Ep 78: Eyes
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Eyes
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To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances… could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree… Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist… and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered a real1.
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Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
Darwin included a section in his book, “On the Origin of Species,” called, “Problems With the Theory.” It included the Cambrian explosion, covered in the previous episode, and the development of complex organs like the eye. Today, using things we’ve learned since Darwin’s time, we look at how eyes evolved.
Here are a number of articles with further information.
Evolution: Library: Evolution of the Eye
Evolution of the vertebrate eye: opsins, photoreceptors, retina and eye cup