasn't his mentioning of some fossils that got him into hot water, it was his constant fighting with the school administration, frequent complaints from parents, his habit of using creationist materials which contained major falsehoods about biology after repeatedly being told not to use them, his hiding of his curriculum from the school by distributing materials to students for use during class then gathering them back again at the end of the class so that there would not be a "paper trail" of his material, etc. etc. etc. over a five year period. Gosh, that's just a *little* different from Ann's version, isn't it? Whether or not DeHart's behavior justified his removal from the biology class (he wasn't fired, just reassigned to teaching a different subject) can be debated, but the point is that Ann's description of it is GROSSLY misleading and false, and leaves out the most relevant issues involved in DeHart's reassignment, while "pretending" that it was just done over his "daring" to present some fossils that Ann tries to describe as some kind of major problem for evolutionary biology, when they aren't even that. The degree of distortion involved in her presentation is just jaw-dropping. If a liberal distorted some event that badly in order to misdescribe it in a way that slandered conservatives, we'd be justifiably up in arms, *and* take it as direct evidence of their gross dishonesty and/or their total incompetence.

And:

I don't get it. P. J. O'Rourke has been saying way more controversial things for way longer, and hasn't received a fraction of the condemnation of Ann.
I get it just fine. P.J. manages to be hard-hitting without being completely obnoxious about it, and the things he says adhere closely to the truth, unlike Ann's willingness to spew blatantly false accusations.
If the many examples at the link aren't enough for you, here's another: On page 206, she wrote, in regards to an article by biologist Jerry Coyne, "But, curiously, Coyne never got around to addressing Behe's argument for intelligent design —the centerpiece of the subject Coyne claimed to be discussing." This is a blatant and transparent lie. Coulter claims that "Coyne never got around to addressing Behe's argument for intelligent design", but Coyne actually spent FIFTEEN PARAGRAPHS of that article doing exactly that, starting at the sentence which begins, "IDers make one claim that they tout as truly novel..." Ann even quoted from Coyne's discussion of Behe's argument later in her book, so she can't claim not to have seen it. So why does she tell a blatant falsehood to her readers? Apparently because it's easier to pretend (no matter how false it is) that no one has been willing/able to mount a rebuttal to Behe's argument (in reality, scores of biologists have), than to actually deal with the points raised by such rebuttals. Ann would rather just lie to her readers in order to give them an entirely false impression. It's easier to "win" the issue that way -- just say what you *wish* the truth was, instead of dealing with the actual reality. Of course, that's exactly how Michael Moore and his ilk do it also. Ann Coulter has become the sort of propagandist she used to denounce.
I've documented many dozens of examples of this kind of flat-out dishonesty from Ann in her book's chapters on science and biology. If anyone wants to be pinged to my eventual post listing them all (warning, it's going to be LONG), just FreepMail me and ask to be put on the ping list.

And:

Ann Coulter states in her book on page 201 -
Darwin’s theory of evolution says life on Earth began with single-celled life forms,
Wrong. The earliest life wouldn't even have qualified as "single-celled", and furthermore "Darwin's theory" doesn't even make any statement about the earliest form(s) of life or their origin. For that you have to look to other fields of biology.
which evolved into multicelled life forms,
Some did, some didn't.
which over countless aeons evolved into higher life forms, including man, all as the result of the chance process of random mutation followed by natural selection,
Wrong, there are more processes at work than just natural selection.
without guidance or assistance from any intelligent entity like God of the Department of Agriculture.
Darwin's theory makes no statement whatsoever about whether there was or was not any "guidance or assistance".
Which is to say, evolution I the eminently plausible theory that the human eye, the complete works of Shakespeare, and Ronal Reagan (among other things) all came into existence purely be accident.
Wrong again. First, see above, Darwin's theory makes no statement on whether the evolution of life proceeded "purely" by natural processes. Second, "purely by accident" is a really inaccurate and misleading way to describe evolutionary processes. Third, even if biological evolution was solely responsible for the rise of intelligent life, things like "the works of Shakespeare" came about via a different kind of process, as do most other works of man.
Coulter really needs to try to educate herself on this subject before she attempts to "teach" anyone else about it.
On page 202, she states The “theory” of evolution is:
1. Random mutation of desirable attributes (highly implausible)
Not *just* the random mutation of desirable attributes, that's extremely misleading as written. Furthermore, "desirable" is a misleading word in this context, especially since the fitness of traits is highly dependent upon conditions. And the fact that Coulter finds herself amazed by the notion doesn't change the fact that there is vast and overwhelming evidence that such mutations have occurred and do occur.
2. Natural selection weeding out the “less fit” animals (pointless tautology)
Natural selection is hardly the only process shaping the genepool, although people who don't know a damned thing about evolutionary biology (like Coulter) often presume it is. And it's in no way a "tautology", pointless or otherwise. That's a common creationist canard, but it's nonsense.
3. Leading to the creation of new species (no evidence after 150 years of looking)
Yes, #1 and #2, together with other processes, can produce new species (but are also responsible for changes *within* a species). As for "no evidence after 150 years of looking", that's quite simply a bald-faced lie.
My question – is she correct in her statements?
No, she isn't. She grossly misrepresents evolutionary biology throughout her chapters on evolution, and tells an astounding number of outright falsehoods. I'm working up a (LONG) post documenting all the ways she outright misleads her readers in those chapters -- anyone who wants to be pinged to it when I finish it can FreepMail me to be added to the ping list.
Is that Darwin’s theory?
No, it isn't. It's a cartoonish distortion of it.

And:

