Organs of extreme perfection

One of the books which most impressed the young Darwin was the treatise of theologian William Paley, Natural Theology Or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes oftheDeity, Collectedfrom the Appearances of Nature (1802). The main point was put forward in this way  

In the great class of the Articulata, we may start from an optic nerve simply coated with pigment, the latter sometimes forming a sort ofpupil, but destitute of a lens or other optical contrivance. With insects it is known that the numerous facets on the cornea of their great compound eye form true lenses, and that the cones include curiously modified nervous filaments. But these organs in the Articulata are so much diversified that Muller formerly made three main classes with seven subdivisions, besides a fourth main class of aggregated simple eyes. 

When we reflect on these facts. .. the difficulty ceases to be very great in believing that natural selection may have converted the simple apparatus of an optic nerve, coated with pigment and invested by transparent membrane, into an optical instrument as perfect as is possessed by any member of the Articulate Class.  

Darwin concludes that natural selection can indeed offer another solution to Paley s problem. An organ of extreme perfection can be built quickly from a design, as artisans do, but can also be built slowly by a natural process of selection if aeons of time are available. This conclusion, however, is not an entirely satisfactory one, because the final result is the same and the two solutions appear to be equivalent. Darwin therefore asks himself if there are experimental arguments that allow us to choose between Paley s solution of the Divine Artisan and the solution of natural selection. And he finds one of the most convincing points in the innumerable imperfections that exist even in apparently perfect organs. 

It has been said that there is a paradox in these honours because Darwin did not invent the idea of evolution nor that of natural selection, as he himself openly states in the Historical sketch that he 

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When translational periodicity is lost the dynamical problem becomes very complex since selection rules are removed and all the normal modes may in principle become active in the vibrational optical spectra. The handling of the dynamics of disordered lattices is however of extreme importance especially in the case of polymeric organic materials whose real structure is never perfect even in the ideally best polymer single crystal [43]. 

At one extreme, one has the structural models of perfect crystals, which have long-range positional order for all the atoms (apart thermal motion). A diffraction experiment on a set of such crystals oriented in one direction (corresponding, in most real cases of polymeric materials, to an oriented fiber) would result in a pattern of sharp reflections organized in layer lines. 

Not less wise in His combinations than powerful in His operations, the Creator has established such order in the organic mass of the Universe, that superior things are mixed without confusion with inferior ones, and become similar to them by certain analogy/5 The extremes are very closely bound by an imperceptible mean, or a sacred knot/9 of that adorable Workman, so that all obeys the direction of the Supreme Moderator, while the bond of the different parts can be broken only by Him who has combined them. Hermes was right in saying that that which is below is like that which is above, in order to perfect all the admirable things which we see", (Tabula Smaragdina). 

Order and Mobility are two basic principles of mother nature. The two extremes are realized in the perfect order of crystals with their lack of mobility and in the high mobility of liquids and their lack of order. Both properties are combined in liquid crystalline phases based on the selforganization of formanisotropic molecules. Their importance became more and more visible during the last years in Material science they are a basis of new materials, in Life science they are important for many structure associated functions of biological systems. The main contribution of Polymer science to thermotropic and lyotropic liquid crystals as well as to biomembrane models consists in the fact that macromolecules can stabilize organized systems and at the same time retain mobility. The synthesis, structure, properties and phototunctionalization of polymeric amphiphiles in monolayers and multilayers will be discussed. 

Another particular aspect of organic conductors is the extreme multiplicity of intra- and intermolecular vibrational modes to which the conduction electrons may couple. Then electron-phonon interactions are also of critical importance in the materials under the simple effect of such multiplicity. The electrical resistivity p is found to cover an extraordinary wide range of values, from exactly zero in superconductors below Tc, to more than 1010 fl cm in the most perfect insulators. 

For K-(ET)2l3 no beating of the SdH or dHvA signal was observed even for the lowest fields where oscillations were seen. This proves the extremely 2D character of this organic superconductor. As an upper limit for the transfer integral t the extraordinary small value oit/ep < 1/5000 can be estimated. This almost perfectly 2D electronic structure might be the reason for the unusual behavior of the SdH and dHvA oscillations, especially for the field dependence of the effective mass at higher fields where the 3D Lifshitz-Kosevich theory no longer works. 

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