Strange7 comments on Parapsychology: the control group for science - Less Wrong

62 Post author: AllanCrossman 05 December 2009 10:50PM

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Comment author: Strange7 05 February 2014 05:42:47AM 0 points [-]

Beer consumption has all sorts of implications for social interaction and waterborne disease, and in some environments, there are no close substitutes. Digestive efficiency is a major factor in survival, one way or another; not being able to cope with the food and drink you've got can kill you, and synthesizing a lot of tricky enzymes you don't need (or, equivalently, hosting intestinal flora which aren't pulling their weight) can also kill you.

Telepathy, on the other hand, doesn't seem to involve enough of the body to have significant metabolic effects one way or another, and is unreliable and vague even for the best performers. What life-or-death/reproduce-or-don't outcomes would it be exerting selection pressure through?

Comment author: CCC 05 February 2014 06:59:52AM 0 points [-]

What life-or-death/reproduce-or-don't outcomes would it be exerting selection pressure through?

The ability to find someone willing to reproduce with you? Or a heightened ability to persuade someone to do so? Earlier warning of malicious intent from a potential murderer?

Comment author: Jiro 05 February 2014 06:48:22AM -1 points [-]

Small statistical effects accumulate over evolutionary timescales. Ifr telepathy is unreliable and vague, but is more reliable than chance and less vague than making stuff up, it will be selected for, even if the effects of telepathy are very difficult to detect on an individual scale.