[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Why didn't evolution... (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 3/15/2011 1:51:49 PM EDT
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get rid of the need for sleep. I'm pretty much a believer that evolution is a reasonable theory as to how things are the way they are. I, personally, believe there was some outside impetous of some sort to make us so much different than the animals. My question is: Sleep is down time. Nature would seem to select those of the species who need less sleep. This would, over time, to the greatest biological possibility, evolve away the need for sleep. Just something that dawned on me as I went to sleep last night, knowing that there are not enough hours in the day to get my current job done by the due date.  And yet, here I fucking am, typing on arfcom. 
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Everything is a tradeoff.
If your species survived and procreated better by FLYING, then you were going to be very lightweight and have thin bones. If your species survived and procreated better by THINKING, then you probably needed "downtime" for that big complex wet operating system in your skull. It's a physical limitation of the biological machine. If it were possible for humans to function without sleep, that mutation would have been VERY successful, so the fact that we don't see it suggests that it's not possible. |
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Quoted: Hey, why you gotta come in here and kill my thread straight away wit your reasonable explanation?Everything is a tradeoff. If your species survived and procreated better by FLYING, then you were going to be very lightweight and have thin bones. If your species survived and procreated better by THINKING, then you probably needed "downtime" for that big complex wet operating system in your skull. It's a physical limitation of the biological machine. If it were possible for humans to function without sleep, that mutation would have been VERY successful, so the fact that we don't see it suggests that it's not possible. It would suggest that thinking/reasoning and no sleep are mutually exclusive/impossible. I could see that the smarter ones survied, even though they slept more. Possibly even living on the protection/work of those who slept/thought less. So, sooner or later, we'll be smart enough to get everything done we need to in a matter of minutes and sleep the rest of the time....that's what I'm waiting for. |
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Quoted: Several things.get rid of the need for sleep. I'm pretty much a believer that evolution is a reasonable theory as to how things are the way they are. I, personally, believe there was some outside impetous of some sort to make us so much different than the animals. My question is: Sleep is down time. Nature would seem to select those of the species who need less sleep. This would, over time, to the greatest biological possibility, evolve away the need for sleep. Just something that dawned on me as I went to sleep last night, knowing that there are not enough hours in the day to get my current job done by the due date. And yet, here I fucking am, typing on arfcom. 1) We don't have really a good understanding of why sleep is important, but it is very clear that it is. 2) Evolution has no "goal", so it cannot say "well, in the next 1million years I am going to get rid of sleep". 3) Most animals are highly evolved for a very limited environment. This includes the time of the day in which they are active. Many animals are much better off sleeping during the day and not wasting energy competing with everything else during the day when they can dominate the night (think of an owl). Likewise, Many animals are better sleeping at night and saving energy as they would be easy prey for night predators and wouldn't be able to effectively find food in the dark (think of a human trying to walk around the African Savannah at night with no lightsource and not be killed). 4) Many animal's food, especially predators, is often only widely available during a certain part of the day. The bugs come out at night, and so do the bats. |
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Let me expand upon the "night/day" point ignoring all physical/mental benefits that sleep may have in and of itself and just talk about hunting and competition: Take the Owl vs the Hawk. Hawks are built for soaring and locating prey over vast distances, and swooping down. The hawk model works very well during the day, since they are able to see a long way. They are also constantly on the move so they literally can strike without warning anywhere. Owls on the other hand are built for sitting and scanning for the sounds of prey over comparatively short distances. This model works very well especially when even the best eyes are hindered by low light conditions (aka, NIGHT ). Additionally, the owl sitting up on a branch in broad daylight can beseen by anything that happens to look up. This includes its chosen prey as well as other birds (everything from sparrows to eagles, which will likely attack it.) Thus, while owls can hunt during the day, they aren't as efficient at it as a hawk. When you combine this with the fact that small mammals are more active at night, its actually better for the owl to just to den up during the day, since a day of hunting has allot less payoff than a night of hunting. Hawks don't have sophisticated hearing like an owl, so they would have a hard time locating prey in the dark. Not to mention, a hawk sitting out on a branch at night trying to listen for prey could be easily attacked by a night predator like a big owl. Thus, it is not worth a hawks energy to even try to hunt at night. Theoretically you and I could design a super bird that could hunt just as well during the day as at night, but evolution has no intelligent force behind it. Combine this with the fact that small incremental changes occur over time, and it is very unlikely for owls or hawks to replace one another anytime soon. Thus, it will continue as it has for 10's of thousands of years: One will be sleeping while the other is out hunting. |
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even the best built machines need maintenance. Sleep is an advantage for a number of reasons: Time to process chemicals through the body Time to effect repairs Conservation of resources - you'd need to eat more often. You'd do worse during food shortages. Sleep allows you to eat less fuel. |
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Quoted:
Let me expand upon the "night/day" point ignoring all physical/mental benefits that sleep may have in and of itself and just talk about hunting and competition: Take the Owl vs the Hawk. Hawks are built for soaring and locating prey over vast distances, and swooping down. The hawk model works very well during the day, since they are able to see a long way. They are also constantly on the move so they literally can strike without warning anywhere. Owls on the other hand are built for sitting and scanning for the sounds of prey over comparatively short distances. This model works very well especially when even the best eyes are hindered by low light conditions (aka, NIGHT ). Additionally, the owl sitting up on a branch in broad daylight can be seen by anything that happens to look up. This includes its chosen prey as well as other birds (everything from sparrows to eagles, which will likely attack it.)
