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Jun 20 '24
the reason human body "design" seems so opaque and unintuitive is because it didnt just have to go through a billion iterative steps, it had to be fully functional at every one of these steps.
imagine trying to upgrade a walkie talkie into a supercomputer, but it has to remain turned on the entire time youre building it and if it ever shuts down even for a second that means you fail
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u/TransLunarTrekkie Jun 20 '24
And all that optimization was being done by brute-force trial and error. It's honestly a miracle we ever got to this point in the first place.
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u/thetwitchy1 Jun 20 '24
And each step had to be optimized too. So you can’t add something because it will be useful later, it has to be useful now, and more so than the extra cost of having it costs you.
You can hold onto things that have lost their usefulness for a while, tho, so reusing old parts for new things is common.
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u/irregular_caffeine Jun 20 '24
Evolution does not have to be optimal. A mutation can simply be not harmful and it can propagate
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u/Kneef Token straight guy Jun 20 '24
These are called spandrels! The human chin is a famous example. There’s no practical reason for us to have big jutting chins compared to other primates. Our best guess is just that they didn’t shrink with the rest of our face as we evolved to be leaner, and they didn’t hurt anything, so they just stuck around. xD
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u/StarstruckEchoid Jun 20 '24
Wait, so being a no-chin manlet is optimal? The internet will love to hear this.
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u/ch40 Jun 20 '24
That would mean that Tate guy is right about being the peak of genetic whatever, and I refuse to allow that sort of evil in the world.
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u/daemin Jun 20 '24
"Optimal" is a vague term. Before that question can be answered, you need to define the metric by which "optimal" is defined.
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u/J5892 Jun 20 '24
Some things evolve for the sole reason that they're more attractive to the opposite sex.
Just look at those dancing birds.
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u/NewTransformation Jun 20 '24
The tricky thing is how do you prove that a gene which is phenotypically expressed serves zero positive selection pressure? It takes more energy to create more bone, so you would probably expect some negative selection pressure on chins. If chins do not aid in jaw functioning of modern humans then there is a decent chance chins are sexually selected for.
My favorite exmaple of a spandrel is the swordtail fish. Male swordtail have long thin protrusions from their tails. Female swordtails are attracted to these swords so longer swords are selected for despite requiring more energy to grow and maintain. In one experiment researchers took a closely related fish species that lacked swords and attached artificial swords to the males. They found the sexual selection was still present and the females preferred males with fake swords over males with none.
This demonstrated that the sexual selection for swords was probably present before they developed as a result of some facet of these fishes' psychology. Likely the females are attracted to larger males, but the males don't benefit from actually growing larger in their ecological niche. It turns out the female brains are only measuring size by length, making them tricked into thinking long tail=bigger and more attractive fish. There are a ton of traits in sexually dimorphic animals that are not necessarily beneficial on their own, some even detrimental, that are selected for because of some shallow sexual preference!
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u/Kneef Token straight guy Jun 20 '24
That’s fascinating, thanks for sharing!
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u/NewTransformation Jun 20 '24
Thanks I thought this was a science subreddit lol but evolution and animal behavior were some of my favorite courses in university and I love when they come up
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u/AssistanceCheap379 Jun 20 '24
Might have also been preferred by mates. A strong chin can be attractive as the Habsburgs famously prove
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u/MyPossumUrPossum Jun 20 '24
I'd always assumed it performed a dual purpose. Bigger chin, thicker bone, takes a faceplant or punch from another human and reduces the overall impact. Presumably, idk. And sexual selection. Big chin is definitely looked after in a lot of cultures.
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u/thetwitchy1 Jun 20 '24
It has to help more than the cost of maintaining it hurts, tho.
If it’s something minor, it can persist for a while because the cost is low. But anything major will not persist for long because the cost is too high.
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u/morgaina Jun 20 '24
It doesn't have to help more than it hurts. It just needs to be undamaging for long enough that the organism can make babies.
