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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 21/03/2013 20:01, Natasha Vita-More
wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">What resources to you believe as
consequential for convincing people that we need better
bodies? So much is written, but not so much forms a solid
base of evidence.</p>
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<br>
While academic papers and rigorous arguments only convince a few
people, here is my and Nick's take on it:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nickbostrom.com/evolution.pdf">http://www.nickbostrom.com/evolution.pdf</a><br>
<br>
Our argument is that even if evolution were a perfect optimizer, it
would still fail at (1) giving us the right trade-offs for the
modern world, (2) evolve things that are hard to do biologically,
and (3) maximize human values. Given any optimality measure except
past evolutionary fitness or "status quo is best" we should expect
our bodies to be suboptimal at least in some respects. <br>
<br>
We have later been taken to task by Powell and Buchanan (
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21228084">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21228084</a> ) for giving evolution
too much credit :-)<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Faculty of Philosophy
Oxford University </pre>
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