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We have been discussing this article on our work ListServ since it came out on Wired this afternoon (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/colortherapy/ htt

by skolor 17y ago

We have been discussing this article on our work ListServ since it came out on Wired this afternoon (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/colortherapy/ http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/colortherapy/). The conversation turned rather quickly to whether or not those of us who were color blind would take the treatment if it was available. The three of us (out of ~20 people) who were color blind had rather different answers. One guy fell in the middle, he wasn't quite sure one way or the other. The other guy is leaning towards the treatment, primarily because art plays a large roll in his life. I feel that I would not take the treatment. From what I can tell, being color blind seems to be more of an advantage than a disadvantage for me. While color is nice, it doesn't seem particularly useful in my life. On the other hand, the tendency to notice textures and patterns over the color they are in has frequently been useful to me. I notice movement faster (due to the texture changing, but not the colors), and I notice small differences easier. I would really like to see how other people weigh in on the issue.

nopassrecover 17y ago
Heh interesting argument for color blindness as an optimisation rather than a disability. Does anyone know if short-sightedness/long-sightedness results in a corresponding benefit to the opposite-sightedness?
- ghshephard 17y ago
  Yes - I have (correctable) Myopia. Anything more than about 20' out starts to get blurry. But, I run Terminal.App on my 17" MBP (1920x1200) resolution at Courier 10 point with zero eye strain. That lets me stack up Three (3) 80x24 Terminals on the right side of my LCD and use up only about 15-20% of my horizontal width . I don't drive, so the distance vision doesn't make much of a difference, but for someone who works in front of an LCD for 12+ hours a day, being able to fully utilize my LCD is a major bonus - I wouldn't trade that for being able to see stuff 20' out.
- skolor 17y ago
  You have to figure: Color Blindness is a recessive trait (at least in humans, I don't know about other species). In order for it to survive, and even increase in expression over the course of human evolution, it has to carry with it some benefits (admittedly, it is also carried on the X chromosome, which has found to be highly linked to IQ). You also find color blindness in several species of animals, particularly those that are predators. To be honest, it isn't an optimization. Its a trade off, that has benefits. An example would be being able to see infra-red light. You would be able to see more colors, which comes with all sorts of advantages (distance the color carries, how well it reflects, what it reflects off of, etc), but the trade off would be you would be even worse off when looking at a pattern. For whatever reason, the human brain (at least, this may be true for other species) considers color to encode quite a bit of information, and it is quite high up on the list of things to process.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    It doesn't have to have a benefit to survive. It just has to not be enough of a hindrance to prevent successful procreation before death. Think of things which are obviously genetic and also obviously not beneficial, such as near-sightedness or teeth mis-alignment.

by skolor 17y ago

nopassrecover 17y ago

Heh interesting argument for color blindness as an optimisation rather than a disability. Does anyone know if short-sightedness/long-sightedness results in a corresponding benefit to the opposite-sightedness?

ghshephard 17y ago
Yes - I have (correctable) Myopia. Anything more than about 20' out starts to get blurry. But, I run Terminal.App on my 17" MBP (1920x1200) resolution at Courier 10 point with zero eye strain. That lets me stack up Three (3) 80x24 Terminals on the right side of my LCD and use up only about 15-20% of my horizontal width . I don't drive, so the distance vision doesn't make much of a difference, but for someone who works in front of an LCD for 12+ hours a day, being able to fully utilize my LCD is a major bonus - I wouldn't trade that for being able to see stuff 20' out.
skolor 17y ago
You have to figure: Color Blindness is a recessive trait (at least in humans, I don't know about other species). In order for it to survive, and even increase in expression over the course of human evolution, it has to carry with it some benefits (admittedly, it is also carried on the X chromosome, which has found to be highly linked to IQ). You also find color blindness in several species of animals, particularly those that are predators. To be honest, it isn't an optimization. Its a trade off, that has benefits. An example would be being able to see infra-red light. You would be able to see more colors, which comes with all sorts of advantages (distance the color carries, how well it reflects, what it reflects off of, etc), but the trade off would be you would be even worse off when looking at a pattern. For whatever reason, the human brain (at least, this may be true for other species) considers color to encode quite a bit of information, and it is quite high up on the list of things to process.
- scott_s 17y ago
  It doesn't have to have a benefit to survive. It just has to not be enough of a hindrance to prevent successful procreation before death. Think of things which are obviously genetic and also obviously not beneficial, such as near-sightedness or teeth mis-alignment.