German researchers claimed to figured out the "Eye" evolutionary history

[aychamo]

Hey guys;

There is an article on slashdot about German researchers that have claimed to have figured out the evolutionary history of the eye. Here is the quote from slashdot:

http://science.slashdot.org/science/04/11/01/1344237.shtml?tid=134&tid=14
Sox2 writes "SciScoop is running a story about researchers in Germany who claim to have solved the "mystery" surrounding the evolution of the mamalian eye. The work, published in Science, goes some way to answering the issues raised in the "intelligent design" debate that has become the mainstay of creationist thinking."

The link to the research (I think):
http://www.embl.org/aboutus/news/press/2004/press28oct04.html

I'm in a huge rush right now, so I haven't read the article. I have an ecology exam I'm not preparred for so I have to go do that:)

BTW, here is a quote I read on slashdot that I liked:
The article is essentially saying 'we found the smoking gun'; that light-sensitive cells originated within the brain, and migrated slowly outwards to form eyes. Ergo, the famous Darwin reasoning 'any form of eye is an evolutionary advantage, and therefore given even a truly-awful eye you would expect it to develop over time into something useful' is at least plausible. Evolution at work within a large-enough population.

I remember reading in 'PCW' back when I was at school (20 years or so ago :-) of a graphical demonstration (written in Mac Basic) of the evolution of an eye lens, using statistical population approximation to demonstrate that once even a slight advantage is gained, the population moves towards a better and better eye. It drew the lens on the screen as it was being calculated iteration by iteration - fascinating stuff. I ported it to my Atari XL/Turbo Basic - Macs were a little out of my price range :-)

Anyway, take it easy!

[Janitor]

This little post may get deleted for drifting into religion, but I can't resist quoting from the first of your links:

If there was no literal first man and woman, then there was no talking snake to tempt them into eating an apple. If that didn't happen, there was no literal fall (the fall had to be by CHOICE, protestants don't accept that God just made humans imperfect from the start). If there was no literal fall, then mankind is not in need of redemption. If there is no need for redemption, there is no need for Christ. This would basically invalidate protestant Christianity.

That's just the way it was drummed into my head at church when I was a kid. We may have been poor blue-collar sorts compared to the upwardly-mobile liberal Christians such as the Episcopals, but by gosh, we could discern the truth! :tongue2:

[Jikx]

Ohh.. now I get it. Never really understood why Christians were so against evolution.. cleared it up, thanks Janitor!


I think it was only a matter of time before they found the eye's precusor cells. Even during my short stint in bioinformatics, there was a lot of similarity between proteins that have different functions. Its almost as if proteins are just permutations of each other... permutations, mutations, natural selection - all makes sense.

[Janitor]

Today I caught part of Hank Hanegraaff's call-in Christian talk show, 'The Bible Answer Man.' A man who called to talk to Hank seemed to be implying that Paul was misogynistic. Part of Hank's rebuttal--and though I am going by memory, I think I have pegged his words precisely--was: "Darwinian evolution flies in the face of scientific laws... Darwin was both racist and sexist."

[aychamo]

He was also a minister.. but I won't hold that against him :)