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The Psychological Unity of Humankind — LessWrong

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Biological organisms in general, and human brains particularly, contain complex adaptations; adaptations which involve many genes working in concert. Complex adaptations must evolve incrementally, gene by gene. If gene B depends on gene A to produce its effect, then gene A has to become nearly universal in the gene pool before there's a substantial selection pressure in favor of gene B. A fur coat isn't an evolutionary advantage unless the environment reliably throws cold weather at you. And other genes are also part of the environment; they are the genetic environment. If gene B depends on gene A, then gene B isn't a significant advantage unless gene A is reliably part of the genetic environment. Let's say that you have a complex adaptation with six interdependent parts, and that each of the six genes is independently at ten percent frequency in the population. The chance of assembling a whole working adaptation is literally a million to one; and the average fitness of the genes i

x The Psychological Unity of Humankind — LessWrong Evolutionary Psychology Evolution Human Universal Personal Blog 65 The Psychological Unity of Humankind by Eliezer Yudkowsky 24th Jun 2008 5 min read 23 65 Followup to : Evolutions Are Stupid (But Work Anyway) , Evolutionary Psychology Biological organisms in general, and human brains particularly, contain complex adaptations; adaptations which involve many genes working in concert. Complex adaptations must evolve incrementally , gene by gene. If gene B depends on gene A to produce its effect, then gene A has to become nearly universal in the

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