Page 156 - The Cambrian Evidence that Darwin Failed to Comprehend

The Cambrian Evidence That Darwin Failed to Comprehend

As you have seen, the trilobite’s lens structure, the material of
which its lens units were made and the connecting interfaces were
just as they needed to be. Moreover, these features were made pos-
sible by their being in complete agreement with the laws of physics
and optics, and being applied in a perfect fashion. In his article
Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology, the paleontologist David
M. Raup writes:
But if we look at the individual elements of the trilobite eye, we find
that the lens systems were very different from what we now have.
Riccardo Levi-Setti has recently done some spectacular work on the
optics of these lens systems . . . The shape is nearly identical to designs
published independently by Descartes and Huygens in the seven-
teenth century. The Descartes and Huygens designs had the purpose
of avoiding spherical aberration and were what is known as splenetic
lenses. The only significant difference between them and the trilobite
lens is that the Descartes and Huygens lenses were not doublets—that
is, they did not have the lower lens. But, as Levi-Setti has shown, for
these designs to work underwater where the trilobite lived, the lower
lens was necessary. 118

The Trilobite Eye Is a Marvel of Creation

The trilobite eye’s exceedingly complex structure exhibits the
most perfect details. Its components are linked to one another with
the most sensitive arrangements, which makes the eye a fully func-
tioning whole. These arrangements reveal a whole chain of miracles:
The lenses are specially made out of calcite and chitin, and the re-
fractive indexes of the two substances are perfectly compatible. Had
there been some other substance besides chitin beneath the lens,
then this perfect focusing would not be possible. Or if the calcite
were in another form than crystalline, the lenses would not be trans-

154