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Evolutionary Psychology — LessWrong

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Like "IRC chat" or "TCP/IP protocol", the phrase "reproductive organ" is redundant. All organs are reproductive organs. Where do a bird's wings come from? An Evolution-of-Birds Fairy who thinks that flying is really neat? The bird's wings are there because they contributed to the bird's ancestors' reproduction. Likewise the bird's heart, lungs, and genitals. At most we might find it worthwhile to distinguish between directly reproductive organs and indirectly reproductive organs. This observation holds true also of the brain, the most complex organ system known to biology. Some brain organs are directly reproductive, like lust; others are indirectly reproductive, like anger. Where does the human emotion of anger come from? An Evolution-of-Humans Fairy who thought that anger was a worthwhile feature? The neural circuitry of anger is a reproductive organ as surely as your liver. Anger exists in Homo sapiens because angry ancestors had more kids. There's no other way it could have gotten

x Evolutionary Psychology — LessWrong The Simple Math of Evolution Evolutionary Psychology Evolution Adaptation Executors Frontpage 117 Evolutionary Psychology by Eliezer Yudkowsky 11th Nov 2007 6 min read 43 117 Like "IRC chat" or "TCP/IP protocol", the phrase "reproductive organ" is redundant. All organs are reproductive organs. Where do a bird's wings come from? An Evolution-of-Birds Fairy who thinks that flying is really neat? The bird's wings are there because they contributed to the bird's ancestors' reproduction. Likewise the bird's heart, lungs, and genitals. At most we might find it w

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