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Heh interesting argument for color blindness as an optimisation rather than a disability. Does anyone know if short-sightedness/long-sightedness results in a c

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.

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.