Evolution would've given us infrared eyesight

So very close... And yet, as ever, so very far... Would not a better conclusion be... "given that all the scientists of the world do not come to this conclusion, perhaps, just perhaps, my ideas of what evolution predicts are deeply flawed?"You know, the conclusion that has a smidgeon of honesty and humility, and not the one above that reeks of bone-headed arrogance?Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

hey dronester There is also a rare condition where women in families with color-blindness can see four "primary" colors (and have a much richer sense of color than us mere mortals). The reason has to do with double "X" genes and one shifted vision gene on one that results in the color-blindness in males.http://www.physorg.com/news1035.html

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The results of the study by Verrelli and Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Maryland appear in the American Journal of Human Genetics . Their research focused on the gene that allows people to perceive the color red, a gene that is found only on the X chromosome. They found that the gene has maintained an unusual amount of variation that is about three times that of other genes.

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“Normally, this degree of genetic variation is suppressed through natural selection,” Verrelli says. “In this case, nature is supporting a high degree of variation instead.”

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Verrelli explains that variation in the red gene is created via the exchange of genetic material with a neighboring gene that detects green. The scientists speculate that enhanced color perception was important when women were the primary gatherers in the hunter-gatherer phase of human existence. It would have allowed them to better distinguish among fruits, foliage and insects. Therefore, nature supported the variation, despite some negative consequences to men.

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Because women have two X chromosomes, women can receive one chromosome with the typical configuration of the red vision gene while the other chromosome receives a slight variation. It is the combination of a normal and variant gene, which occurs in about 40 percent of women, that may provide a broader spectrum of color vision in the red-orange range.

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By contrast, men have one X chromosome, and any variation in the single red gene that they receive reduces their ability to distinguish between red and green. This accounts for the relatively high percentage of men ” 8 percent ” who have a color vision deficiency. It was this statistical aberration that first interested Verrelli in pursuing this research.

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One wonders what RickCHodgin thinks of the evolutionary benefit of seeing ripe fruit in vegetation where we can clearly see that this is a result of mutation of the color cones.And then we have the rich and sharp vision of birds:rattlesnake.com is for sale | www.oxley.com

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He added that `some types of birds have five types of cone'. I find it impossible to imagine such a bird's color vision. They see many more shades than we.

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Blankenship provides more detail:

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A bird's retina actually has three types of photoreceptors that `translate' light into nervous impulses:

• rods ” black & white vision in dim light
• cones ” color vision in bright light
• double cones ” color vision

Moreover, according to Blankenship's link,

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... bird retinas, in contrast to human retinas, contain no blood vessels. This prevents shadows and light scattering, which cut down on human vision.

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Many birds see more acutely than humans,

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The denser that cone cells are, the sharper is the perceived image. The human eye has at most 200,000 cones per square millimeter, while House Sparrows have approximately twice that number. Hawks, who must spot small prey from the sky, possess about five times as many as humans! Songbirds and predators such as hawks are believed to have the sharpest vision among birds. They can see details at distances two to three times farther away than humans.

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Many animals also have one or more "nictitating membranes" that offer additional protection for the eye, and benefit to vision in a number of ways, from sunglasses to windshield wipers to underwater adaptation.There is another way that human vision could be improved, if one were going to design it: the octopus has a fixed lens and focus their vision by moving their retina (also without nerves, veins and arteries between the lens and the receptors, as well as having receptors pointed towards the light rather than away from it) while humans change the shape of the lens to bring the image into focus on a fixed retina.One could combine these two systems into one vision system, and with the ability to alter both distance between lens and receptor AND the focal length of the lens to bring any distance object into focus on that movable retina, you would have telephoto to macro vision. This would also provide the ability to focus underwater.So if a designer were going to design an optimum human eye:

1. a broad spectrum of cone vision, from infra-red to ultra-violet,
2. many different kinds of cones, so that more colors would be seen
3. a dense array of cones and rods to make images sharper (similar to pixel resolution)
4. large eye lens to increase amount of light used in the dark
5. a large retina that acts like a large screen to also increase resolution in normal light
6. a nictating membrane or two to function as dark glasses
7. an unobstructed retina (nerves, veins and arteries behind the retina
8. a retina with photo-receptors facing the light
9. an adjustable location retina while keeping the adjustable lens - you could have a network of muscles on the backside with the nerves, veins and arteries,
10. a third eye, so you have multiple binary vision redundancy plus up\down acuity.

