On Human Evolution

This post is brought to you buy the anti-science, anti-intellectualism movement that continues to exist in today's world; specifically, the anti-evolution movement that fails to understand evolution in any capacity.

More specifically, it is brought by the comment that spawned this TikTok video by @science_is_real.

    I saw this a few days ago and the mathematics have been plaguing me since. Why? Because this is an example which can be converted into a path that can be followed.

There has been a lot of research into the correlation between spleen size and ability to do longer, deeper dives in humans: fro reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3376424/

And even to causality of spleen size variance during breath-holding experiments: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0068670 (this study only had 12 participants so it may not be entirely representative of the overall human population).
Interestingly, the spleen size has a wide variance in the human population and, unlike the other organs, is very malleable; it changes in response to, well, everything. 

The malleable nature of the spleen makes it difficult to clearly and absolutely analyze; difficult, but not impossible. 

This is the point where I remind you that I'm no one special. I am merely inquisitive and like answers. I like data. I like seeing how the world works.

So, for a hypothetical examination of how the divers outlined in the video have been evolving we have to start with a hypothetical starting point. Let us say that there were 2,500 individuals as part of a nomad tribe. When they decided to settle into their lives of huts built on stilts they were no different from the average human population. So their spleens would have had the wide variance of 93 to 253 mL in volume as a resting, healthy, size. Furthermore, during the breath-holding experiments the variance in size was recorded spanning a range of 7% to 20% in spleen volume reduction. 

Despite the small sample size of the study we can still use these numbers as a baseline for a crude model that can show how populations change over time. We have two variables to track: resting size and contraction during breath holding. Because the mechanism of longer divers seems to be that their spleens release red blood cells into the blood during the breath holding I will presume that the larger contractibility of the spleen correlates to better survival rates during long dives.

Now, let's presume that the figures mentioned above are our 1 standard deviation posts, meaning that 2/3 the population will have their normal function within those ranges for both sets. 95% of the population will within twice the range (this is a guess since I don't have an actual standard deviation to work with) and only extraordinarily great or poor spleen performances will be outside those ranges at a rate of 2.5% of the population each.

Free Diving, as a sport, has an absurdly high death rate (as in, it's so high why would anyone do it?) of 1 in 500 dives among the recreational population. At expert levels, which the current peoples of aquatic cultures would certainly rival, the rate is reduced to 1 in 50,000 dives due to the extensive levels of safeguards in place at competitions ( https://freedivingfreedom.com/risks-of-freediving/freediving-death-rates-the-shocking-reality/ ).

As tempting as it is to say that the original stilt-house divers would have the same death rate as today's recreational freedivers we cannot denigrate them to that level. It would have caused them to go extinct quickly if the entire population were dying at a rate of 1 death per 500 dives whilst diving several times a day each. So quickly, in fact, that they would suffer 4x the number of diving deaths as they have people if they only dove 5x a day - keeping in mind that each free dive is ONE breath.

I will, instead, give a blanket rate of 30% deaths per generation due to diving accidents and presume that a reasonable percentage of the population dies per generation due to unrelated causes (50% is what I am using for the remaining mathematics as a 50% death rate over the course of 20 years seems reasonable through age, accidents, and disease in a culture that is not readily prepared with modern safety equipment and medicine). Couple it with a growth rate of 110% and there are more babies made per generation than there are deaths, so the community grows.

The 50% death rate really has no direct impact on the specific mutation of spleen enlargement that we are looking to follow so we can discount it completely when it comes to the genetics involved, but it has to be considered for overall population size. Which means that, among the 30% who died in dive deaths, we can presume that the majority of them died due to their inability to perform the dive tasks and that that is a direct result of their spleen size and lung capacity. Therefore, their removal from the gene pool will remove those at the bottom of the spleen functionality end of the gene pool before they can generate many offspring.

From these assumptions we have the following crude simulated population growth:

If Natural Selection were not at work on this population through the adversity of the constant free diving then the spleen size among the population wouldn't be altered but, because that excessive stress on the population exists we can see how it affects portions of the population differently.

The model presumes that the worst 95% of the small-spleen crowd die each generation from dive-related injuries with 95% of remainder of those deaths coming from those who have average spleens. As you can see it only takes a single generation to wipe those with smaller spleens off the population chart.

Which leads to a different population breakdown as early as the first generation of people born in to the environment.

What fascinated me the most about this is how quickly such an adverse condition can dramatically change a population. 
I expected, when I set out to make this model, that it would take at least 500 years (25 generations) to show any significant change to the population and I am quite surprised that it only took two generations to eradicate the smaller spleens from the group with a fatality rate that is less than 10% that of the recreational free diving death rate among the world today. 

While "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is really not applicable to individuals, it certainly is to populations.

Isolation plus adversity drives Natural Selection and, in turn, evolution. 

Conundrums

It's amazing how one can exist in a near permanent state of non-life. A state of mere subsistence and animalistic survival instincts. It's amazing how one can trudge through that existence and still fight to continue it.

