What a marvel the human eye is! Even Darwin hesitated with his theory when he considered it. He wrote, "To suppose the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I confess, absurd in the highest degree." [1]

Light travels to the eye at the rate of 186,000 miles per second. It first goes through the clear cornea which helps to focus the light. It passes through the aqueous humor, a clear watery fluid which keeps constant pressure in the eye. It then continues through the iris, the colored part of the eye. Circular muscle within the iris contracts or dilates it, regulating the amount of light that enters. The light next hits the lens which focuses the image on the retina at the back of the eye.

The retina is less than one square inch in size. It contains 100,000,000 rods which pick up light, helping especially at night. The retina also contains 7,000,000 cones, cells which distinguish a thousand shades of color. 107,000,000 highly specialized cells in an area less than one square inch!

These cells change light into electrical signals that are sent through the optic nerve to the brain at 300 miles per hour. The rods and cones and optic nerve and brain handle more than a million messages "simultaneously" in the above manner. What we see is upside down on the retina, reinterpreted in the brain, and "turned right side up."

The image of this screen that you see is a result of that reception/transmission process. Now look to your left. You immediately saw the image of what was there. The colors, the detail, the shadows were all part of that process.

Consider the design of the protection of the eye. The nose, the cheekbone below, and the ridge of the skull above the eye form a protective ring around it. Eyelashes, like windshield wipers, reflexively blink in a fraction of a second to protect from foreign matter. The thin layer of moisture continually lubricates the cornea.

What use are the rods and cones without the optic nerve? What good would all that be without the brain? If there are no lens and no cornea for focus, then those other delicately designed parts are of no value. And, none of that would be of use for long without the blood vessels that bring nutrients to the retina. Suppose there is no lubrication of the eye? No protection?

Robert Jastrow, agnostic, ardent evolutionist wrote, "The eye is a marvelous instrument, resembling a telescope of the highest quality, with a lens, an adjustable focus, a variable diaphragm for controlling the amount of light, and optical corrections for spherical and chromatic aberration. The eye appears to have been designed; no designer of telescopes could have done better. How could this marvelous instrument have evolved by chance, through a succession of random events?" [2]

The answer is: it did not happen by stupid chance. It was designed - by God.

References:

1. Benjamin Farrington. What Darwin Really Said. (New York: Schocken Books, 1982), pp.48-49.

2. Robert Jastrow. The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981), pp.96-97.

Links:

http://www.eyedesignbook.com/index.html
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2583