Time spent outdoors is the best defence against rising rates of short-sightedness, but scientists are searching for other ways to reverse the troubling trend.
This goes against everything I thought I understood about natural selection and evolution.
My understanding was that evolution is based on small, random mutations in genes, occurring constantly, and any beneficial changes will most likely cause that individual to thrive better than others, causing nature to “select” that gene.
But the notion that our eyes would “respond to the environment” and somehow cause the next generation to also have myopia… Wouldn’t that necessitate that our eyes have some sort of feedback loop that connects to our reproductive system so that we can pass that on? I don’t see any other way around other than this occurring from the lack of natural selection.
This goes against everything I thought I understood about natural selection and evolution.
My understanding was that evolution is based on small, random mutations in genes, occurring constantly, and any beneficial changes will most likely cause that individual to thrive better than others, causing nature to “select” that gene.
But the notion that our eyes would “respond to the environment” and somehow cause the next generation to also have myopia… Wouldn’t that necessitate that our eyes have some sort of feedback loop that connects to our reproductive system so that we can pass that on? I don’t see any other way around other than this occurring from the lack of natural selection.