For nearly all of human history, everyone in the world had brown eyes. Then, between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, the first blue-eyed baby was born somewhere near the Black Sea.Go use the potty, get a fresh cup of coffee, and then go visit John Hawks website.
For some reason, that baby's descendants gained a 5% evolutionary advantage over their brown-eyed competitors, and today the number of people with blue eyes tops half a billion.
"What does it mean?" asked Hawks, who studies the forces that have shaped the human species for the last 6 million years.
Nobody knows. It is one of the questions about evolution that persist 200 years after the birth of Charles Darwin, whose birthday will be celebrated worldwide Thursday.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Can you tell I was raised by National Geographic? I love this stuff.