Inverted retina, bad design or brilliant?

The article didn't really make any sense to me, but I'd like to point out that if you invert the image going into your eye ("magical glasses") you'll easily adjust to it in about a week, and feel the same strange disorientation when you stop using them.
 
strathmeyer said:
The article didn't really make any sense to me, but I'd like to point out that if you invert the image going into your eye ("magical glasses") you'll easily adjust to it in about a week, and feel the same strange disorientation when you stop using them.
Click to expand...

You might have to follow the links to the actual research. The linked article is just babble. As far as the original research all that proves is given a poor start evolution can refine the design to a working model. No God necessary.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
You don't suppose that the phrase "the müller cells can capture and transmit as much light as possible" means as much as possible given the screwy backwards "design" do you? ;)
Click to expand...

Hence it supports my theory of Bureaucratic Design. Animals are designed through a series of comities who are the low bid engineering bidders on the design contract.

If this theory only had predictive power it would be perfect I tell you.
 
Orangutan said:
You might have to follow the links to the actual research.
Click to expand...

How did you find the orignal research?

From this section in Dembski's

A recent article in PNAS now indicates that living optical fibers create a clear passage for light to the light-sensitive cells at the back of the eye. Concerning his research in this area, Andreas Reichenbach remarks, “Nature is so clever. This means there is enough room in the eye for all the neurons and synapses and so on, but still the Müller cells can capture and transmit as much light as possible.” Go here for a summary of the research as well as for a reference to the relevant PNAS article.
Click to expand...

I followed the "go here" link, to this page http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/01/eye_eye/ , but the only reference to a releveant PNAS article is this
The research, entitled "Müller cells are living optical fibers in the vertebrate retina" is published in the 30 April edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
Click to expand...

But I can't find any such article under PNAS USA (there is no 30 April edition); searching for "Muller cells" and "living optical fibers" didn't turn up anything that matched. I did find this - http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/103/47/17759 - searching for "Andreas Reichenbach".

Using google, I did find this: http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~pwm/kas/seminars/seminars.html , and PubMeding "Reichenbach" did turn up quite a few papers on retinal function, but nothing matching the Register article. Google hit a few other abstracts, but no published research.
 
From a 2006 article, "Müller cells in the healthy and diseased retina", where Reichenbach is co-author, the abstract:
Müller glial cells span the entire thickness of the tissue, and ensheath all retinal neurons, in vertebrate retinae of all species. This morphological relationship is reflected by a multitude of functional interactions between neurons and Müller cells, including a 'metabolic symbiosis' and the processing of visual information. Müller cells are also responsible for the maintenance of the homeostasis of the retinal extracellular milieu (ions, water, neurotransmitter molecules, and pH). In vascularized retinae, Müller cells may also be involved in the control of angiogenesis, and the regulation of retinal blood flow. Virtually every disease of the retina is associated with a reactive Müller cell gliosis which, on the one hand, supports the survival of retinal neurons but, on the other hand, may accelerate the progress of neuronal degeneration: Müller cells protect neurons via a release of neurotrophic factors, the uptake and degradation of the excitotoxin, glutamate, and the secretion of the antioxidant, glutathione. However, gliotic Müller cells display a dysregulation of various neuron-supportive functions. This contributes to a disturbance of retinal glutamate metabolism and ion homeostasis, and causes the development of retinal edema and neuronal cell death. Moreover, there are diseases evoking a primary Müller cell insufficiency, such as hepatic retinopathy and certain forms of glaucoma. Any impairment of supportive functions of Müller cells, primary or secondary, must cause and/or aggravate a dysfunction and loss of neurons, by increasing the susceptibility of neurons to stressful stimuli in the diseased retina. On the contrary, Müller cells may be used in the future for novel therapeutic strategies to protect neurons against apoptosis (somatic gene therapy), or to differentiate retinal neurons from Müller/stem cells. Meanwhile, a proper understanding of the gliotic responses of Müller cells in the diseased retina, and of their protective vs. detrimental effects, is essential for the development of efficient therapeutic strategies that use and stimulate the neuron-supportive/protective-and prevent the destructive-mechanisms of gliosis.
Click to expand...
In another article, gliosis (inflammation of the Müller cells) is seen as either reflecting or causing the neuronal degeneration which contributes to loss of vision after retinal detachment (even following reattachment surgery).

But, yeah, dakotajudo, I am not finding anything at all like the PNAS article claimed as the source. Indeed, there is no "30 April edition" (there is a May 1 edition, which does not have the article, and three earlier April editions, none of which have the article) at all. Like you, I searched the database (I looked for "vertebrate retina")--90 articles, no hits.
 
Mercutio said:
From a 2006 article, "Müller cells in the healthy and diseased retina", where Reichenbach is co-author, the abstract: In another article, gliosis (inflammation of the Müller cells) is seen as either reflecting or causing the neuronal degeneration which contributes to loss of vision after retinal detachment (even following reattachment surgery).

But, yeah, dakotajudo, I am not finding anything at all like the PNAS article claimed as the source. Indeed, there is no "30 April edition" (there is a May 1 edition, which does not have the article, and three earlier April editions, none of which have the article) at all. Like you, I searched the database (I looked for "vertebrate retina")--90 articles, no hits.
Click to expand...

Now that's interesting!
 
Let's not forget that these müller cells open up new avenues for investigating the evolution of the eye. There could be clues in their structure, and in the genetics that induce them, about the history of past selection pressures.

I wonder if the original report (which I could not find, at the moment) actually makes predictions of what we might find, if we study them more precisely.

Also, far from being an argument for ID, their discovery, by real biologists, actually shows us that evolution is a powerful-enough theory for increasing our scientific knowledge of the world.
Müller cells would never be discovered by an ID "scientist". They would have stopped studying the eye long before these sorts of details could ever be worked out.
 
Ok, so I finally read the articles, and somebody's using the definition of invert that isn't "turn upside down". (http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od192/invertedretina192.htm) What the heck is the idea of maladaption? Evolution is about the best among a set of random choices, not somehow magically getting the best of everything. Are humans maladapted because they can't smash animals with their giant fists? Are monkeys maladapted because they aren't humans?

If we all lived in some strange future world, where not having a blind spot was obviously necessary for our survival, and some of the people were exactly like us alive today, but others had no blindspot? Then I guess I'd call the people with blindspots maladapted. Unless not having a blindspot also means that you'll die of cancer at an early age. See? I can make up stuff all day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom