/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.6646943]

Why are people so averse to actually improving the physiology of the human species? Are they just bioluddites?

Humans are just a product of a crap-shoot process known as evolution, which is why the species is so susceptible to disease, poor 'design' (pic related), and stupidity, if we were to modify these inferior traits and replace them with superior alternatives we'd create a better humanoid species that is not afflicted by disease and stupidity. This is totally worth it and you luddites are anti-progress if you disagree.

engineering >> evolution

[Anonymous No.6646944]

Because what we define as superior and what nature defines as superior are completely different. Evolution isn't a crap shoot, it's effective and stable in the long term. Humans cherry picking traits is a good way to wipe out your entire species.

Most people (including entire nations), can't even decide if the world is run by a magical sky fairy. How the hell are we supposed to guide the future of the human race?

[Anonymous No.6646948]

>>6646943
What do you propose?

[Anonymous No.6646951]

>>6646944
>Because what we define as superior and what nature defines as superior are completely different.
We're better at it. If we created ourselves there would be no retards, no sick, no weak.
>Evolution isn't a crap shoot, it's effective and stable in the long term.
Most species are extinct, evolution clearly has a shit record.
>Humans cherry picking traits is a good way to wipe out your entire species.
Better than letting evolution run its course. Evolution's track record is shit.

[Anonymous No.6646952]

>>6646943

You're such a fucking idiot, you need to reflect more on your opinions before you take such a hard headed approach to it. You come off like an idiot when you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

>Hurr durr, if I make definitive statements people will think i smarts

[Anonymous No.6646956]

>>6646952
Go be buttdevastated somewhere else. You can't even point out where I'm wrong.

[Anonymous No.6646968]

>>6646944
Also
>Most people (including entire nations), can't even decide if the world is run by a magical sky fairy.
Because they evolved, if they were engineered they wouldn't be susceptible to religious bullshit.

[Anonymous No.6647218]

this topic really isn't up for debate, cybernetics or whatever the fuck the field is called is inescapable and will happen within our generation

[Anonymous No.6647670]

we can't.
evolution is just happening, without design and we are what came out until now.
And because we need people to do dirty jobs we do not try to make other wiser

[Anonymous No.6647719]

>>6646951
>Most species are extinct, evolution clearly has a shit record.

This is the most stupid thing I've ever read, btw engineering is a product of evolution.

also: FUCK THAT CAPTCHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKFUCKFUCK CANCEROUS MOOT ASSHOLE CANCER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous No.6647721]

>>6646956
It's a shame to see such dumb people thinking they're mart.

[Anonymous No.6647732]

people sing a whole diffrent story when they feel injured or ill and realise how mother nature really thinks of them.

[Anonymous No.6647739]

>Why are people so averse to actually improving the physiology of the human species?

They think something will go wrong, or that the end-result won't be positive.

>and stupidity

Define stupidity.

>This is totally worth it and you luddites are anti-progress if you disagree

I'm fairly pro-human modification. In fact, I'm fanatical about it. However, I'm 99% certain I want nothing to do with whatever *you* call superior.

I'd rather direct my own body, thank you.

[Anonymous No.6647740]

exoskeleton replacing all organs except brain

oxygen+sugar+minerals+water directly injected into the blood stream

artificial kidney/heart/liver system to filter blood

[Anonymous No.6647747]

>>6646968

Please tell us how you intend to seek, find, and modify humanity's capacity for specific post-natal concepts such as religion, and also why in doing so you wouldn't be creating a race of people even more close-minded and ridged - the most dire problems facing man - leading to a robotic monoculture.

[Anonymous No.6647751]

>>6646943
because the moment we start doing that is the moment we start becoming something other than human.

I'm glad it won't happen within my life time.

[Anonymous No.6647754]

>>6647719
>This is the most stupid thing I've ever read
Yet, it is an undeniable fact.

[Anonymous No.6647763]

>>6646943
Evolution is based on natural selection. And there is no natural selection in the human race at present. So, if we are to evolve further, we need engineering.

[Anonymous No.6647767]

>>6646943
That crap-shoot process over billions of years created the brain that allows you to engineer things. And that brain is currently incapable of creating something more brilliant than itself.

[Anonymous No.6647783]

>>6647754
You don't really want to discuss everything. Just showing us your stupid attempt to make yourself look smart.

[Anonymous No.6648322]

>>6647739
>Define stupidity.
Lacking cognitive faculty, prone to error in judgement and fallacy, etc.

>I want nothing to do with whatever *you* call superior.
So you don't want to be be smarter, have a better immune system, better organs, etc? Strange.

>>6647747
Studies have shown there are marked differences in the religious and logical brain. If there are alleles that contribute to religious susceptibility it will be as easy as weeding them out in prenatal screening. However if it is something that is developmental then it would be necessary to regulate embryonic and fetal conditions so it comes out right. Then there is the latter development where we could implant artificial genes that make religiosity impossible regardless of developmental conditions or outside environmental conditions.

