Skip to content

The Top 10 Daily Consequences of Having Evolved

smithsonianmag.com
21 pointsclosure6 comments
On HN

Comments

  But every so often, our mitochondria and their
  surrounding cells fight. The result is diseases,
  such as mitochondrial myopathies (a range of muscle
  diseases) or Leigh’s disease (which affects the
  central nervous system).
It's not clear to me that mitochondria are fighting their host cells in a myopathy. They simply aren't working because of genetic mutation. Even if we do say they are "fighting", it's not obvious why that is a result of them originating from two different cells.

Bizarrely the article makes no mention at all of the various cognitive consequences of our evolutionary history, such as confirmation bias, which certainly have more impact on our lives on a daily basis than do hiccups. (I get hiccups maybe once a month or so, brainfarts several times a day.)

What is this linkbait tripe doing in my HackerNews? Flagged.

What makes it tripe? Seems like interesting bio-trivia to me? And from the Smithsonian of all places, it's definitely got some authority behind it.

the most consequential aspect of being an evolved system is our obsessive attachment to survival in spite of the tremendous suffering we endure.

"Monkeys suffer the same fate only rarely, but then again they can’t sing or dance. Then again, neither can I."

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.