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>Biology is non-toxic. Biology is efficient. Biology is beautiful. Biology is technology. I have a huge problem, with especially the first two. Biology can be

>Biology is non-toxic. Biology is efficient. Biology is beautiful. Biology is technology. I have a huge problem, with especially the first two. Biology can be very toxic. Cobra snake venom is a product of biology. Cancer is a product of biology. Both can have horrific consequences for humans. Biology is not necessarily efficient. Take a look at pregnancy and birth and infancy. Before modern medicine and birth control, a woman could give birth to 10 children, only to have to bury the majority of them. The danger with this kind of idealization of nature is that it encourages a kind of laissez faire. If we could only leave nature alone, we would all be fine. The ice age that almost wiped out humanity was natural. Hurricanes are natural and occurred even before man made warming. Nature is scary. We need each other and technology to figure out how to take advantage of the good parts of nature, while controlling its badness. Human intervention can be better than the natural course.

arp242 6y ago
Before that it mentioned "Human DNA is 6 GB", but a lot of that is junk and meaningless. "Dead code", so to speak. Hardly what I call efficient. There are plenty of weird things as well. Why can't humans synthesise vitamin C? My cat can; in fact, most animals can. But not humans and most other primates: we lost this ability. This is probably because at the time we didn't really need it as we got enough from dietary sources, but dropping it just because you don't need it right now is of course a bit silly and short-sighted, but nature doesn't have any foresight of course. This is the sort of thing why species go extinct. Another well known "design flaw" is the blind spot in our eyes, which is there for no real reason in particular other than what we might call "legacy reasons" in programming terms.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- KirillPanov 6y ago
  > a lot of that is junk and meaningless. "Dead code", so to speak ... so far as we currently know. DNA is only mostly software; it's also a physical molecule. Many of the columns in a DRAM chip look like a waste of capacitance until you know what alpha particles are and what ECC does. > the blind spot in our eyes, which is there for no real reason It's there for a very good reason, the optic nerve connection. Only cephalopods have figured out a better solution, and it's not at all clear that it would work for humans. Our eyes have to tolerate a lifetime of much-higher UV exposure than sea-creatures, for starters. Cephalopods' optic nerves grow in from the retina toward the brain, and there's a huge bundle of complicated connections to make where they "meet in the middle". Vertebrate optic nerves grow out from the brain and embed themselves in the retina, so there's no wiring problem to solve.
- patcon 6y ago
  Would you call a library inefficient? Miles and miles of books that no one is reading right now? And all that concrete and rebar that no one can read :)

arp242 6y ago

Before that it mentioned "Human DNA is 6 GB", but a lot of that is junk and meaningless. "Dead code", so to speak. Hardly what I call efficient. There are plenty of weird things as well. Why can't humans synthesise vitamin C? My cat can; in fact, most animals can. But not humans and most other primates: we lost this ability. This is probably because at the time we didn't really need it as we got enough from dietary sources, but dropping it just because you don't need it right now is of course a bit silly and short-sighted, but nature doesn't have any foresight of course. This is the sort of thing why species go extinct. Another well known "design flaw" is the blind spot in our eyes, which is there for no real reason in particular other than what we might call "legacy reasons" in programming terms.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
KirillPanov 6y ago
> a lot of that is junk and meaningless. "Dead code", so to speak ... so far as we currently know. DNA is only mostly software; it's also a physical molecule. Many of the columns in a DRAM chip look like a waste of capacitance until you know what alpha particles are and what ECC does. > the blind spot in our eyes, which is there for no real reason It's there for a very good reason, the optic nerve connection. Only cephalopods have figured out a better solution, and it's not at all clear that it would work for humans. Our eyes have to tolerate a lifetime of much-higher UV exposure than sea-creatures, for starters. Cephalopods' optic nerves grow in from the retina toward the brain, and there's a huge bundle of complicated connections to make where they "meet in the middle". Vertebrate optic nerves grow out from the brain and embed themselves in the retina, so there's no wiring problem to solve.
patcon 6y ago
Would you call a library inefficient? Miles and miles of books that no one is reading right now? And all that concrete and rebar that no one can read :)