That is something else she discusses in her evolution chapter. She is not talking about gradual evolutions, such as when introducing more protein in the diet, a race of people become bigger and stronger.
She can't even get *that* right -- that is not "simple evolution" at all. Eating more protein isn't evolution. Genetic change is evolution.
She is talking about whole new species.
...and she talks about it in the same way that Michael Moore talks about conservatism and capitalism and America.
And she continually brings up the human eye.
...while misrepresenting almost everything about that topic. Let's take her screech on page 208, for example. I'll wait a moment while you go look it up....
Got it? Okay. Now read from the top of the page down to the sentence which ends, "...the Darwiniacs' version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
(Background: In case you didn't know, the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" was an infamous forgery -- it was created by Jew-haters in order to make it look as if Jewish leaders were plotting world domination. It's one of the most disgusting and vicious hoaxes of all time, was made up out of thin air, and yet after being repeatedly debunked is still believed authentic by some conspiracy-minded kooks among the skinhead and neo-Nazi movement, because it "supports" their prejudices and paranoia about Jews.)
So when Coulter accuses the "Darwiniacs" (charming -- no one will ever mistake her for a lady) of something akin to the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", she's making one of the most extreme possible insults, insinuating that the "Darwiniacs" believe something that is a complete fabrication, and something that no sane person would want to associate with.
And her tale on page 208 sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? She's doing everything she can to try to imply that Dawkins et al just made something up out of thin air, and tried to attribute it to a researcher who, when asked, had no idea what Dawkins was talking about -- Coulter wants you to believe that a fraud had been committed, and that in fact no researcher has successfully modeled the evolution of the eye.
Do you agree that this is the impression she's trying to give? With me so far? Good.
It's a lie. But the person lying is Coulter. The ONLY grain of truth in her rant is that Dawkins had misspoken when he described the research as a "computer simulation" -- it was actually a combination of mathematical models, physical models, and computer analysis, but not a "computer simulation" in the strictest sense of the word. But the research WAS actually performed, it WAS actually done by the researcher Coulter tries to imply had denied its existence, Dawkins's description of the results of the research WERE ACCURATE.
If Coulter had wanted to take issue with the research methodology, she's free to do so. But to DISHONESTLY try to blow up an extremely insignificant slip of the tongue (calling something a "computer model" when it was analyzed in a different manner) into a false tale that the research was never done and that "Darwiniacs" just made it all up is an INCREDIBLY dishonest sleight-of-hand that would make Michael Moore green with envy.
If Coulter allegedly has a good case, why does she have to lie about it?
Here, read the research on the evolution of the eye yourself -- it really exists, and was really done by the researcher that Dawkins said it was done by, and which Coulter tries to give the impression had denied its existence:
"A Pessimistic Estimate of the Time Required for an Eye to Evolve", Dan-E. Nilsson; Susanne Pelger, Proceedings: Biological Sciences / Vol. 256, No. 1345 (Apr., 1994), pp. 53-58
Here you can watch a short video of the researcher discussing his findings: (Click on your choice of video format at the top of the page at this link).
Gosh, how honest was it of Coulter to mislead her readers into thinking that this research didn't even exist at all, and that the "Darwiniacs" were just lying and making it all up?
Worse, she can't even claim not to be aware of these things. In her endnotes for this chapter (second part of reference 10 for chapter 8 on pg. 297), she specifically cites the article in "Commentary" magazine which contains multiple rebuttals by Nilsson (the author of the eye evolution paper) and other researchers, who dismantle David Berlinski (the "authority" Coulter cites for her "it didn't exist" accusation) on his errors, his false accusations, and his making a mountain out of a molehill over the "computer simulation" label. Read that again until it sinks in -- COULTER ADMITS TO READING the letters in which the researchers themselves (and others) discuss the research itself (so Coulter KNOWS the research actually exists) and taking Berlinski to task for nitpicking about the "computer simulation" description (so Coulter KNOWS this is a trivial issue). And yet after KNOWING this, Coulter went ahead and MADE THE FALSE ACCUSATION of "it didn't exist" concerning Nilsson's research, *AND* spun that lie around the already discredited nitpicking about whether or not the research was best described as a "computer simulation" or some other descriptive term...
Out of curiosity, 7thson, do you approve of being knowingly misled in this manner by an author you trusted?
Here are some of the relevant excerpts from the "Commentary" rebuttal which COULTER ADMITS TO HAVING READ (since she includes a citation to it in her endnotes), but decided to lie about when she wrote about it on page 208...
By Dan-E Nilsson (author of the evolution-of-the-eye research):
He further claims that we fail to explain how morphological change relates to improvements in visual acuity, though pages 54 through 56 (together with the graphs and legends in figures 1 and 3) deal with exactly that, and in great detail.
[...] Contrary to Mr. Berlinski’s claim, we calculate the spatial resolution (visual acuity) for all parts of our eye-evolution sequence, and the results are displayed in figure 1 of our paper. The underlying theory is explained in the main text, including the important equation 1 and a reference to Warrant & McIntyre (1993), where this theory is derived. Yet Mr. Berlinski insists that “Nilsson and Pelger do not calculate the visual acuity of any structure.” It would be much simpler for Mr. Berlinski if he went just a tiny step farther and denied the existence of our paper altogether. [Funny, Ann Coulter seems to have taken him up on that sarcastic remark. -- Ich.]
[...]
Mr. Berlinski is right on one point only: the paper I wrote with Pelger has been incorrectly cited as containing a computer simulation of eye evolution. I have not considered this to be a very serious problem, because a simulation would be a mere automation of the logic in our paper. A complete simulation is thus of moderate scientific interest, although it would be useful from an educational point of view.
Our paper remains scientifically sound, and has not been challenged in any peer-reviewed scientific journal. I do not intend to take any further part in a meaningless debate with David Berlinski.
From Paul R. Gross:
Mr. Berlinski misunderstands or misinterprets critical elements of the paper. Then he quibbles ponderously about terms and assumptions — and about a popular gloss of the paper by Richard Dawkins. He accuses some of his critics of fraud for having failed to denounce Dawkins’s use in a trade book of certain of those terms. Mr. Berlinski’s arguments are quibbles.
From Matt Young:
I will not respond to Mr. Berlinski’s disdainful tone, nor to the cheap shots directed at me personally. Nor will I continue the pointless distraction of whether Nilsson and Pelger performed a simulation or a calculation.
From Mark Perakh:
But contrary to Mr. Berlinski’s rhetoric, any scandal related to Nilsson and Pelger’s paper occurred only in Mr. Berlinski’s imagination. Nilsson and Pelger estimate the time necessary for the development of an eye, a calculation that entails certain assumptions but which is viewed by many scientists as sufficiently sound. (According to the Science Citation Index, Nilsson and Pelger’s article has been positively referenced in at least 25 peer-reviewed scientific publications.)
But Mr. Berlinski, unlike all these scientists, does not like Nilsson and Pelger’s conclusion, and obfuscates the issue by discussing the distinctions among computer simulations, models, and calculations. These semantic exercises are inconsequential to the real question: whether an eye could have developed in a geologically short time via a Darwinian mechanism, as Nilsson and Pelger and scores of biologists familiar with their work think.
From Jason Rosenhouse:
Once we have swept the field of Mr. Berlinski’s distortions we are left with a few simple facts. (1) Several decades of research on the evolution of eyes has not only made it plain that eyes have evolved, but has also revealed the major steps through which they did so. (2) Nilsson and Pelger’s paper provides an elegant capstone for this research, by providing a convincing calculation for an upper limit on the time required for an eye to evolve. (3) Minor errors in popular treatments of Nilsson and Pelger’s paper do nothing to change facts (1) and (2). (4) Finally, David Berlinski is not a reliable source for scientific information.
Coulter KNEW the research existed, she KNEW that Berlinski was nitpicking about descriptions of the research, and yet she chose to tell her readers that "it didn't exist", and to "support" her false claim about its non-existence on something as trivial as Berlinski's bitching about whether a popular book was justified in calling it a "simulation" or not... The mind boggles. Is this Christian behavior? To bear false witness in so cynical a manner?
Coulter repeats this kind of Michael-Moore dishonesty all throughout her chapters on evolutionary biology. When she doesn't want to do the hard work of dealing with the real evidence or research supporting evolution, she just misinforms her readers and denies it exists at all. How many more examples would you like?
I'm writing up a list of all of the lies in Coulter's chapters 8-10 (it's going to be HUGE) -- if you or anyone else would like to be pinged to it when I post it, please FreepMail me.

And:

Hitler didn't invent Darwinism, he just used it as an excuse to "clense" the races.
Gee, really? Then why do his private notes show that he based his idea of inferior races on the Bible? Hitler's own handwritten notes, drawing an outline of his philosophy:
Hitler divided his study into five sections:
1. The Bible
2. The Aryan
3. His Works
4. The Jew
5. His Work
Under the first section, "The Bible -- Monumental History of Mankind", he lists these topics (among others): "2 human types-- Workers and drones-- Builders and destroyers", "Race Law", "First people's history (based on) the race law-- Eternal course of History".
Hitler was actually privately basing his racial view of mankind on *Biblical* foundations.
Here's a Nazi propaganda paper -- no mention of evolution or Darwin, but references to Christ in regards to "driving the devil from the lands":
The headline reads, "Declaration of the Higher Clergy/So spoke Jesus Christ". The caption under the cartoon of the marching Hitler Youth reads, "We youth step happily forward facing the sun... With our faith we drive the devil from the land."
He just thought that "natural selection" thing needed a little boost I guess.
No, Hitler thought God needed a little boost:
"I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.."
-- Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf"
While we're on the subject, did the Ku Klux Klan subscribe to Darwin when they were trying to keep the "mongrel races" in "their place" and preventing them from "polluting" the white race through intermarriage, or were they a bunch of God-fearing Christians? Let's check, shall we?
In 1916, the oath for joining the KKK included the following questions: "Each of the following questions must be answered by (each of) you with an emphatic "yes": [...] Fourth. Do you believe in the tenets of the Christian religion? [...] Eighth. Do you believe in and will you faithfully strive for the eternal maintenance of white supremacy?" Source: FBI internal document, "The Ku Klux Klan, Section 1, 1865-1944 .
And the Christian foundation of the KKK is hardly limited to 1916, in 1953 they declared that the only membership requirement was to "believe in God and the United States" (source), and even today they're still a proudly bible-thumping group (see also here).
Here's another goody from that same FBI document:
In 1922, Evans gave Stephenson the job of organizing the Klan in Indiana. Stephenson hired full-time organizers and found Indiana a fertile field for the Klan's traditional program directed against Catholics, Jews, Negroes, and foreigners, which he extended to include communists, bootleggers, pacifists, evolutionists, and all persons the Klan considered immoral.
Let's see... The KKK versus the "evolutionists"... Okay, I know which side the angels are on in *that* face-off...
Hey, mc5cents, if evolution is the root of all evil, how do you explain the Christians in the KKK despising the evolutionists instead of being inspired by them?
Meanwhile: The KKK is against the evolutionists, Ann Coulter is against the evolutionists -- so which side does that put her on?
Oh, and speaking of Coulter -- she cluelessly claims that "the first genocide in recorded history" occurred after "Darwinism gained currency" (hey, it also happened after "the New testament became popular, is she asserting cause-and-effect *there* too?), but clearly the woman's an idiot. She laughably tries to say that "the first genocide in recorded history" occurred sometime after 1859 (when Darwin published his book on evolution), but anyone with even a smidgen of knowledge (which leaves out Coulter, apparently) knows that there have been genocides for thousands of years, including several detailed in the Bible, countless throughout Asia and Africa, and notably the genocide of the aborigines in Tasmania, committed against the "savages" by good Christians quoting scriptural "justification", which ironically a number of anti-evolutionists have tried to blame on "Darwinism", despite the fact that it happened in *1847*, more than a decade BEFORE Darwin had published his first work on evolution...
So just how stupid *is* Ann Coulter, that she can say the "first genocide in recorded history" happened after 1859? The word "moron" seems woefully inadequate. And she's not very honest either.

And:

Please acknowledge that you have not read the book in order that I can ignore you with a certain peace of mind!
Unfortunately for your peace of mind, I have read it, and am in the process of writing a very long critique of her chapters on evolutionary biology. Literally, almost everything she says about it is wrong. If you or anyone else wants to be pinged to it, FreepMail me.
I'm not the only one to notice that, either. It's so bad that over at Pharyngula (a biology-related blog, although it veers off into politics and other topics as well) they've put up a "Coulter challenge" -- at the end of this blog entry addressing Coulter's ludicrous claim that there's no evidence for evolution, there's the following challenge:
Like I said, I'm not going to take this tripe apart sentence by sentence, even though I could, given enough time and interest. I will suggest instead that if anyone reading this thinks some particular paragraph anywhere in chapters 8-11 is at all competent or accurate in its description of science, send it to me. I couldn't find one. That's where the obligation lies: show me one supportable claim in Coulter's farrago of lies and misleading statements and out-of-context quotes, and we'll discuss it.
So far no one's taken him up on it. He did a clarification the next day stating that, among other things, "Promising to pray for me, or assuring me that I will burn in hell" does not adequately meet the challenge.
There was another followup 8 days later to mention that no one has managed to find an error-free paragraph yet.
I concur -- it's harder to find anything *right* in those chapters than it is finding ten things just mind-blowingly wrong. She even lies about her own references.

And:

In chapter 8, Coulter airly blows off the notion of evolution by accumulation of beneficial mutations by snidely saying:
A process that is supposed to have transformed an amoeba into Jerry Garcia by "random mutation" must have produced some spectacular fail-ures. Why can't we find any of the amusing ones?
I swear, I'm tempted to rebut that with photographs of some of the more "amusing" human and animal birth defects...

