EXCREATIONIST
John Paul:
I'm assuming that you are a creationist that believes that the world is
about 6000 years old.
I "saw" what appeared to be gray dots.
Actually that was a very poor example of the scintillating grid effect. In
my later post I gave links to much better examples, such as these:
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~wenke/illusions/scint.htm
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~wenke/illusions/black_dots.jpg
Anyway, even though you saw gray dots rather than black dots, there actually
weren't any gray dots there! If you stare at a single dot rather than move
your eyes around, you'll see that it is completely white. This works much
better in my later examples.
Evolved from what?
That's irrelevant. "Intelligent Design" is on trial here.
Do all organisms with visual systems "see" black or gray dots when
presented with your example?
Maybe. At the moment the only way to find out if someone sees it is to ask
them and it is hard to talk to animals. But that is irrelevant. I'm talking
about the creature that was supposedly created in God's image - humans.
And which part of the visual system ".didn't work properly for unnatural
scenes like this one"? Is it something in the eye, something in the brain,
something in-between or a collection of out-of-tolerance components?
That is irrelevant. I'm just pointing out that a problem exists. I mean it
isn't necessary to know how a car works to recognize that it isn't working
properly.
So if I took millions of these pictures and put them on every tree in
every forest, do you think it would affect hunters? I guess I don't get your
point. That picture doesn't appear in nature, thus the unnatural label.
Seeing that it doesn't appear in nature it wouldn't affect our ability to
hunt & gather, unless we hunted & gathered in man-made fields of optical
confusion.
Basically we didn't have a reason to see these kinds of pictures properly if
we evolved from primitive hunter-gatherers - but *if* we were perfectly
designed then we shouldn't have major flaws like that. In my later examples
(see earlier in this post) I showed this effect more dramatically.
Just because a Creator is "all-knowing" doesn't mean the creation has to
be perfect, as we perceive perfect.
In Genesis 1:31 it says that everything God made was "very good" (i.e.
perfect). But I agree that he could have different standards than we do -
e.g. he thinks eternal punishment for making some mistakes is perfectly
just, etc. But anyway, creationists normally go on about how things are so
perfectly designed - that infinite intelligence must have been involved. If
our inability to see that simple picture somewhat accurately is perfect
design then the word "perfect" isn't being used how I'd normally use it - I
thought "perfect" means that it is impossible to improve on it.
Then you have to realize that the originally Created visual system has
been subjected to millennia of mutations acted upon by natural selection.
IOW, even if the visual system were Created perfectly doesn't mean it had to
remain so.
But look at the other mutations people have - like short-sightedness or
obesity or acne, etc - there are always people who escape these mutations.
I've posted this these pictures on four different messageboards and no-one
has ever claimed to be able to see this picture without having major
problems. I've also looked over the internet about it and there is no
mention of anyone ever being immune to problems seeing those pictures. There
are about 3 billion pairs of bases in human DNA... let's assume that the
mutation of any one or more of 3000 particular bases results in problems
seeing that picture. Well there is still a one in a million chance of a
non-affected person giving birth to someone who has the problem. It is
extremely unlikely that this mutation would be present in all of us by
chance. And maybe someone is immune to the problem - they'd be like 1 in
1000 or 1 in 10,000. It would still be a virtually universal mutation. It is
much more likely that this 1 in a million mutation happened to all of Adam
and Eve's children than for it to happen later. If it happened later then it
this 1 in a million mutation would have to happen to every family line which
could involve thousands or millions of babies.
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~wenke/bible/genealogies.htm
This is a webpage I made which talks about the genealogies in the Bible. As
you can see, there were about ten generations before the world-wide flood.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3563.asp
According to that Answers in Genesis article, the flood happened about 4300
years ago. If we assume that the time for each generation is 20 years on
average, then we each had about 200 generations before us. There is a
0.000001 chance for a generation to get that mutation and a 0.999999 chance
not to get it. Now to be generous, let's say we were the millionth
generation after Adam and Eve. Each ancestor before us had a 99.9999% chance
of escaping the 1 in a million mutation. So that's 0.999999 to the power of
1,000,000. That is about 0.36787925723164509428579812527037 or 36.8%.