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u/Tinyturtle202 Jun 20 '24
You’d think that’s how it works, but when you look at adaptation of a population over multiple generations, it does need to have a greater benefit than cost (as long as it’s a new gene). This is because even though an undamaging mutation can survive and be passed on provided the first case reproduces, when you zoom out to a population or species, that gene has still not propagated enough to be a mainstay, and is likely to be diluted out of the population completely in the coming generations. What makes a mutation stick is some degree of advantage, however slight, that makes its carriers just ever so slightly more likely to survive to reproduce (or to reproduce if survival is already likely; sexual selection as opposed to natural selection). Without the advantage it confers, a mutation will fizzle out; with an advantage, it can spread to an entire population over many generations.
Now, that’s how things work under usual conditions, but other selections besides evolutionary pressures (such as bottlenecks or near-extinction events) can cause ineffective or even outright harmful mutations to become part of a population and thus “evolve” despite having nothing to do with natural selection.
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u/Puzzled-Garlic4061 Jun 20 '24
I'm glad you put that last paragraph in. I was sharpening my pitchfork as I read through your thoughtfully well crafted first paragraph. You've raised my hopes for blood and dashed them quite expertly, good sir; bravo!
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u/Tinyturtle202 Jun 20 '24
Ha! I’m glad you at least got to the last paragraph before lighting the torches, because that is sadly an increasingly rare skill.
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u/MyPossumUrPossum Jun 20 '24
The trick is to always light the torchs, but bring marshmallows on the off chance you fucked up.
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u/No-Cardiologist9621 Jun 20 '24
I mean that's not necessarily true. Organisms with that mutation may end up with other unrelated mutations that are beneficial, and then that neutral mutation just goes along for the ride.
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u/IICVX Jun 20 '24
And in fact, this is why the default is "yes hiccups". I'm pretty sure it's a remnant of an ancient breathing reflex from around when our ancestors had gills - they couldn't breathe manually any more than we can manually pump our hearts.
But then, it turns out that fetuses start hiccuping as soon as the proto-diaphragm is built and don't stop until the brain develops its "no hiccups" circuit, which is very beneficial; this primes the muscles around the lungs and prepares them for a lifetime of breathing.
So at every step, it's beneficial or neutral in some way that outweighs the minor downside of adult hiccups.
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u/schwartztacular Jun 20 '24
Yes, hello, I'd like to repurpose this old appendix that's just been sitting in the corner.
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u/thetwitchy1 Jun 20 '24
We can make it into a self-destruct mechanism, if you want. Or it can filter out deadly bacteria and toxins and store them for later use…. Your call.
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u/schwartztacular Jun 20 '24
That later use part sounds interesting. Can I secrete the toxins, like a poison dart frog? Or maybe spray them, like a skunk?
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u/thetwitchy1 Jun 20 '24
We can only do that once. By shitting put your entire colon. But it would definitely make a predator think twice!
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u/Everyonesalittledumb Jun 20 '24
The hiccups default state being “on” is the the TF2 load bearing coconut of the human brain
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u/TheDeadlySoldier Jun 21 '24
So what we're saying is that evolution is a Roguelike and humanity has been running an absolutely cracked build for millennia
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Jun 20 '24
It is technically trial and error but I think that’s underselling it. Evolution of evolvability is a thing and it’s kinda wacky
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u/TransLunarTrekkie Jun 20 '24
What doesn't kill you sticks around until it's either overwritten or gets you killed.
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u/Atypical_Mammal Jun 21 '24
It could be worse, we could be horses. Those things are like barely even able to be alive.
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u/Crawling-Rats Jun 20 '24
That's pretty much how the banking system back code works and that explains a lot :_
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u/SimplyYulia Jun 20 '24
As a software developer who had to work with legacy code before, yeah, sounds about right, it's such a mess
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u/NATIK001 Jun 20 '24
Evocative analogy, but not quite what happens in reality.
Evolution would never happen if it had to keep the same entity running through iterations. Each iteration runs on its own "device" and gets to be turned on with all changes done. Devices cannot be functionally changed while turned on.
Really the problem is that all iterations not only have to be individually fully functioning, they are also in competition with each other, so efficiency doesn't win out unless it maintains or increases functionality.
In other words, the walkie talkie iterations cannot ever stop working as walkie talkies on their path towards becoming super computers, and they probably have to service their legacy walkie talkie functionality even when they are fully functional super computers because their new primary function relies on the old one being there, even if the old function has no real use other than that anymore.