And:

Page 231:
Except the genome argument proves too much. The human genome is 35 percent identical to that of a daffodil. I think even a Darwiniac would admit humans are not 35 percent identical to a daffodil. Again, the cult's smoking gun of evolutionary proof turns out to be an imaginary water pistol.
Oooookay... Where to start? This was at the end of a section admitting that "the human genome is 98.7 percent identical to the chimpanzee's". Rather than deal head-on with the implications of that in any honest fashion, Coulter just quoted a psychology professor (!) arguing that humans "are simply odd-looking apes". She didn't even state that he was even basing his statement on the 98.7% observation, but that was the implication she wanted to give, and trigger the reader's "I ain't no ape!" reflex, or at least their "how silly/stupid/naive to say we're 'just' apes" notion and then sit back and bask in her "discrediting" of the 98.7% observation.
But in case that wasn't enough, she played the "daffodil" card, and then called it a day -- that was the *entirety* of her "dealing with" the 98.7% genome similarity: Quote a guy saying something she thought her audience would find silly, then fire off a flip remark about daffodils. Genome comparison demolished, time to move on!
The key problem with the daffodil claim, however, is that it just isn't true. Nor does she even attempt to footnote or otherwise source it, she just asserts it.
But she obviously got this (directly or indirectly) from the paper, "98% Chimpanzee and 35% Daffodil: The Human Genome in Evolutionary and Cultural Context". But if she had *read* the paper, she'd have seen that a) the author pulled the "35% daffodil" figure out of thin air, just for discussion's sake, it wasn't based on any actual comparison of DNA, and b) the point he makes in the paper is that the chimp comparison is *highly* significant, even more than the 98% figure might appear at first glance, whereas even a "35%" difference with some other species would be *less* meaningful than it might appear at first glance (partly because two TOTALLY RANDOM genomes would still have a 25% match by chance, so that's the "baseline", the "zero point".
In other words, his paper demonstrates why Coulter's little rhetorical trick is a dishonest and inappropriate one. So ironically, her source for her figure is one that *torpedoes* the argument she's trying to make from it.
And again, the author just *made up* the 35% daffodil figure for discussion purposes, but Coulter cluelessly states it as established fact.
Furthermore, even if the 35% figure *had* been the correct one, only a naive reader (her favorite kind) would find any reason to conclude that it's "ridiculous", because a) as the author points out, 35% is only a little over the 25% "random match" rate, and b) all multicellular organisms do share a whole crapload of common biochemistry and foundational mechanisms regarding metabolism, cellular activity, replication, etc. Coulter is playing off the fact that the naive reader will ponder the *apparent* lack of similarity between humans and daffodils (e.g. "I ain't green!") without realizing how very much we have in common "under the hood" as multicellular eukaryotes.
The "35%" paper can be read here, although it's scanned sideways, very annoying: http://personal.uncc.edu/jmarks/pubs/natureculture.pdf
Another paper by the same author makes his "out of thin air" source for the daffodil figure even more obvious: http://personal.uncc.edu/jmarks/interests/aaa/marksaaa99.htm
Once again, the DNA comparison requires context to be meaningful. Granted that a human and ape are over 98% genetically identical, a human and any earthly DNA-based life form must be at least 25% identical. A human and a daffodil share common ancestry and their DNA is thus obliged to match more than 25% of the time. For the sake of argument let’s say 33%.
The point is that to say we are one-third daffodils because our DNA matches that of a daffodil 33% of the time, is not profound, it’s ridiculous. There is hardly any biological comparison you can make which will find us to be one-third daffodil, except perhaps the DNA.
In other words, just as Simpson argued in the 1960s, the genetic comparison is exceptional, not at all transcendent. DNA comparisons overestimate biological similarity at the low end and underestimate it at the high end – in context, humans are biologically less than 25% daffodils and more than 98% chimpanzees.
Underlining was in the original, red-fonting is mine.
This "35% daffodil" meme, however, is making the rounds. For example it appears here in a Guardian review of a biology book: http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/scienceandnature/0,,1773515,00.html
The new starting point came from the recognition of the surprising continuities in genes between one species and another. We not only have nearly 99% of our genes in common with chimps, but some 35% in common with daffodils.
From the way the review states it, you'd think he got it *from* the book. But fortunately the book itself is fully text searchable at amazon.com, and the word "daffodil" doesn't even appear anywhere in the book, nor its scientific name, nor is any occurrence of the number "35" in the book relevant.
Getting back to Coulter's inanity, what in the hell does it mean to say that the genome comparison "proves too much"? It's word hash.
And I'm afraid that her "hey, someone said we're apes", and "we share DNA with daffodils" remarks in no way demolishes the DNA evidence or demonstrates that the DNA similarities are "an imaginary water pistol", although she's apparently stupid enough to think it does.

And if that's not enough, other writers have written very good deconstructions of many of her gross misrepresentations:

Ann Coulter: Clueless
Ann Coulter: No evidence for evolution?
Secondary Addiction: Ann Coulter on Evolution (part 1) -- On Ann Coulter's habit of trusting biased secondary sources while remaining ignorant of primary sources, plus the evolution of the eye.

Secondary Addiction: Ann Coulter on Evolution (part 2) -- Ann Coulter and the fossil record.

The Dembski Alert -- (interlude) Downard attempts to get Dembski to answer a few questions about his assertion that he would "take all responsibility for any errors" in Coulter's chapters on evolution. Unsurprisingly, in standard "ID advocate" fashion Dembski refuses to actually address the questions.

Secondary Addiction: Ann Coulter on Evolution (part 3) -- Ann Coulter on Archaeopteryx and bird evolution.
Ann Coulter's "Flatulent Raccoon Theory"
Coulter's Godless: as bad as you knew it would be
Ann Coulter on Evolution
InANNities, Part I
InANNities, Part II
Witless: a review of Ann Coulter's Godless

(The three "Secondary Addiction" pages are all superb -- if you don't read anything else, read those.)

Your turn -- tell us the paragraph in Coulter's chapters on evolution that you consider her very best and most devastating bodyblow against evolution -- then I'll take it apart and show you just how badly she's propagandizing like Michael Moore covering, well, anything.

Now, would you like me to ping you to my eventual point-by-point deconstruction of all of Ann Coulter's gross misrepresentations of evolutionary biology, or would you prefer to remain deceived by her?

[Darwin also said that “if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my THEORY would absolutely break down”.]

Well, Behe in “Darwin’s Black Box” describes numerous such organs, such as the blood clotting mechanism, the cilium, bacterial flagellum, etc.

ROFL!!! You fell for the propaganda! Sorry, but none of the systems (since when is the blood clotting mechanism an "organ"?) Behe lists have actually been demonstrated to be not possible to be "formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications". Behe just *claimed* that they were, but didn't do the hard work of actually bothering to demonstrate that they were. Nice try.

These structures are irreducibly complex

No they aren't. Again, Behe just waved his hands and said they were. Nowhere did he ever study them to see if they *really* were or not. What a goofball. I can't believe you "ID" fanatics swallow such transparently specious claims.

and the darwinsits cannot answer any of this with their religion.

That's because we don't answer Behe's nonsense with "religion", we answer it with science. And you guys with your religion-disguised-as-"ID" never have any actual rebuttals, you just go running around sneering and laughing and telling each other how much smarter you are than those eggheads, because by gosh, you read a mass-market book by a huckster who knows how to separate you from your money by telling you what you want to hear...

So we "cannot answer" Behe's goofy claims, eh? Then what's this, son? Here's some of my own analysis of Behe's central thesis (some from older posts of mine) -- get back to me when you think you can identify any flaw in it that rescues Behe's flubs:

