Amazing Eyes Designed by God
Humans are fascinated by eyes. They attract our attention so much that many women put extra time into making sure their eyes look as good as they can. Eyes are a work of art, and where there is art, there must be an artist that made it!
The human eye is a complex machine that could not have evolved.
It had to have been designed. The cornea (KOR-nee-uh) is the clear dome structure on the front of the eye that is used to focus light as it enters the eye. The iris (EYE-rus) is the colorful part of the eye, and the black circle in the middle is called the pupil (PEW-pull).
The iris controls how large the pupil is, which is the hole that allows different amounts of light to enter it. The pupil can get bigger or smaller to allow more or less light in. After going through the pupil, the light reaches the lens, which focuses the light through a gel onto the back of the eye where there is a layer of tissue called the retina. The lens is able to adjust its shape in order to allow you to focus on something closer or farther away. The retina converts light rays into signals that are sent out of the back of the eye through the optic nerve to the brain, where the brain can translate the signals into images. Does that sound complicated to you? Keep in mind, that description is only the simplified basics of the eye: it is way more complicated than that. Would it be logical to say that such a complicated machine could accidentally happen without planning?
Do you think it makes sense that evolution could accidentally, and at the same time, develop the eye, including the cornea, iris, pupil, lens, retina, and optic nerve, and the ability of those objects to communicate with each other? If evolution were true, then eyes had to accidentally evolve over time. But what would happen to the first pair of eyes if they did not already have all of those features installed and functioning? If the eye was not yet functioning at the beginning (before it finished “evolving”), it would have been pointless. If it was pointless, it would have been “selected” against by nature and been removed from the body as waste. Obviously, that did not happen, so evolution did not happen. The fact that we have working eyes proves that they, along with everything they need to work properly, were designed by an amazing Engineer: God. Human eyes may be amazing, but they are certainly not the only amazing, well-designed eyes on the planet:
Cats and crocodiles:
Cats and crocodiles both have night vision and eyes that have vertical-slit pupils, allowing them to determine how far away their prey is before they pounce on it. Crocodile eyes have a special pigment that acts as sunglasses for the croc during the day, but which decreases at night, strengthening light rays onto the retina, giving them night vision.
Jumping Spiders:
Jumping spiders, with their eight eyes, have nearly 360 degrees of vision—they can see behind them! Their main eyes on the front of their heads are used to see detail, and their smaller eyes are used to track motion.
Chameleons:
Chameleons’ eyes can move and look in different directions independently at the same time.
Fiddler Crab:
Fiddler crab eyes rest on stalks that stick up from their bodies like antenna that allow them to see all around them, including above them, like a periscope in a submarine.
Cuttlefish:
Though they are colorblind and live deep in the ocean where there is little light, cuttlefish are perfectly suited for their life in the sea. The reason is that their pupils can form a “W,” which gives them the special ability to view the polarized light that is used as a camouflage by other animals.
Goats and Sheep:
Goats and sheep have horizontal, box-like pupils, allowing them to better scan the horizon and the ground as they search for and run from predators.
Frogs:
Frogs have three eyelids: two that are transparent (see-through), and one that is semi-transparent (or partly transparent), called the nictitating (NIK-tuh-TATE-eeng) membrane. The nictitating membrane can shut while the frog is underwater, protecting its eyes but allowing it to still see.
Owls:
Though they cannot move their eyes, owls can turn their heads 270 degrees in one direction and 270 degrees in the other direction, giving them 540 degrees of rotational ability (compared to humans, who have roughly 160 degrees of rotation).
Hammerhead Sharks:
Hammerhead sharks, with their strange heads and eye position, have “stereo vision” like humans. Each eye has a different view of an object that, when put together, gives the shark great depth perception.
Leaf-Tailed Geckos:
The eyes of leaf-tailed geckos are well designed to be able to detect low light: 350 times more sensitive than humans, to be exact. If dirt gets in the way of their amazing vision, a quick swipe of the tongue cleans their eyes like a windshield wiper. (Imagine being able to lick your own eye!
MANTIS SHRIMP:
Considered by some scientists to have the most amazing eyes of the animal kingdom, Mantis shrimp may be “shrimpy,” but their eyes have 12 different color receptors compared to the three that humans have. That difference allows them to see colors that humans cannot.
DRAGONFLIES:
Like Mantis shrimp, dragonflies can see more colors than can humans. They can even see ultraviolet light, which humans cannot see. They, like Mantis shrimp, also have compound eyes, which are each made up of 30,000 differently-faced, hexagonal-shaped ommatidia (AW-muh-TIH-dee-uh)—basically, cameras that each send the brain their own picture. The brain of the dragonfly combines all of those pictures into one image. The image is not as clear as the image our eyes are able to send to the brain, but compound eyes allow creatures to see a lot more of the world around them in one glance than can humans. Compound eyes also allow creatures to detect really fast movement that we cannot pick up on easily—which is why it is so hard to catch or swat flying insects. Incoming hands are in “slow motion” from the dragonfly’s perspective! Check out the video link in this issue to learn even more about the amazing visual system of the dragonfly.
There is no doubt that eyes were designed. 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
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