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Is there anything in all of biology that IS attuned to subtle and long-term issues? I think I would argue that we are the closest to that.

• Koromix 9y ago
  You are right, there is pretty much nothing in biology that is. Humans are no exception, but until recently it was not a big problem because we did not have the power to significantly damage the climate and the biosphere (though the megafauna would probably disagree). Fossil fuel powered technology has changed that, but we are psychologically and socially ill-equipped to deal with its transformative power.
• matt4077 9y ago
  Yes, of course. Long-term issues aren't any different than others; they only need longer (more generations) to manifest. One class (meta-)examples are all mechanism actually promoting mutation, or other methods of genetic variation: Horizontal gene transfer is interesting in this regard. It's the ability to incorporate snippets of DNA the organism comes across. These mechanisms are an adaptation to the "known unknowns": what if a new pathogen appears, or the environment (temperature, radiation, salinity etc) suddenly changes? To achieve some flexibility, these mechanisms make trade-offs, usually sacrificing short-term reproductive success.