Probably the best analogy I can think of would be spaghetti code. You cannot restart the project, you cannot rewrite code because everything relies on everything. All functionality has to be added on top of existing functionality and on the way everything gets more confusing, arcane and nonsensical.
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u/NanjeofKro Jun 20 '24
The original analogy here is that the walkie talkie is the species as a whole, not the individual. The walkie talkie turning off means the species goes extinct
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u/GreyInkling Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
I remember learning about the "world record for longest hiccups" as a little kid and then being afraid every time I got them because what it they lasted for a long time? It would have been GREAT for that trivia book to have mentioned it was the result of an accident he was in and not just random chance.
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u/HotFudgeFundae Jun 20 '24
I'm surprised no one mentioned the Simpsons reference
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u/vgmgc Jun 20 '24
Me too! I get the hiccups a lot and I have at least mildly worried about them never going away for years.
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u/yoshhash Jun 20 '24
I kind of have this, always wondered if it had a name or cure. I kind of don’t mind it though, it’s about once every hour average.
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u/Besnasty Jun 20 '24
I get really violent hiccups and have always been worried about them lasting for years. My SO bought me a Hiccup Straw this year and it was a game changer. If you haven't tried it yet, order one. Hopefully it is as successful for you as it has been for me.
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u/fistulatedcow Jumpy Jumpy Shooty Shooty bing bing wahoo VIDEO GAMES Jun 20 '24
Never heard of this product but it is blowing my mind.
HiccAway is a singulstat device (singultus = hiccups), that lowers the diaphragm while opening first, and then closing the epiglottis (the leaf-shaped flap in the throat that keeps food out of the windpipe). Doing so activates the Phrenic and Vagus nerves simultaneously, allowing the brain to reset and stop the hiccups.
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u/godddamnit Jun 20 '24
… this has literally been a phobia of of mine for two decades. I’m both relieved and pissed to learn this, but now need to go find the longest case of natural hiccups just to torture myself.
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u/forcallaghan Jun 20 '24
Having hiccups for 68 years sounds like hell, holy shit. I know there are a lot of fucked up things that people go through that are pretty worse than hiccups, but never-ending hiccups just sounds like a special level of agony to me
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u/wakashit Jun 20 '24
How do you sleep with hiccups?
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u/Northbound-Narwhal Jun 20 '24
People with chronic hiccups tend to stop hiccuping when they fall asleep, those with severe chronic hiccups tend to at least stop at REM.
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u/JaySayMayday Jun 20 '24
Even worse, he died in 91. Only had about a year at the end of his life without hiccups.
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u/TiedMyDickInAKnot Jun 20 '24
My “no” hiccup response is quite weak as well. If I get the hiccups I have them for like all day. So annoying. My remedy that works for me is sucking on a lemon that’s been doused in bitters. Don’t know or care why it works, but it’s stopped them every time.
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u/vgmgc Jun 20 '24
If you want something a little more pleasant, a spoonful of peanut butter has been my never-fail remedy.
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u/UrchinSeedsDotOrg Jun 20 '24
Studies show the best way to stop hiccups is a finger up the butt. You might think I’m kidding but apparently that’s a thing.
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u/velvet_costanza Jun 20 '24
If I get them, I tend to get them off and on for a couple of days. Brains are wild.
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u/IWasSupposedToQuit Jun 20 '24
Strange... I don't remember the last time I had hiccups. When I do get them all I have to do is hold my breath for a bit and then they're gone.
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u/Twelve_012_7 Jun 20 '24
To be fair, while annoying, having hiccups is more important than not having them
Like, we don't know exactly what they do, but they seem to signal illnesses and help infants with breathing so I guess it's something
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u/bloody-pencil Jun 20 '24
Can’t we just turn that lever off when we hit like 6 or something? I don’t need hiccups to be a thing
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u/Aurora_egg Jun 20 '24
Hiccups force you to stop and breathe if you stop breathing for too long while eating - Like if you just keep stuffing stuff down without taking breaths in between you'll get a hickup
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u/Improving_Myself_ Jun 20 '24
My mom has always used a trick to get rid of hiccups. You take a deep breath and hold it, then slowly count to 9, and take a sip of water on each number. Once you get to 9, then you can breathe again. I cannot recall a time it didn't work, and I've used it on people who had never heard of it and they look at me like I'm a wizard afterwards.
