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Feb 26 2012 03:16pm
Quote (lone500 @ Feb 26 2012 02:57pm)
i must have had superior predecessors then since they werent afraid of the dark.


lulz

Badassery has not been proven to be an inheritable trait :P
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Feb 27 2012 01:00am
It would make sense that early humans had significantly better night vision.
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Feb 27 2012 01:11am
Quote (russian @ Feb 27 2012 02:00am)
It would make sense that early humans had significantly better night vision.


if by make sense you mean defy evolution completely...then yes it would make sense.
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Feb 27 2012 11:58am
Quote (Subwoofer @ Feb 27 2012 12:11am)
if by make sense you mean defy evolution completely...then yes it would make sense.


You probably don't know what evolution is, beyond it being a fancy word you read on these forums.
But as amazing as it may seem to you, nocturnal to diurnal evolution (and vice versa) has been shown to happen in many species of primates (and some other creatures too, for that matter).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19003895
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...we find that the pattern of variation within and among primate groups in eye size, corneal size, retinal morphology, and opsin distribution are all consistent with the idea that there is considerable evolutionary flexibility in the visual system. These results suggest that primate lineages may evolve from diurnal to nocturnal, and vice versa, more readily and more rapidly than has been suggested by the use of strict parsimony models.



http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090518213952.htm
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...to better understand how the nocturnal owl monkeys developed retinas with many more rod cells than cones, while capuchin monkeys, which are active during the day (diurnal), developed more cone cells than rods.



http://www.nature.com/pj/journal/v43/n2/full/pj2010119a.html
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During their evolutionary history, some species of spiders have changed from a nocturnal to a diurnal lifestyle, and the important change in their environment was irradiation by sunlight. ... The results provide strong support that diurnal spiders are in a more evolved stage than nocturnal spiders, so they secrete silks with an evolved mechanical resistance against UV irradiation.
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Feb 27 2012 12:26pm
all of those things apply to early humans right? you are trying to argue apples with oranges.
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Feb 27 2012 12:49pm
Quote (piddywiffle @ Feb 26 2012 09:16pm)
lulz

Badassery has not been proven to be an inheritable trait :P



your right like so much other behavior it is learned behavior.
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Feb 27 2012 12:54pm
Yes, they do. Primates are shown to have evolutionary flexibility in their vision system to adapt to their environment. A primate experiences drastic changes in their environment, which make night vision far less valuable. The primate ends up in its current state with poor night vision, some half a million years later or so. Maybe we could suggest that night vision was better when there was a need for it? Especially considering that many studies suggest that the common primate ancestor was nocturnal, meaning that humans likely evolved from a primate with good night vision.
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Feb 27 2012 01:06pm
since the homo genus we have always been diurnal so night vision was always poor. was it better millions of years ago? maybe but still not much better.

the bold only applies if we actually had a nocturnal ancestor at all.



This post was edited by Subwoofer on Feb 27 2012 01:16pm
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