8 ms·

From "the social function of intellect"[1]: "Henry Ford, it is said, commissioned a survey of the car scrap yards of America to find out if there were parts of

by tw1010 9y ago

From "the social function of intellect"[1]: "Henry Ford, it is said, commissioned a survey of the car scrap yards of America to find out if there were parts of the Model T Ford which never failed. His inspectors came back with reports of almost every kind of breakdown: axles, brakes, pistons - all were liable to go wrong. But they drew attention to one notable exception, the kingpins of the scrapped cars invariably had years of life left in them. With ruthless logic Ford concluded that the kingpins on the Model T were too good for their job and ordered that in future they should be made to an inferior specification. Nature is surely at least as careful an economist as Henry Ford. It is not her habit to tolerate needless extravagance in the animals on her production lines: superfluous capacity is trimmed back, new capacity added only as and when it is needed" [1] http://biology.unm.edu/pwatson/Humphrey%20The%20Social%20Function%20of%20Intellect.pdf http://biology.unm.edu/pwatson/Humphrey%20The%20Social%20Fun...

masklinn 9y ago
> It is not her habit to tolerate needless extravagance in the animals on her production lines: superfluous capacity is trimmed back, new capacity added only as and when it is needed It's not exactly wrong, but it's way too anthropomorphic and attributes way too much intent. Plus there's plenty of natural stuff which at least looks way over-engineered or redundant/unnecessary in its current form. The Mantis Shrimp's eyes for instance. The gallbladder also seems mostly redundant, and while one can argue that the lobed paired design of lungs is necessary considering the common occurrence of respiratory diseases redundant kidneys seem less than necessary.
- kmano8 9y ago
  I'll keep my paired lungs. Had one spontaneously collapse about 10 years ago, and had there not been a second in it's own pleural cavity, it would've been a much worse time for me. As an aside, one really cool thing that happens in the case of a collapsed lung, is the trachea will shift toward the healthy side under less pressure. Called a tracheal deviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracheal_deviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracheal_deviation
  - squeaky-clean 9y ago
    I also had a spontaneous lung collapse several years ago. While I'm thankful for the second lung, I think if there weren't also surgeons and hospitals I would've died anyways, even with the one still-good lung.
  - robbiep 9y ago
    Tracheal deviation in the instance of lung collapse is a sign of a developing fatal condition, tension pneumothorax. Cool for me as a doctor because I get to stab a big needle through your chest. Not so cool for the patient
    - komali2 9y ago
      Also cool for Mad Max.
- robbiep 9y ago
  Nature can’t (or at least has a very hard time) climb out of the local minima it has created. The gallbladder has a heap of design flaws but it is quite useful (until it causes problems). Bird lungs would be much more efficient a design as they don’t have dead space in the way ours do. And having 2 of an organ has more to do with our bilateral body symmetry which was an early evolutionary choice of our line than anything else
- sushisource 9y ago
  The prime example of this to me is a completely silly path a nerve takes in a Giraffe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve#Evidence_of_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve#Evid... Evolution does not care at all about fixing waste, unless that waste harms the individual's ability to procreate.
- BearGoesChirp 9y ago
  >It's not exactly wrong, but it's way too anthropomorphic and attributes way too much intent. This made me start wondering something... at what point can something be attributed to intent? When did the first intent arise? If humans are blobs of matter following the laws of physics, why can we possess intent when nature cannot? What is the simplest process which can have intent? This is probably just a restatement of an existing problem like where does intelligence come from. Just a random though I had reading your post.
Ilverin 9y ago
This kingpin story is not likely to be true. http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/urban_legends/henry_fords_king_pins.html http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/urban_legends/henry_fords...
sp332 9y ago
http://www.grg.org/OneHossShay.htm http://www.grg.org/OneHossShay.htm
njharman 9y ago
People (geeks often) attribute efficiency to evolution's designs. The process really produces just barely good-enough for given environmental pressures/problem domain. Nature is the queen of avoiding pre-optimization and YAGNI.
- tw1010 9y ago
  Which begs the question, since humans have been able to dominate their ecology and competitors to such a massive degree, why didn't our evolution stagnate a long long time ago? The answer, as far as I have read, seems to be that for humans, competition within the species (for sexual opportunities, position in the dominance hierarchy, etc) has been the primary driving force pushing our brains to evolve to the size it is today. A few sources that support this thesis are the books, "Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny", "The Elephant in the Brain", as well as this paper: https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/57178/SpecPub_001.pdf https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/5717...
  - nikanj 9y ago
    This is attributing emotion to things that have none, but regardless: Species don’t compete, genes do. My genes want to beat your genes, were you another human (in-species), a bonobo (in same-ish morphological niche) or a rat (another modern urban dweller).
    - bartread 9y ago
      > This is attributing emotion to things that have none Ummm, fair enough. But then you say... > My genes want to beat your genes Your genes don't want anything. They have no desires. No emotions. They're just molecules. Long, complex polymers, granted, but just molecules, nonetheless.
      - autokad 9y ago
        they are instructions. those instructions say compete in what ever round about way they decide on doing it. the ones that don't say compete die out.

