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Why haven't we evolved photosynthetic skin? Why haven't we evolved the ability to regrow lost limbs and organs? Why haven't we evolved a better defensive system

by otikik 8y ago

Why haven't we evolved photosynthetic skin? Why haven't we evolved the ability to regrow lost limbs and organs? Why haven't we evolved a better defensive system, delivering us from sickness and cancer? The answers to all those questions are the same: evolution doesn't "care" about you being comfortable, or optimized. I quoted "care" because evolution is a process; it lacks a conscience and thus it cannot "care". But it has drives. Regarding you, evolution's drives are that you pass your genetic material down to your offspring, that you have as many offspring as possible, and that they repeat the cycle after you are gone. All the benefits that you as an individual get from are either a direct consequence those drives, or a happy random accident, because there's a high degree of randomness involved. The fact that there's randomness, plus the fact that individual comfort or productivity is not a drive, means that there could be places where us humans can "supplement" evolution - that's one of the roles of modern medicine. I'm not saying this particular compound will work as advertised; just that the room for improvement exists.

ajuc 8y ago
Bad examples. Increasing the amount of some substance produced vs re-growing limbs? Evolution is an optimization process. It can get stuck on a local maxima, but it's not a local maxima, if it can be trivially improved upon with no harmful side-effects. And it's not like producing more Klotho requires complicated mutations that are unlikely to happen. We know they happen. So - asking why it's not already widespread is perfectly reasonable. It probably involves some trade-offs.
- andrewla 8y ago
  Although I also disagree with the GP, I think phrasing evolution as an optimization process is a mistake. Evolution is a diversification process that exploits variation within a population to make the population as a whole more resilient to changes in the fitness function. The net result is the same -- even if Klotho production is neutral in the fitness landscape, you would expect it to be quite common. For it to be naturally as rare as it is probably implies a significant fitness cost in other ways. It could very well be, however, that the particular problems with Klotho production are factors which are no longer relevant in the current fitness landscape, but we (and other animals) evolved a certain resistance to Klotho production that has yet to be overcome by the irrelevance of the underlying costs. For example, if Klotho production significantly reduced reaction times or the time it takes to ramp up adrenaline production, then it might be that we are at a point where the downsides are no longer as relevant as they once were.
darepublic 8y ago
to me I conceptualize evolution as just a process like water filtering through a sieve is. So I don't see why using the word 'drives' is justified either.
proto-n 8y ago
Unfair conparison. Growing titanium bones is most likely unfeasible, if even possible. Producing Klotho is not infeasible, it is being done in our bodies. The question is the amount, which I assume should be already finetuned. That's why I called it too easy of a "hack".
hu3 8y ago
> Regarding you, evolution's drives are that you pass your genetic material down to your offspring, that you have as many offspring as possible, and that they repeat the cycle after you are gone. It also doesn't help that lower IQ correlates to higher offspring, according to some studies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence#International_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence#Int...
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  That’s only true since the 1800’s. From the dawn of agriculture to industrial civilisation there might have been very weak selection for intelligence. It can’t have been strong because otherwise we’d all be Von Neumanns. Gregory Clark's work on social mobility is fascinating if you find this topic interesting. Start with either A Farewell to Alms or The Son Also Rises.
  - XaoDaoCaoCao 8y ago
    "It can’t have been strong because otherwise we’d all be Von Neumanns." But the type of intelligence that secures safety and access to reproductive opportunities is the sort which wages war and waits for the right time to backstab and/or do away with one's rivals. With agriculture you get the monopolization of surplus resources which greatly increases the rewards for autocratic and oligarchic formations.
  - chongli 8y ago
    Funny that you mention von Neumann. His background is Hungarian Jewish, a trait he shares with a number of other super-geniuses. In fact, von Neumann went to the same Budapest high school as Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner. Quite a few other geniuses and Nobel laureates hail from Budapest. Scott Alexander has a fascinating write-up on this phenomenon [1]. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-considered-as-hungarian-high-school-science-fair-project/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid...
sebringj 8y ago
I agree. Personally, I'm very annoyed with myself at times at the tendencies that drive me that are constantly at odds with productivity or good health etc etc. as like you said it, evolution does not have the capacity to care about the desires of humans. In a macro-scale sense, humans figuring out how to overcome this is a type of evolution via intellect possibly as our intellect results in tools etc. via evolution.
- sebringj 8y ago
  It might also be something like limited resources as a driver in environmental pressure such as food being available to older members that did not pull their weight and a tribe had a better survivability if these individuals naturally died off earlier than later.

