4 ms·

Or maybe these are all just "myths", ie. not still fully understood? Eg. the retina: https://theconversation.com/look-your-eyes-are-wired-backwards-heres-why-3

• scott_s 11y ago
  Steven Novella, of the Skeptics Guide, responded to that research in a way that made sense to me: http://www.theskepticsguide.org/scientists-propose-incorrect-origin-of-backwards-eye http://www.theskepticsguide.org/scientists-propose-incorrect... Basically, just because we found some mechanism which compensates for the arrangement does not mean that we found the cause for the arrangement. The cause is more likely to be an evolutionary local maximum.
• SilasX 11y ago
  That seems to address a subtlety about the layers of the retina, unrelated to the (bigger) problem of the optic nerve unnecessarily punching through the retina, leaving a blind spot that can't pick up light. This feature/bug is absent in cephalids with no corresponding downside. The human optic nerve structure makes more sense as being an artifact of path dependence and the "local improvement constraint" than it being (more) globally optimal in design space.
• refurb 11y ago
  This kind of reminds me of the idea of "junk DNA". 20 years ago, 90% of our DNA didn't code for specific proteins, so it was labelled "junk". Fast forward 20 years and folks suddenly realize it does play a role in DNA expression.