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To: Aquinasfan
Similarly with the "just so" stories of eye development. The vision system of a planaria is suited for a planaria. The vision system for a squid is suited for a squid. And the vision system for a human being is suitable for a human being. None of these vision systems seems to be of "lesser or greater" development than the rest of the organism.

What if, for instance, squid were forced to operate during daylight hours (change of environment). After a bit, the squids eye would come to adapt to daylight existence. The reason these critters' eyes are perfect for their particular existences is that millions of years of environmental pressure and experimentation have hit upon the current setup. What these critters have now, however, may not be what their particular descendents need; there will be environmental pressures to change the way they look at the world (pun intended).

BTW, human eyes are not as suitable as you claim. Our ancestors did a lot of hunting and were constantly on the lookout for predators; their distance vision (and ours) was much more acute than their near vision. However, civilized man does more work up close to his eyes, and has little need for distance vision. Think about this as an environmental pressure.

615 posted on 03/18/2002 12:25:07 PM PST by Junior
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To: Junior
After a bit, the squids eye would come to adapt to daylight existence. The reason these critters' eyes are perfect for their particular existences is that millions of years of environmental pressure and experimentation have hit upon the current setup.

Again, a nice story. But where are the transitional fossils? As time goes on, the fossil record looks even worse for microevolution than it did during Darwin's time. Besides being "gappy," you have the problem of unevolved, "living fossils" like the coelecanth and the horseshoe crab.

650 posted on 03/19/2002 3:36:24 AM PST by Aquinasfan
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