by otikik 8y ago

ajuc 8y ago

Bad examples. Increasing the amount of some substance produced vs re-growing limbs? Evolution is an optimization process. It can get stuck on a local maxima, but it's not a local maxima, if it can be trivially improved upon with no harmful side-effects. And it's not like producing more Klotho requires complicated mutations that are unlikely to happen. We know they happen. So - asking why it's not already widespread is perfectly reasonable. It probably involves some trade-offs.

andrewla 8y ago
Although I also disagree with the GP, I think phrasing evolution as an optimization process is a mistake. Evolution is a diversification process that exploits variation within a population to make the population as a whole more resilient to changes in the fitness function. The net result is the same -- even if Klotho production is neutral in the fitness landscape, you would expect it to be quite common. For it to be naturally as rare as it is probably implies a significant fitness cost in other ways. It could very well be, however, that the particular problems with Klotho production are factors which are no longer relevant in the current fitness landscape, but we (and other animals) evolved a certain resistance to Klotho production that has yet to be overcome by the irrelevance of the underlying costs. For example, if Klotho production significantly reduced reaction times or the time it takes to ramp up adrenaline production, then it might be that we are at a point where the downsides are no longer as relevant as they once were.

darepublic 8y ago

to me I conceptualize evolution as just a process like water filtering through a sieve is. So I don't see why using the word 'drives' is justified either.

proto-n 8y ago

Unfair conparison. Growing titanium bones is most likely unfeasible, if even possible. Producing Klotho is not infeasible, it is being done in our bodies. The question is the amount, which I assume should be already finetuned. That's why I called it too easy of a "hack".

hu3 8y ago

> Regarding you, evolution's drives are that you pass your genetic material down to your offspring, that you have as many offspring as possible, and that they repeat the cycle after you are gone. It also doesn't help that lower IQ correlates to higher offspring, according to some studies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence#International_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence#Int...

barry-cotter 8y ago
That’s only true since the 1800’s. From the dawn of agriculture to industrial civilisation there might have been very weak selection for intelligence. It can’t have been strong because otherwise we’d all be Von Neumanns. Gregory Clark's work on social mobility is fascinating if you find this topic interesting. Start with either A Farewell to Alms or The Son Also Rises.
- XaoDaoCaoCao 8y ago
  "It can’t have been strong because otherwise we’d all be Von Neumanns." But the type of intelligence that secures safety and access to reproductive opportunities is the sort which wages war and waits for the right time to backstab and/or do away with one's rivals. With agriculture you get the monopolization of surplus resources which greatly increases the rewards for autocratic and oligarchic formations.
- chongli 8y ago
  Funny that you mention von Neumann. His background is Hungarian Jewish, a trait he shares with a number of other super-geniuses. In fact, von Neumann went to the same Budapest high school as Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner. Quite a few other geniuses and Nobel laureates hail from Budapest. Scott Alexander has a fascinating write-up on this phenomenon [1]. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-considered-as-hungarian-high-school-science-fair-project/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid...

sebringj 8y ago

I agree. Personally, I'm very annoyed with myself at times at the tendencies that drive me that are constantly at odds with productivity or good health etc etc. as like you said it, evolution does not have the capacity to care about the desires of humans. In a macro-scale sense, humans figuring out how to overcome this is a type of evolution via intellect possibly as our intellect results in tools etc. via evolution.

sebringj 8y ago
It might also be something like limited resources as a driver in environmental pressure such as food being available to older members that did not pull their weight and a tribe had a better survivability if these individuals naturally died off earlier than later.