Thus, while owls can hunt during the day, they aren't as efficient at it as a hawk. When you combine this with the fact that small mammals are more active at night, its actually better for the owl to just to den up during the day, since a day of hunting has allot less payoff than a night of hunting. Hawks don't have sophisticated hearing like an owl, so they would have a hard time locating prey in the dark. Not to mention, a hawk sitting out on a branch at night trying to listen for prey could be easily attacked by a night predator like a big owl. Thus, it is not worth a hawks energy to even try to hunt at night. Theoretically you and I could design a super bird that could hunt just as well during the day as at night, but evolution has no intelligent force behind it. Combine this with the fact that small incremental changes occur over time, and it is very unlikely for owls or hawks to replace one another anytime soon. Thus, it will continue as it has for 10's of thousands of years: One will be sleeping while the other is out hunting. Wonder what superbird tastes like... |
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If we want sleepless humans than we'll have to build them ourselves. |
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Evolution is not a conscious or directed process. Perfection is not it's goal, insomuch as it even has a "goal".
It simply strives for adequacy. If you mate, and your offspring survive long enough to have offspring of their own, that's all that matters to be evolutionarily successful. If you're congenitally unhappy, depressed, miserable, or in pain for most of your life, so long as someone will have sex with you, and the kids survive to have kids of their own, that's all that matters. (Don't believe me? Look at the Third World or America's Inner Cities...) Only if hundreds of generations of your potential ancestors survived because they didn't need as much sleep over the millennia, would you today not have the need for it. Evolution isn't just about stuff that's "better" and allows you to survive, procreate, and pass on that trait, potentially magnifying it, it's also about all the left-over stuff about your body that isn't bad enough to kill you too. If it sucks, but does not kill you and prevent your mating, too bad. It stays. I actually believe most personal human suffering is because as a sentient/sapient tool-using species, we can now imagine being "better" and unencumbered by any number of biological weaknesses, (disease, aging, death) or having better lives (comfort, wealth, fulfillment) etc. but there's no reason evolution or biology has to give them to us. |
| Gene therapy made lead to eventually needing less sleep or some means may come along to optimize sleep/recovery, but I find it hard to believe we will ever adapt to not need sleep. Seems like any organism which hopes to live for any extended amount of time needs downtime to recover. |
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get rid of the need for sleep. I'm pretty much a believer that evolution is a reasonable theory as to how things are the way they are. I, personally, believe there was some outside impetous of some sort to make us so much different than the animals. My question is: Sleep is down time. Nature would seem to select those of the species who need less sleep. This would, over time, to the greatest biological possibility, evolve away the need for sleep. For almost all of human history we haven't had artificial lights. We evolved to sleep. We may evolve to require less sleep but that would take a couple of million years. |
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I've often wondered if there was no such thing as day and night, would sleep exist.
Just like the moon and the changing angle of the sun in the sky according to season is responsible for a lot of biological cycles. The rotation of the earth might be the cause of sleep. |
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Quoted: I've often wondered if there was no such thing as day and night, would sleep exist. Just like the moon and the changing angle of the sun in the sky according to season is responsible for a lot of biological cycles. The rotation of the earth might be the cause of sleep. Ask a submariner...   Your body adjusts to just about any schedule that meets your minimum needs. |
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It takes a leap of faith to believe in evolution but to each his own I guess! Don't you have a biology test to fail somewhere else? explain Poindexter You just did. Thanks for playing. He isn't the only one who dosen't swallow whole what a PhD shovels at you. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: It takes a leap of faith to believe in evolution but to each his own I guess! Don't you have a biology test to fail somewhere else? explain Poindexter You just did. Thanks for playing. He isn't the only one who dosen't swallow whole what a PhD shovels at you. I don't either. But I do know enough of the subject to discuss it intelligently. |
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Quoted: Well, if we control its genes, theoretically we could make it taste like bacon.Quoted: Let me expand upon the "night/day" point ignoring all physical/mental benefits that sleep may have in and of itself and just talk about hunting and competition: Take the Owl vs the Hawk. Hawks are built for soaring and locating prey over vast distances, and swooping down. The hawk model works very well during the day, since they are able to see a long way. They are also constantly on the move so they literally can strike without warning anywhere. Owls on the other hand are built for sitting and scanning for the sounds of prey over comparatively short distances. This model works very well especially when even the best eyes are hindered by low light conditions (aka, NIGHT ). Additionally, the owl sitting up on a branch in broad daylight can be seen by anything that happens to look up. This includes its chosen prey as well as other birds (everything from sparrows to eagles, which will likely attack it.)Thus, while owls can hunt during the day, they aren't as efficient at it as a hawk. When you combine this with the fact that small mammals are more active at night, its actually better for the owl to just to den up during the day, since a day of hunting has allot less payoff than a night of hunting. Hawks don't have sophisticated hearing like an owl, so they would have a hard time locating prey in the dark. Not to mention, a hawk sitting out on a branch at night trying to listen for prey could be easily attacked by a night predator like a big owl. Thus, it is not worth a hawks energy to even try to hunt at night. Theoretically you and I could design a super bird that could hunt just as well during the day as at night, but evolution has no intelligent force behind it. Combine this with the fact that small incremental changes occur over time, and it is very unlikely for owls or hawks to replace one another anytime soon. Thus, it will continue as it has for 10's of thousands of years: One will be sleeping while the other is out hunting. Wonder what superbird tastes like...  |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: It takes a leap of faith to believe in evolution but to each his own I guess! Don't you have a biology test to fail somewhere else? explain Poindexter The literally mountains of evidence that have been presented in literally dozens of threads that I know you were a part of for one. No need to turn this thread into another "lalalala I don't understand evolution so it must take faith lalalala" thread. ETA::do you have faith that paternity tests work? I know I don't, I have science that tells me they do. Its the same with evolution. Data, observations, and measurements from many fields of science have confirmed it beyond any shadow of a doubt. |
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Quoted: get rid of the need for sleep. I'm pretty much a believer that evolution is a reasonable theory as to how things are the way they are. I, personally, believe there was some outside impetous of some sort to make us so much different than the animals. My question is: Sleep is down time. Nature would seem to select those of the species who need less sleep. This would, over time, to the greatest biological possibility, evolve away the need for sleep. Just something that dawned on me as I went to sleep last night, knowing that there are not enough hours in the day to get my current job done by the due date. And yet, here I fucking am, typing on arfcom. Why would you assume that? "Would seem" isn't at all definitive. Perhaps those who sleep more are more likely to get some and therfore, to reproduce. :) |
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Quoted: Cause there is no evolution. That is demonstrably false. They use fruit flies to study evolution. Granted, it is micro evolution but you made the flat statement that evolution doesn't exist. You may say that MACRO (inter species) evolution is still an unprooved theory and be correct. But your statement is absolutely wrong. |
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Cause there is no evolution. That is demonstrably false. They use fruit flies to study evolution. Granted, it is micro evolution but you made the flat statement that evolution doesn't exist. You may say that MACRO (inter species) evolution is still an unprooved theory and be correct. But your statement is absolutely wrong. A good example of interspecies evolution is Bison antiquus evolving into Bison bison Not only are there bunches of examples of skeletal remains for each species, literally thousands of individuals at various stages of "in between" have been found. |
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Quoted: I didn't really assume it. "Would seem" as in, at first glance, one could hypothesise that people who needed less sleep (there are people who need less sleep than average, now. Like Einstein and Edison) could be more productive. More productive=more successful=more dominant=more likely to get a mate.Quoted: get rid of the need for sleep. I'm pretty much a believer that evolution is a reasonable theory as to how things are the way they are. I, personally, believe there was some outside impetous of some sort to make us so much different than the animals. My question is: Sleep is down time. Nature would seem to select those of the species who need less sleep. This would, over time, to the greatest biological possibility, evolve away the need for sleep. Just something that dawned on me as I went to sleep last night, knowing that there are not enough hours in the day to get my current job done by the due date. And yet, here I fucking am, typing on arfcom. Why would you assume that? "Would seem" isn't at all definitive. Perhaps those who sleep more are more likely to get some and therfore, to reproduce. :) Obviously, there are reasons for sleep. I like the thought that people who tended to be smarter, tended to sleep more. Evolution doesn't need to be a designer to select a more prosperous, dominant survivor. I understand the theory. |
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Evolution? pssshhhh! I'm still waiting for all those fossils of the animals that were "evolving" between the land and the sea. They will be found any day now. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaany day. Really, aaaaaaaaaaaaaany day. Just keep waiting. And waiting. Tetrapods, Lobe finned fishes, Early Amphibians, mudskippers etc. |