Posted on 07/03/2006 10:05:56 AM PDT by doc30
We humans customarily assume that our visual system sits atop a pinnacle of evolutionary success. It enables us to appreciate space in three dimensions, to detect objects from a distance and to move about safely. We are exquisitely able to recognize other individuals and to read their emotions from mere glimpses of their faces. In fact, we are such visual animals that we have difficulty imagining the sensory worlds of creatures whose capacities extend to other realms--a night-hunting bat, for example, that finds small insects by listening to the echoes of its own high-pitched call. Our knowledge of color vision is, quite naturally, based primarily on what humans see: researchers can easily perform experiments on cooperative human subjects to discover, say, what mixtures of colors look the same or different. Although scientists have obtained supporting information from a variety of other species by recording the firing of neurons, we remained unaware until the early 1970s that many vertebrates, mostly animals other than mammals, see colors in a part of the spectrum that is invisible to humans: the near ultraviolet. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciam.com ...
I don't care, it was a funny cartoon, and it had a good message.
Or is FR so monolithic now that you can't put up a comic like that anymore without being accused by someone of not toeing the official line?
Lighten up.
A Bald Eagle regularly sits atop a pine tree in my backyard about 150 feet from the water's edge (on the Puget Sound). Just stares at the water. ....hunting. His prety moves under the water, sometimes hundreds of feet offshore. I'm sittin' there with high-power binoculars unable to see a thing out there, but that great bird spots his prey every time, and swoops down out of the sky for the kill, emerging with fresh fish. Unfathomable vision.
From this statement I can gather that a methodical and repeatable experiment has been performed?
Why wouldn't you?
Conservative != Christian.
"From this statement I can gather that a methodical and repeatable experiment has been performed?"
Why would that be necessary in a historical science? Science doesn't require lab experiments.
The topic of sensory apparatus in animals is quite interesting, actually - I'm sure you agree or you wouldn't have posted this one. Now take a look at how long it took to - shall I dare to use the word "evolve"? - let's say "veer" into the familiar swamp of creationism/evolution/intelligent design. Not the five posts I predicted - precisely one. One post. That's what I'm complaining about.
Lighten up Francis. We should be able to laugh at ourselves and life sometimes. Humor is good for the soul.
I don't buy the point the Trudeau comic was trying to make, but I did think it was really funny.
Heck, the word "evolved" could mean lots of things. The Corvette has evolved. I believe that kind of evolution exists.
Fascinating reading and thank you for posting it. It explains much about successful predatory of birds for example. I plan to tell my children about this as we have many hawks and owls around our home. As I write this, I realize the hawks have taken over the territory - have not seen/seen an owl around this year. Hmmmm...was it the hawks or Hurricane Rita as we didn't see/hear birds for quite some time after Rita.
Your tagline cracks me up.
So what you're saying is that creationists believe in de-evolution. Something like the universe is went from order to chaos, right?
It's not just the eyes that have de-evolved. There's a reason you have to find an external source of vitamin C in your diet, while your dog manufactures his own. Either that, or the Creator made you inferior to your pet.
What has been observed, according to the author: Different eyes, operating with different strengths.
What is pure conjecture in the article: that some sort of evolution is involved.
All the eyes could also have been designed that way.
There is proof for neither hypothesis, nor is either provable or disprovable. Dontcha just hate that?!
You mean like the different bacteria that have evolved to make themselves immune to anti-biotics? The immunity that wasn't in their genetic code before, but is now?
The article assumes common descent and then explains differences in that context. In reality, eyes are merely different. The concept of descent w/ modification is imposed on the data, not an artifact of the data itself.
Statements like 'Mammals were once that way too', 'Mammals became nocturnal and lost two receptors' are unsupportable and are mere conjecture.
Makes a nice story and that's all that counts to evos.
How good is your imagination?
What do you think evolution is?? It is the process in which organisms adapt and change.
How can you not believe in a process that you just admitted to be true? The theory of evolution does not address how life formed. It addresses how life adapts and changes.
What was the mechanism for this miraculous mutation that effected all subsequent primates? What was the mutagenic agent that caused this specific mutation? Care to speculate?
LOL. It's a good thing creationists don't ever oversimply and label things they disagree with because it's easier than thinking.
Well, except for the thread over the weekend in which a creationist stated that "that 'scientists'--i.e. hedonistic materialists amongst the larger set of all scientists--worked very hard because they wanted to copulate like bunnies without any thought about God observing their libidinal escapades."
There is plenty of questionable behavior and statements by both sides. Too bad you're only keeping score for one team.
It seems there has been quite a degradation of quality lately. Brazen personal attacks, attempts to hijack threads, non sourced or flat out erroneous info...
And I have seen flat out cruelty. I mean, really mean spirited people who seem to want their name in lights while they skewer someone.
Many of the intellectuals and political theorists have left.
Not the FR I remember from the late 90's.
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