The Evolution of Eyes Began With One
The New York Times • • science
Key Points:
- New research suggests that vertebrate eyes evolved from a single, central eye in invertebrate ancestors around 560 million years ago, which later split into two eyes.
- Charles Darwin was deeply intrigued and somewhat troubled by the complexity of the vertebrate eye, seeing it as a significant challenge to his theory of evolution.
- Darwin found support in the variety of simpler eye structures in invertebrates, which demonstrated a possible evolutionary progression from basic light detection to complex eyes.
- Despite Darwin’s reasoning, some critics, including creationists in the 1990s, argued that natural selection would require billions of years to evolve an eye, a timeframe longer than life has existed on Earth.
