Did Eyelids Evolve?

It's obvious that eyelids are a gift from our lord since no other animal on the face of the planet has them.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

No, "EVO" hasn't delivered all the answers. It has, however, delivered some answers. This fact alone puts it ahead of creationism (YEC, OEC or ID), which hasn't delivered any answers.I do find it amusing when a cdesign proponentist comes in and starts asking what they think are tough questions about something that evolution can't explain. They usually fasten on something that they simply don't understand, then disregard the explanations offered, because they didn't come here to understand in the first place. The really funny thing is that for every false problem for evolution that a cdesign proponentist trots out, there are dozens of real questions that evolution hasn't yet answered. If they were to bother to learn about evolution, they'd learn that there are volumes of questions that evolution hasn't answered yet.It's amusing because they seem to think that the fact that evolution can't answer all questions somehow undermines the validity of evolution as a scientific explanation. There are two problems with this idea.The first is that it's not the questions that evolution can't answer that are significant, it's the millions upon millions of questions that evolution can answer that are significant. Heh, maybe what we should do when a cdesign proponentist slinks in asking us to show how evolution explains "X," we should first ask them to show how creationism explains "Y."The second, and perhaps more significant problem with the cdesign proponentist idea that unanswered questions in evolution undermine it, is that in fact unanswered questions is one of the hallmarks of a valid, functioning and vital area of scientific investigation. The old saying that every answer raises more questions is very significant. There is no field of science that doesn't have a million questions that researchers are working on every day. If unanswered questions were enough to disqualify evolution from the ranks of science, then there would be no such thing as science.So, yes, you are correct. "EVO" doesn't have all the answers. But it has infinitely more than then next best explanation.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

You are wrong. You are excused.The mechanism of evolution is natural selection. This mechanism makes it more likely that later generations of a population will keep those characteristics of the organism that give it greater fecundity and lose those that reduce its fecundity. This tendency has been directly observed in the natural world, and is accepted even by most cdesign proponentists. To say that it is "only a theory" displays a common misunderstanding of the nature of science. Everything in science is a theory, to be kept or discarded as the evidence dictates. Evolution is a theory in the exact same way that gravity is a theory, or the germ theory of disease is a theory. Please give one example of this dismantling. This, again, is simply wrong. First, panspermia refers to how life began. Evolution is only concerned with how life changes over time once it has begun. Second, scientific literature may consider the theory, but it certainly hasn't been firmly adopted by anyone as being the only or even the best explanation for how life began. Well, at least you got something correct. Now we shall see whether you are willing to examine, or whether you came here to simply spout inaccuracies then run away when they are challenged.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Gravity has been observed, but all the details of how it happens have not yet been sussed out.Evolution has been observed, but all the details of how it happens, and the history of how it occurred, have not yet been sussed out.Same thing.{ABE} Oh, and Newton got it wrong. I refer you to Einstein.Edited by subbie, : No reason given.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

No, I would say not.First, it's a word that scientists use, not evolutionists. Different anti-science types use the word "evolutionist" for different reasons, so I'd simply be speculating on what you might mean by it. But one thing is clear, it has no relation to the real world of science.Second, vestigial structures are found in many, many organisms that aren't human. An example, and one loosely related to the topic of this thread, would be the blind mole rat This curious creature has eyes that are completely covered over by a layer of skin.Third, I'm rather confused by the word "required." If you'd substitute the word "functional," I think we'd be much closer. To illustrate using my example from above, there's nothing that requires any rodent to have eyes, that's simply the way that they evolved. However, in the case of the blind mole rat, the eye that it does have is non-functional, but it is still there, a vestige from an earlier parent species that did have eyes.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat