Human imperfections as proof that we evolved

Rob Dunn of the Smithsonian highlights ten human perfections as evidence that we evolved. "From hiccups to wisdom teeth, the evolution of homo sapiens has left behind some glaring, yet innately human, imperfections." What human features made the list? 1. The fact that mitochondria became the prey for our cells. 2. Hiccups. The original function? Our ancestors who were fish and early amphibians "pushed water past their gills while simultaneously pushing the glottis down." 3. Backaches. Learning how to stand up gave us the ability to see farther, and it gave us freedom to make better use of our hands. But the resulting "S" shaped back is not a good design for supporting our considerable weight. 4. Unsupported intestines. Standing up made them hang down "instead of being cradled by our stomach muscles." this often leads to hernias. 5. Choking. In most animals, the esophagus is below the trachea. This allows us to speak, but allow falling food and water "about a 50-50 chance of falling in the wrong tube." 6. We're cold in the winter. We lost our fur, and this proves that evolution is blind as to where we will end up. 7. Goosebumps. They are good for making our fur stand up when we look bigger to scare away a potential predator. But See #6: we lost our fur. 8. Our brains squeeze our teeth. Bigger brains left less room for big jaws. I'm not convinced that the big brain came first, however. I've read accounts that suggest that fire lead to less need for big jaws to chew uncooked food, which lead to more room for the brain. 9. Obesity. Those strong cravings for sugar, salt and fat were great when we lived on the savanna, where these things are scarce. In our current food-rich environment, these ancient cravings are toxic for most of us. 10. Rob Dunn makes this the miscellaneous category. He includes male nipples, blind spots in our eyes, and our coccyx (a bone that used to be our tail).

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Religion: It’s almost like being in love

You know how it is when someone is in the first throes of infatuation. We call it "love," but it's very different than the kind of relationship that eventually develops. Or doesn't develop. Think of all of those young couples "in love" who are at each other's throats only a couple years later. While they are in the romantic love stage, they are "caught up in the emotion." Their lover can do no wrong. Their lover is perfect. Their lover has no faults; oh, sure he or she has idiosyncrasies, but nothing that could possibly impede this relationship. At least not until the fairy dust settles and they are able to start seeing each other as flawed human beings, sometimes horribly flawed. Amazing as it seems, strong emotions can cause massive distortions in perceptions. They can make A look like Not-A. Strong emotions can also completely shut down our ability to think self-critically. How is it possible that perceptions and understanding can be massively distorted by emotion? How is it that a violent drunkard kleptomaniac can initially seem like a nice fellow? That's evolution at work. As Robert Wright once wrote in The Moral Animal, emotions are "evolution's executioners." We have deep instincts for falling in love, for losing control, for blinding ourselves to the other's faults so that we will make babies. I should restate this. It's not that evolution is trying to do anything at all. Evolution is not conscious and it has no plan. On the other hand, we are survivors at the top of a long branch of the tree of speciation. You and I and all of our ancestors have survived Nature's amoral pruning, millennium after millennium. We are extremely lucky that we evaded the weeding phase of breed and weed. The unrelenting reproductive urge, the one thing that every one of our ancestors had in spades, has been passed on to us or we wouldn't be here to ponder anything. ALL of our ancestors had it and acted on it: the compulsion to reproduce--the urge to merge. This ancient instinct is ubiquitous, even though, once in a while, a cigar is only a cigar. What is the most efficient way to make animals reproduce? How about this? Blind them to each others' faults and make them horny. [More . . . ]

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What it means to be human

What is a human animal? If you were a Martian anthropologist, you would probably want to supplement your field studies (at grocery stores, sports events and tupperware parties) with a visit to this website of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. It is not highly technical, so those of you with children might want to share this site with them. What it lacks in technical information, it makes up for with a rich collection of videos, images and illustrations of artifacts, behavior and environments. Lots to click on here!

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A most powerful illusion

So very many of us just can't give up the idea that there is a fully functional person-like entity who operates the machinery in our brains. It's terrifying for many of us to consider that this mind, who seems to be me, has billions of thoughtless components. How is it possible for thought to be built out of non-thinking parts? I can't explain it (who can, really?), but that's how it is; it would seem that the amazing functions of modern-day computers, which are built out of numerous tiny parts, would cause many homunculus-believers to rethink things enough that they would kick homunculi out of their lives. But most people refuse to follow the evidence because it would be inconvenient. Therefore, these homunculus-believers embrace the (powerful) illusion, which sustains the further illusion that there are souls and Gods. This is the point being made by David Weisman at Seed:

There is a common idea: because the mind seems unified, it really is. Many go only a bit further and call that unified mind a “soul.” This step, from self to soul, is an ancient assumption which now forms a bedrock in many religions: a basis for life after death, for religious morality, and a little god within us, a support for a bigger God outside us. For the believers in the soul, let’s call them soulists, the soul assumption appears to be only the smallest of steps from the existence of a unified mind. Yet the soul is a claim for which there isn’t any evidence . . . The evidence supports another view: Our brains create an illusion of unity and control where there really isn’t any.

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Alleged problems with small attorneys riding big elephants

I've previously written about Jonathan Haidt's approach to human moral psychology. His approach is termed the "Social Intuitionist Model" of moral motivation and it suggests that

moral behaviors are typically the product of multiple levels of moral functioning, and are usually energized by the "hotter" levels of intuition, emotion, and behavioral virtue/vice. The "cooler" levels of values, reasoning, and willpower, while still important, are proposed to be secondary to the more affect-intensive processes.

Haidt has used the metaphor of an intellectually-nimble lawyer riding on top of a huge emotion-permeated elephant to illustrate his counter-intuitive approach, suggesting that the small articulate lawyer on top often lacks meaningful control over the elephant. Moral judgments are usually dominated by emotions such as empathy and disgust (the strength of these is represented by the big-ness of the elephant). In short, Haidt is quite sympathetic to David Hume's suggestion that moral reasoning is essentially "the slave of the passions." In the March 25, 2010 edition of Nature (available here), Paul Bloom expressed concern that something important has been left out of Haidt's model. In reaction, Haidt defended himself against Bloom’s attack (see below), indicating that Bloom (whose work Haidt admires, for the most part) has misconstrued Haidt’s Social Intuitionist Model. I believe that summarizing this exchange between Haidt and Bloom sharpens the focus on the meaning of Haidt’s Social Intuitionist Model. [More . . . ]

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