From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb
Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 8:00 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/6/2013 6:57 PM, Chris de Morsella wrote:
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR
Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 6:18 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 7 November 2013 14:39, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
There's a continuum of behavior which at the extreme absence of empathy we
call psychopathy or sociopathy. But that doesn't mean more empathy is
better. Sometimes it's good to be hard hearted. Should we have been nicer
to the Neanderthals?
>>We'll never know. But we do know we evolved to cope with a world that is
very far removed from the one we have. Is there any reason to believe
evolution got everything right? We've already made changes to other aspects
of our being, both physically and psychologically. But certain aspects of
our behaviour still seem to be stuck in a distant past when life was almost
always nasty, brutish and short.
Evolution sometimes saddles life forms with burdensome defects - for example
almost all animals can synthesize their own vitamin C; we lost this;
Which may have been an advantage where it was easily found in food.
Sure no argument there. We were fruit eaters probably in any case. Other
animals and some plants as well lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C
too. My point was that many people make the mistaken assumption that just
because we have been successful - and we have in Darwinian terms been very
successful at outcompeting other species - that it has all been good. Our
genetic heritage is a mixed bag some of it good some of it not so good.
Human's also have ridiculously thin walled arteries - compared to most other
animal species.
What's your reference for that? I've heard that pulmonary arteries have on
average thinner walls - but you don't get strokes in your lungs.
I read it in a wonderful book on the anatomy and evolution of the human
brain by David Bainbridge "Beyond The Zonules of Zinn", published by Harvard
University Press. I highly recommend this book, and it really does take you
on a journey through the brain, part by fantastic part. In any case that is
my reference for that.
In fact strokes are very rare in most species because their circulatory
systems are superior in this regard to ours.
So why do humans live so much longer than other mammals, even much larger
mammals.
Evolution is a mixed bag and we got what we got - both good and bad; the
evolutionary benefits of an opposable thumb, enlarged forebrain, linguistic
abilities etc. far outweighed the defects our evolutionary roulette wheel
spit out and we have succeeded in covering this planet with members of our
species.
Yeah, evolution doesn't aim for perfection, just 'good enough'.
Agreed - and even if some defects make it through it is because they likely
came along as baggage with something else that provided those with that
mutation some distinct advantage.
Brent
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