Evolution And Its Implications

Genes and their phenotypes are akin to ingredients in a recipe. Most genes and mutations cannot be adaptive for an organism unless they work together with other genes and mutations. Most mutations are maladaptive and biologically harmful to most organisms, since they tend to disrupt a highly ordered morphology. However, a mutation that is maladaptive in one organism may be adaptive in a different organism(s) with a (vastly) different morphology and/or environment. There are thus probably millions of known and unknown examples of how genes may work together or work against each other as genetic combinations, or genotypes.

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Perhaps the most well-known and easily explainable examples of intergenetic adaptive coherence are examples of heterozygote advantage. For example, a human must have both the alpha and beta alleles of the hemoglobin gene in order to achieve heterozygote advantage and protect against malaria. If a human is homozygous for the beta allele, then he/she will have sickle cell anemia, which is maladaptive in all environments. If a human is homozygous for the alpha allele, then he/she will no genetic protection against malaria, which will be maladaptive in an environment where malaria is a common disease. The most optimal adaptive bundle for a human in a malaria-prone environment is thus the heterozygous genotype/phenotype. Heterozygote Advantage could be described as a subcase of adaptive coherence.

Intergenetic adaptive coherence can also extend beyond heterozygote advantage. For example, modern humans evolved have lower tracheae and epiglottises. They also evolved mental faculties for enabling human language. All of these adaptions work together to create adaptive, complex communication between humans. However, none of these traits would be adaptive by themselves. A lower trachea that is connected to the esophagus makes it easier for humans to choke on their food, compared to other animals (where the esophagus and trachea may be disconnected). A brain designed to process complex communication consumes more energy.

Some humans can use sign language to make do without the ability to speak or hear. That would give them the benefits of complex communication, but they would be unable to gain the benefits of spoken communication. Those humans would probably also have the disadvantages of spoken communication, i.e. a respiratory system that makes the body more vulnerable to choking. Such humans are less adapted than speaking humans, but they are more adapted than humans who cannot communicate at all. This is a good example of how losing or not having one of the traits of an adaptive bundle may not necessarily cause the entire rest of the bundle to become maladaptive.

Alternatively, some humans may have suitable respiratory and vocal tracts for producing audible speech sounds, while they also lack the mental faculties for (effective) communication. The neural structures inside the human brain that are responsible for communication are necessary for communication. So, if humans don’t have those necessary neural structures, then many (or most?) of the genes and traits that are required for communication will be maladaptive.

Being heterozygous for the α-globin and β-globin alleles, and having fast twitch muscle fibers are another example of an adaptive bundle. Since West Africans evolved to have genes that prevent malaria, they also evolved to have other genes that work with the malaria prevention genes. Source

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Some more examples:

• It’s adaptive for a primate to have both a tail and lower limbs that are shaped like human hands for climbing trees. For humans, it’s adaptive to have lower limbs designed for bipedal running and no tail at all.
• Multiple important genes/traits were necessary for creating modern human feet, which are adapted towards bipedal motion, rather than climbing trees.
  • The thumbs point the same direction at the other phalanges.
  • The phalanges became shorter.
  • Arches developed in the feet to support more weight.
  • The feet bones, tendons, and ligaments strengthened to ease bipedal walking.
• Smaller guts, larger brains, muscles optimized for bipedalism, stronger legs, and human feet were all adaptive in human evolution. (These traits were also coupled with cooking and eating higher-energy-rich diets, but that’s an example of genetic-memetic adaptive coherence.)
• Having no limbs would be maladaptive for most animals. But for snakes, the genes for having no limbs proved to be adaptive.
• Birds have feathers, wings, and only two legs. Together, these are all conducive for flying (or swimming).
• The aerodynamic head structure of a cheetah works with its muscle design for creating a faster animal.
• Longer snouts and longer tongues are both adaptive for insectivores, especially when an insectivore has both traits.
• Cave animals have a tendency to lose their sight and colors as a result of living in a dark environment, where selection for eyesight and camouflage is relaxed. But there is also selection at play here as well: making eyes comes at a cost. If they are not being used, then eliminating them is beneficial for saving the energy.
• Et Cetera

Blithering Genius has described genetic-memetic adaptive coherence: Adaptive Coherence.

As a hypothesized example, the memetic tradition where Sub-Saharan Africans carrying heavy/bulky objects on top of their heads may be somewhat facilitated by how they have denser bones and skulls compared to other human races, and how they tend to have smaller brains (both in terms of intelligence and size). Thus, if they carry heavy stuff on their heads and denser/thicker skulls, their brains suffer less damage and less micro-concussions compared to if Europeans or East Asians carried stuff on top of their heads and their less dense bones. The implication is that while East Asians or Europeans could carry heavy/bulky objects on top of their heads, they wouldn’t be as well-suited to do so as Sub-Saharan Africans.

