dualstow wrote: ↑Fri Feb 08, 2019 11:19 pm
(1) We're tool users now, where tools include false teeth, vaccines and space suits.
The animals that evolved into us were tool users for millions of years.
The trade-offs are going to the dentist instead of selecting for perfect teeth (at the expense of something else), vaccines instead of waiting around to develop something like sickle cells for malaria, and space suits instead of evolving the ability to get to the moon while holding our breath.
Going to the dentist would be more like a... I can't remember the exact term, but a 'fitness masker.' Analogous to bird researchers and "ugly" birds. Researchers took birds where the length of the tail was a marker of fitness, and the birds with the longest tails were most attractive to mates. They attached a tail extension onto previously unattractive birds, who then started attracting the ladies. But the babies of the short tailed birds inherited the deficient genes of the father, and had short tails and other unfitness, like susceptibility to parasites, which long tails normally indicated were absent. So you can mask the deficient genes with tools, but in population terms, it's like putting poison into a pop bottle and thinking it's alright to drink now.
And regarding the sickle cell, there's the anemia side of it. And those with sickle-cell disease have no protection against malaria. Evolution is messy.
Absolutely. There are other ones I've seen, where favorable traits are co-morbid with deficient ones. Tay-Sachs, blue eyes, extremely high intelligence. Native Americans are more susceptible to alcoholism; I haven't seen anything, but I would assume that there is some gene that was favorable in some way that also increases susceptibility to alcohol.
(2) We're social animals. We're a network. So while not everyone is born with resistance to this or that, we help each other. Maybe this sub-optimal state forces us to cooperate even more.
I don't think this was the case for most of our history. Furthermore, I think evidence shows that we
especially didn't help unfit males. Genetic studies show that historically only 40% of males (and 80% of females) had viable offspring. And 8,000 years ago, 17 females reproduced for every 1 male. I think it's safe to say that nobody was helping out these prehistoric incels.
Until very recently, pretty much everyone on the planet lived very close to a subsistence lifestyle, they simply weren't able, or willing, to help out people who (wow, really sounding evil here) weren't fit to live. There may have been a tribe who were really got into morality, but it stands to reason that people who were very stupid, or had bad eyesight, or who had weak stomachs, or whatever, wouldn't have lasted long anyways.
So for a super long time, those unfit people were pruned. It's not like after millions of years of evolution you end up with a perfected population, either. Mutations are pretty much constant, sometimes they're good, but most of the time they're bad. It's only at our current level of technological sophistication that we're able, and willing, to help out the unfit (again, in genetic/biological terms, not moral).
I'm planning on getting more into this subject this year after I close out my current focus area, so I'm glad you brought it up. Very timely.
You there, Ephialtes. May you live forever.