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THE WISDOM OF NATURE: AN EVOLUTIONARY HEURISTIC FOR HUMAN ENHANCEMENT
"... www.nickbostrom.com Human beings are a marvel of evolved complexity. Such systems can be difficult to enhance. When we manipulate complex evolved systems which are poorly understood, our interventions often fail or backfire. It can appear as if there is a “wisdom of nature” which we ignore at our pe ..."
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www.nickbostrom.com Human beings are a marvel of evolved complexity. Such systems can be difficult to enhance. When we manipulate complex evolved systems which are poorly understood, our interventions often fail or backfire. It can appear as if there is a “wisdom of nature” which we ignore at our peril. Sometimes the belief in nature’s wisdom – and corresponding doubts about the prudence of tampering with nature, especially human nature – manifest as diffusely moral objections against enhancement. Such objections may be expressed as intuitions about the superiority of the natural or the troublesomeness of hubris, or as an evaluative bias in favor of the status quo. This paper explores the extent to which such prudence‐derived anti‐enhancement sentiments are justified. We develop a heuristic, inspired by the field of evolutionary medicine, for identifying promising human enhancement interventions. The heuristic incorporates the grains of truth contained in “nature knows best ” attitudes while providing criteria for the special cases where we have reason to believe that it is feasible for us to improve on nature. 1.
HSBIQ and the Health of States IQ and the Health of States
"... ABSTRACT: Epidemiologists contend that income inequality reduces the health and life expectancy of the whole population, but this argument does not make sense within its own evolutionary framework. Recent evolutionary psychological theory suggests that the human brain, adapted to the ancestral envir ..."
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ABSTRACT: Epidemiologists contend that income inequality reduces the health and life expectancy of the whole population, but this argument does not make sense within its own evolutionary framework. Recent evolutionary psychological theory suggests that the human brain, adapted to the ancestral environment, has difficulty comprehending and dealing with entities and situations that did not exist in the ancestral environment, and that general intelligence evolved as a domain-specific adaptation to solve evolutionarily novel problems. Since most dangers to health in the contemporary society are evolutionarily novel, it follows that more intelligent individuals are better able to recognize and deal with such dangers and live longer. Consistent with the theory, and replicating an earlier study of cross-national data, income inequality has no effect on the health and longevity of the population across the American states, when the racial composition (percent black) is controlled, but the average intelligence of the population (state IQ) has a significant effect. The data presented here and in the earlier study challenge the conclusion that income inequality reduces the health of the population.
Profiles in Research
"... The advance of science has long been burdened with the weight of entrenched interests. In the 17th century, the geocentric views of the universe that were taught by Aristotle, amplified by Thomas Aquinas, and enforced by the inquisition led to the conviction of Galileo and forced him to renounce his ..."
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The advance of science has long been burdened with the weight of entrenched interests. In the 17th century, the geocentric views of the universe that were taught by Aristotle, amplified by Thomas Aquinas, and enforced by the inquisition led to the conviction of Galileo and forced him to renounce his support of Copernicus’
Pursuing Patterns, Puzzles, and Paradoxes
"... Although not bored by knowledge, I certainly do love mysteries. It has been my great fortune to earn a living solving them and, greater yet, to pick which puzzles to pursue. I still marvel at the opportunity. Early in my career I discovered how scientifically important a knotty puzzle or seeming par ..."
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Although not bored by knowledge, I certainly do love mysteries. It has been my great fortune to earn a living solving them and, greater yet, to pick which puzzles to pursue. I still marvel at the opportunity. Early in my career I discovered how scientifically important a knotty puzzle or seeming paradox can be. By paradox I mean two well-established findings that seem to contradict each other. Both are accurate because both have been replicated many times. But how can A and not-A simultaneously be true? They cannot, of course, which means that our thinking about them must be flawed in some fundamental respect. Therein lies the opportunity to discover something important. One advantage of paradoxes is that there is clearly an interesting problem to solve. They also provide special
Intelligences and Brains An Evolutionary Birds-Eye View
"... This chapter is an interdisciplinary consensual overview of intelligence as a behavioral disposition ..."
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This chapter is an interdisciplinary consensual overview of intelligence as a behavioral disposition
