The Consciousness of Evolution

[FuturePsych]

Good day
I sincerely hope someone well-versed in Darwinism would be able to answer the following curiosity of mine (btw I'm a passionate activist for evolution and it's staggering ability to explain our natural world)

* I'm a bit baffled trying to reason the incremental changes caused by evolution. For example, Richard Dawkins made a propable hypothesis for the evolution of the eye. Starting with a flat sheet of light-sensitive cells it started to gradually bend over evolutionary time until it almost closed up to form a sort of pinhole camera.
So, my question is this : What caused the flat sheet of cells to bend in the first place i.e. can we suppose that the cells had some sort of consciousness to tell itself to gradually bend over time?

I really hope someone will have a great answer for this

Many thanks

 

[Prawnapple]

Great question OP. It was likely a bunch of tiny mechanisms and changes over time thanks to positively / negatively charged molecules, etc. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the nitty gritty cell mechanisms and flow of charges between the cells causing them to bend but I imagine it's something akin to when a strand of proteins / amino-acids are bent into all those weird and whacky shapes they're usually bent into, something like this:

Essentially, anyone with a PHD in Microbiology should be able to explain this to you. Luckily I have a friend who's just that, so I sent him your question but I cannot guarantee he will answer the question, here's to hoping.

 

[grok]

You are looking at evolution from the wrong end, there weren't any intelligence or precognition millions of years ago behind bendy cells becoming a desirable trait, just because you are now observing what you think is the logical outcome.

The changes in cells happen randomly, but only those traits that give (even the slightest) advantage towards survival, will in fact increase the survival rate of those with that trait, leading to that trait becoming the dominant trait in the long run. So many light-sensitive cells randomly bent, curled, folded, reversed, disappeared, changed color, became poisonous etc, but the others didn't make it since the bendy cells gave a slightly better survival rate, leading to peeps with bendy cells eventually becoming the survival pool and passing that trait on to their children.

Say we live in perpetual darkness and 2 traits begin to emerge, photosensitive cells that could lead to eyes forming, or radar processing cells like bats, then argumentally say the peeps with radar survive better so that becomes the norm. You, looking at the result thinks wow, they are perfectly adapted to their environment cos eyes would be useless, Shirley some intelligent being must've pushed their cells in the direction to develop radar capabilities. Nope, they are perfectly adapted to their environment because trillions of trillions of micro changes led to radar and not eyes (or an on-demand glowy forehead) emerging as the best survival mechanism for that specific environment.

Evolution, et voila!

ps. I am not well-versed in Darwinism so peer review as you please.

 

[FuturePsych]

You are looking at evolution from the wrong end, there weren't any intelligence or precognition millions of years ago behind bendy cells becoming a desirable trait, just because you are now observing what you think is the ogical outcome.

The changes in cells happen randomly, but only those traits that give (even the slightest) advantage towards survival, will in fact increase the survival rate of those with that trait, leading to that trait becoming the dominant trait in the long run. So many cells randomly bent, curled, folded, reversed, disappeared, changed color, became poisonous etc, but the others didn't make it since the bendy cells gave a slightly better survival rate, leading to peeps with bendy cells eventually becoming the majority and passing that trait on to their children.

Say we live in perpetual darkness and 2 traits begin to emerge, photosensitive cells that could lead to eyes forming, or radar processing cells like bats, then argumentally say the peeps with radar survive better so that becomes the norm. You, looking at the result thinks wow, they are perfectly adapted to their environment Shirley some intelligent being must've pushed them in that direction. Nope, they are perfectly adapted to their environment because trillions of trillions of micro changes led to radar emerging as the best survival mechanism for that specific environment.

Evolution, et voila!

Many thanks for this! It's been most helpful and informative. I agree that the staggering beauty of evolution gives millions of people the illusion that somehow an 'intelligent designer' is behind all this. And it makes sense, as you've mentioned, that only a minority of the myriad range of variables in eye formation passed the test of natural selection. Again, you have my gratitude