The next idea you probably will not like, and that is irreducible complexity.
As an "idea" I like it just fine, and so do evolutionary scientists. The problem is that Behe (and the creationists who follow him) have created a "straw man" version of "IC" which is quite simply incorrect -- but appears to give the conclusion they want.
The original notion of "IC" goes back to Darwin himself. He wrote:
"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."
-- Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species", 1859
That's "Irreducible Complexity" in a nutshell. It's not as if Behe has pointed out anything that biologists (or Darwin) didn't already realize.
But let's examine Darwin's description of "IC" in a bit more detail (emphasis mine):
No doubt many organs exist of which we do not know the transitional grades, more especially if we look to much-isolated species, round which, according to my theory, there has been much extinction. Or again, if we look to an organ common to all the members of a large class, for in this latter case the organ must have been first formed at an extremely remote period, since which all the many members of the class have been developed; and in order to discover the early transitional grades through which the organ has passed, we should have to look to very ancient ancestral forms, long since become extinct.
We should be extremely cautious in concluding that an organ could not have been formed by transitional gradations of some kind. Numerous cases could be given amongst the lower animals of the same organ performing at the same time wholly distinct functions; thus the alimentary canal respires, digests, and excretes in the larva of the dragon-fly and in the fish Cobites. In the Hydra, the animal may be turned inside out, and the exterior surface will then digest and the stomach respire. In such cases natural selection might easily specialise, if any advantage were thus gained, a part or organ, which had performed two functions, for one function alone, and thus wholly change its nature by insensible steps. Two distinct organs sometimes perform simultaneously the same function in the same individual; to give one instance, there are fish with gills or branchiae that breathe the air dissolved in the water, at the same time that they breathe free air in their swimbladders, this latter organ having a ductus pneumaticus for its supply, and being divided by highly vascular partitions. In these cases, one of the two organs might with ease be modified and perfected so as to perform all the work by itself, being aided during the process of modification by the other organ; and then this other organ might be modified for some other and quite distinct purpose, or be quite obliterated.
The illustration of the swimbladder in fishes is a good one, because it shows us clearly the highly important fact that an organ originally constructed for one purpose, namely flotation, may be converted into one for a wholly different purpose, namely respiration. The swimbladder has, also, been worked in as an accessory to the auditory organs of certain fish, or, for I do not know which view is now generally held, a part of the auditory apparatus has been worked in as a complement to the swimbladder. All physiologists admit that the swimbladder is homologous, or 'ideally similar,' in position and structure with the lungs of the higher vertebrate animals: hence there seems to me to be no great difficulty in believing that natural selection has actually converted a swimbladder into a lung, or organ used exclusively for respiration.
[Example snipped]
In considering transitions of organs, it is so important to bear in mind the probability of conversion from one function to another, that I will give one more instance. [Long detail of example snipped] If all pedunculated cirripedes had become extinct, and they have already suffered far more extinction than have sessile cirripedes, who would ever have imagined that the branchiae in this latter family had originally existed as organs for preventing the ova from being washed out of the sack?
-- Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species", 1859
Darwin makes two critical points here:
1. A modern organ need not have evolved into its present form and function from a precursor which had always performed the same function. Evolution is quite capable of evolving a structure to perform one function, and then turning it to some other "purpose".
2. Organs/structures can reach their present form through a *loss* of function or parts, not just through *addition* of function or parts.
Despite the fact that these observations were laid out in 1859, Behe's version of "Irreducible Complexity" pretends they are not factors, and defines "IC" as something which could not have arisen through stepwise *ADDITIONS* (only) while performing the same function *THROUGHOUT ITS EXISTENCE*.
It's hard to tell whether Behe does this through ignorance or willful dishonesty, but the fact remains that *his* definition and analysis of "IC" is too restrictive. He places too many "rules" on how he will "allow" evolution to reach his examples of "Behe-style IC" structures, while evolution itself *IS NOT RESTRICTED TO THOSE RULES* when it operates. Thus Behe's conclusion that "Behe-style evolution" can not reach "Behe-style IC" hardly tells us anything about whether *real-world* evolution could or could not have produced them.
For specific examples, Behe's example of the "Behe-style IC" flagellum is flawed because flagella are composed of components that bacteria use FOR OTHER PURPOSES and were evolved for those purposes then co-opted (1, 2), and Behe's example of the "Behe-style IC" blood-clotting process is flawed because the biochemistry of blood-clotting is easily reached by adding several steps on top of a more primitive biochemical sequence, *and then REMOVING earlier portions which had become redundant* (1, 2).
Even Behe's trivial mousetrap example turns out to not actually be "IC".
The usual qualitative formulation is: "An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced...by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system, that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional..."
Note the key error: By saying that it "breaks" if any part is "missing" (i.e. taken away), it is only saying that evolution could not have reached that endpoint by successively only ADDING parts. True enough, but Behe misses the fact that you can also reach the same state by, say, adding 5 parts one at a time, and then taking away 2 which have become redundant. Let's say that part "A" does the job, but not well. But starting with just "A" serves the need. Then add "B", which improves the function of "A". Add "C" which helps A+B do their job, and so on until you have ABCDE, which does the job very well. Now, however, it may turn out that CDE alone does just fine (conceivably, even better than ABCDE does with A+B getting in the way of CDE's operation). So A and B fade away, leaving CDE. Note that CDE was built in "one change at a time" fashion, with each new change improving the operation. HOWEVER, by Behe's definition CDE is "Irreducibly Complex" and "could not have evolved (been built by single steps)" because removing C or D or E from CDE will "break" it. Note that Behe's conclusion is wrong. His logic is faulty.
The other error in Behe's definition lies in this part: "...any precursor to an irreducibly complex system, that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional". The problem here is that it may be "nonfunctional" for its *current* function, but perfectly functional for some *other* function helpful for survival (and therefore selected by evolution). Behe implicitly claims that if it's not useful for its *current* function, it's useless for *any* function. The flaw in this should be obvious.
"Since natural selection can only choose systems that are already working, then if a biological system cannot be produced gradually it would have to arise as an integrated unit, in one fell swoop, for natural selection to have anything to act on."
True as far as it goes, but but this is hardly the same as Behe's sleight-of-hand in the first part of his statement, which relies on the false premise that a precursor to a structure is 100% useless for *any* purpose if *taking away* (but not adding) one part from the current purpose makes it unsuitable for the current purpose. Two gaping holes in that one...
Behe (an anathematized name)
For reasons I've outlined above.
talks of the bacterial flagellum, which contains an acid-powered rotary engine, a stator, O-rings, bushings, and a drive shaft. The machinery of this motor requires approximately fifty proteins.
Except that it doesn't. As many biochemists have pointed out, other organisms have function flagella (even *as* flagella) with fewer proteins (and/or different proteins). That flagellum isn't even "IC" by Behe's own definition since you *can* remove proteins and have it still work as a flagellum. [...]

For a far more realistic look at the evolutionary "invention" of the flagellum, see Evolution in (Brownian) space: a model for the origin of the bacterial flagellum , which I linked earlier in this post. From the abstract:
The model consists of six major stages: export apparatus, secretion system, adhesion system, pilus, undirected motility, and taxis-enabled motility. The selectability of each stage is documented using analogies with present-day systems. Conclusions include: (1) There is a strong possibility, previously unrecognized, of further homologies between the type III export apparatus and F1F0-ATP synthetase. (2) Much of the flagellum’s complexity evolved after crude motility was in place, via internal gene duplications and subfunctionalization. (3) Only one major system-level change of function, and four minor shifts of function, need be invoked to explain the origin of the flagellum; this involves five subsystem-level cooption events. (4) The transition between each stage is bridgeable by the evolution of a single new binding site, coupling two pre-existing subsystems, followed by coevolutionary optimization of components. Therefore, like the eye contemplated by Darwin, careful analysis shows that there are no major obstacles to gradual evolution of the flagellum.
Now *that's* science. Behe's stuff is just hand-waving and ivory-tower blowhardedness.

And:

For an analysis of numerous errors and such in Dembski's Design arguments/examples, see Not a Free Lunch But a Box of Chocolates: A critique of William Dembski's book No Free Lunch. It also contains material on the flagella issue you raise next.
As for Behe (the other author):
One small example is the flagella on a paramecium. They need four distinct proteins to work.
Actually they need a lot more than that. And as far as I know, Behe never used the cilia on paramecia as his example, he has primarily concentrated on bacterial flagella.
They cannot have evolved from a flagella that need three.
Contrary to creationist claims (or Behe's) that flagella are Irreducibly Complex and can not function at all if any part or protein is removed, in fact a) there are many, many varieties of flagella on various species of single-celled organisms, some with more or fewer parts/proteins than others. So it's clearly inaccurate to make a blanket claim that "flagella" in general contain no irreplacable parts. Even Behe admits that a working flagella can be reduced to a working cilia, which undercuts his entire "Irreducibly Complex" example/claim right off the bat.
For a semi-technical discussion of how flagella are *not* IC, because many of their parts can be eliminated without totally breaking their locomotive ability, see Evolution of the Bacterial Flagella
But even if one could identify, say, four specific proteins (or other components) which were critically necessary for the functioning of all flagellar structures (and good luck: there are three unrelated classes of organisms with flagella built on three independent methods: eubacterial flagella, archebacterial flagella, and eukaryote flagella -- see Faugy DM and Farrel K, (1999 Feb) A twisted tale: the origin and evolution of motility and chemotaxis in prokaryotes. Microbiology, 145, 279-280), Behe makes a fatal (and laughably elementary) error when he states that therefore they could not have arisen by evolution. Even first-year students of evolutionary biology know that quite often evolved structures are built from parts that WERE NOT ORIGINALLY EVOLVED FOR THEIR CURRENT APPLICATION, as Behe naively assumes (or tries to imply).
Okay, fine, so even if you can prove that a flagellum needs 4 certain proteins to function, and would not function AS A FLAGELLUM with only 3, that's absolutely no problem for evolutionary biology, since it may well have evolved from *something else* which used those 3 proteins to successfully function, and only became useful as a method of locomotion when evolution chanced upon the addition of the 4th protein. Biology is chock-full of systems cobbled together from combinations of other components, or made via one addition to an existing system which then fortuitously allows it to perform a new function.
And, lo and behold, it turns out that the "base and pivot" of the bacterial flagella, along with part of the "stalk", is virtually identical to the bacterial Type III Secretory Structure (TTSS). So despite Behe's claim that flagella must be IC because (he says) there's no use for half a flagella, in fact there is indeed such a use. And this utterly devastates Behe's argument, in several different ways. Explaining way in detail would take quite some time, but it turns out that someone has already written an excellent essay on that exact thing, which I strongly encourage you to read: The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity" .
(Note: Several times that essay makes a reference to the "argument from ignorance", with the assumption that the reader is already familiar with it. I'd like to point out that contrary to the way it sounds, Miller is *not* accusing Behe et all of being ignorant. Instead, he's referring to this family of logical fallacies, also known as the "argument from incredulity".)
That is called irreducible complexity.
That's what Behe likes to call it, yes. But the flagella is provably *not* IC. Oops for Behe. Furthermore, while it's certainly easy to *call* something or another "Irreducibly Complex", proving that it actually *is* is another matter entirely.
As the "Flagellum Unspun" article above states:
According to Dembski, the detection of "design" requires that an object display complexity that could not be produced by what he calls "natural causes." In order to do that, one must first examine all of the possibilities by which an object, like the flagellum, might have been generated naturally. Dembski and Behe, of course, come to the conclusion that there are no such natural causes. But how did they determine that? What is the scientific method used to support such a conclusion? Could it be that their assertions of the lack of natural causes simply amount to an unsupported personal belief? Suppose that there are such causes, but they simply happened not to think of them? Dembski actually seems to realize that this is a serious problem. He writes: "Now it can happen that we may not know enough to determine all the relevant chance hypotheses [which here, as noted above, means all relevant natural processes (hvt)]. Alternatively, we might think we know the relevant chance hypotheses, but later discover that we missed a crucial one. In the one case a design inference could not even get going; in the other, it would be mistaken" (Dembski 2002, 123 (note 80)).
For more bodyblows against the notion of Irreducible Complexity, see:
Bacterial Flagella and Irreducible Complexity
Irreducible Complexity Demystified
Irreducible Complexity
Review: Michael Behe's "Darwin's Black Box"

The fatal flaws in Behe's argument were recognized as soon as his book was published, and countless reviewers pointed them out. And yet, creationists and IDers, who seem to rely mostly on the echo-chamber of their own clique and appear to seldom read much *actual* scientific sources, still seem blissfully unaware of the problems with Behe's thesis, and keep popping in on a regular basis to wave the book around and smugly yell something like, "See, evolution has already been disproven!"

