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Lunney’s eyeball

Re: Carol Rae’s recent letter supporting MP James Lunney MP and his rejection of evolution.

Re: Carol Rae’s recent letter supporting MP James Lunney MP and his rejection of evolution.

Rae illustrates her conviction by stating that the human eye, “thoroughly designed” and functional as it is, cannot be the result of evolution. All creationists would surely reject any possibility that this premise could be unsound. On the other hand, free thinkers might consider alternative theories.

In his book “The Blind Watchmaker” biologist Richard Dawkins describes precisely the way in which something as complex as the human eye could evolve. He presents a series of organisms with a range of visual sophistication, from the most basic light sensing to advanced vision systems, describing how evolution by means of natural selection can indeed produce such progression through time.

It is also important to note that the human eye, while functional, has several shortfalls in its “design.” For example, the nerves are in front of the retina while the optic nerve leaves a blind spot. Presumably, a conscious creator would have no reason to produce a suboptimal design. Meanwhile, human engineers successfully avoided these issues in the design and manufacture of digital cameras. To many free thinkers, this tends to support the notion that evolution is the more likely origin of our less-than-perfect human eyes.

Steve Price-FrancisQualicum Beach