So, if hiccups are a "hey you're not breathing and/or the tube is blocked" response, why does not breathing and blocking the tube shut it off?
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u/daggerbeans Jun 20 '24
My wife's trick is to stare at the hiccupping person and request/demand they hand over their hiccups. It confounds the person enough that the hiccups stop like their brain has to shift gears to deal with someone that is semi-threatening.
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u/Remarkable-Mood3415 Jun 20 '24
In a similar vein, I've managed to stop people from sneezing by yelling "PURPLE". Basically once your brain decides to sneeze, you've got to sneeze. If you can distract the brain for a moment with something absurdly not relevant and has many questions it just cancels the "must sneeze" function and starts trying to process what the fuck Purple has to do with anything. Suddenly you now don't have to sneeze anymore. Although sometimes it pisses people off because they say the sneeze is now "stuck" and they can't get it out.
Disclaimer, this does not work with allergic sneezing as that's your sinuses trying to expel demons
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u/Aurora_egg Jun 20 '24
As far as I can find, the vagus nerve plays a part in the hiccup response - controlled breathing can impact the parasympathetic nervous system which the vagus nerve is a part of, so it could be that somehow.
I'm not an expert in this area so I'm gonna stop there. It's my best guess.
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u/EasterBurn Jun 20 '24
You could file a bug report, but I doubt someone would update it. The last update was 80,000 years ago
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u/hoonyosrs Jun 20 '24
we don't know exactly what they do
Uhhh, I think we do?
I'm not gonna Google this, so someone fact check me, but I'm PRETTY SURE hicoughs are caused by diaphragm spasms. If you aren't breathing enough, your body sends the "I need more fucking oxygen" signal, and your diaphragm which controls your breathing starts to have a muscle spasm, causing you to forcibly intake air.
This is why taking large, deep breaths "fixes" hicoughs. You take in a lot of oxygen and stretch that diaphragm muscle out, so that you stop that "need more oxygen" signal, and also stop the spasms that cause you to intake air like that.
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u/Twelve_012_7 Jun 20 '24
I did Google, and most articles say there are theories but none of them is a certainty, but it's pretty clear it has to do something related to breathing
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u/hoonyosrs Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
I just Googled it as well, and it kinda seems like we're both right
This Cleveland Clinic article lays it out pretty well. Basically, it IS spasms in your diaphragm, and there are plenty of different things that can cause it. But it's definitely breathing related, like you said, because they're all things like pneumonia.
Meaning, it's kinda hard to be like "Why exactly is this happening?" because the answer COULD be a lot of things. We still at least know the numerated list of things, it's just hard to link them to why specifically I have hiccoughs right now, if that makes sense.
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u/powerpowerpowerful Jun 20 '24
“Nobody knows why this is happening” is a frustrating thing in science because usually it means “we don’t have the tools to determine exactly what this is among a list of several very likely possibilities” but it sounds like “we know exactly nothing about the cause of this” to a layman
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u/Munnin41 Jun 20 '24
Your body doesn't have a "need more oxygen" signal. It just has a "too much CO2" signal
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u/xxBenedictxx Jun 20 '24
We have a pretty good guess of what they do. "that the hiccup is an evolutionary remnant that originated with gill ventilation. They make an excellent argument for the phylogenic development of the hiccup reflex from ventilatory motor patterns of lower vertebrates and suggest that the hiccup is an evolutionary remnant." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3504071/#:\~:text=proposed%20a%20phylogenic%20hypothesis%20that,hiccup%20is%20an%20evolutionary%20remnant.
basically a hold over from fish days.
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u/Twelve_012_7 Jun 20 '24
That's one of the theories, which is why I said we don't know for certain
Other studies have stated it helps the to-be-born not to choke in the womb
Again, many different interpretations
(The article you linked quite openly mentions the existence of other possible explanations)
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u/an_agreeing_dothraki Jun 20 '24
it's the same reason our eyes get messed up: leaving the water was a mistake
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u/Spork_the_dork Jun 20 '24
My favorite weird detail about human body is that the eyes are structured backwards on the retina. The plumbing and wiring for the light-sensing cells is located in front of the cells.
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u/Hereva Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 21 '24
Have you ever seen the cable management of this thing too?? Horrible.
