On Darwin’s Birthday Big Fossil Find Deepens His Dilemma, says New York Times Bestselling Author of Darwin’s Doubt - Feb. 12, 2014
Excerpt: “Even if one were to take the most generous evolutionary estimate for the length of the Cambrian explosion, it would not allow enough time for natural selection and random mutations to do the job.” All the animals are complex at their first appearance. The first trilobite is 100% trilobite, complete with jointed appendages, eyes, and internal organs. No “pre-trilobites” or “half-trilobites” are found. The same is true for all the other animals discovered there.
http://www.discovery.org/a/22571
“The reason evolutionary biologists believe in "40 known independent eye evolutions" isn't because they've reconstructed those evolutionary pathways, but because eyes don't assume a treelike pattern on the famous Darwinian "tree of life." Darwinists are accordingly forced, again and again, to invoke convergent "independent" evolution of eyes to explain why eyes are distributed in such a non-tree-like fashion.
This is hardly evidence against ID. In fact the appearance of eyes within widely disparate groups speaks eloquently of common design. Eyes are a problem, all right -- for Darwinism.”
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/03/its_a_shame_rea083441.html
“Evolution is very possibly not, in actual fact, always gradual. But it must be gradual when it is being used to explain the coming into existence of complicated, apparently designed objects, like eyes. For if it is not gradual in these cases, it ceases to have any explanatory power at all. Without gradualness in these cases, we are back to miracle, which is simply a synonym for the total absence of explanation.”
Dawkins, R. (1995) River Out of Eden, Basic Books, New York, p. 83.
in the recent ‘Mother-Lode of Fossils’ from the Cambrian Explosion, they found retinas and corneas:
‘Mother Lode’ of (505 million years ago Cambrian) Fossils Discovered in Canada – Feb. 11, 2014
Excerpt: Retinas, corneas, neural tissue, guts and even a possible heart and liver were found.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mother-lode-of-fossils-discovered-in-canada/
Ancient arthropod brains surprise paleontologists - Nov. 9, 2015
Exceptionally well preserved 520-million-year-old arthropod brains overturn the old idea that nervous tissue does not fossilize, and provide fresh insights into brain evolution
Excerpt: In 2012, neuroanatomist Nicholas Strausfeld and colleagues at the Natural History Museum in London described the fossilized remains of Fuxianhuia protensa, an ancestral arthropod that lived during the Cambrian period. This specimen was excavated from the Chengjiang Shales, a major fossil site in the Yunnan Province of southwestern China, and has an exceptionally well preserved brain and optic lobes, making it the oldest known fossilized nervous tissue.
Paleontologists questioned the findings, however, arguing that they were experimental artifacts, or that the tissue was fossilized under very rare and special circumstances that likely made it a one-off event. But Strausfeld and his colleagues now report that seven other recently discovered Fuxianhuia specimens also have remnants of nervous tissue, and describe experiments which recreate the conditions in which it may have been preserved.,,,
When Strausfeld and his colleagues first examined Fuxianhuia, however, they were surprised to discover that it had a complex brain consisting of three fused segments with a rich supply of blood vessels. This brain organization closely resembles that seen in extant insect species, suggesting that the brains of certain arthropod species, such as the brine shrimp, regressed to less complex nervous systems as they evolved.
Half-Billion-Year-Old Heart Found More Complex than Today’s - April 24, 2014
Excerpt: "520 million years ago, the first known animal heart was formed.
It was the heart of an ancient shrimp, and quite a heart it was. For it, and its vascular system, have been found to be more complex than that of modern shrimp,"
Earliest Cardiovascular System Found in Half Billion-Year-Old Fossil - video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbTellNnJ8w
Evolution vs. The Trilobite Eye - Andy McIntosh 25:40 minute mark - video
https://youtu.be/NPUU9Wb8yzQ?t=1540
The Trilobite Eye - many different examples - illustrations
http://www.trilobites.info/eyes.htm
The Optimal Trilobite Eye - per Dr. Don Johnson - Programming of Life page 68-66 and appendix F:
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 of its shell) with a precisely aligned optical axis that eliminates double images and two lenses affixed together to eliminate spherical aberrations [McC98, Gal00].