What's funny is that by Behe's own argument, a stone arch is "irreducibly complex" because it could not have formed by nature *adding* sections of stone at a time (it would have fallen down unless the entire span was already in place -- and indeed will fall down if you take part of the span away):

Needless to say, what Behe's argument is missing in the case of the stone arch is that such arches form easily by natural means when successive layers of sedimentary rock added on top of each other, and *then* erosion carves a hole out from *under* the arch by *removing* material after the "bridge" of the arch itself *was already there*.

Similarly, Behe's arguments about why certain types of biological structures "could not" have evolved fall flat because he doesn't realize that evolution does not only craft features by *adding* components, it also does so by *lateral alteration*, and by *removing* components.

Behe's "irreducible complexity" argument is fatally flawed. It only "proves" that a *simplified* version of evolution (as envisioned by Behe) couldn't give rise to certain structures -- not that the *actual* processes of evolution could not.

Show me the Step by Step “evolution” of the eye that “scientists demonstrated” not to be irreducibly complex. (hint: you might need some help on this one). And don’t tell me that the light sensitive receptor of early creatures “evolved” into the human eye by random mutations, while your at it, also tell me how the early light sensitive receptor “eye” came about in the first place.

Why don't you crack open a science journal or two instead of spending all your time on creationist pamphlets, and stop asking us to do your homework for you?

Anti-evolution creationists who haven't bothered to actually look at the available research waste our time with such requests so often that I'll just refer you to some of my prior posts on the topic:

Take the eyeball for example. How could vision have evolved?
Gradually from light-sensing nerves, as are present in many primitive organisms.
Because the eye is made up of components, it could not have evolved, because each component is useless without the rest of them. optic nerves, lenses, retina's rods cones, the vision center of the brain. each would have been useless without any one of the other components.
Wrong, but then you'd have to know a tiny little bit about biology to know why. Which is why that leaves out most of the creationists.
Euglenids have functional eyespots, and get along just fine *without* most of the things you list. Oops, so much for your false presumptions.
Cubomedusans have eyes, but not "vision centers" in their brains. Truth be told, they don't really have "brains" either, they have simple nerve ganglions. Even worse for your presumptions, larval cubomedusans don't have *any* nervous system, and the more primitive eyes among its multiplicity of eye types are literally hardwired directly to cilia which move one way when light is detected by its attached eye, and another way when light is not detected. In this way the larva moves appropriately (well, usually) in the presence of light in a purely reflexive manner, with *no* involvement of (or processing by) a nervous system of any type whatsoever. Sorry, you're proven wrong again by nature.
Speaking of nature, here are several types of light-sensing organs actually found in nature (from How Do Eyes Work and How Did They Evolve? ):
Contrary to your false presumptions, eyes with fewer components than human eyes work well enough to get along after all, *and* there's an obvious stepwise progression between the types:

Fig. 2
The likely evolution of single-chambered eyes. Arrows indicate functional developments, not specific evolutionary pathways.
From Land and Fernald [4].

a Pit eye, common throughout the lower phyla.

b Pinhole of Haliotis (abalone) or Nautilus.

c Eye with a lens.

d Eye with homogeneous lens, showing failure to focus.

e Eye with lens having a gradient of refractive index.

f Multiple lens eye of male Pontella.

g Two-lens eye of the copepod crustacean Copilia. Solid arrow shows image position and open arrow the movement of the second lens.

h Terrestrial eye of Homo sapiens with cornea and lens;
Ic= image formed by cornea alone;
Ir= final image on the retina.

i Mirror eye of the scallop Pecten.

Also see the video at: evolution of the eye.
Care to try again?
Even Darwin admitted later that his evolution theory probably is wrong because of these facts.
Again, will you PLEASE stop posting utter falsehoods? This claim of yours is ridiculous and false. It's obviously just a rehash of the usual dishonest creationist out-of-context Darwin quote about the eye. What's *especially* dishonest about the misuse of this quote is that the original appears at the start of a section where Darwin LAID OUT A PLAUSIBLE EVOLUTIONARY PATH FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF EYES, based on KNOWN PRIMITIVE EYES IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. In other words, not only was Darwin *NOT* actually claiming that the complexity of the eye was a problem for evolution (as misrepresented by creationists), he actually went on to ANSWER THE QUESTIONS THAT CREATIONISTS HAVE BEEN ASKING EVER SINCE. Just *how* willfully ignorant does one have to be in order to remain a creationist? They steal quotes from 1859, misuse them, then ask "challenging" questions that were ALREADY answered in that same 1859 source. Just how dishonest, ignorant, and behind on their reading are the creationists, anyway?
Try reading some actual Darwin and some actual biology sometime, guys. Maybe you'll stop making fools of yourselves for a change.

And:

We don't know how to explain say the design of an eyeball, as a scientifically possible evolution with any statistical chance of occurring in the span of ten trillion universes, even once, on one planet.
Sure we do -- have you bothered to actually *look* at the science journals before saying something like this?
So "we" don't know how to explain the origins of the eyeball, as an evolutionary scenario? Oooookay. Pull the other leg now:
Uncovering The Ancestry of A Complex Organ, The Eye
The Visual System II
The Evolution of Eyes
The Evolution of Color Vision
Life's Grand Design
Life's Grand Design (II)
How Could An Eye Evolve?
And those are just some pages for *laymen*. If you really want to get into the gritty details, read some actual journal articles on the subject, for example:
Cubozoan jellyfish: an Evo/Devo model for eyes and other sensory systems
To give a taste of the vast amount of research that has actually been published on this subject (which the creationists routinely falsely mischaracterize as as if nothing at all is actually known), consider:
ARENDT, D. and WITTBRODT, J. (2001). Reconstructing the eyes of Urbilateria. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 356: 1545-63.
BAKER, C.V. and BRONNER-FRASER, M. (2001). Vertebrate cranial placodes i. Embryonic induction. Dev Biol 232: 1-61.
BAKER, N.E. (2001). Master regulatory genes; telling them what to do. Bioessays 23: 763-6.
BALCZAREK, K.A., LAI, Z.C. and KUMAR, S. (1997). Evolution of functional diversification of the paired box (Pax) DNA-binding domains. Mol Biol Evol 14: 829-42.
BALL, E.E., HAYWARD, D.C., REECE-HOYES, J.S., HISLOP, N.R., SAMUEL, G., SAINT, R., HARRISON, P.L. and MILLER, D.J. (2002). Coral development: From classical embryology to molecular control. Int J Dev Biol 46: 671-8.
BOPP, D., BURRI, M., BAUMGARTNER, S., FRIGERIO, G. and NOLL, M. (1986). Conservation of a large protein domain in the segmentation gene paired and in functionally related genes of Drosophila. Cell 47: 1033-40.
BOUCHARD, M., SOUABNI, A., MANDLER, M., NEUBUSER, A. and BUSSLINGER, M. (2002). Nephric lineage specification by Pax2 and Pax8. Genes Dev 16: 2958 70.
CALLAERTS, P., MUNOZ-MARMOL, A.M., GLARDON, S., CASTILLO, E., SUN, H., LI, W.H., GEHRING, W.J. and SALO, E. (1999). Isolation and expression of a Pax6 gene in the regenerating and intact planarian Dugesia(G)Tigrina. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 96: 558-63.
CAROSA, E., KOZMIK, Z., RALL, J.E. and PIATIGORSKY, J. (2002). Structure and expression of the scallop omega-crystallin gene. Evidence for convergent evolution of promoter sequences. J Biol Chem 277: 656-64.
CHI, N. and EPSTEIN, J.A. (2002). Getting your Pax straight: Pax proteins in development and disease. Trends Genet 18: 41-7.
COATES, M.M. (2003). Visual ecology and functional morphology of cubuzoa (cnidaria). Integr. Comp. Biol. 43: 542-548
CONANT, F.S. (1897). Notes on the cubomedusae. Johns Hopkins Univ CircNo. 132: 8-10.
CONWAY MORRIS, S. (2000). The cambrian «explosion»: Slow-fuse or megatonnage? Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 97: 4426-9.
CVEKL, A. and PIATIGORSKY, J. (1996). Lens development and crystallin gene expression: Many roles for Pax-6. Bioessays 18: 621-30.
CZERNY, T., BOUCHARD, M., KOZMIK, Z. and BUSSLINGER, M. (1997). The characterization of novel Pax genes of the sea urchin and Drosophila reveal an ancient evolutionary origin of the Pax2/5/8 subfamily. Mech Dev 67: 179-92.
CZERNY, T. and BUSSLINGER, M. (1995). DNA-binding and transactivation proper ties of Pax-6: Three amino acids in the paired domain are responsible for the different sequence recognition of Pax-6 and BSAP (Pax-5). Mol Cell Biol 15: 2858 71.
CZERNY, T., HALDER, G., KLOTER, U., SOUABNI, A., GEHRING, W.J. and BUSSLINGER, M. (1999). Twin of eyeless, a second Pax-6 gene of Drosophila, acts upstream of eyeless in the control of eye development. Mol Cell 3: 297-307.
CZERNY, T., SCHAFFNER, G. and BUSSLINGER, M. (1993). DNA sequence recognition by Pax proteins: Bipartite structure of the paired domain and its binding site. Genes Dev 7: 2048-61.
D’ALESSIO, G. (2002). The evolution of monomeric and oligomeric betagamma-type crystallins. Facts and hypotheses. Eur J Biochem 269: 3122-30.
DAVIS, J.A. and REED, R.R. (1996). Role of Olf-1 and Pax-6 transcription factors in neurodevelopment. J Neurosci 16: 5082-94.
DE JONG, W.W., HENDRIKS, W., MULDERS, J.W. and BLOEMENDAL, H. (1989). Evolution of eye lens crystallins: The stress connection. Trends Biochem Sci 14: 365-8.
DE JONG, W.W., LEUNISSEN, J.A. and VOORTER, C.E. (1993). Evolution of the alpha-crystallin/small heat-shock protein family. Mol Biol Evol 10: 103-26.
DORFLER, P. and BUSSLINGER, M. (1996). C-terminal activating and inhibitory domains determine the transactivation potential of BSAP (Pax-5), Pax-2 and Pax 8. EMBO J 15: 1971-82.
DOSE, A.C., HILLMAN, D.W., WONG, C., SOHLBERG, L., LIN-JONES, J. and BURNSIDE, B. (2003). Myo3A, one of two class III myosin genes expressed in vertebrate retina, is localized to the calycal processes of rod and cone photoreceptors and is expressed in the sacculus. Mol Biol Cell 14: 1058-73.
DUNCAN, M.K., CVEKL, A., KANTOROW, M. and PIATIGORSKY, J. (2004). Lens crystallins. In Development of the ocular lens, (ed. ROBINSON, M. L. and LOVICU, F. J.). Cambridge University Press, New York.
DUNCAN, M.K., HAYNES, J.I., 2ND, CVEKL, A. and PIATIGORSKY, J. (1998). Dual roles for Pax-6: A transcriptional repressor of lens fiber cell-specific beta-crystallin genes. Mol Cell Biol 18: 5579-86.
EAKIN, R. (1979). Evolutionary significance of photoreceptors: In retrospect. American Zoologist 19: 647-653.
EAKIN, R.A.W., JA. (1962). Fine structrue of photoreceptors in the hydromedusan, Polyorchis penicillatus. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 48: 826-833.
FRITZSCH, B. and BEISEL, K.W. (2001). Evolution and development of the vertebrate ear.Brain Res Bull 55: 711-21.
FRITZSCH, B. and BEISEL, K.W. (2003). Keeping sensory cells and evolving neurons to connect them to the brain: Molecular conservation and novelties in vertebrate ear development. In Development of the auditory and vestibular systems. Current topics in developmental biology, vol. 57 (ed. ROMAND, R. and VARELA-NIETO, I.), pp.1-48.
FU, W., DUAN, H., FREI, E. and NOLL, M. (1998). Shaven and sparkling are mutations in separate enhancers of the Drosophila Pax2 homolog. Development 125: 2943-50.
FU, W. and NOLL, M. (1997). The Pax2 homolog sparkling is required for development of cone and pigment cells in the Drosophila eye. Genes Dev 11: 2066-78.
GALLIOT, B. and SCHMID, V. (2002). Cnidarians as a model system for understanding evolution and regeneration. Int J Dev Biol 46: 39-48.
GEHRING, W.J. (2002). The genetic control of eye development and its implications for the evolution of the various eye-types. Int J Dev Biol 46: 65-73.
GEHRING, W.J. and IKEO, K. (1999). Pax 6: Mastering eye morphogenesis and eye evolution. Trends Genet 15: 371-7.
GLARDON, S., CALLAERTS, P., HALDER, G. and GEHRING, W.J. (1997). Conservation of Pax-6 in a lower chordate, the ascidian Phallusia mammillata. Development 124: 817-25.
GLARDON, S., HOLLAND, L.Z., GEHRING, W.J. and HOLLAND, N.D. (1998). Isolation and developmental expression of the amphioxus Pax-6 gene (AmphiPax6): Insights into eye and photoreceptor evolution. Development 125: 2701-10.
GLASER, T., WALTON, D.S. and MAAS, R.L. (1992). Genomic structure, evolutionary conservation and aniridia mutations in the human Pax6 gene. Nat Genet 2: 232-9.
GOPAL-SRIVASTAVA, R., CVEKL, A. and PIATIGORSKY, J. (1996). Pax-6 and alphaB-crystallin/small heat shock protein gene regulation in the murine lens. Interaction with the lens-specific regions, LSR1 and LSR2. J Biol Chem 271: 23029-36.
GROGER, H., CALLAERTS, P., GEHRING, W.J. and SCHMID, V. (2000). Characterization and expression analysis of an ancestor-type Pax gene in the hydrozoan jellyfish Podocoryne carnea. Mech Dev 94: 157-69.
GROGER, H. and SCHMID, V. (2001). Larval development in cnidaria: A connection to bilateria? Genesis 29: 110-4.
HALDER, G., CALLAERTS, P. and GEHRING, W.J. (1995). Induction of ectopic eyes by targeted expression of the eyeless gene in Drosophila. Science 267: 1788-92.
HANSON, I.M. (2001). Mammalian homologues of the Drosophila eye specification genes. Semin Cell Dev Biol 12: 475-84.
HAYWARD, D.C., SAMUEL, G., PONTYNEN, P.C., CATMULL, J., SAINT, R., MILLER, D.J. and BALL, E.E. (2002). Localized expression of a dpp/BMP2/4 ortholog in a coral embryo. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 99: 8106-11.
HEANUE, T.A., RESHEF, R., DAVIS, R.J., MARDON, G., OLIVER, G., TOMAREV, S., LASSAR, A.B. and TABIN, C.J. (1999). Synergistic regulation of vertebrate muscle development by Dach2, Eya2, and Six1, homologs of genes required for Drosophila eye formation. Genes Dev 13: 3231-43.
HILL, R.E., FAVOR, J., HOGAN, B.L., TON, C.C., SAUNDERS, G.F., HANSON, I.M., PROSSER, J., JORDAN, T., HASTIE, N.D. and VAN HEYNINGEN, V. (1991). Mouse small eye results from mutations in a paired-like homeobox- containing gene. Nature 354: 522-5.
HORRIDGE, G.A. (1969). Statocysts of medusae and evolution of stereocilia. Tissue & Cell 1: 341-353.
HORWITZ, J. (1992). Alpha-crystallin can function as a molecular chaperone. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 89: 10449-53.
HOSHIYAMA, D., SUGA, H., IWABE, N., KOYANAGI, M., NIKOH, N., KUMA, K., MATSUDA, F., HONJO, T. and MIYATA, T. (1998). Sponge Pax cDNA related to Pax-2/5/8 and ancient gene duplications in the Pax family. J Mol Evol 47: 640-8.
HYMAN, L. (1940). The invertebrates: Protozoa through ctenophora. McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc. New York.
INGOLIA, T.D. and CRAIG, E.A. (1982). Four small Drosophila heat shock proteins are related to each other and to mammalian alpha-crystallin. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 79: 2360-4.
JACOBSON, A.G. (1963a). The determination and positioning of the nose, lens and ear. I. Interactions within the ectoderm, and between the ectoderm and underlying tissues. J Exp Zool 154: 273-83.
JACOBSON, A.G. (1963b). The determination and positioning of the nose, lens and ear. Ii. The role of the endoderm. J Exp Zool 154: 285-91.
JACOBSON, A.G. (1963c). The determination and positioning of the nose, lens and ear. Iii. Effects of reversing the antero-posterior axis of epidermis, neural plate and neural fold. J Exp Zool 154: 293-303.
JARMAN, A.P. (2002). Studies of mechanosensation using the fly. Hum Mol Genet 11: 1215-8.
JARMAN, A.P., SUN, Y., JAN, L.Y. and JAN, Y.N. (1995). Role of the proneural gene, atonal, in formation of Drosophila chordotonal organs and photoreceptors. Development 121: 2019-30.
JORDAN, T., HANSON, I., ZALETAYEV, D., HODGSON, S., PROSSER, J., SEAWRIGHT, A., HASTIE, N. and VAN HEYNINGEN, V. (1992). The human PAX6 gene is mutated in two patients with aniridia. Nat Genet 1: 328-32.
KADOR, P.F., ZIGLER, J.S. and KINOSHITA, J.H. (1979). Alterations of lens protein synthesis in galactosemic rats. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 18: 696-702.
KAMACHI, Y., UCHIKAWA, M., TANOUCHI, A., SEKIDO, R. and KONDOH, H. (2001). Pax6 and Sox2 form a co-DNA-binding partner complex that regulates initiation of lens development. Genes Dev 15: 1272-86.
KAVALER, J., FU, W., DUAN, H., NOLL, M. and POSAKONY, J.W. (1999). An essential role for the Drosophila Pax2 homolog in the differentiation of adult sensory organs. Development 126: 2261-72.
KLEMENZ, R., FROHLI, E., STEIGER, R.H., SCHAFER, R. and AOYAMA, A. (1991). Alpha B-crystallin is a small heat shock protein. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 88: 3652 6.
KOSTROUCH, Z., KOSTROUCHOVA, M., LOVE, W., JANNINI, E., PIATIGORSKY, J. and RALL, J.E. (1998). Retinoic acid x receptor in the diploblast, Tripedalia cystophora. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 95: 13442-7.
KOZMIK, Z., DAUBE, M., FREI, E., NORMAN, B., KOS, L., DISHAW, L.J., NOLL, M. and PIATIGORSKY, J. (2003). Role of Pax genes in eye evolution. A cnidarian PaxB gene uniting Pax2 and Pax6 functions. Dev Cell 5: 773-85.
KRALOVA, J., CZERNY, T., SPANIELOVA, H., RATAJOVA, V. and KOZMIK, Z. (2002). Complex regulatory element within the gammaE- and gammaF-crystallin enhancers mediates Pax6 regulation and is required for induction by retinoic acid. Gene 286: 271-82.
KRESLOVA, J., HOLLAND, L.Z., SCHUBERT, M., BURGTORF, C., BENES, V. and KOZMIK, Z. (2002). Functional equivalency of amphioxus and vertebrate Pax258 transcription factors suggests that the activation of mid-hindbrain specific genes in vertebrates occurs via the recruitment of Pax regulatory elements. Gene 282: 143 50.
KUMAR, J.P. and MOSES, K. (2001a). EGF receptor and Notch signaling act upstream of eyeless/Pax6 to control eye specification. Cell 104: 687-97.
