Lobster Eyes Divinely Created

[Nero]

On another forum I occasionally post, the topic of lobster eyes proving the existence of a creator has come up. I’ve followed many of the usual creationist arguments, but haven’t previously come across this one before. Apparently the “miraculous” engineering of lobster eyes proves irrefutable non-reductional complexity.

I’m not overly educated on the physiology of lobster eyes, but after a bit of Googling they certainly appear to be pretty impressive constructs, not divinely created of course but impressive nevertheless.

So what’s the usual retort as to the wonder of lobster eyes?

Thanks

An Example of Irreducible Complexity: The Eye of the Lobster

There are many different types of eye in the living world. We are accustomed to the camera-type eye found in vertebrates. This structure works on the principle of the refraction of light, which falls onto the lens and is focused on a point behind the lens inside the interior of the eye.

However, the eyes possessed by other creatures work by different methods. One example is the lobster. A lobster's eye works on a principle of reflection rather than that of refraction.

The most outstanding characteristic of the lobster eye is its surface, which is composed of numerous squares. These squares are positioned most precisely.

The eye of a lobster shows a remarkable geometry not found elsewhere in nature - it has tiny facets that are perfectly square, so it "looks like perfect graph paper."

These well-arranged squares are in fact the ends of tiny square tubes forming a structure resembling a honeycomb. At first glance, the honeycomb appears to be made up of hexagons, although these are actually the front faces of hexagonal prisms. In the lobster's eye, there are the squares in place of hexagons.

Even more intriguing is that the sides of each one of these square tubes are like mirrors that reflect the incoming light. This reflected light is focused onto the retina flawlessly. The sides of the tubes inside the eye are lodged at such perfect angles that they all focus onto a single point.

The extraordinary nature of the design of this system is quite indisputable. All of these perfect square tubes have a layer that works just like a mirror. Furthermore, each one of these cells is sited by means of precise geometrical alignments so that they all focus the light at a single point.

It is obvious that the design in the lobster eye presents a great difficulty for the theory of evolution. Most importantly, it exemplifies the concept of "irreducible complexity." If even one of its features - such as the facets of the eye, which are perfect squares, the mirrored sides of each unit, or the retina layer at the back - were eliminated, the eye could never function. Therefore, it is impossible to maintain that the eye evolved step-by-step. It is scientifically unjustifiable to argue that such a perfect design as this could have come about haphazardly. It is quite clear that the lobster eye was created as a miraculous system.

[Bikewer]

That our tasty crustaceans are the end product of a very long line of evolution from simpler forms, much the same as other contemporary critters.
As one goes back through the generations of arthropod relatives, one would find less-refined eye structures....

[dlorde]

I haven't seen any detailed evolutionary description of how the crustacean eye developed, but apart from the usual stuff about how all these so-called 'problems' for Darwinian evolution have always been resolved when science has focused on them (no pun intended), so why would shrimps, lobsters, & crayfish be the exception, I found some interesting detail concerning the larval stages of some shrimps, whose eyes change from appositional to superpositional during development:

"The lobster eye has interesting connections with Darwinian evolution, since two conditions must be fulfilled to be defined as a superposition (lens) system: (a) a clear zone must be present between lens and detectors, and (b) the cross-section of the reflection channels must be quadratic. However, bug eyes do not satisfy (a), while some animals do not satisfy (b). All crustaceans (shrimp, lobster, crayfish) satisfy both conditions. From an evolutionary point of view, it is interesting to note that the larval stages of some shrimp have apposition eyes with hexagonal facets, hence not satisfying (b), but they change into superposition eyes with square facets at metamorphosis, thus, satisfying (b)."

Taken from this (strange but interesting) article: Animal eyes for military and homeland security applications (https://spie.org/x17475.xml?highlight=x2412&ArticleID=x17475)

Apparently this paper (http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowAbstract&ArtikelNr=79743&Ausgabe=230321&ProduktNr=223831) is good, if you are prepared to pay, as is this :Evolution of eye development in arthropods: Phylogenetic aspects (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W66-4MJ50K6-6&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=955739326&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ca5093da1395555b82d3733a819002fb)...

This has a more general response: The eye as a contingent, diverse, complex product of evolutionary processes (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/11/the_eye_as_a_contingent_divers.php)

[Christian Klippel]

I'm not convinced that the lobster eye somehow proves intelligent design.

First, i think that squares are not the ideal geometric shape if you have anything else than a flat surface. A hexagonal shape is better suited to cover a spherical surface, imho.

Then, look at the eyes of a fly. Quite complex too, so what?

But then, i generally don't buy that "irreducible complexity" argument. Just because something _now_ looks as if it was made in one "step", doesn't mean that it evolved at once. Look at feathers, for example.

