http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/99/3/1426

...for those who are interested. Suffice it to say that Hirsch's characterization of the article, with a quote:

"Regularly new papers come out in leading research journals that throw doubt on the validity of the Darwinian explanations. Here is one from the February 5, 2002, issue of Publications of the National Academy of Sciences (starting on page 1426) that demonstrates how inadequate the Darwinian theories can be: Title: "Molecular phylogenetic evidence for the independent evolutionary origin of an arthropod compound eye" The abstract ends: "These results illustrate exactly why arthropod compound eye evolution has remained controversial, because one of two seemingly very unlikely evolutionary histories must be true. Either compound eyes with detailed similarities evolved multiple times in different arthropod groups or compound eyes have been lost in a seemingly inordinate number of arthropod lineages." Results like these have increased interest in alternatives to Darwinism, including intelligent design."

...is entirely misleading, although par for the course for IDist treatments of the scientific literature. The article is about whether or not compound eyes have evolved multiple times in separate groups of arthropods (this would mean that compound eyes evolved from simple eyes independently in several groups), and the authors are really talking about one specific subgroup, the ostracods, which have until recently received only limited study. Hirsch hasn't told us readers the conclusion of Oakley & Cunningham, which is a strong endorsement of the independent origins of compound eyes in arthropods. The first paragraph of the authors' conclusion:

"Our very well supported molecular phylogeny unequivocally indicates that the only ostracods with compound eyes are phylogenetically nested within several groups that lack these eyes altogether. These results indicate one of two possibilities, either arthropod compound eyes have originated more than once or compound eyes were actually lost in several ostracod lineages. ML methods of character reconstruction strongly favor the independent origin hypothesis."

"ML methods" are what the authors use to test and reject the multiple loss hypothesis, which was the other option. So, the authors conclude that, at least for the ostracods (they don't address the question of any other arthropod groups, which might share compound eyes with a common ancestor), compound eyes originated independently, and therefore compound eyes have originated independently at least twice (minimum: the ostracods and everyone else). In the conclusion they also cite several detailed morphological traits of ostracod eyes that favor independent evolution, which means that the "seemingly unlikely" possibility of "detailed similarities" evolving independently in fact does not have much force in the case of the ostracod compound eye.

The evolution of complex features sounds like perfectly normal evolutionary science to me.

-- Nic Tamzek, Grad student, University of California (posted 2/7, 1:55 p.m., U.S. Eastern time)

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