Nearsightedness has increased 66% in 40 years

It turns out that myopia isn’t all that well understood – researchers blame both genetic and environmental factors. Certainly, the dramatic increase in people sitting in front of screens for long periods of time can’t help.

This also strikes me as one of those fairly obvious cases of humans actively working against our own evolution. Nearsightedness isn’t being bred out because it’s relatively easy to fix – a pair of glasses or contacts. Even worse, the fix just might be working against evolution in that, at least to some, a pair of glasses is a desirable trait (how else to explain their hipster cachet?). Contacts and even lasik only complicate things further since they fix the symptom but not any root genetic causes without providing any kind of flag to potential mates that your children are going to need an opthamologist.