>close-minded and ridged
No, that would be a religious race (pic related). This would be the creation of a race superior to that and to the human species.

>>6647751
Humanity is something to be overcome. There is nothing sacred about this species. It is merely a stepping stone to something greater.

>>6647767
I disagree We can start small with genetic screening to get rid of deleterious alleles. There is no reason anyone should be born with Huntington's or Tay Sachs. Then as genomics, reproductive technology and tissue engineering develop we can start mastering our development.

No longer will we be slaves to our biology with only, albeit often brilliant, medical band aids to heal us.

>>6647721
>>6647783
Here you are trying to make your imbecilic self look smart, 'hey guys this guy is an idiot while I'm not hehehehe'. Yet you can't say anything other than 'baww you're an idiot baww'. You are exhibiting a typical example of Dunning Kruger effect on idiots.

[Anonymous No.6648344]

>>6647767
>And that brain is currently incapable of creating something more brilliant than itself.

Why not?

[Anonymous No.6648498]

>>6648322

>Lacking cognitive faculty, prone to error in judgement and fallacy, etc

You can boost computing power and pattern recognition, but you're not going to be able to pre-program humans to share innately what you call an error in judgement or fallacy.

Smarter children may be more well behaved, quicker learners, etc, but they still cry, bite, and destroy for pointless reasons. Without your supervision, this is all they'll ever be; look up feral children.

In fact, I would say that the smarter an organism gets, the harder it'll be by definition to hard-code instincts; the mantis comes out of the egg ready to hunt and can never learn. The Leopard needs to be taught how to hunt, but is so behaviorally complex and diverse that it's a mankiller superior to a Lion or Tiger.

Humans have to be taught to clean themselves... Just about our only innate instinct is 'suckle.'

>Studies have shown there are marked differences in the religious and logical brain

That dichotomy doesn't exist. Newton was an alchemist of the worst sort.

>If there are alleles that contribute to religious susceptibility

I don't think such things exist. Religion is the result of our total behavioral and intellectual being. It's an attempt at pattern recognition itself - cargo cults.

>No, that would be a religious race (pic related)

Listen to yourself.

>This would be the creation of a race superior to that and to the human species

*You* are a member of a religious race. Aside from that, I'd suggest focusing on quantifiable enhancement; it's objective fact that human muscle has a certain power-to-weight ratio. Improve the ratio, and no one can deny the improvement.

>You are exhibiting a typical example of Dunning Kruger effect

Says the person who has all the answers and solutions, and is willing to assertively tell everyone about them...

Which is the definition of the Dunning Kruger effect. Pretty much a prime example of what I say above.

[Anonymous No.6648506]

Lets face it the white race is going to die out. This is obvious. Other races are better at integrating and multiplying.

[Anonymous No.6648552]

Pic related

[Anonymous No.6648571]

>Wow wouldn't it be nice if we could do all of this stuff?

Fuck off, this isn't science.

[Anonymous No.6648591]

>>6647732
+1

It's weird, the majority of people with one of my diseases turn to God.
The other disease, people aren't religious at all, that I'veso far noticed

[Anonymous No.6648607]

I definitely am in favor of eradicating diseases, enhancing human abilites and so on, but I still would have to ask which goal one would try to pursue if one would were to 'go all out'.
I guess that the most obvious objective would be happiness. Just drugging people up all the time or simply modifying them so they are always happy, would probably a pretty straight forward and easy way to do so, but somehow that would just not sit right with me. Otherwise a society like described in Brave New World would also be pretty desirable which, in my experience, is not all too common.
If one could not find such a goal, I believe that one could not call what was described in the OP as progress. It would rather just be different, wouldn't it?

[Anonymous No.6648614]

>>6648498
>You can boost computing power and pattern recognition, but you're not going to be able to pre-program humans to share innately what you call an error in judgement or fallacy.
Better pattern recognition will mean less errors in judgement.

>Smarter children may be more well behaved, quicker learners, etc, but they still cry, bite, and destroy for pointless reasons. Without your supervision, this is all they'll ever be; look up feral children.
But behavior varies between individuals, some children are innately better behaved. There are genetic factors that attribute to this, see differences in MAOA vntr alleles.

>In fact, I would say that the smarter an organism gets, the harder it'll be by definition to hard-code instincts
Nah, the limbic system is still the master, the rest are slave systems.

>That dichotomy doesn't exist. Newton was an alchemist of the worst sort.
He was also a heretic, while he did believe in magical shit it wasn't the same shit the church was shoving down people's throats. If he was born now he'd be an atheist.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19291205

>I don't think such things exist.
Genes with environmental materials and conditions regulate the construction of the brain. It could be possible that certain genes play a role in the organization of neural architecture that mediate religious susceptibility. If not there is no reason we cannot develop genes that do this making the individual more skeptical and rational as a result having a buffer against religious nonsense. Of course this isn't simple as it might involve changing the timing of expression, which may also involve epimarkers, or even introducing newer proteins for regulation.