... for starters.Any designer worthy of sacrifice should be able to do this. Assuming he/she/it wanted to fully "trickout" humans.I wonder how RickCHodgin can explain why his designer is so incompetent.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : underwater vision

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Well, I take it you are aware of pit vipers and boas, right?
Take a look through this article:
Infrared sensing in snakes - Wikipedia.
Other organisms able to sense in the infrared include the common vampire bat, some jewel beetles, two butterflies, and possibly a parasite.And hey, guess what. You know that stuff that is burning orange and red in this photo:
File:Hot metalwork.jpg - Wikipedia
That's the "visible" part of the infrared spectrum that we can pick up. As others have mentioned, there's this little thing called natural selection that acts as a filter. We do actually witness this spectrum of mutation, but as you hinted, many mutations are harmful, few beneficial, and most harmless. But as regards those harmful mutations, natural selection weeds them out. The organism dies before it can reproduce, or it is not able to reproduce as successfully as its peers, and thus the mutation is slowly crowded out. If you want to see induced mutations, I recommend taking a look through fruit fly genetic experiments (Drosophila melanogaster - Wikipedia will get you started). This, Rick, is what is known as a strawman argument. You define evolution how you want to, and then prove that your version of evolution does not occur, ergo, evolution is false. Now then, this may be what you honestly think evolution says, in which case you are simply ignorant. If you know what evolution says but still spout these falsehoods, then you are willfully ignorant or possibly malicious. There are numerous threads here on the veracity of the Theory of Evolution, what the Theory actually is, and RAZD has been kind enough to supply you with excellent links that describe what the Theory is and what is says.You have a second strawman as well--you are using the colloquial 'theory', which differs greatly from the scientific use of the term. Note that we say the Theory of General Relativity, the Theory of Germ Disease, the Theory of Gravity, Theory of Evolution. In science, a theory is essentially an explanation of what we observe. Theories explain facts. Gravity is a fact. Germ disease is a fact. The observations that led to GR are facts. Evolution (change in species over time) is a fact. Scientific theories are not guesses (that would be more like an hypothesis).When you start to debate what the Theory of Evolution actually says, and not some fantasy you have in your head that is disconnected from reality, I might take your criticisms o the theory more seriously. As it is, I and the rest here can only point out your misunderstanding of the theory.

Hooray, it's the Argument from Undesign:* Evolution should have made us absolutely perfect ... because ... uh ... well, it just should, that's all.* We aren't absolutely perfect.* Therefore we were designed by a perfect, infallible, and all-powerful God (who, evidently, reallly screwed up).For my money, this is amongst the funniest creationist arguments. Especially as the premise comes from a bunch of people who spend much of the rest of their time pretending that evolution is a completely random process.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

All of the scientists in the world do not come together on every conclusion. There are many scientists who do not believe in evolution. There are many Christians who believe that God operated via evolution.Science today shows us that it is impossible for Earth to be millions of years old, let alone billions (in anything resembling its present form). Atomic clocks were first activated and used in an official system in 1958. They were set upon two time methods (TAI and UT1) which were roughly in sync with each other at that time.Today some 50 years later, they are 32 seconds apart due to a slowing of the Earth's rotation. A rate of 32 seconds per 50 years yields a slowing of one hour every 5,625 years. Multiply that by 24 (hours per day) and you're sitting at 135,000 years before the Earth would've completely slowed down. Add in a margin of error of 500% and you're now sitting on a maximum of 675,000 years TGDaily – More than the newsThe Earth has shown man that it is slowing down, and at what rate. There are no theories which state it will get faster over time (other than mild increases which last only days). In fact, every theory we have states that it will continue to slow down due to a loss of energy (much like an ice skater turning around and around slows down due to tiny movements of their body, as is true with the Earth's tide and rising/lowering sea waters).So, that blows the theory of "over a long period of time" out of the water.In addition, we have fossilized trees that run vertical through layers of solid rock - believed to be "millions of years old." The trees would not be able to exist between so many layers were the rocks deposited over millions of years.We have no examples whatsoever of any modern day advanced lifeform like fish, mammals or reptiles, producing offspring which are not like themselves. And yet, we are told species are vanishing from the face of the Earth at the rate of three per hour Canada.Com | Homepage | Canada.Com. Science Daily reported in March, 2008 that 16,969 new species were discovered last year, a rate of 1 every 1.94 hours. This figure is comprised of species which already existed, but were unknown to our science because they had not yet been categorized No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080523163054.htm.What we have is what's here, and it's what was created on the Earth. It's dying off because we are abusing this world to no end. It will not continue much longer though because it cannot. We are poisoning our world - the water supply, the food (with genetic moficiations that are unnatural, such as the Monsanto GM cotton fiasco in India that is causing the wearer's skin to break out, men's testicles are turning blue along with many more harmful side effects relating to digestion and the immune system).And yet we [mankind] are going to sit here and believe that evolution brought us this far? And that we are continuing on an evolutionary journey? It's nuts.My original point was that ToE should've produced IR vision - something I believe very strongly given the fact that the world is dark about 50% of the time. The fact that we don't have it is my suggestion that ToE is wrong. I've also now cited additional evidence which backs up the claim that the timelines involved in evolution cannot be correct, including the rate of species loss and the lack of new species coming into existence, and not simply being discovered.Evolution did not bring us here. We are wonderfully and fearfully created beings, by a loving God. The only reason many of us won't see that is because we are wrapped up in ourselves. It's pride and arrogance which separates us from God.

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- Rick

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My original point was that ToE should've produced IR vision - something I believe very strongly given the fact that the world is dark about 50% of the time. The fact that we don't have it is my suggestion that ToE is wrong.

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And several people here have pointed out that the implication of your argument is that your intelligent designer didn't create us with something that you think we should have. What does that say about your designer?

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

please, no gish gallop. If you don't get the reference, it's a tactic made famous by Gish, where he would introduce so many different topics that it would be impossible to refute his false claims in a single debate.Let's put it this way: atomic clocks have nothing to do with evolution, nor with the earth's rotation. And quite frankly, you've managed to screw up tidal acceleration (hint:it will take more than 4.5 billion years to lock the earth into a month-long day, and 620 mya the day was 22 hours long).Petrified trees have nothing to do with evolution, and your misinformation and misknowledge is quite stunning, to boot.Pollution does actually have something to do with evolution, but not in the way you're talking about it.You've claimed that evolution should have given us infrared vision, but you have not shown us how this would have developed, nor why it is a huge benefit. Further, you would have to show that evolution is directed towards a single goal, instead of working with what it has. You also seem to ignore that evolution has endowed certain organisms with infrared, and that we have extremely limited infrared vision.Your objections are based on misinformation, false information, and sheer ignorance, and so far, you have shown no capacity nor desire to learn what evolution says or predicts.

