The Eyes of the World

Perhaps the most striking fact about life on Earth is its amazing diversity. More than a million different species of animals have been cataloged thus far, and the end is not yet. Life teems upon our planetary home, and it is a question whether the differences of the myriads of species or their underlying similarities is the more remarkable.

Take, for example, the way animals see their world.

How many eyes, for instance, does each variety of animal life need? The answer ranges from zero to 28,000! There are a few species in the class of Arachnida—which includes spiders, scorpions, mites and ticks—that have no eyes at all. They make do very adequately by using other sense organs, such as tactile hairs, to feel their way and identify friends, foes, and food.

At the other extreme is the dragonfly, which has compound eyes, each made up of as many as 28,000 lens systems or simple eyes. The eye of the common housefly has approximately 4,000 such systems—yet all these eyes do not give it the keenness of sight that man enjoys with only two! Scientists have learned that each facet or lens of a compound eye gives the insect a crude mosaic impression of outline—and the more facets, the finer the detail. Such eyes are designed primarily to detect motion—and this is why it’s hard to sneak up on a fly!

Consider eyelids: the usual number in nature is two. But snakes have none at all, and crocodiles have three—the third being a transparent side-to-side lid which sweeps the eyeball clean and keeps it moist.

Think, then, of pupils: Most animals have round pupils, like man’s, but the crocodile and some nocturnal snakes have vertical-slit pupils. Also, some tree snakes are known to have horizontal-slit pupils. But perhaps the strangest arrangement is that of the gecko, in which the pupil contracts to form a series of vertical pinholes.

Another adaptation of the eye concerns the way in which focus is changed from far to near. As with man, most land animals use special muscles to change the shape of the lens, making it thicker or thinner in the center. Fish, on the other hand, normally change the placement of the lens within the eyeball to achieve near or far vision. Sharks, however, are divided on the subject, for some move the lens, like other fish, while other sharks change the shape of the lens, like land animals.

In most animals the eyes are paired: that is, both eyes automatically focus upon the same object. This allows depth and distance perception, among other advantages. But in some animals the eyes function independently, allowing a much greater field of perception.

Usually the eyes are in or on the head, and usually they are protected by bony sockets, as in man. But some snails have their eyes at the end of tentacles, which can be rolled down in case of danger. Moles have their eyes in their heads, but the lids are fused shut, presumably to protect the eyes from rubbing against the sides of their tunnels. It is thought that the mole’s eyes do function, but only to tell light from darkness.

Most eyes are movable in their sockets, but the owl’s eyes are rigidly set and cannot move. To compensate, the owl can rotate its neck through more than a half-circle each way. It can look directly behind without shifting its body!

But perhaps the strangest visual adaptation in all of nature is found in flatfish, such as halibut. The young flatfish looks like a normal fish, with one eye on each side of its head. But as the halibut matures, one eye migrates through the head to the opposite side, so the adult fish is ready to lie continually on one side on the ocean bottom, with both eyes functioning on its top side.

How did such diversity come about? Evolutionists would have us think that each type of animal developed its own unique features in its drive for food and fulfillment in life. They believe each specialized organ developed little by little, over eons of time, in response to the animal’s need.

A little thought should serve to demolish this house of cards. How, for example, could the crocodile develop a third eyelid, a tiny fraction of an inch per millennium? According to evolutionary theory, it would not have developed at all unless it was needed; but in that case the poor crocodile would long since have perished while waiting for it to develop.

And the halibut: How did it get along during the thousands and thousands of years supposedly necessary for its lower-side eye to migrate? And just how did that eye know where it was supposed to go? And how did the fish learn to demolish part of that eye socket in order to clear a path for the eye to migrate?

How did the chameleon learn the trick of moving each eye independently? How did the snake learn to substitute a transparent cap of skin for eyelids? Why did the cyclops (a small freshwater shellfish) decide it only needed one eye in the center of its head?

So many adaptations that could never have worked while they were supposed to have been developing by minute increments! One must ask which is more credible: that all these species survived the development process at all, or that they were uniquely fashioned by a Creator who lovingly gave each creature just those adaptations of His basic pattern which would fit it to occupy its own niche in the world?

The Bible faithfully reports that “God made the beast of the earth after his kind...and everything that creepeth upon the earth, after his kind: and God saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:25). The Bible also says this same God made man, after His image: made him to occupy the Earth and have rule over its resources; but He intended that man should follow his Maker, loving God and his fellow man, and living in harmony and peace.

The races of man continue to blow our assignment—but we as individuals don’t have to continue down this destructive path. There is a better way, and Jesus Christ is that way. He declared: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me" (John 14:6). Truly, Jesus is the way to life eternal!

The Old Scot (Ted Kyle) lives in Newberg, Oregon with his wife Marga

Sources:
Illustrated Library of Nature, Vol. 1, Introduction: H.S. Stuttman Co., NY, 1971.
(All other information derived from The Encyclopedia Britannica, 15^th Ed., Vols. 7,9,10,14,15,16,17.)