Humans evolved to pay close attention to danger, but today that instinct is being overwhelmed by an endless supply of bad news from around the world. Researchers say the answer isn’t to stop following current events—it’s to build healthier habits around how, when, and where we get our news.

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[–] sniggleboots@europe.pub 44 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Iteratively designed by evolution to maximize survival, I guess

[–] thevoidzero@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah, so you could easily say we evolved to, or our brains evolved to... And so on

[–] sniggleboots@europe.pub 1 points 15 hours ago

I just took issue with the very literal interpretation of the phrase "not designed for" and I couldn't hold my tongue

well, my fingers, I guess

[–] higgsboson@piefed.social 3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

No, in fact that is still teleological.

[–] MohamedMoney@feddit.org 4 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Is it? I’d guess 'to evolve to do smth' doesn’t necessarily need to be teleological. IIRC the verb 'evolve' means the fittest getting randomly selected, no?

I think I understand where you’re coming from but I think it’s fundamentally different to 'being designed with a specific goal in mind'

[–] higgsboson@piefed.social 1 points 10 minutes ago

Don't mind me, I had a prof who was uptight about it. I am sure it would only matter for formal or technical writing, like a scientific paper.

[–] oce@jlai.lu 2 points 7 hours ago

Evolved into or evolved with may reduce the implication of an intention.

Our brains evolved into structures capable of supporting complex language.
Our brains evolved with the capacity for complex language.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 23 hours ago

Yeah I dunno about design as much as iterative adaptations over incomprehensibly large periods of time.

[–] dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Evolution did as much design as my socks design themselves to stay in their drawer. Evolution doesn't design, it works with what it has and nothing else. It doesn't even optimize because optimization requires choosing between options with intent. Evolution has zero intentions. Evolution creates un-"optimized" things that go extinct all the time, but it's not because it "failed" at designing because that implies it "tried" to design, but because it's not a designer, it can't design. No design made fish have legs. No design gave elephants their tusks and no design gave flies their wings. Evolution won't 'design' new vertebrae segments, but they still might happen---it just won't be because of any design.

[–] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Natural selection is actually technically an optimisation algorithm. Its just a kind of crappy one that only ever finds local maximas because it can't traverse valleys (the thing just dies). So we end up with optical receptors on the wrong side of our retina. Ooof.

[–] jdr@lemmy.ml 1 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Neanderthals evolved to traverse valleys just fine

[–] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 1 points 46 minutes ago

I don't mean literal valleys.

[–] MohamedMoney@feddit.org 1 points 21 hours ago

And see where that got them!