Suppose we built a robot to explore the planet, Mars.We provide the robot with seeing detector (探测器) to keep it away from danger. It is powered entirely by the sun. Should we program the robot to
be equally active at all time? No.The robot would be using up energy at a time when it was not receiving
any. So we would probably program it to stop its activity at night and to wake up at dawn the next
morning.
According to the evolutionary (进化的) theory of sleep, evolution equipped us with a regular pattern
of sleeping and waking for the same reason.The theory doesn"t deny that
sleep provides some important restorative functions. It merely says that evolution has programmed us to
perform those functions at a time when activity would be inefficient and possibly dangerous. However,
sleep protects us only from the sort of trouble we might walk into; it doesn"t protect us from trouble that
comes looking for us. So we sleep well when we are in a familiar and safe place, but we sleep lightly, if at
all,when we fear that bears will nose into the tent.
The evolutionary theory explains the differences in sleep among creatures.Why do cats,for instance,
sleep so much,while horses sleep so little? Surely cats do not need five times as much repair and
restoration as horses do.But cats can afford to have long periods of inactivity because they spend little
time eating and unlikely to be attacked while they sleep. Horses must spend almost all their waking hours
eating, because what they eat is very low in energy value. Moreover,they cannot afford to sleep too long
or too deeply, because their survival depends on their ability to run away from attackers.