I have seen a video some time ago, but forgot to bookmark it. The basic argument against that irreducible complexity stuff was an example for a simple bridge. Take 3 blocks and put them next to each other. Now you have a simple bridge. In the next step, put a plank across the three blocks. Still a usable bridge, and you can even take away for example the plank or the middle block. Now take away the middle block. The result is a usable bridge, but one with "irreducible complexity". Whatever part you take away makes the bridge unusable. However, it "evolved" into that bridge.

I guess that the ID crackpots will always come up with just another example as soon as the current one is debunked, no matter what. After all, they have to defend their stupid ideology.

Greetings,

Chris

[Cainkane1]

I God really loved lobsters he would have made them taste bad.

[Careyp74]

Well, you could create a strawman with the banana designed to be human food argument, distracting them from the lobster, it is easy to argue why god didn't design the banana to be eaten by humans

I hate the irreducible complexity argument, because there are creatures in caves who don't have working eyes. Also, take away all the extra words and the lobster eye doesn't sound all that impressive.

There are many different types of eye in the living world. We are accustomed to the camera-type eye found in vertebrates. This structure works on the principle of the refraction of light, which falls onto the lens and is focused on a point behind the lens inside the interior of the eye.

However, the eyes possessed by other creatures work by different methods. One example is the lobster. A lobster's eye works on a principle of reflection rather than that of refraction.

One characteristic of the lobster eye is its surface, which is composed of numerous squares. These squares are positioned.

The eye of a lobster shows a geometry not found elsewhere in nature - it has tiny facets, so it "looks like graph paper."

These squares are in fact the ends of tiny square tubes forming a structure resembling a honeycomb. At first glance, the honeycomb appears to be made up of hexagons, although these are actually the front faces of hexagonal prisms. In the lobster's eye, there are the squares in place of hexagons.

the sides of each one of these square tubes are like mirrors that reflect the incoming light. This reflected light is focused onto the retina. The sides of the tubes inside the eye are lodged such that they all focus onto a single point.

The nature of the design of this system is quite indisputable. All of these square tubes have a layer that works just like a mirror. Furthermore, each one of these cells is sited by means of geometrical alignments so that they all focus the light at a single point.


so, we have a design, ok, if bees can do it, why can't cells? Well it is great that God picked the Lobster, one of the sea's bottom feeders, as it's most impressive creation.

[HansMustermann]

You know, it's not that I'm against irreducible complexity arguments. I'm against them being done by idiots who don't even understand what that means. That quoted text in the OP is written by the next level of idiot, the kind who actually reduces it himself to several components which didn't need each other to function, and still calls it "irreducible complexity" anyway.

E.g., when he mentions those mirror walls on the tubes, he just decomposed the complexity into eyes with that and eyes without that. And yes both exist. In that aspect, lobster eyes are just the previous model of eyes plus a mirror structure.

Irreducible complexity would be if all parts must appear together, or the whole can't funtion at all. An incremental improvement on a previous design is _not_ irreducible complexity, it's the exact opposite. It's what disproves "irreducible complexity".

And the final paragraph is just freaking sad. Composite eyes couldn't work without all those components? Geeze, I guess he's never heard about flies, spiders, etc.

The fact is that examples of eyes without various iterations of those features can function very well.

E.g., eyes with a single photo-receptor at the bottom of the tube instead of a retina layer would work just as well, and exist. Such eyes also don't much care for accurate focusing, so they can work without any lenses or mirrors. The tube itself makes sure that each photoreceptor sees only a narrow angle. And if you're at that point, it being a square grid or a hexagonal grid pretty much doesn't matter. There, that's the whole "irreducible complexity" debunked in one paragraph.

[joobz]

An Example of Irreducible Complexity: The Eye of the Lobster

There are many different types of eye in the living world. We are accustomed to the camera-type eye found in vertebrates. This structure works on the principle of the refraction of light, which falls onto the lens and is focused on a point behind the lens inside the interior of the eye.

However, the eyes possessed by other creatures work by different methods. One example is the lobster. A lobster's eye works on a principle of reflection rather than that of refraction.

The most outstanding characteristic of the lobster eye is its surface, which is composed of numerous squares. These squares are positioned most precisely.

The eye of a lobster shows a remarkable geometry not found elsewhere in nature - it has tiny facets that are perfectly square, so it "looks like perfect graph paper."

These well-arranged squares are in fact the ends of tiny square tubes forming a structure resembling a honeycomb. At first glance, the honeycomb appears to be made up of hexagons, although these are actually the front faces of hexagonal prisms. In the lobster's eye, there are the squares in place of hexagons.