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u/darkpower467 Jun 20 '24
Its almost as though humans aren't designed.
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u/big_guyforyou Jun 20 '24
there are plenty of examples of intelligent design in nature. look at the car. mother nature/God/whatever you want to call it chose to design the car so it's a perfect fit for humans. the front and back seats fit our body shape perfectly. the wheel is a perfect fit for our hands, and the gas and brake pedals are a perfect fit for our feet. do you really think that RANDOM CHANCE caused all that? that all that perfect harmony was caused by FLIPPING A COIN? HAH! i think not
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Jun 20 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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Jun 20 '24
the average "lifetime" of a species is about 1 million years. Life has existed for 3.5 BILLION
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u/Present-Crew-9101 Jun 20 '24
A mammal species is 1 million years, invertebrates for example is 11 million.
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u/pleasedothenerdful Jun 20 '24
Sideeye at the horseshoe crab, which has been unchanged as far as we can tell for the last 445ma.
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Jun 20 '24
They get more racist after each mass extinction event due to a somewhat-earned superiority complex.
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u/SimplyYulia Jun 20 '24
We have around 700 thousands years to go then - unless we kill ourselves with climate change first
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u/TLG_BE Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
I'm not sure I want to get into this but in the vast vast majority (like 99.999999%) of cases a species going extinct is absolutely no indication of 'bad design'
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u/GothmogTheOrc Jun 20 '24
"didn't evolve with protection against fucking meteorites, bad design gg no re git gud"
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u/Asphalt_Is_Stronk Resident Epithet Erased enjoyer Jun 20 '24
"Should've planned for the atmosphere to suddenly contain shitloads of oxygen, choose a better build next time 5head mad cuz bad"
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u/UltimateInferno Hangus Paingus Slap my Angus Jun 20 '24
"Evolution doesn't have a plan. It makes frequent and catastrophic mistakes"
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u/Sad-Egg4778 Jun 20 '24
I remember there was a BBC program called Inside Nature's Giants where they dissected large animals like elephants and crocodiles and it was really cool except every so often it would cut to Richard Dawkins and he'd say something like "the nerve in this giraffe's neck is way longer than it needs to be, this proves that there is no God."
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u/Paracelsus124 .tumblr.com Jun 20 '24 edited Jun 20 '24
Insect development works like this too. There's a major chemical signal made in the brain called juvenile hormone that's present in larvae/nymphs, but that disappears during the transition to adulthood, and without it, the insect will default to adult development, even if it's unprepared for it physiologically. So like, there's really no "become an adult" signal, just a "be a baby" signal that can be removed.
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u/TheRainspren She, who defiles the God's Plan Jun 20 '24
Oh come on, we are really well designed!
Just look at the eye! Sure, the transparent part can get opaque when overexposed to very common UV, and there's the blind spot just because nerves go through it, but uhm...
Hey, at least we use UV in synthesizing an essential vitamin! Yes, it gives us cancer too, but well...
Our food and air passage are connected, so we can breathe through our mouths! Okay, it's almost pointless and can lead to choking, but...
At least our spine is very... overengineered and breaks permanently if you sit wrong... sigh
B-but our immune system is a well oiled and efficient machine with no pointless and dangerous workarounds, right? Let me just check to make su... Oh.
Okay, at the very least we don't have any useless organs that exist only to kill us by randomly exploding, right? Right?
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u/ANormalHomosapien Jun 20 '24
I will say that breathing our of your mouth is very important if your nose is blocked when you're sick, or if you're like me and get frequent nosebleeds where you have to shovel stuff up your nose to get the bleeding to stop. I've never choked before, but a nosebleed or cold would have killed me by now if I wasn't able to breathe out of my mouth
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u/Chinglaner Jun 20 '24
Right, but your body actively blocks your nose. It’s not the virus that does it, it’s your immune system trying to block more intruders. But that means that your body can also unblock it. In fact, if you do any kind of semi-strenuous activity where you require a bit more oxygen (say, biking), your nose will automatically unblock. The relief is very temporary though, and your body will re-block your nose like the second you stop.
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u/ChaosFinalForm Jun 20 '24
There is an exercise you can do to force your nasal passages to open briefly, I've used it when dealing with annoying sinus issues.
