Page 150 - The Cambrian Evidence that Darwin Failed to Comprehend

The Cambrian Evidence That Darwin Failed to Comprehend

did not actually ignore the laws of physics at all. On the contrary, it
overcame any indistinctness thanks to a plan based on those same
laws. Riccardo Levi-Setti solved the mystery of how this happened.
The trilobite was an ideal subject of research for Levi-Setti, a
professor of physics at Chicago University and also a fossil hunter.
He was familiar with fossil trilobites and, using his knowledge of
physics, he made a most interesting scientific discovery. The trilobite
lens had a similar structure to the optical constructions worked out
by Descartes and Huygens in the 17th century. 112 Levi-Setti pub-
lished his findings together with his paleontologist colleague Euan
Clarkson from Edinburgh University. In later years, he turned his re-
search into trilobites into a book.
René Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician.
Christiaan Huygens was a Dutch astronomer and physicist. Both
carried out physical and mathematical investigations into the refrac-
tion of light, and investigated the ideal shape of telescope lenses.
Thanks to two mathematical functions with four variables that each
discovered independently of the other, they played a major role in
the development of better telescopes, and thus advanced the science
of optics. However, they were quite unaware that they were using
lenses based on the same mathematical principle that trilobites had
been employing, millions of years before the science of op-
tics was ever dreamed of.
Niles Eldredge, a prominent evolutionist and
curator of the Department of Invertebrates,
American Museum of Natural History,
summarized this astonishing state of af-
fairs:

These lenses—technically termed aspheri-
cal, aplanatic lenses—optimize both light
collecting and image formation better than any

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