by tw1010 9y ago

masklinn 9y ago

> It is not her habit to tolerate needless extravagance in the animals on her production lines: superfluous capacity is trimmed back, new capacity added only as and when it is needed It's not exactly wrong, but it's way too anthropomorphic and attributes way too much intent. Plus there's plenty of natural stuff which at least looks way over-engineered or redundant/unnecessary in its current form. The Mantis Shrimp's eyes for instance. The gallbladder also seems mostly redundant, and while one can argue that the lobed paired design of lungs is necessary considering the common occurrence of respiratory diseases redundant kidneys seem less than necessary.

kmano8 9y ago
I'll keep my paired lungs. Had one spontaneously collapse about 10 years ago, and had there not been a second in it's own pleural cavity, it would've been a much worse time for me. As an aside, one really cool thing that happens in the case of a collapsed lung, is the trachea will shift toward the healthy side under less pressure. Called a tracheal deviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracheal_deviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracheal_deviation
- squeaky-clean 9y ago
  I also had a spontaneous lung collapse several years ago. While I'm thankful for the second lung, I think if there weren't also surgeons and hospitals I would've died anyways, even with the one still-good lung.
- robbiep 9y ago
  Tracheal deviation in the instance of lung collapse is a sign of a developing fatal condition, tension pneumothorax. Cool for me as a doctor because I get to stab a big needle through your chest. Not so cool for the patient
  - komali2 9y ago
    Also cool for Mad Max.
robbiep 9y ago
Nature can’t (or at least has a very hard time) climb out of the local minima it has created. The gallbladder has a heap of design flaws but it is quite useful (until it causes problems). Bird lungs would be much more efficient a design as they don’t have dead space in the way ours do. And having 2 of an organ has more to do with our bilateral body symmetry which was an early evolutionary choice of our line than anything else
sushisource 9y ago
The prime example of this to me is a completely silly path a nerve takes in a Giraffe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve#Evidence_of_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve#Evid... Evolution does not care at all about fixing waste, unless that waste harms the individual's ability to procreate.
BearGoesChirp 9y ago
>It's not exactly wrong, but it's way too anthropomorphic and attributes way too much intent. This made me start wondering something... at what point can something be attributed to intent? When did the first intent arise? If humans are blobs of matter following the laws of physics, why can we possess intent when nature cannot? What is the simplest process which can have intent? This is probably just a restatement of an existing problem like where does intelligence come from. Just a random though I had reading your post.

Ilverin 9y ago

This kingpin story is not likely to be true. http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/urban_legends/henry_fords_king_pins.html http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/urban_legends/henry_fords...

sp332 9y ago

http://www.grg.org/OneHossShay.htm http://www.grg.org/OneHossShay.htm

njharman 9y ago

People (geeks often) attribute efficiency to evolution's designs. The process really produces just barely good-enough for given environmental pressures/problem domain. Nature is the queen of avoiding pre-optimization and YAGNI.

tw1010 9y ago
Which begs the question, since humans have been able to dominate their ecology and competitors to such a massive degree, why didn't our evolution stagnate a long long time ago? The answer, as far as I have read, seems to be that for humans, competition within the species (for sexual opportunities, position in the dominance hierarchy, etc) has been the primary driving force pushing our brains to evolve to the size it is today. A few sources that support this thesis are the books, "Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny", "The Elephant in the Brain", as well as this paper: https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/57178/SpecPub_001.pdf https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/5717...
- nikanj 9y ago
  This is attributing emotion to things that have none, but regardless: Species don’t compete, genes do. My genes want to beat your genes, were you another human (in-species), a bonobo (in same-ish morphological niche) or a rat (another modern urban dweller).
  - bartread 9y ago
    > This is attributing emotion to things that have none Ummm, fair enough. But then you say... > My genes want to beat your genes Your genes don't want anything. They have no desires. No emotions. They're just molecules. Long, complex polymers, granted, but just molecules, nonetheless.
    - autokad 9y ago
      they are instructions. those instructions say compete in what ever round about way they decide on doing it. the ones that don't say compete die out.