Paleontologist Niles Eldredge observed, “These lenses--technically termed aspherical, aplanatic lenses--optimize both light collecting and image formation better than any 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” [Eld76]. 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” [Lev93p58].,,,
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.
The lenses do not decompose as any other animal’s lenses would, so they are subject to rigorous scientific investigation,,, Since no immediate precursors of trilobites have been found, Darwinists are without any evidence as to how an organism with an eye as complex as a trilobite could have arisen,,, especially in,, the lowest multi-cellular fossil-bearing stratum,,,
Appendix F:
“Trilobites had solved a very elegant physical problem and apparently knew about Fermat’s principle, Abbe’s sine law, Snell’s laws of refraction and the optics of birefringent crystals” [Cla75]
“the rigid trilobite doublet lens had remarkable depth of field (near and far focusing) and minimal spherical aberration” [Gon07]
Physicist Riccardo Levi-Setti observes:
“In fact, this doublet is a device so typically associated with human invention that its discovery comes as something of a shock. The realization that trilobites developed and used such devices half a billion years ago makes the shock even greater. And a final discovery - that the refracting interface between the two elements in a trilobite’s eyes was designed in accordance with optical constructions worked out by Descartes and Huygens in the mid-seventeenth century - borders on sheer science fiction” [Lev93p57].
“The trilobites already had a highly advanced visual system. In fact, so far as we can tell from the fossil record thus far discovered, trilobite sight was far and away the most advanced in Kingdom Animalia at the base of the Cambrian,,, There is no other known occurrence of calcite eyes in the fossil record” [FM-trib].
Complex Arthropod Eyes Found in Early Cambrian - June 2011
Excerpt: Complex eyes with modern optics from an unknown arthropod, more complex than trilobite eyes, have been discovered in early Cambrian strata from southern Australia.,,, Here we report exceptionally preserved fossil eyes from the Early Cambrian (~515 million years ago) Emu Bay Shale of South Australia, revealing that some of the earliest arthropods possessed highly advanced compound eyes, each with over 3,000 large ommatidial lenses and a specialized ‘bright zone’. These are the oldest non-biomineralized eyes known in such detail, with preservation quality exceeding that found in the Burgess Shale and Chengjiang deposits. Non-biomineralized eyes of similar complexity are otherwise unknown until about 85 million years later. The arrangement and size of the lenses indicate that these eyes belonged to an active predator that was capable of seeing in low light. The eyes are more complex than those known from contemporaneous trilobites and are as advanced as those of many living forms. They provide further evidence that the Cambrian explosion involved rapid innovation in fine-scale anatomy as well as gross morphology,
http://crev.info/content/110629-complex_arthropod_eyes_found_in_early_cambrian
Modern optics in the eyes of an Early Cambrian arthropod - June 2011
Excerpt: 'the Emu Bay Shale, which provides exquisite preservation of Early Cambrian animals, has now supplied us with the earliest example of an non-trilobite arthropod eye. Of the seven specimens recovered to date, three are spectacular for the detail revealed and stunning because they document eyes that "are as advanced as those of many living forms"
http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2011/07/01/modern_optics_in_the_eyes_of_an_early_ca
500 million-year-old super predator had remarkable vision - Dec 07, 2011
Excerpt: The fossils represent compound eyes - the multi-faceted variety seen in arthropods such as flies, crabs and kin - and are amongst the largest to have ever existed, with each eye up to 3 cm in length and containing over 16,000 lenses. The number of lenses and other aspects of their optical design suggest that Anomalocaris would have seen its world with exceptional clarity whilst hunting in well-lit waters. Only a few arthropods, such as modern predatory dragonflies, have similar resolution.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-million-year-old-super-predator-remarkable-vision.html
Anomalocaris – Sea Monster – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=ice47loNmsc
Ancient creature’s surprising sight - November 2011
Excerpt: The fossilized compound eyes of a crustacean that lived around half a billion years ago reveal a surprisingly sophisticated visual system that was probably able to detect motion and gauge distance in many directions.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7373/full/479270d.html
Poster on the Trilobite Eye
The Trilobite Eye - cool site
http://www.trilobites.info/eyes.htm
Thinnest ever camera sees like a trilobite - December 2010
Excerpt: An unusual arthropod eye design that maximizes image resolution has inspired the design of the thinnest stills and video camera yet made.
