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theodorejb 5 hours ago

What benefit is an eye unless there is also the capability of processing and using the information? How would both evolve simultaneously?

doctoboggan 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

A photosensitive patch of cells could be wired directly to motor cells/muscles on the opposite side, which would allow the organism to swim toward the light (maybe useful for feeding or migrating, etc.)

theodorejb 2 hours ago | parent [-]

How would the photosensitivity and wiring to muscles come about at the same time?

valleyer 36 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

As long as a mutation isn't strongly maladaptive, it can evolve prior to its being useful.

refulgentis 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They didn't need to come about at the same time. Photosensitive proteins (opsins) and cellular motility both predate multicellular life entirely. Even single-celled euglena detect light and swim toward it with no nervous system at all. In early multicellular animals, cells were already chemically signaling their neighbors. A photosensitive cell releasing a signaling molecule near a contractile cell isn't a coordinated miracle. It is just two pre-existing cell types sitting next to each other in tissue, which is what bodies are. Natural selection then refines that crude coupling because even a tiny, noisy light response is better than none.

Each piece, light-sensitive proteins, cell-to-cell signaling, contractile cells, evolved independently and for other reasons long before being co-opted into anything resembling vision. The question "how could A and B arise simultaneously?" dissolves once neither A nor B was new.

Azrael3000 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Stated clearly (0) has recently started a fantastic series about evolution that aims to explain bacterial flagella. It starts from basic principles and aims to answer questions like yours in evolutionary biology.

(0) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eFC9VzexRUk

jibal 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A fairly simple chemical reaction could cause an organism to turn or move toward or away from light in the ocean, with various imaginable benefits.

And note that box jellyfish have 24 eyes, some of them highly complex, but no brain. You can look into their behavior to find out what they do with the information.