Ok I get we all look at small letters and images on screens and paper these days. Is this why in the last 150 years or so millions and millions of humans need spectacles? Is it because we are meant to be looking at things from a distance rather than nearby so our eyes haven’t caught up?
In: Biology
We are primates. We evolved to pick coloured fruits out of trees and tubers out of the ground – we need close up vision – hence people are nearsighted.
We also typically didn’t breed into our old age – reading glasses become required around age 40, and therefore the need for reading glasses is not influenced by evolution. Evolution rewards traits that lead to increased breeding – anything that happens after breeding age is largely irrelevant to evolution.
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