Darwin’s Dilemma - The Mystery Of the Cambrian Fossil Record
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWEsW7bO8P4
Deepening Darwin’s Dilemma - Jonathan Wells - video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4154263/
New Book (Doesn’t) Explain How Eyes Evolved; The Bible Versus Evolution; Evolutionists Say “We See” - December 2011
Quote: In fact biology’s vision systems display all manner of high-tech gadgetry and creativity. There are telephoto optics, scanning optics, and mirrors. Not surprisingly, evolution over and over fails to explain how these wonders arose spontaneously.,,, do men love darkness rather than light? Given evolutionists unceasing, unswerving, inexplicable attachment to twisting the science, this too seems quite accurate. They won’t even consider the possibility that their bizarre ideas could be wrong. They seem to be dogmatically attached to scientific lies.
http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-book-doesnt-explain-how-eyes.html
Complex brains evolved much earlier than previously thought, 520-million-year-old fossilized arthropod confirms October 10, 2012
Excerpt: Complex brains evolved much earlier than previously thought, as evidenced by a 520-million year old fossilized arthropod with remarkably well-preserved brain structures.,,,
"No one expected such an advanced brain would have evolved so early in the history of multicellular animals," said Strausfeld, a Regents Professor in the UA department of neuroscience.,,,
"The shape [of the fossilized brain] matches that of a comparable sized modern malacostracan," the authors write in Nature. They argue the fossil supports the hypothesis that branchiopod brains evolved from a previously complex to a more simple architecture instead of the other way around.,,,
"It is remarkable how constant the ground pattern of the nervous system has remained for probably more than 550 million years," Strausfeld added. "The basic organization of the computational circuitry that deals, say, with smelling, appears to be the same as the one that deals with vision, or mechanical sensation."
http://phys.org/news/2012-10-complex-brains-evolved-earlier-previously.html
Neural tissue preservation in a Cambrian arthropod - David Tyler - 11/05/13
Excerpt: However, the neural architecture is essentially modern.,,,
"Professor Strausfeld said: 'Greg plugged these characteristics into a computer-based cladistic analysis to ask, "where does this fossil appear in a relational tree?" 'Our fossil of Alalcomenaeus came out with the modern chelicerates."
"No one expected such an advanced brain would have evolved so early in the history of multicellular animals," said Strausfeld, a Regents Professor in the UA department of neuroscience. [. . .] "In principle, Fuxianhuia's is a very modern brain in an ancient animal."
So we have the interesting situation that both groups of arthropods have neural patterns that are essentially modern.,,,
The research considered in this blog shows that the neural pathways for arthropods must be dated at least to the Early Cambrian. This provides an additional dimension to the Cambrian Explosion phenomenon,,,
http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2013/11/05/neural_tissue_preservation_in_a_cambrian
500-Million-Year-Old Brains of 'Sea Monsters' Get Close Look - May 07, 2015
Excerpt: fossilized brains have helped solve that mystery. An analysis of the anterior sclerites in two arthropod fossils, both more than 500 million years old, indicates that the structures were associated with the creatures' bulbous eyes.,,,
Fossilized brains are rare, but not unheard of in the fossil record. Since 2011, researchers have published roughly one study a year about incredible specimens containing fossilized neural tissue, including a 520-million-year-old arthropod found in China.,,,
Living arthropods don't have an anterior sclerite,
http://www.livescience.com/50770-fossilized-brains-arthropod-evolution.html
Of note: The Cambrian explosion was around 530 million years ago!