>Listen to yourself.
I'm not religious, everyone lese here is. "The human race is scared." You might as well be saying "we're made in a skywizard's image."

[Anonymous No.6648631]

>>6648614
cont.

>*You* are a member of a religious race. Aside from that, I'd suggest focusing on quantifiable enhancement; it's objective fact that human muscle has a certain power-to-weight ratio. Improve the ratio, and no one can deny the improvement.
What about IQ?

>Says the person who has all the answers and solutions, and is willing to assertively tell everyone about them...
I never claimed I have all the answers. I just said that we should stop impeding the progress of our species with stupid touchy feely hang ups over our species being a stepping stone.

>Which is the definition of the Dunning Kruger effect. Pretty much a prime example of what I say above.
Except for your lack of reading comprehension.

[Anonymous No.6648640]

>>6648506
Thanks to the handouts and easypasses given by white people over recent years.

[Anonymous No.6648653]

Loving this /pol/ thread, guys.

[Anonymous No.6648666]

>>6648653
Why is anything that is out of the Christain egalitardian narrative /pol/? Stop giving credit to those idiots. They are conservative, like the bioluddites whining about preserving the human species.

[Anonymous No.6648760]

>>6648614

>Better pattern recognition will mean less errors in judgement

Pattern recognition isn't wisdom. Early humans saw the patterns inherent in plant grown, and harnessed those patterns for agriculture... and proceeded to enjoy thousands of years of disease brought about by their close proximity to feces.

>But behavior varies between individuals, some children are innately better behaved. There are genetic factors that attribute to this, see differences in MAOA vntr alleles

But that's separate from improving pattern recognition. Moreover, I would question the motivation behind 'improving' the behavior of people.

>Nah, the limbic system is still the master, the rest are slave systems

That's why if you leave a baby mantis and a baby human alone in the woods, the baby human will die and the mantis will thrive.

You're being evasive. Mental and behavioral conformity is correlated with less intelligence. To ensure that a person doesn't think bad thoughts, you're going to have to narrow the road the brain can drive on.

>He was also a heretic, while he did believe in magical shit it wasn't the same shit the church was shoving down people's throats

Indeed, iconoclasm is correlated with intelligence. The smartest among us are often mystics, or hold some sort of strange beliefs. My explanation as to why is that smart people get bored faster; they try out different worldviews out of boredom.

Not the desire to 'get it right.' Boredom. The truth will eventually become known and boring, and new patterns will be sought for stimulation.

>If he was born now he'd be an atheist

He'd probably be in league with Deepak Chopra; he was renowned as a loon even in his day, when alchemy was still semi-legitimate.

[Anonymous No.6648763]

>>6648760

>http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19291205

Much like those studies which purport to show that liberals are more intelligent then conservatives, I have to question the definitions they're using. In the case of the studies which purported to correlate political beliefs with IQ, the problem is that 'democrat' and 'republican' are so culturally specific as to be worthless.

In the case of this paper, I'm going to question their definition of 'religious.' Rather, what that paper tells me is that people who are prone to 'traditional,' culturally-sanctioned worldviews have a distinct neural pattern. If you got rid of religion, these people would still think and act the same way.

And if you got rid of neural pattern itself, I think you'd see the resulting population exhibit even more 'colorful' beliefs, since they would be more prone to seeking new, stimulating worldviews.

>Genes with environmental materials and conditions regulate the construction of the brain

But I don't think you can say there's a 'religious' gene, or whatever.

>there is no reason we cannot develop genes that do this making the individual more skeptical and rational

Skepticism is defined as the resistance to new claims, and the demand that these new claims be backed up with evidence which can be understood within the person's current worldview.

And rationality is a generalized human faculty, which has to be calibrated. Without a guiding hand, rationality just leads to self-referential and idiosyncratic worldviews.

[Anonymous No.6648767]

>>6648763

>I'm not religious, everyone lese here is

I know it's often used by religious people as an excuse, but don't you think there's a reason religious behavior and thought exists? It must grant some survival benefit to the people who display it.

Rather though then talk about religious behavior, why don't we model it as one expression of pattern recognition, and place it in the same box as science? We can then express the concept as a spectrum; religion at the left end - the beginnings of advanced pattern recognition - and science at the right - the currently-best system of organizing pattern recognition.

Of course, this leads one to wonder; if science is simply a more advanced form of pattern recognition then religion, what comes after science?

>What about IQ?

There are religious people with high IQs.

>I never claimed I have all the answers

You're presenting a solution, and then saying that this solution *will* work.

>I just said that we should stop impeding the progress of our species with stupid touchy feely hang ups over our species being a stepping stone

I think you need to integrate your emotions into your self. You don't have to be irrational to be emotional. I personally turn to goo when I read about advances in medicine, pollution clean-up, etc, because I know that myself and others will benefit from it. I even get down on my knees and praise... humanity?

>Except for your lack of reading comprehension

You're interesting to debate with, and polite.

[Anonymous No.6649182]

>>6646943
Because we don't know how to do so reliably.

Also, we sorta do with appendix removals and what not