Professor Stuart Burgess: Sceptics Can’t Avoid Irreducible Complexity: They’re Standing on a Knee Joint That’s Irreducibly Complex

Prof. Stuart Burgess speaking at the recent Creation Declares conference in London.





Joel Kontinen

While evolutionists expect to see bad design, there is no such thing in nature.

Richard Dawkins was as wrong as wrong could be when he wrote about what he thought was poor design, especially when he claimed that the human eye was the work of a complete idiot.

It is actually a good example of superb design and has inspired engineers to build better cameras.

But, then, Dawkins has never designed anything.

Everything we see in nature is designed very well, even in a fallen world. Many excellent features in the animal kingdom and in us are better designed than the smart devices humans have built.

Prof. Stuart Burgess of the University of Bristol, UK, lectured on biomimetics at the recent Creation Declares conference in London.

In his talk, he quoted Charles Darwin, who said:

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”

There are numerous such things, not only in animals but also in us. In addition to the dragonfly’s delicate design, birds’ wings, fish jaws, we also have something that every sceptic needs, i.e. the knee joint that is irreducibly complex.

Source:

Burgess, Stuart. 2016. Inspiration from Creation: Lessons from Biomimetics. Lecture given at the Creation Declares Conference in London, UK. (9 September).

Backward Wired Retina Is Optimal Design, New Research Suggests

A cross section of the retina. Image courtesy of Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body (1918).



Joel Kontinen

Richard Dawkins and other evolutionists have repeatedly claimed that the human eye is an example of bad design. He asserts that no engineer could ever have invented the inverted retina. He dismisses it as poor design.

However, recent research has indicated that he is wrong. Instead of being designed poorly, the eye is an example of superb design.

Eye experts have been saying that for years, but Dawkins has not listened to them.

Sony engineers have actually drawn inspiration from the human eye to design better cameras.

A paper that will be presented on Thursday March 5 at the meeting of the American Physical Society will finally lay the bad design argument to rest. An ErekAlert! report quotes Professor Erez Ribak at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, as saying:

"The retina is not just the simple detector and neural image processor, as believed until today. Its optical structure is optimized for our vision purposes."

If something is optimised, it obviously cannot be designed poorly.

The report went on to say:

“Previous experiments with mice had suggested that Müller glia cells, a type of metabolic cell that crosses the retina, play an essential role in guiding and focusing light scattered throughout the retina.”

Professor Ribak and his colleagues tested this idea.

Unfortunately, the ErekAlert! report began with bowing to Darwin:

“From a practical standpoint, the wiring of the human eye - a product of our evolutionary baggage - doesn't make a lot of sense. In vertebrates, photoreceptors are located behind the neurons in the back of the eye - resulting in light scattering by the nervous fibers and blurring of our vision.”

It would have been more honest to admit that some scientists have not understood why the eye is wired the way it is.

In any case, bad eye design is a bad argument that no informed and /or honest evolutionist should use.

Source:

Mystery of the reverse-wired eyeball solved. EurekAlert! 27 February 2015.

Amazing Design: The Human Eye Inspires Better Cameras

Engineers are mimicking the amazing design of the human eye. Image courtesy of Wikipedia. (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license).




Joel Kontinen

Richard Dawkins is fond of using the bad design argument for the human eye. He has said that no engineer would come up with such a lousy design with the inverted retina.

Eye specialists disagree with Dawkins. They know what they are saying. Now, engineers at Sony are using the human eye as a model for constructing better cameras.

According to an article in IEEE Spectrum, Sony engineers “have created a set of curved CMOS image sensors using a ‘bending machine’ of their own construction. The result is a simpler lens system and higher sensitivity, Kazuichiro Itonaga, a device manager at Sony’s R &D Platform ...reported.”

“A curved CMOS sensor has a few advantages over a planar sensor, Itonaga said. Because of the geometry, it can be paired with a flatter lens and a larger aperture, which lets in more light. Photodiodes at the periphery of a sensor array will be bent toward the center, which means light rays will hit them straight on instead of obliquely.”

Sony engineers believe that curved systems are 1.4 times more sensitive at the centre of the sensor and twice as sensitive at the edge.
Obviously, they do not think that the human eye is designed poorly.

This is yet another instance of biomimicry or copying a wonderful solution we see in nature.

Instead of the haphazard products of blind Darwinian processes, engineers see intelligently designed systems in nature.

Source:

Courtland, Rachel. 2014. Sony Creates Curved CMOS Sensors That Mimic the Eye. IEEE Spectrum (12 June).

No Bad Design in the Human Eye, Expert Says

Image courtesy of Wikipedia (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license).




Joel Kontinen

Richard Dawkins has used the inverted retina argument in an attempt to say that an intelligent creator could not have designed the human eye.

Poor design is a favourite argument but it is nevertheless a bad argument.

Recently, Creation Ministries International released a YouTube video clip that looks at it and finds it wanting:

“This claim doesn't make sense, after all, octopus retinas are wired in the supposedly correct way but their sight is poor compared to ours.

Ophthalmologist Dr Peter Gurney has shown there are good reasons our eyes are wired the way they are. In particular, it allows our photoreceptors to be in close contact with two special tissues necessary for regenerating the photoreceptors and absorbing excess heat. But these tissues are both opaque, so if our retinas were wired the other way you'd be trying to look through two opaque surfaces, which means you'd see nothing.”

The video also points out that eagles “have the same wiring as us and they are renowned for their eagle eyes.”

Why Do Atheists Use Theological Arguments?

These thumbs are good for holding bamboo. Image from Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

A few days ago, a UK-based atheist, whom we might call Ben, took issue with some of my recent posts, including this and this. Ben’s thesis was built on two premises: (a) evolution is a fact, and (b) all who doubt evolution do so for religious reasons.

What makes Ben’s feedback interesting is that he uses theological arguments. Of course, we should not be too surprised since evolutionists from Darwin through Gould to Dawkins used, and are still using, theological arguments to defend evolution. Recently, New Scientist also joined in singing in this wonderful choir.

Ben stated, for instance, “The concept of intelligent design in general does not account for the many examples of astoundingly poor design we see in nature” and “human eyes have their wiring ‘in front’ of the light catching cells, leading to slightly poorer vision and the ‘blind spot’.”

Now, “astounding poor design” seems to be a highly speculative view. Although we live in a fallen world, most Pandas seem to be able to handle bamboo with their “poorly designed” thumb. Why would scientists so often try to emulate nature, if there weren’t anything to learn from gecko feet and other marvels of creation?

The human eye is actually far better than any camera. Richard Dawkins popularised the view that the human eyes is poorly designed but eye experts have repeatedly shown this to be false.

But the question remains: why do atheists use theological arguments in defence of evolution? They are breaking the very rules they have set. As Richard Lewontin put it, scientists often choose to make up “unsubstantiated just-so stories” because they “have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism… Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

“Poor design” is an argument that breaks this rule.

It seems that atheistic Darwinist are trying to both have their cake and eat it, without leaving anything for others.

Sources:

Catchpoole, David and Jonathan Sarfati. 2006. Creation Ministries International. Excellent Eye
Better than any camera—the eye’s response to light.

Lewinton, Richard. 1997. Billions and billions of demons. The New York Review of Books, p. 31, (9 January 1997).