Keeping in mind that the Wright Brothers sired no children: “The incursions of barbaric pastoralists seem to do civilizations less harm in the long run than one might expect. Indeed, two dark ages and renaissances in Europe suggest a recurring pattern in which a renaissance follows an incursion by about 800 years. It may even be suggested that certain genes or traditions of pastoralists revitalize the conquered people with an ingredient of progress which tends to die out in a large panmictic population for the reasons already discussed. I have in mind altruism itself, or the part of the altruism which is perhaps better described as self-sacrificial daring. By the time of the renaissance it may be that the mixing of genes and cultures (or of cultures alone if these are the only vehicles, which I doubt) has continued long enough to bring the old mercantile thoughtfulness and the infused daring into conjunction in a few individuals who then find courage for all kinds of inventive innovation against the resistance of established thought and practice. Often, however, the cost in fitness of such altruism and sublimated pugnacity to the individuals concerned is by no means metaphorical, and the benefits to fitness, such as they are, go to a mass of individuals whose genetic correlation with the innovator must be slight indeed. Thus civilization probably slowly reduces its altruism of all kinds, including the kinds needed for cultural creativity (see also Eshel 1972).”
"Innate Social Aptitudes of Man: An Approach from Evolutionary Genetics" by W. D. Hamilton Any civilization led by people who deny their responsibility for the evolutionary effects of their policies is unworthy of the name "civilization". On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 4:24 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > The Wrights depended on intuition when they were learning to fly by > gliding at Kitty Hawk. They were superb sportsmen and bicycle riders. They > tended to take chances, riding bicycles at night at high speed. Later in > life, Orville racked up many speeding tickets in a high performance > automobile. Typical pilot behavior. > > But they did not depend on intuition in the design phase. They depended on > data. Testing, testing and more testing with the wind tunnel. Page after > page and book after book of engineering equations. They marked the spot of > every piece of furniture in the room, and the spot where they stood, while > operating the wind tunnel, because they found significant differences in > the 3 decimal place when they moved a table or stood somewhere else. > > Chanute asked them once about the wind resistance of the pilot's body. > They responded with several paragraphs of precise calculations of the wind > resistance of the human head and prone body of a pilot (since they flew > lying down in the early flights). > > They had "a low tolerance for imprecision" someone said. > > Crouch wrote: "Wilbur was a man who established a goal with care, then > never lost sight of it. He was the perfect engineer – isolating a basic > problem, defining it in the most precise terms, and identifying the missing > bits of information that would enable him to solve it. Other students of > the subject lost themselves in a welter of confusing details; they were > lured into extraneous, if fascinating, blind alleys that led away from the > basic problem. Not Wilbur. He had the capacity to recognize and the dogged > determination required to cut straight to the heart of any matter." (p. 165) > > I wish more cold fusion researchers had these qualities. > > Although they were fact-based engineers, they had a lyrical side to their > personalities. I think it was Orville many years later who was asked: What > was the most wonderful thing about inventing the airplane? What was the > moment they gave you the most pleasure? The success of the first flight? > The public adulation? He said, as I recall, "the most wonderful thing was > thinking about flying, and dreaming about what it would be like, before we > did it." > > - Jed > >
