Darwin anticipated by 150 years arguments that modern day advocates of intelligent design would make that “organs of extreme perfection and complication”, like the eye, could not have been made through natural selection, but must have been specially created. Actually, the idea of intelligent design is not new, but goes back at least to British Philosopher William Paley’s 1802 book entitled Natural Philosophy, with which Darwin was familiar. In the Origin, Darwin presents a scenario for the evolution of the eye, from a light-sensitive nerve imparting some advantage to the animal, through intermediate stages gradually to a more complex light sensitive organ. Since publication of the Origin, research on the evolution of the eye has in fact filled in details of this transition, confirming Darwin’s hypothesis.
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