Bullies

It has often been said, by many a learned person, that survival depends upon being fit.

I wonder about that.

It has occurred to me that survival depends more upon adaptability, alertness and guile.

Millions* of years ago, when we were part of the food chain, our eyes were adapted to acknowledge movement.

Let me explain that in a little more detail.

In the back of our eyeballs there is a skin called the retina. There are located on the retina many cells that are sensitive to light. They send those tiny points of light back to the brain via a ‘sensory receptor’. The sensory receptor sends the signal to a short-term storage area called ‘iconic memory’; those of you who are into computing will recognise the word ‘icon’ as meaning ‘picture’. It is held here for half a second (approximately) before being cast aside (forgotten) in favour of a fresh input. This is important.

We shall dart back into the eyeball now. Those tiny cells are divided up into two types. There are ‘rods’ and there are ‘cones’. ‘Rods’ see black and white and ‘cones’ see colour.

Most importantly, ‘rods’ also see movement very well.

Add this information to that and we will see an incredible development take place: At the centre of our vision (in the ‘macula’) there are only cones. As we move out towards the periphery of our vision the rods take over until, at the edges of our vision, there are only rods.

Rods work well in low light conditions where ones do not see at all in low light. This is why we say that “all cats are grey at night” because we lose our colour vision as it gets dark.

As a result of this we shall need to look to the side of things at night so we can bring the rods to bear on what we are looking for/at.

More importantly, from a survival perspective, the rods at the periphery of our vision pick up movement.

Imagine this scene:

We are out hunting for something to eat for the tribe or village. Our eyes are focused on our target that might be something small, brown, furry and tasty.

But we have to be aware that we are also being hunted for someone else’s lunch. Something, mayhap, with long, sharp teeth backed up with a long, lean and muscular frame.

Out of the corner of our eye we see a movement. A part of our brain will now command us to look at that movement in order to identify it.

Another part of our brain will say, “Give me feedback! What is it doing? Where is it looking? Is it moving? Has it seen us? Feedback… feedback… feedback…”

Our survival depends upon this function to the point where we still do it today. We may be driving and see a movement out of the corner of our eye—we must look at it and make an assessment: is it a threat? We will make a judgement based upon what the feedback from our eyeballs tell us coupled with past experience and knowledge.

Survival.

It is all about survival. This adaptation took millions* of years to install and perfect. We still have it because we have not advanced sufficiently upon what we imagine to be the road of civilisation yet.

I have said before, in other ‘Blogs’, that we cannot shuffle out of our hard won capabilities at will. Millions* of years of development will take a long time to redefine.

The same can be said of food as it has of our eyes. We spent millions* of years adapting to a specific food source that included, for the most part, plant life supplemented with occasional meat and fish.

Depending on where your antecedents lived you will be attuned to eating and drinking specific foodstuffs but now we are more universal. We eat anything and hope that our bodies will deal with it.

We are shovelling all sorts of chemicals down our throats that have only recently been developed. There are colourings and preservatives in food now that our ancestors had never heard of let alone ate.

Then we wonder why there is a rise in ‘modern’ ailments. That is not to say that cancers, diabetes and other (modern) illnesses did not occur in olden days but, perhaps, they were less common.

Sabre-Toothed Tigers are no longer with us. We have survived. Were they less fit? Unlikely. Were they less alert? Equally unlikely. Perhaps they just did not adapt. Perhaps their guile was less.

Survival of the fittest means ‘fit for their slot in the World’ and not the ‘strongest’.

Something for bullies to ponder!

*10,000 years for Creationists.