I didn't have time to read and digest the actual work by Amichai Labin and Erez Ribak which I did find
Do try... a little more of what was said "The fundamental features of the array of glial cells are revealed as an optimal structure designed for preserving the acuity of images in the human retina. It plays a crucial role in vision quality, in humans and in other species.”
However there does seem to be some possibility that what is meant by "optimal" refers only to it being optimal for the way the eye is actually wired up, not that it is the optimal possible setup. Note it says "an" not "the" optimal structure.
Optimal
1. Describes a solution to a problem which minimises some cost function. Linear programming is one technique used to discover the optimal solution to certain problems.
2. Of code: best or most efficient in time, space or code size.
Or,
NY TIMES Science wrote:
the basic building blocks of human eyesight turn out to be practically perfect.
Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped.....
Also I've seen an argument that suggests that daytime colour vision is marginally improved by our current set up, but which comes with a loss of night vision, you pays your money you take your pick?
Then again some creatures with our type wired up eyes don't see colours anyway so....?:liberals:
Yes... optimal...best or most efficient.
Personally though I still think it's more than crystal clear and twenty-twenty that having a blind spot is definitely not optimal for an organ used to see with.:sherlock:
Well 'Sherlock'..... I think your blind spot is evidence that contradicts your beliefs. Ophthalmologist Marshal, mentioned earlier explains that the nerves could not go behind the eye, because the choroid takes that space. The chorid provides blood supply needed for the retinal pigment epithelium. This is necessary to regenerate the photoreceptors, and to absorb heat. So Marshal concludes it is necessary for the nerves to go in front instead. (Back to optimal design)
Ophthamologist, Peter W.V. Gurney wrote:
This article reviews the reasons for our having the inverted retina and why the opposite arrangement (the verted retina), in which the photoreceptors are innermost and the first layer to receive incident light, would be liable to fail in creatures who have inverted retinas. I suggest that the need for protection of the retina against the injurious effects of light, particularly with the shorter wavelengths, and of the heat generated by focused light necessitates the inverted configuration of the retina in creatures possessing it.
Of course if the optic nerve had connected at the rear of the retina instead then there would have been no blind spot, while also not discounting any optimising and tweaking that still could have been designed into the front of the retina by any extant competent intelligent designer worth His salt.
You have bought into Dawkins who does not understand the design of the eye. Science has demolished his argument. Newer research on the vertebrate retina shows that the inverted design in vertebrates is superior to the verted design, even compared to the most advanced cephalopods. The research has discovered that our retina has a neurological feedback system improving contrast and sharpening edges without sacrificing shadow detail.
PLoS Biology May 2011 A positive feedback synapse from retinal horizontal cells to cone photoreceptors. (S.L.Jackman)
Opthamologist Dr. H S Hamilton:
"instead of being a great disadvantage, or a “curse” or being incorrectly constructed, the inverted retina is a tremendous advance in function and design compared with the simple and less complicated verted arrangement. One problem amongst many, for evolutionists, is to explain how this abrupt major retinal transformation from the verted type in invertebrates to the inverted vertebrate model came about as nothing in paleontology offers any support."
Alwight.... we have ten million cells in the retina of the eye are interacting with each other in complex ways, each like a computer, and this is just part of the processing involved in sight. We have a system of processing sight that is far superior to man made technologies. Our eyes are evidence of intelligent design... optimal technology....extreme intelligence....The God of the Bible.
"You have eyes--can't you see? You have ears--can't you hear?" Mark 8:18
Loss of genetic information is the Biblical model.