While, simultaneously, others can have much, much more to their lives and dread each waking moment for the pain and suffering and boredom that it brings.

The universe holds such wonders, even when one is contained to the insignificant spec that is our world. Yet, our lives and modern barriers prevent us from experiencing them. It's almost as if all the wonders of the world exist to tease those who cannot experience them into wanting to hold on for the possibility that, someday, they will be able to afford to experience some of the wonders rather than the duldroms of their daily lives.

We spend our lives; each minute, each second, wanting to do things that we can't and failing to recognize many of the things that are right there in front of us.

And yet, as horrible as that sounds, we can't be blamed for it. Our very minds, due to aeons of evolution, have been wired to search for more and not be content. That has been a survival mechanism that drove our species to expand and seek more resources so that we can expand our tribes and make our lives better.

This mechanism is what causes the poor, and the rich alike, to be dissatisfied with what they HAVE and to always want more.

I want more. I want more things and I want more experiences. I want less boredom. I want more meaningful interaction.

You want more. Whether you will admit it or not you want more of something.

If you don't want more I want to know how you achieved the state of inner peace that you have..... because that is something I want more of, too.

Ideas are Neutral: Implementaion is Where the Evil May Lie

Ideas, like tools, are completely neutral to their surroundings.

A handgun, for instance, is born of the idea of killing someone. Killing someone, we can safely assume, is generally not a good thing. Handguns, though, are also used for defending yourself when someone else is trying to kill you. Defending oneself is generally a good thing. Handguns, obviously, are fairly neutral. On the one hand they can be used for acts of evil but they can also be used to stop acts of evil.

A pencil is generally a useful tool. They are used to jot down important notes. Write books. Write letters, etc. Pencils, however, can also be used to stab people. Does the fact that pencils COULD be used to kill someone make them evil? Nope; it shows that they are neutral.

Fire consumes all that it touches and turns it to ash. Fire can inflict HUGE amounts of pain and generates toxic gasses that kill many things silently. Fire ravages the countryside in an indiscriminate way. Fire destroys homes and lives. Fire kills. Fire also provides the heat used to generate electricity in coal plants. Fire converts gasoline into kinetic energy we use to get around in our cars and cut our lawns. Fire is used to process dirty water into water that is safe to drink. Fire cooks our food and makes it a fantastic meal rather than a disease filled raw pile of meat.

Dihydrous Monoxide is a powerful substance that can eat through metal and rock. It destroy buildings. It turns stable ground into sinkholes that devour people, cars, houses, and many other things. It is used at some stage of production in EVERY toxic chemical known to man. It's found in the lungs of everyone who has ever drown. There is a large concentration of it in the bloodstream of everyone who has died from physical injuries. EVERYONE who has ever come into contact with dihydrous monoxide has eventually died. That's right; this substance is completely and totally lethal to mankind in the right dosage and placement. But this substance goes by another name. The other name is far more commonly known. That other name is water. Without water we die in three days. Without water we are nothing more than a few pounds of minerals. Without water life would not exist. Water, therefore, is neither evil nor good. It is essential AND lethal. Water just is.

Most ideas just are as well. Many ideas have inherently good and bad properties to them. I'm sure if you think about many of the ideas that you encounter in your daily life you'll find good and bad in all of them.

One such idea that is important is the idea of Natural Selection among mankind.

Natural Selection is a powerful "law" of nature. It is the engine that powers evolution. It is what allows the strong and the successful to thrive and survive while eliminating the weak and those who fail. Natural Selection is a force for optimization and efficiency.

We've reached a point in our development as a species where we have leveraged the natural world enough to not only counter the force of Natural Selection but move beyond it. We're working counter to the "law" of nature that allowed for all optimized life to evolve to the point that it is at now.

The idea of preserving the efficiency and optimization of life is not a bad idea. I, personally, think it is a GREAT idea. The problem is not in the core idea; it's in the execution of that idea.

The movie Serenity deals with this idea. (SPOILER ALERT) It deals with it by exposing 30 million people to a chemical to "make them better." It fails. They create a HUGE population of monsters.

History has shown multiple instances of this. The ancient Spartans did this by examining EVERY baby and leaving those they deemed inferior out to die from exposure. Is the core idea of trying to be the strongest, fastest, smartest, most well trained warriors ever a bad idea? No. Was their execution of that idea evil? YES.

Hitler was on a quest for the "super man" and he went about it by actively killing any and all who did not meet his image of that (ironically, he did not fit the mold, but he allowed himself to live through much of the war). Is the idea of killing MILLIONS of people who you deem inferior evil? Yes.

Is there a way to counteract the idea of counteracting Natural Selection without being evil? That is debatable. I think there is, but that would be a longer post that often enrages many people on either side of the debate.

The important thing here is that ideas are neither good nor evil. It is ALWAYS the execution of the ideas that is either good or evil. That includes the idea of this idea.