Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution

Just one relatively simple example of the extreme creative ingenuity and knowledge of the apparent designers - the optimal calcite trilobite compound eye:  

"Trilobites suddenly appeared in the Cambrian (lowest fossil-bearing) stratum with no record of ancestry. The trilobite eye is made of optically transparent calcium carbonate (calcite, the same mineral as molluscan shells) with a precisely aligned optical axis that eliminates double images and two lenses affixed together to eliminate spherical aberrations.

Paleontologist Niles Eldredge observed, “These lenses – technically termed aspherical, aplanatic lenses – optimize both light collecting and image formation better than any other lens ever conceived. We can be justifiably amazed that these trilobites, very early in the history of life on earth, hit upon the best possible lens that optical physics has ever been able to formulate”. Notice these lenses weren’t just good as, but were better than anything modern optical physicists have been able to conceive! ....

The design of the trilobite’s eye lens could well qualify for a patent disclosure”.....

The trilobite lens is particularly intriguing since the only other animal to use inorganic focusing material is man. The lens may be classified as a prosthetic device since it was non-biological, which also means the lens itself, with apparently no DNA inherent within, was not subject to Darwinian evolution. The manufacturing and controlling of the lenses were obviously biological processes, with an unknown number DNA-prescribed proteins (each with a prescriptive manufacturing program) for collecting and processing the raw materials to manufacture the precision lenses and create the refracting interface between the two lenses."

It should also be noted that it was the complete eye-brain system that had to originate at the same time, including the nerve optical data pathways, specialized brain structures processing the optical data, and brain structures assessing the resulting image data in order to take necessary behavioral actions. The latter image processing had to incorporate some form of primitive sensory fusion of the compound multiple eye images, into a comprehensive sensing of the environment including threats and possible food sources. The ingenious calcite compound eye itself was only part of a much more complex system of systems comprising the entire animal. All this and very much more appeared suddenly, as part of the well-known Cambrian Explosion of new and complex animal body plans. The fossil evidence indicates it all took place over the very short period (as evolution goes) of 10-15 million years. Dr. Behe has convincingly shown that Darwinian processes are inherently degradative in terms of genes and DNA sequences and therefore creative only to the extent that tearing down already functional genomic structures can bring short-term benefits. But even if Darwinian processes were able to be creative, this time period is grossly inadequate for the slow creeping process to result in any complex new system.