title: A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve.
abstract: Theoretical considerations of eye design allow us to find routes along which the optical structures of eyes may have evolved. If selection constantly favours an increase in the amount of detectable spatial information, a light-sensitive patch will gradually turn into a focused lens eye through continuous small improvements of design. An upper limit for the number of generations required for the complete transformation can be calculated with a minimum of assumptions. Even with a consistently pessimistic approach the time required becomes amazingly short: only a few hundred thousand years.
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, Lund University, Sweden.
authors.forename: D E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Nilsson
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pelger
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005123:Eye / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D008953:Models, Anatomic; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009799:Ocular Physiological Phenomena; D013997:Time Factors