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 PrintableVersion Seeing and believingEvolution, the eye and sightPerfectly designedSEEING AND BELIEVING This booklet contains the revised text of a lecture given in 2001. Most of it is devoted to a description of the structure and function of the human eye, and of the process of vision in the retina and brain, as marvels of God's design and craftsmanship. Reference is made to the pioneering work of Hubel and Wiesel, and a number of colour illustrations are included. We should all be amazed at this extraordinary system inside our heads, regardless of what we believe about its origins. With respect to origins, Darwin is quoted (p. 11): 'To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances ... could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree' (from The Origin of Species). Sylvia Baker agrees entirely. Here one could respond that this is just 'argument from personal incredulity'. However, she does engage with evolutionary claims: the discovery of the Pax6 gene, which triggers the development of eyes in widely different organisms, undermines the view that evolution has 'invented' the eye many times; neither the fossil record nor comparative anatomy provides evidence for evolution of eyes from primitive to complex; in a neat 'ascending' order (pp. 16 ù 19). 'Evolutionists are constantly forced to acknowledge how perfectly designed eyes are. . . . This is exactly what those of us who believe in a Creator would expect' (p.18). Because evolutionary mechanisms are rejected, the claim that God (may have) used these is not addressed. Some comments on why many of us need to correct our imperfect vision with spectacles or contact lenses would have been appropriate: but, overall, this is an attractive booklet for those who can appreciate its message. Philip Duce,
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