( 2 votes, average: 3.5 / 5 )
Loading ...Ever wondered why humans have white sclera - the part of the eye which surrounds the iris - whereas the primates’ sclera are brown? No, neither had I, but the answer is rather interesting.
The result of having white sclera is that others can pinpoint exactly where it is that your attention is focussed. I’ve been in many a conversation where I have felt my eyes disengage from those of the droner and start wandering around the room, out the window, anywhere but on the gaze of the person I’m talking too. If I were a monkey, the trick of letting my attention wander would be much easier, as it is much harder to pinpoint where the black-on-brown ape eye is focussed.
So did we develop white sclera in order to make party bores feel uncomfortable? Perhaps. Alternatively, the evolutionary advantage lies with the ape, whose competitor cannot see him eyeing up his next meal, or his next mate. Advantageous, if we are living in a competitive society.
So, the story goes, the fact that we have white sclera is an important reflection of the cooperative, trusting and collaborative-based nature of our human society. Which makes sense, if only we took the hint, and started to cooperate.
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Excellent and completely unexpected. But we should refer to Dawkins and see what he has to say about how we came to have white sclera. I am personally inclined to grant your premise, that these white sclera serve a societal purpose, but it is quite the leap to claim that as people had to work together more and more, so the sclera of their eyes became increasingly more pale. Dawkins might froth at the mouth to think that our selfish genes adapted the sclera for the sake of more harmonious social cooperation. I think it could be true, but we know that the other people will argue something more rigid. What is it?