EYE-volution or Cr-EYE-tion?

Have you ever felt a gust of wind hit your eyes? Did you tear up afterwards? This is an amazing design feature of the body's temperature system that protects your eyes. Could evolution have caused such a feature?

Located in the corneas of your eyes are thermoreceptors (thur-moh-ree-SEP-ters), which just happen to be able to check the temperature of the liquid in your eyes. They just happen to be able to send that temperature information to your hypothalamus (hi-po-THAL-uh-mus) in your brain. They send that information along special pathways that just happen to connect the thermoreceptors to the brain, called effector (ee-FECT-er) nerves. The brain just happens to be able to figure out what to do with that information. If the temperature is too cold, it just happens to decide to send a message back to the eyes to tell the tear ducts to make tears—warm liquid that will heat your eyes and protect them. That's a lot of thinking, purpose, and decision making that had to come about by mindless evolution that just "happened," don't you think?

Do you think it makes sense that evolution could accidentally, all of a sudden one day, simultaneously develop the entire tear system, including the corneas, effector nerves, thermoreceptors, tear ducts, hypothalamus, and the ability of those objects to communicate with each other? Or does it seem more reasonable that those items were designed by an Engineer with a purpose in mind for those things when they were created?

Eyes are so amazing that engineers in Illinois studied them to figure out how they can see such a wide view with a single glance. Then they designed a special camera in the shape of the human eye. They discovered that by using the design of the eye for their camera, they were able to take wide-angle pictures without the image being messed up—just like the human eye can.

Now why would anyone design something based on an evolutionary accident? It makes more sense that designers designed this special camera because they saw an amazingdesign that they wanted to copy. And where there is design, there is always a designer. Truly, "the hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made them both" (Proverbs 20:12).

---

Copyright © 2014 Apologetics Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

*Please keep in mind that Discovery articles are written for 3rd-6th graders.

This document may be copied, on the condition that it will not be republished in print unless otherwise stated below, and will not be used for any commercial purpose, as long as the following stipulations are observed: (1) Apologetics Press must be designated as the original publisher; (2) the specific Apologetics Press Web site URL must be noted; (3) any references, footnotes, or endnotes that accompany the article must be included with any written reproduction of the article; (4) textual alterations of any kind are strictly forbidden; (5) Some illustrations (e.g., photographs, charts, graphics, etc.) are not the intellectual property of Apologetics Press and as such cannot be reproduced from our site without consent from the person or organization that maintains those intellectual rights; (6) serialization of written material (e.g., running an article in several parts) is permitted, as long as the whole of the material is made available, without editing, in a reasonable length of time; (7) articles, in whole or in part, may not be offered for sale or included in items offered for sale; and (8) articles may be reproduced in electronic form for posting on Web sites pending they are not edited or altered from their original written content and that credit is given to Apologetics Press, including the web location from which the articles were taken. Further, documents may not be copied without source statements (title, author, journal title), and the address of the publisher and owner of rights, as listed below.

For catalog, samples, or further information, contact:

Apologetics Press
230 Landmark Drive
Montgomery, Alabama 36117
U.S.A.
Phone (334) 272-8558

http://www.apologeticspress.org