There's a 36.8% chance that for any given person in the one millionth
generation after Adam and Eve, that every single one of their ancestors
didn't get the mutation. So they didn't inherit the one in a million
mutation and they didn't develop the mutation either. Now say there were
only 200 generations after Adam and Eve. 0.999999^200 =
0.99980001989868666468241443236634 so virtually all people today wouldn't
have inherited that mutation from their ancestors - only 0.02% would have -
or 1 in 5000. (It would be a fairly rare thing)
So it seems unlikely that this was just another mutation - like
short-sightedness. Unless it is so widespread (or universal) due to chance.
"It appears that there is a bug in our visual system."
Or a bug in this line of thought.
Even you said that you saw gray dots. Well there were only white dots there.
If our eyes were designed to let us see the world accurately - with some
limitations such as the amount of detail we can see then this looks like our
visual system isn't working properly.
"And since everyone seems to have this bug, Adam and Eve would have had
it
too."
What type of logic is that? Why couldn't the alleged bug be the result of
evolution on a once very good Special Creation?
Earlier in this post I talked about the extremely low chances of this
problem being present in virtually everyone (that I know of at least). Some
might see gray dots rather than black, but that is still a problem.
"So did Adam and Eve have this bug when they were created?"
Wait, you just said they would have had it.
If Adam and Eve had it then you don't have to worry about these probability
problems. Or maybe you think that an extraordinarily improbable thing has
happened with these mutations spreading to (virtually?) everyone.
First we have to determine if a bug actually exists.
You said you saw gray dots but if you study them closely they should appear
their true colour - white. I would say that this could easily be improved
upon by us seeing white dots in the first place. So it appears less than
perfect. And you yourself think that a mutation is involved. By "bug" I mean
flaw or mutation anyway.
Then we have to determine what part of the visual system is causing this
bug.
It would either be our eyes or our brain. I don't think it makes any
difference which it is.
"Or did the same bug just appear in both of them when they were cursed?"
I'll stick with the alleged bug being due to evolutionary processes. Adam &
Eve didn't have to have this alleged bug, just the genetic algorithm acting
with an evolutionary algorithm acted upon by natural selection, that
produced it.
Well as I said earlier, it is extremely unlikely that this mutation would be
so universal today. And could you decide whether what you saw was a result
of a mutation or if it is how God intended humans to see the world? (And
therefore Adam and Eve would see that picture in the same way)
But God, being all knowing, knew that unnatural scenarios like you have
presented do not exist in nature and would not affect our ability to hunt &
gather.
In the Bible humans were originally naked gardeners, then they were farmers
and animal herders. It is in the evolutionary story that people were
originally hunter-gatherers. And then Cain built a city - God should have
forseen that humans would be civilized.
"Or did God design humans to be suited to a primitive lifestyle?"
God, being all knowing, knew humans would require the ability to learn. So
far it has worked out although we still have much to learn. But that is what
science is for.
Well in the first few chapters of Genesis, people discover things like
iron-working and build cities. So they were very innovative back then. What
my question meant was whether God would want us to see non-primitive
pictures accurately or not or if he designed us to be naked gardeners.
(Which is similar to evolution's story about ape-men)
Here's an experiment- Take a small population of humans. Put them in a
large "bio-dome" type structure. In place of natural backdrops put unnatural
man-made optically confusing backdrops. Then we could see if that
population's visual system evolves to compensate and at what cost.
Well our brains can naturally adapt to different environments - e.g. after a
month of wearing "inverting goggles" which made everything look upside-down,
a person could ride a bicycle around.
http://www.newscientist.com/lastword/answers/795body.jsp?tp=body1
It mightn't be possible to stop having problems seeing those white dots - a
change in the person's genes would be required. And there would need to be a
selecting mechanism. e.g. those that had the problem could be sterilized and
those that could see the white dots easily could be bred. The problem is to
find someone that doesn't have the problem. Maybe after hundreds of
thousands of generations there could be one person that doesn't have
problem. Then eventually you'd have a population of people that don't have
it.