Jellyfish eyes

PZ Myers alleges: The rhopalium shows the upper and lower lens eyes flanked by two pairs of simpler eyes. ... the two dark smudges on each side in the above picture are simple pigmented pits with photoreceptors in the center.

"Evolution is the most plausible explanation for life if you're using naturalistic terms, I'll agree with that."

— Johnson

Some questions:

1) Aren't these Box Jellyfish supposed to be the *really* dangerous? Like, even more dangerous to humans than the dreaded Portugese Man-Of-War?

2) I remember reading in an old Nat. Geo. that there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the Box Jellyfish has any sort of "brain" or nervous system...at least not as we would usually define it. So what coordinates its movement?

So Johnson believes there is evidence that god shaped ("designed") human life, if only science would look for it...

Wow, how does he suggest we look for this supernatural influence? - by the very essence of supernatural means beyond nature and as such is not observable or measureable...

I remember reading in an old Nat. Geo. that there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the Box Jellyfish has any sort of "brain" or nervous system . . . at least not as we would usually define it. So what coordinates its movement?

— rampancy

Thirty years ago, geochemists took away the primordial soup that biologists thought they needed to cook up the first life on Earth. Now, atmospheric chemists are giving it back. They're showing that the early Earth could have held onto much more of its volcanic hydrogen, a key ingredient in the recipe for making the organic compounds that may have led to the first life. ...

2) I remember reading in an old Nat. Geo. that there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the Box Jellyfish has any sort of "brain" or nervous system . . . at least not as we would usually define it. So what coordinates its movement?

Geesh. Ask a stupid question... :)

(I guess it's off to Google and WoS for me...)

Back to the middle ages . . .

— PvM

So how would you define "progress" then, Finley?

Is the abandonment of centuries of achievement and development in the sciences to a return to the Fundamentalist Christian-based Arguement from Incredulity "progress" to you?

Perhaps you don't consider the development of vaccines against Polio as a sign of "progress"...I'm sure that you'd much rather see the abandonment of traditional "materialist" medicine in favour of Benny Hinn-style Faith Healing, right?

But what good is half a... ah, hell, creationists still suck.

At the bottom of PvM's line about the Middle Ages (read "Dark Ages") is the belief that any appeal to a divine cause in nature is contrary to reason.

Needless to say (or at least it should be), that's a hard position to defend.

However, since I meant my response as a hit-and-run, and have no intention of hi-jacking this thread for a discussion of "religion and science," I'll leave it at that.

"However, since I meant my response as a hit-and-run"

oh, no, hit and run tactics have nothing to do with hijacking threads.

get lost, finley.

The part of the paper I found most interesting was that on the sensory stalk/bulb there were actually 4 kinds of eyes including the major evolutionary landmarks identified years ago by Nilsson.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v435/n7039/images/435157a-f2.0.jpg

Sorry there are no images in comments. Maybe PZ will add it to the OP.

@rampancy:

"1) Aren't these Box Jellyfish supposed to be the *really* dangerous? Like, even more dangerous to humans than the dreaded Portugese Man-Of-War? "

IIRC, there are quite a few species that are categorized as "box jellyfish", including the one known as the "sea wasp" (from Australia), which is probably the one you are thinking of. I don't think all box jellies are toxic to humans, but that one most assuredly is; and yes, it can be considered more dangerous than a man-o-war.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2897074&dopt=Citation

2) I remember reading in an old Nat. Geo. that there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the Box Jellyfish has any sort of "brain" or nervous system . . . at least not as we would usually define it. So what coordinates its movement?

well, no brain or complex ganglia, but certainly a nervous system:

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/invert.html

"the jellyfish has a nervous system characterized by a series of interconnected nerve cells (a nerve net). The nerve net conducts impulses around the entire body of the jellyfish. The strength of a behavioral response is proportional to the stimulus strength. In other words, the stronger the stimulus, the larger the response.
Some jellyfish (for example, Aurelia) have specialized structures called "rhopalia". These rhopalia have receptors for:

light (called ocelli)
balance (called statocysts)
chemical detection (olfaction),
touch (called sensory lappets)"

hope that helps.

cheers

2) I remember reading in an old Nat. Geo. that there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the Box Jellyfish has any sort of "brain" or nervous system . . . at least not as we would usually define it. So what coordinates its movement?

2) I remember reading in an old Nat. Geo. that there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the Box Jellyfish has any sort of "brain" or nervous system . . . at least not as we would usually define it. So what coordinates its movement?

At the bottom of PvM's line about the Middle Ages (read "Dark Ages") is the belief that any appeal to a divine cause in nature is contrary to reason. Needless to say (or at least it should be), that's a hard position to defend.