KUMAR, J.P. and MOSES, K. (2001b). Eye specification in Drosophila: Perspectives and implications. Semin Cell Dev Biol 12: 469-74.
LAND, M.F. and NILSSON, D.-E. (2002). Animal eyes. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
LASKA, V.G. and HUNDGEN, M. (1982). Morphologie und ultrastruktur der lichtsinnesorgane von Tridpedalia cystophora Conant (Cnidaria, Cubozoa). Zool. Jb. Anat. 108: 107-123.
LECHNER, M.S. and DRESSLER, G.R. (1996). Mapping of Pax-2 transcription activation domains. J Biol Chem 271: 21088-93.
LEYS, S.P., CRONIN, T.W., DEGNAN, B.M. and MARSHALL, J.N. (2002). Spectral sensitivity in a sponge larva. J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol 188: 199-202.
LEYS, S.P. and DEGNAN, B.M. (2001). Cytological basis of photoresponsive behavior in a sponge larva. Biol Bull 201: 323-38.
LOOSLI, F., KMITA-CUNISSE, M. and GEHRING, W.J. (1996). Isolation of a Pax-6 homolog from the ribbonworm Lineus sanguineus. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 93: 2658-63.
MANSOURI, A., CHOWDHURY, K. and GRUSS, P. (1998). Follicular cells of the thyroid gland require Pax8 gene function. Nat Genet 19: 87-90.
MILLER, D.J., HAYWARD, D.C., REECE-HOYES, J.S., SCHOLTEN, I., CATMULL, J., GEHRING, W.J., CALLAERTS, P., LARSEN, J.E. and BALL, E.E. (2000). Pax gene diversity in the basal cnidarian Acropora millepora (cnidaria, anthozoa): Implications for the evolution of the Pax gene family. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 97: 4475-80.
MONTELL, C. (2000). A PDZ protein ushers in new links. Nat Genet 26: 6-7.
NILSSON, D.E. and PELGER, S. (1994). A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 256: 53-8.
NIWA, N., HIROMI, Y. and OKABE, M. (2004). A conserved developmental program for sensory organ formation in Drosophila melanogaster. Nat Genet 36: 293-7.
NOLL, M. (1993). Evolution and role of Pax genes. Curr Opin Genet Dev 3: 595-605.
NORDSTROM, K., WALLEN, R., SEYMOUR, J. and NILSSON, D. (2003). A simple visual system without neurons in jellyfish larvae. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 270: 2349-54.
NORNES, S., MIKKOLA, I., KRAUSS, S., DELGHANDI, M., PERANDER, M. and JOHANSEN, T. (1996). Zebrafish Pax9 encodes two proteins with distinct c- terminal transactivating domains of different potency negatively regulated by adjacent N-terminal sequences. J Biol Chem 271: 26914-23.
NUTT, S.L., HEAVEY, B., ROLINK, A.G. and BUSSLINGER, M. (1999). Commitment to the B-lymphoid lineage depends on the transcription factor Pax5. Nature 401: 556-62.
O’BRIEN, E.K. and DEGNAN, B.M. (2002a). Developmental expression of a class IV POU gene in the gastropod Haliotis asinina supports a conserved role in sensory cell development in bilaterians. Dev Genes Evol 212: 394-8.
O’BRIEN, E.K. and DEGNAN, B.M. (2002b). Pleiotropic developmental expression of HasPOU-III, a class IIIpou gene, in the gastropod Haliotis asinina. Mech Dev 114: 129-32.
O’BRIEN, E.K. and DEGNAN, B.M. (2003). Expresson of Pax258 in the gastropod statocyst: Insights into the antiquity of metazoan geosensory organs. Evol Dev 5: 572-578.
PACKARD, A. (1972). Cephalopods and fish: The limits of convergence.Biol. Rev. 47: 241-307.
PAPATSENKO, D., NAZINA, A. and DESPLAN, C. (2001). A conserved regulatory element present in all Drosophila rhodopsin genes mediates Pax6 functions and participates in the fine-tuning of cell-specific expression. Mech Dev 101: 143-53.
PEARSE, J.S. and PEARSE, V.B. (1978). Vision of cubomedusan jellyfishes. Science 199: 458.
PFEFFER, P.L., GERSTER, T., LUN, K., BRAND, M. and BUSSLINGER, M. (1998). Characterization of three novel members of the zebrafish Pax2/5/8 family: Dependency of Pax5 and Pax8 expression on the Pax2.1 (noi) function. Development 125: 3063-74.
PIATIGORSKY, J. (1984). Delta crystallins and their nucleic acids. Mol Cell Biochem 59: 33-56.
PIATIGORSKY, J. (1992). Lens crystallins. Innovation associated with changes in gene regulation. J Biol Chem 267: 4277-80.
PIATIGORSKY, J. (1993). Puzzle of crystallin diversity in eye lenses. Dev Dyn 196: 267-72.
PIATIGORSKY, J. (2003a). Crystallin genes: Specialization by changes in gene regulation may precede gene duplication. J Struct Funct Genomics 3: 131-7.
PIATIGORSKY, J. (2003b). Gene sharing, lens crystallins and speculations on an eye/ear evolutionary relationship. Integr. Comp. Biol. 43: 492-499.
PIATIGORSKY, J., HORWITZ, J., KUWABARA, T. and CUTRESS, C.E. (1989). The cellular eye lens and crystallins of cubomedusan jellyfish. J Comp Physiol [A] 164: 577-87.
PIATIGORSKY, J., HORWITZ, J. and NORMAN, B.L. (1993). J1-crystallins of the cubomedusan jellyfish lens constitute a novel family encoded in at least three intronless genes. J Biol Chem 268: 11894-901.
PIATIGORSKY, J., NORMAN, B., DISHAW, L.J., KOS, L., HORWITZ, J., STEINBACH, P.J. and KOZMIK, Z. (2001). J3-crystallin of the jellyfish lens: Similarity to saposins. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98: 12362-7.
PIATIGORSKY, J., O’BRIEN, W.E., NORMAN, B.L., KALUMUCK, K., WISTOW, G.J., BORRAS, T., NICKERSON, J.M. and WAWROUSEK, E.F. (1988). Gene sharing by delta-crystallin and argininosuccinate lyase. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 85: 3479 83.
PIATIGORSKY, J. and WISTOW, G. (1991). The recruitment of crystallins: New functions precede gene duplication. Science 252: 1078-9.
PIATIGORSKY, J. and WISTOW, G.J. (1989). Enzyme/crystallins: Gene sharing as an evolutionary strategy. Cell 57: 197-9.
PICHAUD, F. and DESPLAN, C. (2002). Pax genes and eye organogenesis. Curr Opin Genet Dev 12: 430-4.
PICHAUD, F., TREISMAN, J. and DESPLAN, C. (2001). Reinventing a common strategy for patterning the eye. Cell 105: 9-12.
PLAZA, S., DE JONG, D.M., GEHRING, W.J. and MILLER, D.J. (2003). DNA-binding characteristics of cnidarian Pax-C and Pax-B proteins in vivo and in vitro: No simple relationship with the Pax-6 and Pax-2/5/8 classes. J Exp Zoolog Part B Mol Dev Evol 299: 26-35.
QUIRING, R., WALLDORF, U., KLOTER, U. and GEHRING, W.J. (1994). Homology of the eyeless gene of Drosophila to the small eye gene in mice and Aniridia in humans. Science 265: 785-9.
RELAIX, F. and BUCKINGHAM, M. (1999). From insect eye to vertebrate muscle: Redeployment of a regulatory network. Genes Dev 13: 3171-8.
ROBERTS, D.G., LAMB, M.R. and DIECKMANN, C.L. (2001). Characterization of the EYE2 gene required for eyespot assembly in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Genetics 158: 1037-49.
ROLINK, A.G., NUTT, S.L., MELCHERS, F. and BUSSLINGER, M. (1999). Long-term in vivo reconstitution of t-cell development by Pax5-deficient B-cell progenitors. Nature 401: 603-6.
SCHWARZ, M., ALVAREZ-BOLADO, G., URBANEK, P., BUSSLINGER, M. and GRUSS, P. (1997). Conserved biological function between Pax-2 and Pax-5 in midbrain and cerebellum development: Evidence from targeted mutations. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 94: 14518-23.
SHENG, G., THOUVENOT, E., SCHMUCKER, D., WILSON, D.S. and DESPLAN, C. (1997). Direct regulation of rhodopsin 1 by Pax-6/eyeless in Drosophila: Evidence for a conserved function in photoreceptors. Genes Dev 11: 1122-31.
SIMPSON, T.I. and PRICE, D.J. (2002). Pax6; a pleiotropic player in development. Bioessays 24: 1041-51.
SINGLA, C.L. (1974). Ocelli of hydromedusae. Cell Tissue Res 149: 413-29.
SINGLA, C.L. (1975). Staocysts of hydromedusae. Cell Tissue Res 158: 391-407.
STARR, C.J., KAPPLER, J.A., CHAN, D.K., KOLLMAR, R. and HUDSPETH, A.J. (2004). Mutation of the zebrafish choroideremia gene encoding Rab escort protein 1 devastates hair cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101: 2572-7.
SUN, H., DICKINSON, D.P., COSTELLO, J. and LI, W.H. (2001). Isolation of Cladonema Pax-B genes and studies of the DNA-binding properties of cnidarian Pax paired domains. Mol Biol Evol 18: 1905-18.
SUN, H., RODIN, A., ZHOU, Y., DICKINSON, D.P., HARPER, D.E., HEWETTEMMETT, D. and LI, W.H. (1997). Evolution of paired domains: Isolation and sequencing of jellyfish and hydra Pax genes related to Pax-5 and Pax-6. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 94: 5156-61.
TANG, H.K., SINGH, S. and SAUNDERS, G.F. (1998). Dissection of the transactivation function of the transcription factor encoded by the eye developmental gene Pax6. J Biol Chem 273: 7210-21.
TOMAREV, S.I., CALLAERTS, P., KOS, L., ZINOVIEVA, R., HALDER, G., GEHRING, W. and PIATIGORSKY, J. (1997). Squid Pax-6 and eye development. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 94: 2421-6.
TOMAREV, S.I. and PIATIGORSKY, J. (1996). Lens crystallins of invertebrates— diversity and recruitment from detoxification enzymes and novel proteins. Eur J Biochem 235: 449-65.
TON, C.C., HIRVONEN, H., MIWA, H., WEIL, M.M., MONAGHAN, P., JORDAN, T., VAN HEYNINGEN, V., HASTIE, N.D., MEIJERS-HEIJBOER, H., DRECHSLER, M. et al. (1991). Positional cloning and characterization of a paired box- and homeobox-containing gene from the aniridia region. Cell 67: 1059-74.
TORRES, M., GOMEZ-PARDO, E. and GRUSS, P. (1996). Pax2 contributes to inner ear patterning and optic nerve trajectory. Development 122: 3381-91.
TREISMAN, J., HARRIS, E. and DESPLAN, C. (1991). The paired box encodes a second DNA-binding domain in the paired homeo domain protein. Genes Dev 5: 594-604.
URBANEK, P., FETKA, I., MEISLER, M.H. and BUSSLINGER, M. (1997). Cooperation of Pax2 and Pax5 in midbrain and cerebellum development. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 94: 5703-8.
VAN HEYNINGEN, V. and WILLIAMSON, K.A. (2002). Pax6 in sensory development. Hum Mol Genet 11: 1161-7.
VERPY, E., LEIBOVICI, M., ZWAENEPOEL, I., LIU, X.Z., GAL, A., SALEM, N., MANSOUR, A., BLANCHARD, S., KOBAYASHI, I., KEATS, B.J. et al. (2000). A defect in harmonin, a PDZ domain-containing protein expressed in the inner ear sensory hair cells, underlies Usher syndrome type 1C. Nat Genet 26: 51-5.
WALSH, T., WALSH, V., VREUGDE, S., HERTZANO, R., SHAHIN, H., HAIKA, S., LEE, M.K., KANAAN, M., KING, M.C. and AVRAHAM, K.B. (2002). From flies’ eyes to our ears: Mutations in a human class III myosin cause progressive nonsyndromic hearing loss DFNB30. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 99: 7518-23.
WEBER, C. (1981). Structure, histochemistry, ontogenetic development and regeneration of the ocellus of Cladonema radiatum dujardin (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa, Anthomedusae). J. Morphol. 161: 313-331.
WERNER, B., CHAPMAN, D.M, AND CUTRESS, C.E. (1976). Muscular and nervous systems of the cubopolyp (Cnidaria). Experientia 32: 1047-1048.
WERNER, B., CUTRESS, C.E. AND STUDEBAKER, J.P. (1971). Life cycle of Tripedalia cystophora Conant (Cubomedusae). Nature 232: 582-583.
WERTEN, P.J., ROLL, B., VAN AALTEN, D.M. and DE JONG, W.W. (2000). Gecko iota-crystallin: How cellular retinol-binding protein became an eye lens ultraviolet filter. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 97: 3282-7.
WES, P.D., XU, X.Z., LI, H.S., CHIEN, F., DOBERSTEIN, S.K. and MONTELL, C. (1999). Termination of phototransduction requires binding of the NINAC myosin III and the PDZ protein INAD. Nat Neurosci 2: 447-53.
WEST, J.A., SIVAK, J.G. and DOUGHTY, M.J. (1995). Microscopical evaluation of the crystalline lens of the squid (Loligo opalescens) during embryonic development. Exp Eye Res 60: 19-35.
WEST, J.A., SIVAK, J.G., PASTERNAK, J. and PIATIGORSKY, J. (1994). Immunolocalization of S-crystallins in the developing squid (Loligo opalescens) lens. Dev Dyn 199: 85-92.
WISTOW, G. (1990). Evolution of a protein superfamily: Relationships between vertebrate lens crystallins and microorganism dormancy proteins. J Mol Evol 30: 140-5.
WISTOW, G.J. and PIATIGORSKY, J. (1988). Lens crystallins: The evolution and expression of proteins for a highly specialized tissue. Annu Rev Biochem 57: 479 504.
XU, H.E., ROULD, M.A., XU, W., EPSTEIN, J.A., MAAS, R.L. and PABO, C.O. (1999). Crystal structure of the human Pax6 paired domain-DNA complex reveals specific roles for the linker region and carboxy-terminal subdomain in DNA binding. Genes Dev 13: 1263-75.
XU, Q., WANG, Y., DABDOUB, A., SMALLWOOD, P.M., WILLIAMS, J., WOODS, C., KELLEY, M.W., JIANG, L., TASMAN, W., ZHANG, K. et al. (2004). Vascular development in the retina and inner ear: Control by Norrin and Frizzled-4, a high- affinity ligand-receptor pair. Cell 116: 883-95.
XU, W., ROULD, M.A., JUN, S., DESPLAN, C. and PABO, C.O. (1995). Crystal structure of a paired domain-DNA complex at 2.5 a resolution reveals structural basis for Pax developmental mutations. Cell 80: 639-50.
YAMASU, T. and YOSHIDA, M. (1976). Fine structure of complex ocelli of a cubomedusan, Tamoya bursaria Haeckel. Cell Tissue Res 170: 325-39.
ZUBER, M.E., GESTRI, G., VICZIAN, A.S., BARSACCHI, G. and HARRIS, W.A. (2003). Specification of the vertebrate eye by a network of eye field transcription factors. Development 130: 5155-67.

Perhaps creationists "don't know" how the eye evolved, but if so it's because they're not bothering to read the science journals before they make their pronouncements. Biologists actually know a great deal about how the eye evolved, in what stages, in what lineages, at what points in time, via what genetic and molecular changes, etc. etc. There's still a lot to discover yet, of course, but the usual creationist canard of "you guys don't know nothin' and have no evidence, it's all just guesswork" is a gigantic misrepresentation.
However the argument that "We don't know how it happened, so someone must have designed it" answers nothing for me. It just regresses the magic.
Bingo! Creationists like to offer "a designer did it" as an "explanation", but it actually *explains* nothing. An actual explanation would involve details as to processes, methods, materials, etc.

And:

The evolution of trichromatic color vision by opsin gene duplication in New World and Old World primates
The Evolution of Color Vision
Molecular basis for tetrachromatic color vision
Molecular evolution of the Rh3 gene in Drosophila
Evolution of the visual cycle: the role of retinoid-binding proteins
Interphotoreceptor retinoid-binding protein. Gene characterization, protein repeat structure, and its evolution
Spectral tuning and molecular evolution of rod visual pigments in the species flock of cottoid fish in Lake Baikal
The receptor kinase family: primary structure of rhodopsin kinase reveals similarities to the beta-adrenergic receptor kinase
The evolution of rhodopsins and neurotransmitter receptors
Optimization, constraint, and history in the evolution of eyes
A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve
Sequence analysis of teleost retina-specific lactate dehydrogenase C: evolutionary implications for the vertebrate lactate dehydrogenase gene family
The eye of the blind mole rat (Spalax ehrenbergi): regressive evolution at the molecular level
Eyes: variety, development and evolution
The Tribolium homologue of glass and the evolution of insect larval eyes
Evolution of eyes and photoreceptor cell types The evolution of eyes.

Now, *your* turn -- "why don't you explain the emergence of the eye ... using nothing but 'design'"? Be sure to show the original blueprints, the factory, reconstruct in a way consistent with all the available real-world evidence the time(s) at which various organisms with different eye types were "released" from the design studio, the "design" reasons for various features of eyes (including biochemical and DNA idiosyncracies) which make perfect sense via evolutionary origins but don't seem consistent with any rational "design" process, etc. We await *your* research results.

Oh, wait, that's right -- the "intelligent design" folks haven't *done* any research, and have no positive results of any kind supporting the conclusion they are hoping to convince people of.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.