[extropy-chat] Re: Intelligent Design and Irriducible Complexity

[Kevin Freels]

It's derived from Darwin. Much as the entire "survival of the fittest" line
which Darwin never once mentioned.
It would be nice to be able to get into the schols and see exactly what they
are teaching. So many people "know" the same misunderstood information, you
wonder if it isn;t coming from the schools themselves.

As for your brain, mate-selection idea, I kind of like it. I had made some
notes about that a while back and never followed up on it. That would go a
long way to explain why such an expensive change would occur in terms of
energy since the human brain costs far more than we actually get out of it
in terns of benefits.

Looking at my notes, I also see that it was a possible explanation for the
extinction of H. neanderthalensis. Have you had any similar thoughts about
that?


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Spike" <spike66 at comcast.net>
To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 10:55 PM
Subject: RE: [extropy-chat] Re: Intelligent Design and Irriducible
Complexity


>
> > Kevin Freels
> > Irriducible Complexity
> > >
> > > 2. By Darwin, all structures must over any long time be useful for
> > survival or they gradually vanish. What is the survival advantage of
> > having God?
> > >
> > According to Darwin, yes, but I am not so sure about that...
>
>
> Did Darwin express this thought or is it a derivative?
> The Origin of Species carries some thoughts that are
> kinda along these lines, but nearly 2/3 of the book
> is actually about mate selection.  This is a neglected
> part of evolution education which causes many
> misunderstandings.  Mate selection can lead to many
> structures that have no apparent survival advantage,
> and may carry survival disadvantages, such as the
> peacock's heavy tail plumage.
>
> Steven Jay Gould gives an example of a species that
> apparently went extinct because of mate-selection
> characteristics that worked against survival of the
> genome: a particular species of elk that developed
> monster-huge antlers.  The theory is that the does
> continued to choose the bucks with the largest antlers
> long after they were too big to use for fighting rival
> males.  Eventually the buck's antlers became so heavy,
> the does were not able to support their considerable
> heft during the mating process.  The results were
> predictable.
>
> I have posted one of my favorite notions here before,
> that human brains resulted from mate selection: both
> genders selected mates with bulbous heads because the
> big-headed were cute.  They looked like babies.  The
> cute tended to mate sooner and more often, giving a
> slight reproductive advantage to the large-headed,
> resulting in a totally accidentally smart species.
>
> The punchline to all this is that large brains now
> work against our survival, just as the oversized
> antlers did for those elk and their ilk.  We make
> war, we use birth control, we build nukes, all of
> which work against human survival.
>
> Before you reject this notion, consider this.  Some
> have argued that our large brains contribute to our
> survival in the wild, for we outsmart other beasts,
> etc, so that large brains have a survival advantage.
> The argument continues that humans have little
> natural defense: we are not particularly swift runners,
> we have no claws, no fangs, etc.
>
> I would question this to some extent, but even if I
> allow these notions, we have another natural defense
> that few humans think about: we taste terrible.  Evidence:
> there are cases where lions or other large carnivores
> have slain humans, but do not actually devour same.
> Here in Taxifornia, we have mountain lions.  Occasionally
> one attacks and even slays a human.  It is common to
> find such a victim with exactly one hunk of meat torn away.
> The hunk of meat is often found nearby, undevoured.
> The Alaska bear guy who was found dead recently had exactly
> one leg more or less eaten.  The Australian babe carried
> away by the dingo was evidently not devoured either, for
> her clothing would have been shredded.
>
> If any large carnivore attacks a human, surely that beast
> was hungry, yet the prey is seldom devoured.  My conclusion
> is that evidently we taste terrible, and probably
> smell bad to most animals too.  So humans could likely
> survive in the wild alongside large carnivores, even
> without actually outsmarting them, like the skunk.
> Friends, we are skunks.
>
> Given that, I would argue we are waaaay smarter than
> we need to be to survive, but more to the point, we are
> too smart for our own good.  We might actually breed
> better if we were dumber.  We would be far less comfortable
> as individuals, of course, but evolution does not work
> towards the comfort and survival of the individual.
>
> In that sense, large brains are analogous to large
> antlers.  If we manage to grey goo the planet with
> runaway nanotech, do let me say I told ya so.  In
> advance.
>
> spike
>
>
>
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