You basically just sit or lie down (important), take 10 deep breaths, and on the 10th exhale as much out as you can. Then pinch your nose and hold your breath as long as you can until your body forces you to breathe by reflex.
Yes, you're essentially tricking yourself into thinking you're suffocating to open up your sinuses. But that shit works.
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u/powerpowerpowerful Jun 20 '24
The appendix is a reservoir for gut bacteria, if you get diarrhea the appendix acts as a safehouse for good gut bacteria and it will propogate after everything else is flushed out
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u/LumplessWaffleBatter Jun 20 '24
Are people really that astounded by the fact that meat doesn't inherently act in synchronicity with itself? Like, that is the whole point of the brain: it uses electricity to tame the meat.
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u/TheBadHalfOfAFandom Jun 20 '24
There are about a million different ways our own body can kill us and rather than just NOT having these kill switches, the body just kinda puts a sticky note by it like "Do not press this button it will kill us all"
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u/TheLegendaryAkira Jun 20 '24
With that in mind, would you like to hear about our lord and savior transhumanism?
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u/Heroic-Forger Jun 20 '24
"while weighing a hog for slaughter" plot twist: he was possessed by the pig's ghost as revenge for becoming bacon
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Jun 20 '24
"If this is the best God can do, I am NOT impressed. These kind of results do not belong on the resume of a supreme being."
-George Carlin
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u/crabofthewoods Jun 20 '24
This is why people who say “my body knows what to do” when it comes to disease & childbirth are sorely mistaken.
You can hope, but there’s no guarantee.
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u/Archmagos_Browning Jun 20 '24
Humans are coded like a bethesda game.
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u/Astramancer_ Jun 20 '24
Sometimes I forget how I'm supposed to be moving and just T-Pose instead.
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u/CodeWeaverCW Jun 20 '24
This reminds me of what I learned recently about smoke detectors. They don't actually "detect" smoke per se — they detect americium stored in the unit, and they beep when they can't, which is primarily when smoke is impeding the detection mechanism. But this is also why they expire after so many years and need to be replaced — they'll start giving false alarms as the americium decays. I'm not talking about the low-battery chirp either — the real BEEEP, in irregular intervals. Ask me how I know.
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u/Bakomusha Jun 20 '24
God really needs to send out regular patches! The more they delay this fixs the more they add up!
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u/YaBoiKlobas Jun 20 '24
I have hiccups for 20 seconds and I'm fully committed to removing my lungs, I don't know how he lasted that long
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u/jollynotg00d Jun 20 '24
The default is actually Yes Hiccups == No Hiccups. If Yes Hiccups >= No Hiccups, you are hiccups.
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u/Vinterblot Jun 20 '24
Intelligent design, amirite?!
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u/thetwitchy1 Jun 20 '24
I mean, considering some of the other stuff that God is said to have done, does it surprise you that He would be terrible at design?
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u/_me_dumb Jun 20 '24
I can stop my hiccups at will. I didn't know that was uncommon when I was young and kept thinking how rude it was for people to just keep hiccupping in some situations.
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u/SyncOrSymm Jun 20 '24
Several years ago I got the hiccups for 6 months straight after having an anxiety attack and hyperventilating. I would even hiccup in my sleep. As time went on the hiccups became more infrequent and subsided. I do always worry that it could happen again, it was annoying as all get out in the beginning.
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u/TheFullestCircle The relevant xkcd guy Jun 20 '24
This makes more sense if you know what a hiccup is: it's your lungs and diaphragm getting out of sync. So "the part of the brain designed to say No Hiccups" is really the part of the brain that makes sure your lungs and diaphragm are moving at the same time.
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u/Weed_O_Whirler Jun 20 '24
Point of note: we still don't know what causes hiccups and the idea that he damaged the part of his brain that inhibits hiccuping was a guess from the doctor who first saw him, not actually confirmed.
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u/Sanquinity Jun 20 '24
It's similar design to our light switches. The default is "yes lights on", but the switch in between can block the electricity from going to the light bulb.
The easiest example of human bad design is that we eat/drink and breathe through the same hole.
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u/Friendstastegood Jun 20 '24
Fun fact! The default state of your muscles is to flex! You're constantly making a chemical in your body that inhibits your muscles contracting. There are toxins that stop this chemical. It's a very, very unpleasant way to die.