# Will Advances in Opthalmology Harm our Natural Vision? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 11, 2008, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076 "2008-01-11T02:29:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ee7513/32.png) [@Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crocodiles_And_Boulevards)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2008, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/1 "2008-01-11T02:29:04Z")
Inspired by this thread: [Why are cave-dwelling fish blind?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=444301) In this thread, some posters argue that, by process of evolution, fish lose their ability to see because mutations that decrease the sight-function don’t affect survivability. If this is the case, does that mean that mutations in the human genetic pool that: [ul] [li]increase our susceptibility to eye diseases/defects[/li][li]generally weaken our vision[/li][li]increase the rate of “aging” of the eye[/li][li]create new vulnerabilities in the eye[/li][li]etc[/li][/ul] …could possibly become the norm for newborns? I ask this because it seems like we’ve had some remarkable innovations in opthalmology in the past hundred or so years, and it would seem that the better we get at it, the less our genetic eye-strength has to do with it. People can survive now with perfect vision who were nearly blind by the age of 12. Is the future human child destined to have corrective lenses of some kind? Or corrective eye surgery? ---
**Author:** ![Jman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jman/32/4416_2.png) [@Jman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jman)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2008, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/2 "2008-01-11T02:35:02Z")
It’s very possible…however, it won’t happen for many thousands of generations, perhaps even millions of generations. It takes a very long time for traits to evolve, and we’re a whopping 200 years into real advances in optometry. Maybe in 38000 AD they’ll all need glasses. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2008, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/3 "2008-01-11T02:41:34Z")
[QUOTE=Crocodiles And Boulevards] People can survive now with perfect vision who were nearly blind by the age of 12. [/QUOTE] I don’t mean to be snarky about it but many people who were nearly blind by the age of 12 seem to have survived long enough to reproduce. Since the development of social structures and civilization blind people are not doomed to die prematurely for lack of ability to forage on their own. So those traits are not necessarily culled out of the gene pool to begin with. P.S. ophthalmology ---
**Author:** ![Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ee7513/32.png) [@Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crocodiles_And_Boulevards)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2008, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/4 "2008-01-11T02:47:21Z")
[QUOTE=CookingWithGas] I don’t mean to be snarky about it but many people who were nearly blind by the age of 12 seem to have survived long enough to reproduce. Since the development of social structures and civilization blind people are not doomed to die prematurely for lack of ability to forage on their own. So those traits are not necessarily culled out of the gene pool to begin with. P.S. ophthalmology [/QUOTE] That’s true, but simply surviving as a minority of the population doesn’t strike me as having a large effect on the overall population. These days, it seems like _everyone_ wears glasses/contact lenses. Maybe I’m operating under the false assumption that human beings generally had good sight-functions before advances in social welfare and ophthalmology. P.S. Thanks for the spelling heads-up. For some reason, my spell-checker believes “opthalmology” is a word. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2008, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/5 "2008-01-11T02:50:12Z")
This is no different from any other once debilitating condition that we now live with. Except for a few very deadly childhood genetic disorders, very few people fail to reproduce because of their genetic makeup. Except for possessors of the “ugly” or “nerdy” gene. Perhaps in AD 1 million, we’ll all be dumb and beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2008, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/6 "2008-01-11T02:56:36Z")
[QUOTE=Crocodiles And Boulevards] …could possibly become the norm for newborns? I ask this because it seems like we’ve had some remarkable innovations in opthalmology in the past hundred or so years, and it would seem that the better we get at it, the less our genetic eye-strength has to do with it. People can survive now with perfect vision who were nearly blind by the age of 12. Is the future human child destined to have corrective lenses of some kind? Or corrective eye surgery? [/QUOTE] Unless the genes also lead to some increased reproductive success, it would be very unusual for it become all-pervasive. It’s certainly possible due to genetic drift if the traits are really benign, but you also have to think about how rapidly the human population is increasing, and whether such genetic drift could occur under those conditions. ---
**Author:** ![Sockmunkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Sockmunkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sockmunkey)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2008, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/7 "2008-01-13T09:47:14Z")
I think that by the time it becomes a serious issue we will be regularly tinkering with our DNA to eliminate negative traits. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2008, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/8 "2008-01-13T13:29:04Z")
[QUOTE=Crocodiles And Boulevards] These days, it seems like _everyone_ wears glasses/contact lenses. Maybe I’m operating under the false assumption that human beings generally had good sight-functions before advances in social welfare and ophthalmology. [/QUOTE] Please consider that in the bad old days you didn’t need _perfect_ vision, you just needed vision that was _good enough_. Particularly in societies that didn’t read or write, being slightly farsighted likely wasn’t an issue. Nowadays, we correct everyone to an arbitrary standard. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2008, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/9 "2008-01-13T20:20:52Z")
[QUOTE=Sockmunkey] I think that by the time it becomes a serious issue we will be regularly tinkering with our DNA to eliminate negative traits. [/QUOTE] Yeah, that’s something I always like to bring up in these types of threads. Evolution of the sorts described in the OP operates on the time scale of tens of the thousands of years (in a large, geographically diverse population like our species). What will our genetic engineering technology look like 500 years in the future? We can only guess. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2008, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/10 "2008-01-14T00:44:41Z")
The intelligence that we use for medical advances is, itself, part of our ongoing evolution. And our ability to correct (or even prevent) our deficiencies is evolving much faster than the deficiencies themselves. ---
**Author:** ![J\_Cubed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@J\_Cubed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/J_Cubed)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2008, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/11 "2008-01-14T04:30:57Z")
I had a friend who did research on this very subject in college or grad school. He told me that there has been a measurable worsening of human vision since the advent of glasses. Sorry, no cite. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2008, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/12 "2008-01-14T04:35:37Z")
[QUOTE=panache45] The intelligence that we use for medical advances is, itself, part of our ongoing evolution. And our ability to correct (or even prevent) our deficiencies is evolving much faster than the deficiencies themselves. [/QUOTE] But that ability seems to be based on cultural/technological “evolution”, not biological evolution. > [@J Cubed](#): > > ``` > I had a friend who did research on this very subject in college or grad school. He told me that there has been a measurable worsening of human vision since the advent of glasses. Sorry, no cite. > > ``` Be careful. You need to define what you mean by “human vision”. Do you mean the average visual capacity of the entire human population, or the peak visual capacity of any given individual? I suspect that latter might be getting better, just because there as so many more of us, and so much opportunity for variation. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2008, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/13 "2008-01-14T06:24:38Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] But that ability seems to be based on cultural/technological “evolution”, not biological evolution. [/QUOTE] I never said it was biological, except indirectly. Cultural/technological evolution is just as much a part of our overall evolution as the biological. ---
**Author:** ![Sockmunkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Sockmunkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sockmunkey)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2008, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-advances-in-opthalmology-harm-our-natural-vision/433076/14 "2008-01-14T08:04:14Z")
The second the medical tech becomes available (and I save up enough money) I’m getting me some eagle eyes installed. Or maybe squid… Well, in any case I will be sticking with the original color.