Intermemetic adaptive coherence is all about memeplexes: sets of memes that reinforce each other. A lot of intermemetic adaptive coherence is all about how life can accomplish goals more efficiently. For example, limited (yet pragmatic) government enable free markets by solving problems of cooperation, while free markets can efficiently allocate and produce commodities and much of the government’s capital. Georgism and efficient urban planning also compliment each other well. Higher intelligence and higher rationality is important for achieving maximal intermemetic adaptive coherence for individuals and societies.

Most memetic traditions exist in the first place because they were/are adaptive. While I am recognizing intermemetic adaptive coherence as a concept, I’d say that most adaptive coherence involving memes would be genetic-memetic in practice.

Someday, I hope to publish a webpage talking about all my ideas about ideal memetics for a rational humanist / pragmatopian society, which would integrate many phenomena that would enable both genetic-memetic adaptive coherence and intermemetic adaptive coherence.

The concept of genetic adaptive bundles helps demonstrate why it makes more sense to view Competition in Nature as competition between organisms, rather than competition between genes. If we only think about biological competition in terms of genes, then we’ll fail to recognize the importance of phenotypes, and how different phenotypes affect the ability of organisms to compete against each other. The genes in phenotypes are akin to the ingredients in recipes. Changing an ingredient (gene) can change the recipe (phenotype). But the analogy isn’t perfect because organisms are designed to reproduce, and sexual reproduction enables different combinations of genes to arise in different organisms. Genes can be mixed and separated in the offspring of organisms. And ultimately, the most successful organisms are the ones with the best genotypes/phenotypes, i.e. the ones with most of the best adaptive bundles for some particular environment. Competition between organisms is thus the more holistic and explanatory way to describe competition in Nature, rather than thinking about metaphorical “competition” between genes.

See: Debunking the Selfish Gene: The Phenocentric Theory of Biological Purpose by T. K. Van Allen.

In many cases, some adaptive bundles may be more important than others for creating the most adaptive organisms in a particular environment. In such scenarios, the genes and alleles that are necessary for achieving those adaptive bundles will be selected before the less important adaptive bundles. Organisms that reproduce via sexual reproduction have the greatest potential to produce offspring that have the greatest number of different genetic combinations genotypes/phenotypes possible.

Different environments have different (theoretically) optimal adaptive bundles. Adaptive bundles are clusters of genes and traits. Different races and different species are defined by having different genetic clusters / correlations of genes and traits. The concept of adaptive bundles is thus important for describing why human races and many species/subspecies of organisms are different for each other.

Reason and knowledge are not the only reason why humans rule the world. If we examine other mammals like orangutans, elephants, and cetaceans, we will find that they are surprisingly intelligent. They have demonstrated exceptional capabilities to memorize concepts, do arithmetic, communicate with humans on a limited level, demonstrate self-awareness, have emotions, organize advanced social structures, and have advanced communication. Since advanced knowledge and reasoning skills are not limited to just only humans, it must be concluded that there are therefore other reasons why humans rule the world.

Related: Why Poor Places Are More Diverse - Minute Earth.

The reason why humans have risen above orangutans, elephants, cetaceans, giant pacific octopi, and other mammals/animals is that we are able to combine reason, communication/interaction, and our capable bodies/appendages better than any other organism in our world.

• Humans clearly have the best reasoning and knowledge skills in the world, which is pretty self-explanatory.
• Humans have the most complex communication system and societies of any life known to mankind. Human language can express infinite quantities of ideas and information.
• Humans have the most capable appendages and anatomies in the world. Human hands can grasp tools and build many things with relative ease. By comparison, cetaceans and elephants don’t have the same appendages or anatomies to enable them to build the same things that a human can, such as fires, wheels, shelters, compasses, aqueducts, medicine, modern computers, and all the other things humans have invented.

Humans also have long lifespans compared to other relatively intelligent species. The giant pacific octopus is possibly the smartest of all invertebrates, but since its lifespan only lasts 3-5 years at max, it doesn’t have much time to do the same productive work that humans can do before they die.

Nevertheless, intelligence is definitely the most important out of the four skills / qualities, but the other skills would both be rendered useless without the ability to reason.

With all of this in mind, we can conclude that intelligent life that is on par with human life is most likely to at least have the following six characteristics:

• High Capacity to Reason (Intelligence)
• Volition (the ability to reason implies volition)
• Sophisticated Methods of Communication
• Emotion
• Limbs that are optimal for building tools and such
• Sufficiently long lifespan

Social Cognition - Wireless Philosophy.

Human life has the most agency, the ability to do as it wants.

• Humans can create cooperative civilizations that have the potential to avoid significant violence (even if it doesn’t completely prevent all violence).
• Humans have the cognitive ability and freedom to choose their own meanings of life, whereas other life can only do what it is biologically programmed to do.
• Human life is the most intelligent life that is known to exist.
• Humans have the best form of entertainment: music, internet, intellectual pursuits, videogames, movies, sports, etc
• Human life has the most expressive form of communication known to mankind: human languages.
• Humans can abort fetuses if they know that the fetuses won’t develop correctly.
• Humans are very able to end their lives if they determine that their lives aren’t worth living and won’t get any better.
• Hypothetically, humans could use eugenics/genetic engineering to remove at least some of the unintelligent design that is present in human life.