Dawkins and De-evolution
or Professor Richard’s Vestigial Eyes
From the latest Creation Research newsletter:
After noting that animals living in perpetual darkness have “vestiges of eyes”, Dawkins asks the following question: “Given that a cave salamander lives in perpetual darkness so has no use for eyes, why would a divine creator nevertheless furnish it with dummy eyes, clearly related to eyes but non-functional?” (Dawkins, Greatest Show, p. 351)
In 2004 scientists studied blind cave fish with ‘vestigial eyes’ as well as their sighted relatives that lived in the light. They found they could get the blind fish to develop eyes when they implanted eye tissue from the sighted into a blind fish.
All similar studies on real vestigial organs such as flightless beetles with tiny stumps of wings show that they are descended from winged beetles and have degenerated by loss so they are now stuck where they are living. Quite the opposite of evolution.
It would therefore seem that the real history of blind cave life is that when their sighted salamander or fish ancestors somehow got trapped in the caves they lost their original sight abilities, through degeneration not evolution. The change is real, but Dawkins and co. are determined to call all change evolution, when it’s really the opposite.
It’s a Beautiful World We Live In.
