It is well known that Darwin referred to the eye in Origin of Species, describing it as ‘an organ of extreme perfection and complication’.
He pretended to agree that to suggest it could have been formed by natural selection seemed ‘absurd in the highest possible degree’, but the following sentences reveal what he was really thinking. Darwin goes on to maintain that natural selection could easily have brought about vision by a series of almost imperceptible changes working without a design specification and his modern-day disciples now claim that the evolution of the eye presents no difficulty to them. When this claim is examined, it proves to be a good example of how a faulty belief system can blind one to the evidence and a very good illustration of the adage ‘there are none so blind as those who won’t see’.
What did he know?
Darwin, writing 150 years ago, knew very little about the visual system. He mentions only the basic activity of some of the structures of the eye itself in focusing, admitting different amounts of light and correcting for possible aberrations so as to give a clear image. These processes in themselves are amazing but actually are quite pointless without a system in place to receive the image and change it into a form which can be transmitted by the nervous system. That complex process, performed by the retina at the back of the eye, is itself of no use without the means to transport the visual message to the brain. If the brain itself is not designed to receive the signals and somehow to cause us to ‘see’, then the whole process is of no value whatsoever, as people who have lost their sight through brain damage know to their cost.
