[extropy-chat] evolution again

[Spike]

Of Natasha Vita-More
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] evolution again

Thanks Spike - just the right touch to accompany my morning coffee.
Natasha

...We are trying to understand why humans have this oddball shape with
the curiously oversized subsystems such as genitals, heads and butts
(possibly in that order)...

 
 
Natasha you are too kind.
 
The reason I am hammering this topic is that the evolution memeset
seems to be failing to prosper, possibly losing ground in many 
important ways.  I have a notion for how to advance it.
 
Our current descriptive approach to evolution education is getting
ever more competition for scarce classroom hours from other sciences
that are more mathematized and thus suffer less from the ambiguity 
of words.  To advance the understanding of evolution thus requires 
it to be more mathematized, like physics and chemistry.
 
I propose the following system as a start.
 
Think of physical structures in humans (since we know a lot about
human anatomy) and try to decide its cost and its benefit in terms
of survival of the individual.  Having a muscle that is larger than 
necessary has a survival cost: it uses up more calories, thus
requiring Mr. Universe to slay and devour more and larger beasts.
Likewise with our heads: highly vascular, lots of heat loss, see
above.  Larger penises: larger vulnerable target in a fight with
both man and beast.
 
But all three of these may have their benefits too: larger butts
might help us run for instance.  So the exercise is to estimate
the ratio of cost to benefit of a structure.  But do it two different
ways: from a mating attractiveness point of view and from a
strictly survival point of view.  So you should get two numbers
for every system.
 
Take the penis.  (No, not THAT definition of take, dammit, pay
attention.)
Its survival cost to benefit ratio Rs is surely larger than 1.  But its
mating attractiveness cost to benefit ratio Ra is less than 1.  So
we can multiply the two ratios together to get an overall evolutionary
cost to benefit ratio.  If that overall ratio is greater than 1,
we might expect that structure to evolve smaller.
 
Rs = survival cost to benefit ratio
Ra = mating attractiveness cost to benefit ratio
Re = evolutionary cost to benefit ratio
 
Re = Rs * Ra
 
For the penis:
 
Rs(p) > 1
Ra(p) < 1
Re(p) ~ 1
 
Equilibrium is established when Rep ~ 1
 
Nowthen, in a previous post, I suggested that humans evolved
in a tropical climate, but some humans left the tropics for colder,
harsher
climates, which required them to wrap themselves in the skins
of the beasts they slew.  This hid the genitals, which supressed
the Ra of the penis, which caused the product Re(p) to go greater
than 1, which caused the penis of those cold-weather adapted humans
to evolve smaller, so that Re(p) adjusts itself back to approximately 1,
which defines evolutionary equilibrium of that structure.
 
With technology, that equilibrium is suddenly and wildly reversed, for 
today nearly all humans live in the tropics, in a sense: we reside
indoors 
with heaters.  Moderns evidently do choose mates based partially on
the size of his genitals, so Ra(p) is now amplified.  Moderns seldom
perish 
from having oversized genitals, so Rs(p) is now the coefficient that is 
suppressed, causing the product Re(p) to go less than one, which would 
cause humans to evolve in a delightful direction.
 
If this notion holds in general, then it may help us come up with
successful 
mathematical models for evolution.  A working mathematical model 
allows us to write computer simulations of evolution.  
 
A digital version of Clarke's law would suggest that any sufficiently
advanced
computer simulation is indistinguishable from reality.  
 
So if we figure out how to simulate evolution on a computer, we should
be able to run it forward to predict the singularity, or more
specifically, 
to create the singularity.
 
spike
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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