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Color blindness is most often a genetic disorder, but it can be acquired due to illness, eye/brain/nerve damage, or chemicals. People with this condition tend to see a limited range of colors; a rare few may not see colors at all.

The eye is very much like a film camera. There is a lens at the front, and a 'film' at the rear. The 'film' is the inside back wall of the eyeball and is called the retina. This retina consists of millions of light-sensitive cells that convert light into electical signals that flow up the optic nerve (a nerve emerging from the back of the eyeball) into the brain for processing into what we know as vision.

The cells in the retina can be divided into two kinds. Rods (becasue they are shaped like rods!) are sensitive to light and shade and work well in the daytime, but also at night. If you had only rod cells you would see in black and white. However, another kind of cell - cones - exist (again called cones becasue of their shape) in the retina, and these are sensitive to different colors.

Someone with color blindness either has fewer cone cells, or their cone cells are not working as well as they should. As a result they see fine (thanks to the rods) but their color perception is not as good as it should be, depending upon which 'color' cone cells are nor working.

The most common cause of color blindness is confusion between red and green. Very few people are totally color blind (ie they see in black and white only) - most seem to have some color vision but get confused between certain colors. Oh, and for some strange genetic reason, far more men are color blind than women.

Just lie to say that i have been color blind since birth and have never found such a good jargon free answer. Thnaks

True colorblindness is when someone can only see black, white, and shades of grey. Colorblindness is actually a misconception and is better explained by using the term color vision deficiency. True colorblindness is very rare but color vision deficiencies effects approximately 1 in every 10 men. 99% of the men who are diagnosed as being colorblind are what is known as red/green color deficient.

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