Another week, another silly article at the C4ID website! Antony Latham, a GP in the Outer Hebrides, has penned a peculiarly illogical article (The compound eye of arthropods is a model for designing specialised digital cameras) leading from a paper which outlines how the arthropod compound eye has been used as a model for designing digital cameras. Ultimately, of course, he takes the usual creationist tack of claiming (i) that the evolution of visual systems has not been explained, and that (ii) this means that supernatural creation is the only alternative answer. Since Latham believes (I think) in only one more divine entity than I do, I guess that means the biblical god.

But what’s the basis for this claim that we don’t know how eyes (in this case compound eyes of arthropods) evolved? His claim is that we have no direct physical evidence (i.e. fossils) – and dismisses the paucity of soft-bodied fossils as an explanation because we have the Ediacaran fauna. The Ediacaran fauna are somewhat enigmatic (see the image to the right) – we don’t really know what kind of organisms these were, or whether they had light-sensitive structures (let alone structures capable of forming or perceiving images). Fossils of soft-bodies Pre-Cambrian organisms are still rare, and it seems likely that primitive eye-spots might be hard to recognise in such fossils.

Fossils are of course not the only evidence that may be used to study the evolutionary origins of eyes – biologists look at biochemical, molecular, genetic and of course morphological evidence within extant taxa. We also have functional studies, such as those concerning the transcription factor Pax6, which appears to be involved in the early stages of forming eye structures in diverse taxa.

But what is striking about the creationist approach – and let’s face it, Intelligent Design creationism is no exception – is that creationists cannot even be bothered to look at the depth of scientific investigation into questions around the origins and evolution of eyes. Instead they revel in their ignorance and proudly proclaim (generally erroneously) that evolutionary biology can’t explain <something>, therefore a god/creator/designer must have done <something>. Latham cites Gould’s Wonderful Life – a 24 year old popular science account of the rediscovery of the Burgess Shale fauna. I scratched my head a bit at this: while it is well over 20 years since I read it, I didn’t recall any attempt to describe the evolution of compound eyes. Sure enough, the three mentions of eyes found in the index merely point to descriptions of Burgess Shale arthropods which have compound eyes. [Latham also cites his own work, The Naked Emperor: Darwinism Exposed, portions of which can be read via Google Books. On the basis of those samples, I am unlikely to cough up for the book.]

Creationists, whose view of the world is seemingly blinkered by the closed and literalist view of a ‘holy book’, appear to believe that scientific investigation has similarly reached its limits and what is not yet understood will never be understood. Just a quick Google search reveals numerous publications in which biologists have applied, and are evidently continuing to apply, a wide variety of approaches to address the question of the origin and evolution of eyes (I’ve listed a couple below). As usual, the Intelligent Design creationist approach is found seriously wanting.

Oakley (2003) On Homology of Arthropod Compound Eyes Integr. Comp. Biol. 43 (4): 522-530. doi: 10.1093/icb/43.4.522 – addresses the issue of whether the compound eyes of arthropods are monophyletic or not: that is, whether they arose more than once in the arthropods.

Gehring (2011) Chance and Necessity in Eye Evolution Genome Biol Evol 3 1053-1066.doi: 10.1093/gbe/evr061 – Gehring’s lab discovered that the transcription factor Pax6 seems to play a universal role in the initiation of eye development during development. Gehring proposes (on the basis of conserved function between vertebrate and insect Pax6) that eyes are derived from a single evolutionary origin. This review is worth reading for the overview it provides of the conserved genetic pathways in eye development.

Postscript

Just as I was about to publish this, an article by Rosa Rubicondior popped into my feed: Dunning-Kruger Creationists. It seems rather relevant.

It’s always struck me that Intelligent Design creationists always seem to fall into a hole of illogic. Essentially, they will argue that a particular biological feature, (examples such as bacterial flagella, the vertebrate immune system, and the origin of life spring to mind) are complex, have a cursory investigation of what is known about those case…then pronounce they cannot have come about by natural causes hence an intelligent designer (aka god) must have done it.

This in many ways reflects one of the classic quotes of the fictional (let us remember) detective Sherlock Holmes.

“When you dismiss the impossible, whatever you have left, however improbable, is the answer.”

There’s a rather nice discussion of this piece of ‘logic’ over by Dave Gamble at the Skeptical Science blog: Beware The Logic of Sherlock Holmes. Essentially, it’s all very well applying such reasoning to a murder within a room with locked windows and doors, but in the real world of scientific research (as opposed to the fantasy world of Intelligent Design), it’s very difficult to rule that, for example, further detailed hypotheses concerning the origins of life may surface through conventional scientific approaches. Dave observes that one should always apply the following:

Are all the other options truly “impossible”?

Perhaps the very premise itself is wrong

In fact have you truly eliminated all other possibilities, is it not more possible that there is a simpler alternative that you have not yet considered?

To invoke an invisible magic designer to explain a bit of biology while denying that science may ultimately identify a plausible (or, dare I say it, demonstrable) explanation is nothing more than an elaborated ‘God of the Gaps’ argument (Intelligent Design creationism’s much vaunted “inference to the best explanation”). We saw this strategy shot down in flames at the Dover trial. And for ID creationists to claim an intelligent magic designer is the best explanation for the origin of life is just the same: scientific investigation has led to several hypotheses for origins of life. Based on evidence from chemistry and physics, and on what is know of prebiotic conditions on Earth, surely there is more going for those scientific hypotheses than a religiously motivated cop-out?

It’s the seventh anniversary of the judgement in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the American court case that definitively rulled that Intelligent Design creationism was indeed religious and was therefore forbidden from publicly funded schools in the USA. I posted a more detailed overview this time last year (Happy Kitzmas!), making observations on the implications of the verdict.

In the last year, the C4ID has merely flailed around holding ‘conferences’ to preach to the already converted but not managing to insert Intelligent Design creationism into schools (Centre for Intelligent Design 2012). Indeed the biggest worry regarding schools and creationism has been the approval of a number Free Schools with the kind of religious ethos that is likely to bring with it the baggage of creationism – this remains a concern despite public pronouncements from the Government.

What will 2013 bring?