In my last post, I went back in time, from the well-adapted eyes we are born with, to the ancient photoreceptors used by microbes billions of years ago. Now I’m going to reverse direction, moving forward through time, from animals that had fully functioning eyes to their descendants, which today can’t see a thing.
Continue reading “Eyes, Part Two: Fleas, Fish, and the Careful Art of Deconstruction”
(The first of a two-part post)
The eye has always had a special place in the study of evolution, and Darwin had a lot to do with that. He believed that natural selection could produce the complexity of nature, and to a nineteenth century naturalist, nothing seemed as complex as an eye, with its lens, cornea, retina, and other parts working together so exquisitely.The notion that natural selection could produce such an organ “seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree,” Darwin wrote in the Origin of Species.
Continue reading “Eyes, Part One: Opening Up the Russian Doll”
Readers of the Loom may recall an earlier post about how creationists (including proponents of Intelligent Design) misleadingly cite peer-reviewed scientific research in order to make their own claims sound more persuasive. I mentioned that when the scientists themselves find out their research has been misrepresented, they groan and protest.
Scientists studying people in minimally conscious states have published the results of brain scans showing that these people can retain a surprising amount of brain activity. The New York Times and MSNBC, among others, have written up accounts.
Continue reading “Consciousness and the Culture Wars, Part Three”