I know evolution is governed by chance and it is random but does it make sense to “ruin” sleep if there’s light? I mean normally, outside, you never have pure darkness, there are the moon and stars even at night. In certain zones of the Earth we also have long periods of no sunshine and long periods of only sunshine.
I don’t know if my question is clear enough but I hope so.
Bonus question: are animals subject to the same contribution of light or lack of it to the quality of sleep?
Keep in mind modern “nighttime” is very light polluted, so it’s likely a lot darker most of the time, than you would think.
Also I think it’s less about darkness, and more about the transition from light to dark.
Also yes the poles are weird, keep in mind that the poles are basically inhabitable, and northern Alaska is barely habitable.
OTOH far away from light pollution you get so used to the dark you clearly see the galaxy in the middle of night.
So I think it was rare to have perfect thick cloud coverage so not often a pitch black dark.
i mean yeah, but even then starlight is basically fuck all. The moon overpowers those, it just makes the sky look pretty. That’s it.
Cloud cover would be primarily lit by moonlit. And even then, moon light is very dim. Just look at early moon light towers used to light up residential areas early in the electrification period.
It’s literally the difference between being in your home, at night, and you can’t see shit. Vs you can just barely make out where things are, and navigate properly.
Also semantic point, light pollution is not “dark” that’s why you can’t see any stars. Ever looked at a highway lit with LEDs recently? They have tons of light pollution that can be seen as what’s referred to as “sky glow” My point here being, when you go outside in a light polluted area at night, it’s literally not dark.
I think their point was that there isn’t anything humans could do during the night. Stars might give some light, but without a full moon you really can’t do anything at night without lights.
stars would only be good for guidance, until you run into a tree or something.