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I know this is pretty much a nerdy tangent, but something similar is discussed often in Star Trek with the Klingon anatomy. Supposedly every major organ has a r

by Pigo 9y ago

I know this is pretty much a nerdy tangent, but something similar is discussed often in Star Trek with the Klingon anatomy. Supposedly every major organ has a redundancy (though I'm not sure they really mean EVERY organ). It's seen as a strategic advantage by many for beings who live a violent lifestyle, but some question it as over-engineering. With twice the organs there's the potential for twice as many things to go wrong during a normal lifespan. If you consider the fact that human males who live to 80 have a 80% chance of prostate cancer (IRL not Star Trek), it seems like we live with time-bombs that do eventually go off.

hotsauceror 9y ago
Telomeres, which protect your DNA from unravelling, degrade with age. I don't keep up with the aging literature but I've heard this mentioned as one of the major reasons determining the human lifespan. Regarding the "twice your organs" thing - think of all the concurrency issues they can now experience! A new failure model.
SilasX 9y ago
Did Klingons genetically engineer themselves? If not, this is hard to square with such a (relatively!) hard-science show. In order for that to happen through evolutionary processes, you would have to have chance mutations give them double (or higher) hearts, and that would have to happen for all the organs, and the selection pressure for warriors that survive (otherwise) fatal blows would have to be happening all throughout that process.
- Pigo 9y ago
  I've tried to imagine how such a feature could evolve naturally, and I can't really see how. I believe the impression is that it was an evolutionary feature that came about because they were constantly losing major organs. BUT there is quite a bit of genetic engineering and manipulation in Star Trek. Most of it is to remove genetic birth defects, but there was an entire arc in Enterprise about how a large population of Klingons were genetically altered to give them superior strength and skills. So it's possible that it was related to this, or was engineered at some point in a similar fashion. The whole arc was only to explain why the Klingons looked different in the early series and movies. Berman and Braga tried their best to keep the canon intact, and to have it make sense.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Did Klingons genetically engineer themselves? Well, all humanoid races (as revealed in TNG) in the galaxy (or maybe only in the Alpha and Beta quadrants) were genetically engineered by and from a common precursor race visiting from elsewhere, so if you take “themselves” broadly enough, yes. They also kind of disastrously tried to genetically engineer themselves much later, borrowing from humans doing the same thing, but that's not the source of their unique anatomy (though there's no reason that has to be the only time they did that.)
DanBC 9y ago
> If you consider the fact that human males who live to 80 have a 80% chance of prostate cancer (IRL not Star Trek), it seems like we live with time-bombs that do eventually go off. Except prostate cancer comes in different forms, and many old men die with it, not of it.

by Pigo 9y ago

hotsauceror 9y ago

Telomeres, which protect your DNA from unravelling, degrade with age. I don't keep up with the aging literature but I've heard this mentioned as one of the major reasons determining the human lifespan. Regarding the "twice your organs" thing - think of all the concurrency issues they can now experience! A new failure model.

SilasX 9y ago

Did Klingons genetically engineer themselves? If not, this is hard to square with such a (relatively!) hard-science show. In order for that to happen through evolutionary processes, you would have to have chance mutations give them double (or higher) hearts, and that would have to happen for all the organs, and the selection pressure for warriors that survive (otherwise) fatal blows would have to be happening all throughout that process.

Pigo 9y ago
I've tried to imagine how such a feature could evolve naturally, and I can't really see how. I believe the impression is that it was an evolutionary feature that came about because they were constantly losing major organs. BUT there is quite a bit of genetic engineering and manipulation in Star Trek. Most of it is to remove genetic birth defects, but there was an entire arc in Enterprise about how a large population of Klingons were genetically altered to give them superior strength and skills. So it's possible that it was related to this, or was engineered at some point in a similar fashion. The whole arc was only to explain why the Klingons looked different in the early series and movies. Berman and Braga tried their best to keep the canon intact, and to have it make sense.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Did Klingons genetically engineer themselves? Well, all humanoid races (as revealed in TNG) in the galaxy (or maybe only in the Alpha and Beta quadrants) were genetically engineered by and from a common precursor race visiting from elsewhere, so if you take “themselves” broadly enough, yes. They also kind of disastrously tried to genetically engineer themselves much later, borrowing from humans doing the same thing, but that's not the source of their unique anatomy (though there's no reason that has to be the only time they did that.)

DanBC 9y ago

> If you consider the fact that human males who live to 80 have a 80% chance of prostate cancer (IRL not Star Trek), it seems like we live with time-bombs that do eventually go off. Except prostate cancer comes in different forms, and many old men die with it, not of it.