This is an octopus eye:
This is an octopus brain:
I have to point this out because the creationist Eric Metaxas said a remarkable thing:
But the octopus isn’t the only such miracle. “Convergent evolution” is all over nature, from powered flight evolving three times to each continent having its own version of the anteater. Think about that. As one delightfully un-self-conscious “Science Today” cover put it, convergent evolution is “nature discover[ing] the same design over and over.” Well, good for nature!
But as Luskin argues, there’s a better explanation for a tentacled mollusk having a mammal’s brain and human eyes. And that explanation is common design by an intelligent Engineer. And like all good engineers, this this one reused some of His best designs.
Umm, the octopus has a retina with the photoreceptors on the inner face, unlike mammalian retinae that have the photoreceptors on the side away from the light. The octopus has no blind spot, and the axons of the eye emerge all over the back of the eye; mammalian axons have to traverse the inside of the eye and exit at a spot with no photoreceptors. The visual receptors of the octopus use the rhabodmeric transduction pathway, and mammalian photoreceptors use the ciliary pathway.
What kind of ignoramus would suggest that the octopus has human-like eyes?
Maybe the kind with a small central ganglion wrapped around their esophagus? Nah, that’s an insult to molluscs.
To preserve my sanity, I have never dipped more than a bit of one toe into either straight-up Creationist or Intelligent Design literature; in particular, I have no idea whether it is commonly supposed that (as the blockquote above suggests, by its use of the verb “reuse”) God/the Intelligent Designer designed sequentially, or all at once. In the former case, the lack of a blind spot (and so forth) in the octopus eye would seem to indicate that the octopus was designed after Man (although created a few days earlier). What’s up with that?
Maybe Man having a blind spot is a feature, not a bug; sort of like Original Sin, but in the retina.
I’m pretty sure my brain is wrapped around my oesophagus. That’s would explain when I get hangry, it goes away as soon as I swallow food.
Octopus eyes are awesome. My human eyes, on the other hand, suck.
Maybe God is partial to octopuses. He certainly loves beetles (he mad so many of them.)
machintelligence @ 4:
That would depend on which god[s].
Luskin, but that is an insult to ignoramuses.
In the link you refer to invertebrate brains as alien. Is that because octopuses are aliens? I read that in a reputable publication. Wait, no, that was creationist nonsense.
Why is it always the eye? The octopus has a great beak. Clearly that intelligent designer just pulled a page from Parrot-107-rev23.
That arrangement really forces you to think about what you eat.
Such a beautiful eye– looks like some kind of semi-precious stone.
@machintelligence, 4: Maybe God is partial to octopuses
He did give them the ability to regrow lost limbs.
Caine
More likely, around their colon.
Nah. A good engineer enjoys their work. Given the resources of a god they probably would have gone ahead and made everything from unique parts. Just for the hell of it, to see how many different ways there are to make an eye, a brain or a nostril. It’s not like there’s much call for interchangeability. A good engineer would also have done some quality control and set up a better customer support.
By contrast ‘creation’ is riddled with flaws. Noah’s flood would have to go down as the biggest recall ever made with over 99.99% of the biosphere being declared defective. The prayer thing is a big disappointment and so are the sales priests of the various brands currently established on our world. No matter what your complaint is, they always tell you to repent and go with god. Tried that. Now I’d like a refund.
komarov
It’s clear that Creation was a committee effort! (How else could it be so beautifully and terrifyingly diverse?)
numerobis
I swear my brain is in my stomach. Or maybe I just think with my stomach sometimes. I dunno, but I think there’s something to the idea that one’s “gut” is sort of a “second brain”.
“And like all good engineers, this this [sic] one reused some of His best designs.”
And like *all* creationists, both Luskin and Metaxas fail to see the irony in that statement. In order to have a “best” design, you also need to have a less than best design to compare it against. So that must be why their ultimate magician allegedly “gave” humans inferior eyes and the inability to regrow lost limbs – humans were the first attempt and cephalopods followed later with those improvements.
Hmmm…
I’m getting four: Pterosaurs, birds, bats and insects.
@blgmnts #17:
According the the bible, bats are birds.
Surely he’s talking about squid?
I thought that one of those ‘interesting science facts’ that float around in the gestalt was that human and squid eyes are highly similar, despite evolving independantly.
It is entirely possible that Metaxas considers squid to be a kind of octopus, or octopus to be a kind of squid.
FAIL. All known good engineers are human. They reuse designs to save resources. How the fuck does that apply to a Designer who is allegedly omniscient and omnipotent?