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Top Design Flaws in the Human Body: Our bodies are full of hack solutions

nautil.us

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Re: Top Design Flaws in the Human Body: Our bodies are full of hack solutions

#21

Post by dekhn »

ghostberry wrote: post #15
phkahler wrote: post #6

There was an article just a few days ago where they found the "backwards" retina has denser cells on the front side which concentrate red and green wavelengths. Seemed a bit fishy to me, but it suggests that we don't that our eyes are not optimal. Some of the other things listed are suspect AFICT because we just don't know all the influences that led to them. Arteries? Those are ancient in origin and reflect a weird…

That's just nature making the best it can of a historical accident. If you were designing the eye from scratch, you'd have the nerves coming out the back like in squid. Then if you wanted something that concentrates the red and green wavelengths, you could put something else in front of the light sensing cells. You'd end up exactly where you are now, except you'd not have a huge blind spot, and wouldn't have to spend…

The blind spot is not huge. It's easily compensated for, and it appears the mammalian eye has other attributes that make it work well. We just don't have enough data to understand whether mammalian eyes embedded a major problem that had to be compensated for, or if this design has attributes that make it desirable.

Re: Top Design Flaws in the Human Body: Our bodies are full of hack solutions

#22

Post by agumonkey »

jkyle wrote: post #5
mariusz79 wrote: post #2

I think the biggest flaw is the location of the entertainment center next to sewer system.

If you really think about it, it's probably unavoidable. You have to reward an organism when it performs necessary functions. Which is why defecation and urination are pleasurable. You could move the piping, but you'd still have to reward the action. And if there's reward sensors there, clever animals will figure out how to trigger the reward without the action. In other words, you can move the sewer but they'd proba…

I view 'entertainment' as a recall to primitive satisfaction brain response in our first months of life. That's why we kiss who we 'love' (eating him symbolically), etc, etc

Re: Top Design Flaws in the Human Body: Our bodies are full of hack solutions

#24

Post by agumonkey »

a2tech wrote: post #9

My personal favorite poorly designed part of the body is the sinus cavity. When we used to walk on four limbs, our heads would naturally incline to an angle that allows full drainage of the sinus cavity. Now that we walk upright, there's a dead spot in the back of the cavity where mucus and bacteria can pool. This is why if you're experiencing sinus pressure but you haven't reached the stage where nothing in your hea…

Also, IIRC, sinus covered in soft draining muscles that oscillate or contract at a slow frequency. That's why you often have one side occluded while the other is not, and after a while the opposite. It's just the way the machine ticks, no need to fight it, only patience.

Re: Top Design Flaws in the Human Body: Our bodies are full of hack solutions

#25

Post by SilasX »

raverbashing wrote: post #20

So, this is the so-called "intelligent design"? I think not.

I'm glad you bring that up, because these are the kinds of things you should cite to refute someone claiming that biological life bears the signs of an intelligent designer, supernatural or otherwise. What distinguishes intelligent from naive optimization is the ability to refactor instead of just making local improvements.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a trend toward refuting IDers by claiming that the very prospect of discerning intelligent from unintelligent signals is "unscientific", which is so wrong that it can only survive by groupthink. E.g. How do you even know it's a voice on the other end of the phone rather than static? How do you know the marks on paper are words rather than accidents?

Re: Top Design Flaws in the Human Body: Our bodies are full of hack solutions

#26

Post by jane_is_here »

a2tech wrote: post #9

My personal favorite poorly designed part of the body is the sinus cavity. When we used to walk on four limbs, our heads would naturally incline to an angle that allows full drainage of the sinus cavity. Now that we walk upright, there's a dead spot in the back of the cavity where mucus and bacteria can pool. This is why if you're experiencing sinus pressure but you haven't reached the stage where nothing in your hea…

The muco-ciliary escalator usually takes care of that.

Re: Top Design Flaws in the Human Body: Our bodies are full of hack solutions

#28

Post by refurb »

kisstheblade wrote: post #4

Or maybe these are all just "myths", ie. not still fully understood? Eg. the retina: https://theconversation.com/look-your-eyes-are-wired-backwar...

This kind of reminds me of the idea of "junk DNA". 20 years ago, 90% of our DNA didn't code for specific proteins, so it was labelled "junk".

Fast forward 20 years and folks suddenly realize it does play a role in DNA expression.

Re: Top Design Flaws in the Human Body: Our bodies are full of hack solutions

#29

Post by protonfish »

dekhn wrote: post #21
ghostberry wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just nature making the best it can of a historical accident. If you were designing the eye from scratch, you'd have the nerves coming out the back like in squid. Then if you wanted something that concentrates the red and green wavelengths, you could put something else in front of the light sensing cells. You'd end up exactly where you are now, except you'd not have a huge blind spot, and wouldn't have to spend…

The blind spot is not huge. It's easily compensated for, and it appears the mammalian eye has other attributes that make it work well. We just don't have enough data to understand whether mammalian eyes embedded a major problem that had to be compensated for, or if this design has attributes that make it desirable.

Maybe, but either vertebrates or cephalopods have to have sub optimal design. My money is on the backwards retina being the kludge.
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