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Wow. Bonkers. Also, prolix. Evolution has equipped us with two kidneys for presumably good reasons. Don't go giving one away unless you really have to.

caturopath 3y ago
This is a pretty odd remark. The effect of living with one kidney isn't some sort of unknown thing we need to reason about from first principles, we know pretty well what life is like for kidney donors. And I don't know about 'really have to', but it doesn't seem like 'saving someone's life' is a trivial or stupid reason.
- zabzonk 3y ago
  the article struck me as something hannibal lecter might have used as a case-study in his paper on surgical addiction.
TheDong 3y ago
> Evolution has equipped us with two kidneys for presumably good reasons As the article pointed out, on average you live a totally fine life with only 1 kidney, so clearly no. Like, that same argument would be "evolution gave us poor eyesight, so glasses must be bad. Why else would evolution make so many people's vision fail? Blurry eyesight must have an evolutionary advantage", or "evolution made some people white for a reason, don't use sunscreen, skin-cancer research says to sunscreen up, but we shouldn't second-guess evolution and play gods". Evolution is random mutations with a very course-grained utility function. Rejecting evidence in favor of it gives you nothing but nonsense. And fad diets, but mostly nonsense.
- eru 3y ago
  Going off a tangent: the modern myopia epidemic seems to be related to lots of time spent indoors when growing up. People in the past weren't so myopic, and we have difference between modern countries that also track pretty well with that explanation. However the science isn't quite settled on that.
petesergeant 3y ago
> Evolution has ... for presumably good reasons That's not how evolution works either in theory or in practice
cjbprime 3y ago
Evolution doesn't imply a cause to every attribute. Totally plausible that having one kidney is advantageous, our bodies have general bilateral symmetry of organs, there is no strong selection pressure against having that symmetry result in two kidneys, hence we have two. Most of your DNA is "non-functional". Evolution does not have a plan.
sadtoot 3y ago
evolution also programmed us to yawn, yet doctors can't figure out what purpose or benefit it has

caturopath 3y ago

This is a pretty odd remark. The effect of living with one kidney isn't some sort of unknown thing we need to reason about from first principles, we know pretty well what life is like for kidney donors. And I don't know about 'really have to', but it doesn't seem like 'saving someone's life' is a trivial or stupid reason.

zabzonk 3y ago
the article struck me as something hannibal lecter might have used as a case-study in his paper on surgical addiction.

TheDong 3y ago

> Evolution has equipped us with two kidneys for presumably good reasons As the article pointed out, on average you live a totally fine life with only 1 kidney, so clearly no. Like, that same argument would be "evolution gave us poor eyesight, so glasses must be bad. Why else would evolution make so many people's vision fail? Blurry eyesight must have an evolutionary advantage", or "evolution made some people white for a reason, don't use sunscreen, skin-cancer research says to sunscreen up, but we shouldn't second-guess evolution and play gods". Evolution is random mutations with a very course-grained utility function. Rejecting evidence in favor of it gives you nothing but nonsense. And fad diets, but mostly nonsense.

eru 3y ago
Going off a tangent: the modern myopia epidemic seems to be related to lots of time spent indoors when growing up. People in the past weren't so myopic, and we have difference between modern countries that also track pretty well with that explanation. However the science isn't quite settled on that.

petesergeant 3y ago

> Evolution has ... for presumably good reasons That's not how evolution works either in theory or in practice

cjbprime 3y ago

Evolution doesn't imply a cause to every attribute. Totally plausible that having one kidney is advantageous, our bodies have general bilateral symmetry of organs, there is no strong selection pressure against having that symmetry result in two kidneys, hence we have two. Most of your DNA is "non-functional". Evolution does not have a plan.

sadtoot 3y ago

evolution also programmed us to yawn, yet doctors can't figure out what purpose or benefit it has