February 23, 2026
Cyclops or nah? Comments go feral
The Rise of Eyes Began with Just One
Internet splits over “cyclops ancestor” claim: skeptics vs meme lords
TLDR: New research proposes a single top-mounted eye in ancient ancestors that later became two. The thread exploded: skeptics asked how eyes and brains could evolve together, jokers floated “conjoined twins,” and explainers said it started as a light-sensing patch—offering a simple roadmap for how complex organs can emerge.
Scientists say our ancient ancestors may have started with a single eye on top of the head that later became two—and the internet immediately opened its third eye. One commenter swooped in with a gift link, crowned “link hero” by the thread, and then the comment section went full gladiator mode.
On Team Skeptic, folks demanded: if early animals had an eye, who was doing the seeing? The brain, they argued, has to process images—so how could an eye be useful before that? Others clapped back with “it started as a light-sensing patch” and builds gradually—think dimmer switch, not light show—shouting out older research that an image-forming eye can evolve surprisingly fast. Cue the evolution vs intuition cage match.
Meanwhile, the meme squad had a field day. “Mike Wazowski walked so we could see,” one joked. Another imagined our ancestors as literal conjoined twins “sharing a vision plan.” The hottest side skirmish: whether single-celled critters already have multiple “eyes,” which the science crowd quickly reframed as simple light sensors, not eyeballs with lenses.
Sprinkled through the chaos were Darwin references (yes, the guy who once got the “cold shudders” thinking about eyes), and a neat explainer that two eyes likely boosted depth perception and survival. Verdict: fascinating science, maximum drama, and a comments section that saw everything—especially each other’s throats.
Key Points
- •New studies propose that early invertebrate ancestors had a single eye atop the head about 560 million years ago, which later split into two in vertebrates.
- •Darwin expressed difficulty explaining the complex evolution of the vertebrate eye but cited gradations of simpler invertebrate eyes as evidence for stepwise change.
- •Creationists claimed in the 1990s that eyes would require billions of years to evolve, challenging evolutionary explanations.
- •Nilsson and Pelger (1994) modeled that an image-forming eye could evolve from light-sensitive cells in a few hundred thousand years.
- •The article situates the single-eye ancestry hypothesis within the broader context of evidence and modeling supporting plausible evolutionary pathways for eyes.