[ExI] evolution

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 12:13 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> We have cravings for:  salt, fat, sex, aggression, and larceny, as a
> result of evolution.  While they may have served us well getting to now, we
> have too much of them now for our own good.  Of course y'all know that.  My
> question is:  what if anything would you add to the list?
>

Evolution is the reason Relativity and Quantum Mechanics seem so
counterintuitive to us. Even though they more accurately describe what's
really going on at the deepest level an Intuitive understanding of them
wouldn't help our ape like ancestors who lived on the African savanna a few
million years ago pass their genes into the next generation. In fact
evolution is the reason an affinity for the scientific method itself isn't
ingrained in our genes, nobody is born being a fan of it it and so must be
learned because it's too slow; if one encounter something in the woods that
may or may not be a sabertooth tiger then conducting a double blind
experimental test to determine if it really is a carnivorous beast and what
the best thing to do to stay alive just isn't practical, so a snap decision
needs to be made. Back then making pretty good short term decisions was far
more important than making very good long-term decisions, that's especially
true in a culture that's virtually static, but the faster a society moves
the more important long term decisions become.

John K Clark
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