A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve.
Author
Summary, in English
Theoretical considerations of eye design allow us to find routes along which the optical structures of eyes may have evolved. If selection constantly favours an increase in the amount of detectable spatial information, a light-sensitive patch will gradually turn into a focused lens eye through continuous small improvements of design. An upper limit for the number of generations required for the complete transformation can be calculated with a minimum of assumptions. Even with a consistently pessimistic approach the time required becomes amazingly short: only a few hundred thousand years.
Publishing year
1994
Language
English
Pages
53-58
Publication/Series
Royal Society of London. Proceedings B. Biological Sciences
Volume
256
Issue
1345
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Royal Society Publishing
Topic
- Zoology
Keywords
- evolution
- Eye
Status
Published
Research group
- Lund Vision Group
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1471-2954