The human eye is a marvel of design.  It bears all the hallmarks of being intelligently designed with irreducible complexity, and defies any evolutionary interpretation. 

Advancements in digital photography over the last several decades are truly amazing.  Cameras of high quality and resolution now come standard in most smartphones.  But there is an extremely versatile and innovative camera that is far superior to anything else on the market.  This amazing device can capture both still images and video with unprecedented clarity and unrivaled color-depth.  It has the capacity to automatically adjust its focus from infinity down to an inch in less than one second.  This camera has a night-vision (greyscale) mode capable of detecting light from galaxies over two million lightyears away.  But it can also be used during the day in conditions that are trillions of times brighter.  It is highly portable, being less than one inch in size, and weighing only 28 grams.

The innovative device has an automatic aperture adjustment to accommodate rapid changes in light conditions, and an automatic gain control for slower transitions.  The camera is self-cleaning and requires no batteries or any external maintenance.  It even has a limited ability to repair itself when damaged!  If properly cared for, it is guaranteed to operate flawlessly and continuously for over 40 years, and with some minor reduction in quality for an additional 80 years!    How much would you pay for such a camera?  If you are a healthy adult, you already have two.  And they have been installed in your face, and connected to your brain for free – all courtesy of the Lord.

The human eye is a marvel of design.  It bears all the hallmarks of being intelligently designed with irreducible complexity, and defies any evolutionary interpretation.  Although human technology has now advanced to the point that we can have cameras that actually exceed human vision in one or two aspects, no manmade camera rivals the versatility of the human eye.

Cameras and Lenses

A camera is a defined as a device that consists of a lightproof chamber with an aperture fitted with a lens, through which light from an object forms an image onto a projected surface.  You can make a primitive camera with a lens and a blank sheet of paper.  Hold the lens at a distance from the paper equal to the focal length of the lens, and an image of any bright distant object will appear on the paper.  This works best under very dark conditions with the camera pointing at something bright, such as the full moon at night.  The image that forms on the paper will be upside down compared to the object.

In physics, a lens is anything that bends the path of light rays, bringing them to (or from) a common focus (the location where they intersect).  A magnifying glass is a great example.    The light rays coming from the sun are approximately parallel.  When they pass through a magnifying glass, these rays are bent so that they intersect at the focal point, some distance away from the lens.  This is the small bright spot that appears below the magnifying glass – it is actually a tiny image of the sun.

In a store-bought camera, the image falls upon a light-sensing surface.  In older cameras, that substance was photographic film.  The film was chemically altered by exposure to light and then “developed” to form a physical picture.  In most modern cameras, the surface is a device that converts photons (particles of light) into electrical charges which can be stored and transmitted to a computer and displayed on a monitor.  This is basically how a digital camera works.

Anatomy of the Eye

The human eye fits the definition of a camera.  It has a component that bends light (actually two components that do this) forming an image on the retina – the back internal surface of the eye.  Some of the cells on the retina are photosensitive; the light triggers a chemical reaction within them which is transmitted electro-chemically to other cells, and then to others, along the optic nerve, with the signal eventually reaching the brain.  The brain interprets these signals by which we perceive the color and shape of the object that emitted or reflected the light.  Each part of the eye is interdependent with all the other parts, meaning that the human eye could not have evolved in a piecemeal fashion.

When you look at your own eye in a mirror, three parts are immediately visible.  The central black circle is called the pupil.  It is actually transparent, but since the interior of the eye is quite dark, the pupil appears black.  Surrounding the pupil is the iris.  The iris is the colored part of the eye.  So, when we talk of someone having blue eyes or brown eyes, this refers to the iris.  The outer white region is called the sclera.  Covering the sclera is a thin mucous membrane called the conjunctiva.  The conjunctiva lubricates the eye and eyelids, and also helps prevent microbes from entering the eye.

The pupil is where light passes through the eye to form an image on the retina.  The pupil is sometimes called the “apple of the eye”, a phrase that occurs in some English translations of the Bible (e.g. Deuteronomy 32:10; Psalm 17:8; Proverbs 7:2).  The pupil is very sensitive and it is nearly impossible to touch your own pupil without reflexively blinking.  It is guarded as something very precious.  Hence, the phrase “apple of my eye” came to mean something very precious and carefully guarded – such as the way God protects His people (Deuteronomy 32:10; Zechariah 2:8).

The iris surrounds the pupil and contains muscles that allow it to contract or dilate, thereby changing the size of the pupil.  This regulates the amount of light that can pass through the pupil, allowing the eye to rapidly adjust to changing light conditions.  It is the same as the aperture setting on a manmade camera.  You need not worry about the aperture setting of your eyes – they adjust automatically.  When exposed to bright light, the pupil becomes small.  This not only reduces the light striking the retina, but also increases depth of field (meaning both nearby and distant objects appear in focus) which partly compensates for any defects in the shape of the cornea or lens.  Conversely, under dark conditions when clarity is not as critical, the pupils dilate to allow maximum light to enter.  The retina also becomes more sensitive to light under dark conditions.  Thus, the human eye can see under very bright conditions or very dark conditions with a brightness range in excess of 12 trillion![1]

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