Reply To: Language and consciencous
I believe that primates in particular can detect more variations of red than other animals, and the evolutionary explanation for that is because it helps one to gauge the ripeness of fruit from a distance.
Dang me, I can’t stop! Just remembered another fascinating study about specific colors that primate retinas can or cannot detect, depending on the presence of a specific gene. (I don’t think we’re talking about what we know of as typical types of color blindness, but I could be wrong.) The fascinating thing is that scientists were able to give mature chimps gene therapy to their retinas, which allowed them to detect more colors, even though they didn’t learn how to perceive those colors when young!
Correction/addendum: 1) Not chimps, but monkeys. 2) University of Washington-related research. 3) This topic is also interesting because we’re talking about relatively recent primate evolution, just as is the topic of pre-frontal cortex growth.
