No, it is not. Near-sighted does not mean you are better at seeing close-up than "perfect" sight, it means you are worse at seeing far away. It has no upside.
What, exactly, do you think I wrote that contradicts Wikipedias pages here? Either you misread me, or you misread Wikipedia, or you failed to put two and two together here.
It's certainly useful to be able to look at a PCB etc from 4" away without needing artificial aids. It may not seem that way to someone who can't, but it's something I do very frequently.
I do the same thing. When I had surgery for cataracts, I had the choice of the distance which would be in focus without glasses. Most people choose infinity, and wear glasses for close up. I chose the opposite, clear focus at 15 to 20 inches, need glasses for distance. Serves me well.
Joe Gwinn
.. . . or not.
RL
There's one other requirement for evolution. To get from A to B often requires many changes to the genome. The likelihood of more than one happening at a time is very slight indeed each change has to be survivable, or maybe even more than that, in no way a detriment. Since the multiple changes are most likely not to happen close in time, any mutation that reduces the chances of survival will likely be eliminated from the gene pool. So each step must be at least in no way harmful. Then the multiple steps can happen, spread over time with the combination finally happening by chance, giving a large improvement.
Generally true.
Actually, not relevant. The point of evolutionary theory is that randomness is sufficient, and intelligence is not required.
There is no such requirement in evolutionary theory. In fact, far more is done by the million monkeys madly cutting and pasting. This was discussed at length here in March-April 2021 in the S.E.D. thread "cool book".
Viruses do not possess a nervous system, never mind a brain, so cannot be deliberate. They just randomly poke until they find a chink in the armor. And the host randomly pokes back. Forever.
Just to muddy the picture, it turns out that the rate of random poking is under genetic control, and many microscopic critters will increase the rate when under lethal stress. In one to few cell critters, this is often achieved by choosing a sloppier RNA or DNA copy mechanism, or by suppressing various error repair mechanisms. But there is no agency there - one of those many pokes resulted in the temporary switch to fast and sloppy, and more critters with that algorithm survived than those without.
Joe Gwinn
First problem: this is a science paper, it doesn't relate to 'dogma' which would clearly not be part of any science. Second, 'neo-Darwinism' is a mythical entity that evolution denialists claim infects... well, everyone except themselves.
Randomness in an ideal gas is a good assumption, but van der Waals rules are about some nonrandom corrections. One doesn't invalidate a good assumption when it is superseded, one just tacks on a few improvements. Neither the original assumptions, nor any amendments, are dogma.
whitless IDIOT puked: ==================
** Just add a little vinegar and olive oil, plus a sprinkle of black pepper - and you will have a perfect word salad......... Phil
You've got to add under-informed Phil to the mix to make it a word salad. Better -informed people can understand what he was saying even if Phil struggles.
Being able to see well close-up is useful. But that is not "near-sighted" - it is simply "not far-sighted". Being near-sighted means you can /only/ see near things - it doesn't mean you can see them better than people with perfect vision.
(The majority of people, of course, do not have perfect vision.)
Being quite myopic (near/short sighted) means my 'natural' relaxed focus is about 100mm or 4" from my eyes. That means I can look at close things for as long as I like without strain, though I do have to close one eye.
If I use both eyes, there's considerable strain pointing them both to the same place, and that is what someone without myopia would experience. I don't claim to see close things 'better' in the sense of visual acuity, just very much more easily and comfortably.
We already are for certain genetic disorders where the correct functioning gene can be inserted into the relevant cells locally to correct a problem but without altering any of the germ line cells.
Cystic fibrosis is another genetic disease where an inhaler based gene editing repair looks to be possible and effective in the near future:
Too many things can go wrong - we do it to livestock and laboratory animals though. ISTR a rogue Chinese scientist has done it to one or more human embryos and was pilloried for it inside and outside China.
To me "insert into the genome" implies the germ cell lines.
I remember that case. I don't count it as "... to our benefit", since that is unproven.
Nonetheless, I take your points.
That's not unreasonable. There's a big difference between claiming or believing that a near-sighted person can see /better/ - more accurately, finer detail, better focus - and saying you can look closer for longer with less strain.
In modern society, being near-sighted or far-sighted is not much of a problem. It doesn't really make a huge difference if you need to wear glasses (or contact lenses) to read, watch TV, or whatever. But being near-sighted is not an overall advantage, even for an electronics engineer - you rarely have to spend a long enough time staring at small details for strain to be a problem. On the other hand, without glasses you'd quickly have a problem with driving (or if you are as near-sighted as I am, walking about the office would be dangerous without glasses or lenses!). If anyone says they are glad they are short-sighted and not normal sighted, you would not believe them.
While human evolution is continuous and thus has gradually adapted since we started living in settled societies, it usually makes sense to consider hunter-gatherer lifestyles on the plains of Africa when talking about evolutionary advantages. It only takes a quick look at a berry or mushroom to determine if it is safe to eat - but you need to stare at the horizon for hours looking for prey and predators. Near-sightedness is clearly a major disadvantage - not a balance or something with pros and cons, such as the sickle-cell gene. It is a genetic mistake, and one of countless examples of how we know there is no "intelligence" behind our "design". (Myopia is not a single genetic fault, and there are environmental influences too, but the genetic components are vital.)
If evolution worked "intelligently", and moved steadily towards evolving useful traits and removing bad traits, as some people here seem to believe, we would have no myopia.
A bit of maple syrup is great in salad dressing. And some fine chopped garlic.
Accommodation is reduced as one ages. It goes to zero after the usual cataract surgery. At that point, you get to pick your focal lengths. I went for 8" and 20".
That's what the general interpretation might be, but it's not true. You can be short-sighted simply by the radial muscles of the eye being unable to pull the lens into a flatter shape to accommodate for distant objects. Now consider that on top of weaker radial muscles, the circular muscle is contracting unusually powerfully and is compressing the lens into an even rounder shape, thus effectively turning it into a strong magnifying glass.
Many years ago I knew a guy who was the electronics "engineer" for a company. He fixed faulty lab equipment, rather than designed it. He wore the thickest glasses I have ever seen; he told me that he was on the border of being officially blind, as he was so short-sighted. However, when it came to finding the smallest break in a printed circuit track he had no equal. He would hold the board less than an inch from his eye, and move it around until he found the break. I once watched him do this, and when he found the break he "showed" me where it was. I couldn't see it without a magnifying glass.
When I was a kid, I could focus on the end of my own nose.
You're all hung up on the macro-viewpoin when more humane people concentrate on the micro-viewpoint. of things
well, maybe the near sighted men had to stay home and "take care" of the women while the normal vision men went hunting and that how it stayed in the gene pool ;)
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.