— Finley

"Not at all, I am merely stating that appeal to divine cause in science is a reversal to the God of the Gaps"

hmm, and here i thought appeal to a divine cause "in science" was a bit of an oxymoron?

moreover, how is appeal to the divine a reversal of god of the gaps?

you get more confusing every day, finley.

er, sorry, i see that it was PvM that posted that!

are you sure that's what you wanted to say?

now i'm really confused.

I've never minded the phrase 'God of the gaps'. If there is a 'gap', i.e., an unexplained phenomenon, it needs to be filled. If natural causes cannot explain an observed fact, it is reasonable to consider alternative explanations, miracles.

What justifies the insistence that every unexplained phenomenon, present and future, will be explained by natural causes? I suspect it's an inductive argument of the sort "Every unexplained phenomenon in the past has been explained by natural causes, therefore, ...." But the premise of this argument is false; there are many phenomena that were unexplained by natural causes in the past and remain unexplained by natural causes today. Such an induction, then, would have to use the weaker premise "Some unexplained phenomenon in the past has been explained by natural causes." But what is supposed to follow from that?

I've never minded the phrase 'God of the gaps'. If there is a 'gap', i.e., an unexplained phenomenon, it needs to be filled. If natural causes cannot explain an observed fact, it is reasonable to consider alternative explanations, miracles.

— Michael Finley

The God of the Gaps is a similarly absurd placeholder...

— Jim Wynne

What justifies the insistence that every unexplained phenomenon, present and future, will be explained by natural causes?

— Michael Finley

What justifies the assumption that gaps not presently explained by natural phenomena won't be?

— Jim Wynne

Finley just needs to find his personal god hiding somewhere in the objective universe. And Finley is intelligent enough for this to be a significant problem. After all, his god doesn't DO anything tangible. For some, perhaps Finley's god 'answers' prayers, but never does so with any useful specificity. Anyone who thinks otherwise should visit a casino, and watch whole roomfuls of people praying their cojones off, while the house collects a precisely calculable percentage day after day.

There are two explanations for the unexplained. Science's version (unknown at this time) and Finley's version (goddidit). And day by day, thanks to the efforts of an army of investigators, the unknown shrinks and therefore so does Finley's god. Is there any wonder Finley is desperate to "see" the supernatural wherever the alternative isn't (yet) stone obvious? Is it any wonder that whenever anyone points out that no working scientific theory has ever required the slightest lick of magic, Finely seems to pop up to shout methodological naturalism? And is it any wonder that Finley owes his own education, his health, his occupation, and his ability to bray his insecurities here to the very principles he is trying to distort as his faith requires? Dropping the supernatural (still undetected) in favor of the natural has in a few short centuries changed Finley's world in all respects -- probably including buying him the time to struggle against it.

I've never minded the phrase 'God of the gaps'. If there is a 'gap', i.e., an unexplained phenomenon, it needs to be filled. If natural causes cannot explain an observed fact, it is reasonable to consider alternative explanations, miracles.

There are two explanations for the unexplained. Science's version (unknown at this time) and Finley's version (goddidit).

because one method has shown time and time again to produce useful results once technology catches up with "the gaps" so they can be tested, while the other has produced... nothing.

simple as that, finley.

Now, that's unfair, Sir Toejam. It's managed to get some very nice buildings put up (by us imperfect mortals, mind you), and it's also produced a great deal of writing, music, and hysterics.

What reason have you to prefer one over the other?

I've never minded the phrase 'God of the gaps'. If there is a 'gap', i.e., an unexplained phenomenon, it needs to be filled. If natural causes cannot explain an observed fact, it is reasonable to consider alternative explanations, miracles.

— Finley

Re "and it's also produced a great deal of writing, music, and hysterics."

hysterics?

Re "that no working scientific theory has ever required the slightest lick of magic,"

A thought: once a phenomena can be consistently observed (or produced), it would at that point (as likely as not) then get labeled as "natural".

As for whether one should "prefer" an unknown "natural" explanation over an unknown "supernatural" (whatever that is) explanation, IMO the key word in both is "unknown", and if it's unknown it's unknown. The distinction of "natural" vs. "supernatural" is irrelevant until something about it becomes known. That's just by two cents worth on that.

Henry

What reason have you to prefer one over the other?

— Michael Finley

Looking for supernatural causes is unreasonable.

If the link between a cause and an effect were reasonable, it would, in fact, be a natural cause and not a supernatural cause.

"Looking for supernatural causes is unreasonable."

Tho infinitely easier, and ANYONE is qualified to do it!

At the bottom of PvM's line about the Middle Ages (read "Dark Ages") is the belief that any appeal to a divine cause in nature is contrary to reason.

I've never minded the phrase 'God of the gaps'.

There are two explanations for the unexplained. Science's version (unknown at this time) and Finley's version (goddidit).

What reason have you to prefer one over the other?