Your creationist handlers are lying to you. That particular lie was started by Walter Brown in the late 1970's. Actually, it was probably a case of his not understanding what a leap second is; this is supported by the fact that he no longer uses this claim, even though he does still use his rattlesnake-protein lie, albeit hidden in a footnote. This claim was exposed as false circa 1982 and yet creationists continue to peddle it and to deceive their audiences with it over 25 years later.You claim that the earth has slowed down by 32 seconds over the past 50 years? That's roughly equivalent to Walter Brown's one second/18 months. In truth, the rate at which the earth is slowing down is roughly 1.4 milliseconds per day per century (No webpage found at provided URL: http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html). That is the rate that is directly observed and measured by the International Earth Rotation Service located at the US Naval Observatory (USNO). NIST, in conjunction with the USNO and its French counterpart, keep track of time and the earth's rotation and they are the ones who determine when a leap second is needed.For you to start to understand leap seconds, you should think of leap years. Every four years, we add a day to the calendar. Do you mean to tell us that that means that the period of time it takes the earth to go around the sun changes by one day every four years? Of course not! It means that the time it takes for the earth to go around the sun is not an even number of days. Instead, it's close to 365.2524 days. Whether we were to choose 365 or 366 days, we would very quickly find our calendars to be out of sync with the seasons (the very important reason to have a calendar). So we choose to have 365 days in most years and then have every fourth year be 366 days long to make up for that quarter day. Though even that's not quite right since that fractional day is not a perfect quarter, such that in 400 years we'd be adding three days too many. So we came up with the Gregorian Calendar to correct the Julian Calendar by not adding an extra day if the year is evenly divisible by 100, unless it's also evenly divisible by 400. Again, do we have leap years because the actual length of the year is changing? No, it's because there's a discrepancy between that and the length of our measurement of the year in days, such that we must periodically make a correction.That's what a leap second is for. The standard second was 1/86,400th of a day back around 1820, but because the earth has been gradually slowing down (1.4 ms/day/century) today's day is not exactly 86,400 standard seconds long. That creates a discrepancy which needs to be corrected periodically, which is why we occasionally add a leap second. Duh?Your rate for the slowing of the earth is inflated by thousands of times greater than the actual measured rate. Projecting the actual rate back billions of years gives us a day length that's (recalling off the top of my head) about 13 to 14 hours long; I don't see why that should be any problem, except for creationists wanting to spread their tired old lies. In fact, by examining the layers of fossil coral beds, we can determine how many days were in a year back when that coral had formed. Guess what? Extrapolating the true rate of rotational slowing back to that era yields a very close match with the number of days per year indicated by the fossil coral.Your creationist teachers are lying to you. Just as I'm sure that they had given you that "evolution should have given us IR vision" malarcky.PS
Here's a link to the article that exposed Brown's false leap-second claim: "As the World Turns: Can Creationists Keep Time?" As the World Turns | National Center for Science Education.Hm, it was 1982. My memory's better than I thought it was.Share and enjoy!Edited by dwise1, : PS

If you wish to be wrong about the age of the Earth, you should really start another thread. Though apparently he didn't love us enough to give us infra-red vision.Next time you're praying, could you register a complaint, and explain to him how evolution would have done so much better than he did? And there was I thinking it was pride and arrogance that separated creationists from science.Oh, and ignorance, of course.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Hey RichCHodgin, welcome back I take it that your failure to address the serious mistakes in your previous posts, errors that have been pointed out by many people, and your failure to refute these posts, means that you agree that you were mistaken about what evolution says and what should result.Good. Would that be your pride and arrogance that separates you from God and the reality that he created? Actually all it shows is that your understanding of the mechanism is incomplete, and that the information you use is from a questionable source.Curiously there are fossil corals that not only show annual growth rings but daily growth rings. We'll start with the annual ones, just to warm up:http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap15/coral.html (1)

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Some species of corals have stony skeletons, consisting almost entirely of calcium carbonate (CaCO3), and the term coral is often applied to the skeletons themselves.... There are three kinds of this skeletal material, i.e. plate-like, branching, and 'massive' The last is rounded and bulky and proves to be useful for estimating past sea-surface temperatures (SST) in tropical regions.

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X-ray examination reveals that massive coral has layers of different density, due to seasonal variations, like the annual rings of tree trunks. Counting of the density layers in large colonies of coral provides annual dating of the layers for several hundreds of years. Massive coral cores of the Porites type on Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have been dated back to 1479 AD.

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Next we look at what actual astrophysics says about the earth-moon system and their calculations for spin in the past, and how that ties into coral growth rings.http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/...coral_growth.html (2)

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The other approach, radically different, involves the astronomical record. Astronomers seem to be generally agreed that while the period of the Earth's revolution around the Sun has been constant, its period of rotation on its polar axis, at present 24 h, has not been constant throughout Earth's history, and that there has been a deceleration attributable to the dissipation of rotational energy by tidal forces on the surface and in the interior, a slow-down of about 2 sec per 100,000 years according to the most recent estimates. It thus appears that the length of the day has been increasing throughout geological time and that the number of days in the year has been decreasing. At, the beginning of the Cambrian the length of the day would have been 21 h ...

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The best of the limited fossil material I have examined so far is from the MiddleDevonian ... Diurnal and annual growth-rates vary in the same individual, adding to the complexity, but in every instance there are more than 365 growth -lines per annum. usually about 400, ranging between extremes of 385 and 410. It is probably too much, considering the crudity of these data, to expect a narrower range of values for the number of days in a year in the Middle Devonian; many more measurements will be necessary to refine them.

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A few more data may be mentioned: Lophophllidium from the Pennsylvanian (Conemaugh) of western Pennsylvania gave 390 lines per annum, and Caninia from the Pennsylvanian of Texas, 385. These results imply that the number of days a year has decreased with the passage of time since the Devonian, as postulated by astronomers.

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I also found this graphic on this website although it was not used in the article:

Original at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/...ogy/fig1wells.jpg (3)This shows the smooth change in the length of days with time. The calculations based on just the astrophysics gives a 400 day/year figure for the Devonian and a 390 day/year figure for the Pennsylvanian, so there is very close accord between the predicted number of days, the measured number of days and the measured age of the fossil corals. These corals will be useful in anchoring the database of annual layers as it builds up a picture of climate change with age and extending, eventually, back into the Devonian period (360 to 408.5 million years ago).Note that this correlates astronomy, physics and biology, with information provided from each source correlating with the others.The age of the earth >400,000,000 years based on this data.Enjoy

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References:

1. Geerts, B. and Linacre, E. "Estimating past sea-surface temperatures from corals" University of Wyoming Dept. of Atmospheric Science. Nov 1997. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap15/coral.html
2. Wells, John W. "Coral Growth and Geochronometry" Nature 197, 948 - 950 (09 March 1963); doi:10.1038/197948a0. accessed 10 Jan 2007 from http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/...coral_growth.html
3. Wells, John W. - source of picture not known, found on website accessed 10 Jan 2007 from http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/...ogy/fig1wells.jpg
   

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Hi, RickCHodgin, I wonder if you could answer this simple question:

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Message 71

Message 1 ... suggests evolution did not happen, but rather by design we were created this way for the express purposes of God's will.

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... You list a bunch of design features, things that you think should be included in a "more perfect" human being, and then conclude that because those design features are not included, that we are the result of a designer.

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ROFLOL. Hilarious. Thank you.

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Message 15
Life is designed (by God, by the way ) to accommodate such things.

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So then why do we NOT have infrared vision? You have argued that this is a desirable design feature, and you claim life is designed: why is this feature NOT included?

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We don't need infrared because he provided us with a place to live and everything we needed to survive here.

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So it's not a necessary design feature for our designated place, when you argue for a designer, but it is for evolution. This is known as the logical fallacy of special pleading.

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Why do you think your argument is special?Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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Subbie, my position is this: *IF* ToE was true, it would've produced evolution. Since I believe it is not true, and since I believe we were created by God, then God gave us what we *NEEDED* to get by here on Earth. It is not a failing that He did not provide us with IR vision. It is what is required for us to live the way He intended.You say "your argument is that your intelligent designer didn't create us with something that you think we should have."I don't think we should have IR vision. I am only saying that if ToE is true, we should have. But since ToE is not true, then what God gave us is what we should have.Hope that's clear.

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- Rick

RAZD, I have no desire to communicate with you. Please stop responding to my posts.Edited by RickCHodgin, : Removed topic

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- Rick

It's not clear in the least. You need to explain why we would need infra red vision if the ToE is true and why we don't need it if we were created. There's only one planet, only one environment. Either we need it or we don't. How we got here is irrelevant to the question of what we need while we're here.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Of course, you still have a slight problem in that just because you claim evolution should have given us something and it didn't does not mean its false.You have presented nothing more than a strawman of evolution your whole time here. If I were to say that because God loves everyone he should give me a hundred dollars, and that because he doesn't, God doesn't exist, you would rightly say that I am misunderstanding what you state about God.When you ask evolution to produce bird-dogs, or lizard-cats, or any other hopeful beast, or when you claim that evolution should give us infrared vision because you think it's potentially useful for us to have, and then claim that the absence of such is proof against evolution, you are creating a strawman (like I did regarding God).That you wish to no longer deal with RAZD (who is really one of the most reasonable posters here--more so than I am), it really signifies that you have no desire to learn. And so you have chosen willful ignorance. Have fun wallowing in the poverty of your mind.I'll let others deal with the other logic problems of your position.