Even more intriguing is that the sides of each one of these square tubes are like mirrors that reflect the incoming light. This reflected light is focused onto the retina flawlessly. The sides of the tubes inside the eye are lodged at such perfect angles that they all focus onto a single point.

The extraordinary nature of the design of this system is quite indisputable. All of these perfect square tubes have a layer that works just like a mirror. Furthermore, each one of these cells is sited by means of precise geometrical alignments so that they all focus the light at a single point.

It is obvious that the design in the lobster eye presents a great difficulty for the theory of evolution. Most importantly, it exemplifies the concept of "irreducible complexity." If even one of its features - such as the facets of the eye, which are perfect squares, the mirrored sides of each unit, or the retina layer at the back - were eliminated, the eye could never function. Therefore, it is impossible to maintain that the eye evolved step-by-step. It is scientifically unjustifiable to argue that such a perfect design as this could have come about haphazardly. It is quite clear that the lobster eye was created as a miraculous system.

Bolding mine.
The flaw of this argument lies in the attempt to use perfection. They are clearly trying to impress upon us that any deviation of these "perfect structures' would mean a blind lobster.

Anyone who wears glasses should know that the eyes aren't always perfect in thier ability to focus light. All we would need to do is find a single lobster whose eye features aren't "quite" perfect. Myopic lobsters if you will. This would be enough to show variablity in the structures. The kind of variability needed for evolution to work.

[maddog]

The most awesome thing about lobster eyes is that if you use a big pot with a glass lid when you boil the little guys, you can look them in the eyes while they're snuffing it on the way from "lively crustacean with snippy claws" to "dinner". Try having a staredown with any other entree, I dare you!

[ravdin]

I'm not overly impressed with basing an argument for the existence of an omnipotent deity on a lobster's eye. I'll still feel all right about skipping church next Sunday and sleeping in instead.

[jmcvann]

The most awesome thing about lobster eyes is that if you use a big pot with a glass lid when you boil the little guys, you can look them in the eyes while they're snuffing it on the way from "lively crustacean with snippy claws" to "dinner". Try having a staredown with any other entree, I dare you!

Funniest thing I've read in a long, long time. Well done!

[maddog]

:D I'll be here all week, tip the waitress, blah blah blah... :D

[Z]

No no no no no! Lobster eyes are proof that God doesn't love us as much as He could.



If He did, lobster eyes - and, indeed, all its other currently edible bits - would taste equally good when boiled live and dipped in butter. To the best of my experience, lobster eyes aren't all that yummy.

[Phage0070]

Well see Z, he only loved the eyes. They taste bad. On the other hand, Satan got control of the tail and it is delicious! (and all the worse for the lobster)

Hail Satan!

[dlorde]

You know, it's not that I'm against irreducible complexity arguments. I'm against them being done by idiots who don't even understand what that means. That quoted text in the OP is written by the next level of idiot, the kind who actually reduces it himself to several components which didn't need each other to function, and still calls it "irreducible complexity" anyway.
The bit that made me chortle was where he says that if the retina at the back was removed the eye wouldn't work - which, of course, is true of any eye using a retina. I can't get over the idea that the eye was waiting (arms folded, foot tapping) for the retina to evolve so it would work :D

[I Ratant]

The path from small light-sensitive organ to functioning eye has taken many paths in nature.
The human eye isn't particularly praised for its perfection of design.
That the eye of an animal is trumpeted as being evidence of intentional and perfect design is down-right silly, since people are supposed to be the epitome of intentional design.
It's like looking over there where the light is better for the object you dropped over here, where the light is poor.
Just another misdirection and lapse in logic typical of the true believer.

[runnah]

They are really grasping at bananas with this one.

[boloboffin]

Satan's always getting control of the tail.

[Dr Adequate]

It is obvious that the design in the lobster eye presents a great difficulty for the theory of evolution. Most importantly, it exemplifies the concept of "irreducible complexity." If even one of its features - such as the facets of the eye, which are perfect squares, the mirrored sides of each unit, or the retina layer at the back - were eliminated, the eye could never function. Therefore, it is impossible to maintain that the eye evolved step-by-step. And yet there are simpler eyes that do indeed function with neither perfect squares nor the mirrored sides of which he speaks. These are merely refinements. Therefore, it is in fact easy to maintain that lobster eyes evolved step-by-step from a simpler structure.

Next.

[rikzilla]

As in all creationist arguments about irreducible complexity it falls apart when they must posit a creator which by definition must be more complex than his/her/its creation. How was this creator created?

-z

[bpesta22]

cats have some kind of reflecting mechanism; not sure if it's similar to how the lobsters' works. All part of god's plan I guess.

[Wowbagger]

How come every "irefutable" example of Intelligent Design they always come up with, can be refuted simply by examining at all of the variations of the example?

[rsaavedra]

I was looking to see some images of the lobster eyes and saw none here, went to Google to look them up. Oddly enough, the good images I found appear to be hosted by islamic religious websites (?!) :

http://www.ourislamicbooks.com/invit1/images/images/lobester-eye-surface.jpg

http://www.harunyahya.com/images_books/images_designinnature/shema_lobster_eye.jpg

[ImaginalDisc]

cats have some kind of reflecting mechanism; not sure if it's similar to how the lobsters' works. All part of god's plan I guess.

Not really. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapetum_lucidum)

What's very amusing is that lobsters don't have very good vision. They rely mostly on taste/smell and tactile senses. Their vision is monochromatic, for one thing. It just goes to show that an array of 14,000 rather poor eyes doesn't always compete with one good one. (http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/203/24/3755)

[SezMe]

I'm not overly impressed with basing an argument for the existence of an omnipotent deity on a lobster's eye. I'll still feel all right about skipping church next Sunday and sleeping in instead.
Bingo! If I was ambivilant about the existence of god, I would naturally turn to the lobster eye. I mean, where else would god manifest?

[ImaginalDisc]

Bingo! If I was ambivilant about the existence of god, I would naturally turn to the lobster eye. I mean, where else would god manifest?

Yeah, it's not like the Bible says "Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you." (http://biblebrowser.com/leviticus/11-12.htm)

[Beerina]

On another forum I occasionally post, the topic of lobster eyes proving the existence of a creator has come up. I’ve followed many of the usual creationist arguments, but haven’t previously come across this one before. Apparently the “miraculous” engineering of lobster eyes proves irrefutable non-reductional complexity.

I’m not overly educated on the physiology of lobster eyes, but after a bit of Googling they certainly appear to be pretty impressive constructs, not divinely created of course but impressive nevertheless.

So what’s the usual retort as to the wonder of lobster eyes?

Thanks

Before even reading other responses or more about this eye, it occurs to me that evolution doesn't work backwards, where you start with the eye then just suddenly remove the mirrors, or the squareness, or the tube part.

I hadda look up the eye's structure (for all I knew, these were long tubes that went all the way down the stalk, the way fiber optics do in the device the astronauts left on the moon that reflects light exactly back at the direction it came from, no matter the direction, and used to bounce laser to get distances to the moon accurate to within about 5 inches.)

No, it's just a normalish round eye at the end of the stalk.

It's dark underwater. A tube with reflective sides would transmit the light closer to the retina. It may have started as a pinhole eye -- genetic studies and studies of embryo development should shed some light on that. In any case, IIRC, cat eyes "glow" easily because behind the retina is reflective, allowing incoming light a second pass through it to pick up greater detail.


So some proto-lobster comes along with 2 tubes from a mutation. This works better, yet. And since it's a pinhole-type thing with no lens, i.e. refractive, focus, it must remain a tiny opening or you lose the focus.

Why rectangle instead of hexagonal, which also fills a 2d plane perfectly? Or a triangle for that matter. Don't know, but that's not part of the argument.


Everything else is just polishing it after that, including the magical perfection of the rectangles and the perfect alignment to all point to the same spot, as well as the numbers increasing until it's a packed near half-sphere.

BTW, the coverings could just be protective, or may also provide a little lensing or some other refractive effect anyway, neither is a problem for evolution.


The above description may or may not have anything to do with how it actually evolved, but the creationist's point was there was no way it could happen with reasonable sub-steps.

[dlorde]

The above description may or may not have anything to do with how it actually evolved, but the creationist's point was there was no way it could happen with reasonable sub-steps.
They typically don't have the necessary expertise in the field they are commenting on - it's the Dunning-Kruger Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect).

[Marduk]

if any part of a lobster was divinely inspired then it was the tail

mmmmmmmmmm
:D

[HansMustermann]

They typically don't have the necessary expertise in the field they are commenting on - it's the Dunning-Kruger Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect).

Well, I _would_ guess that effect, if they were genuinely unable to see the individual steps. But as I've said before, whoever wrote that, practically did the splitting into components himself, and their best argument for divine creation is basically just taking them apart in the blatantly wrong order.

Now I'm used to the whole ID argument being just sophistry to reach a pre-set conclusion dictated by wishful thinking. They're not doing a bona fide looking at the eye and studying how it evolved -- incompetent or not -- they have their conclusion pre-set-in-stone before they even started.

But when they do something as stupid as that lobster eye job, that's not even good sophistry or lack of expertise. It's just stupidity.

[dlorde]

... But when they do something as stupid as that lobster eye job, that's not even good sophistry or lack of expertise. It's just stupidity.
Yeah, I guess you're right - I was giving them too much credit :D