My Knee hurts!

[Guest guest]

What is the survival value of my knee hurting? This to is a symptom of "old

age." I suppose I could postulate that it is a good predictor of the weather

and thus has some survival value, but I do not see either as anything but

side effects of the aging process and since it is beyond the normal reproductive

years it would be difficult to select for this.

Positive Dennis

Rodney wrote:

Hi Dennis:

Given the very high prevalence of OFs not sleeping well I think most

people studying this kind of stuff would agree that therefore it must

have survival value.

Is there a better suggestion for what that survival value is? On the

face of it one would have thought 'not sleeping well' would be a

disadvantage, not an advantage. So the benefit much have been pretty

sizeable, to outweigh the drawbacks.

And it may very well have happened a very long time ago - predating

our ancestors who existed before we split with the great apes, or

even with the lemurs (which was a VERY long time ago.) It does not

need to be recent.

And for tribes that slept soundly, just forgetting to set a sentry,

or the sentry falling asleep, occasionally, would I think over many

many generations be more than enough to make the difference. You

don't need to kill off the all the sound sleepers. Because the poor

sleepers will become the majority, and some of the sound sleepers

will mate with poor sleepers, relatively quickly, I submit, the gene

pool would have become dominated by poor sleepers.

jmo.

Rodney.

> > >

> > > > Francesca ~

> > > >

> > > > I would be very interested to hear if taking an

> > > > aspirin before bed helps. Like you, I also suffer from

> > > > sleep irregularities. Typically, I have no trouble

> > > > falling asleep, but awaken between 3:00 and 4:00 and

> > > > spend up to two hours unable to resume sleep.

> >

> >

> >

[Guest guest]

Hi Dennis:

According to my hypothesis the alarms given by the insomniac OFs

saves the entire group, including those in their reproductive years.

The entire group when attacked by other humans is more likely to get

eaten for lunch if they have no insomniacs.

Just my view. May well be mistaken.

As regards your knee, since you ask (!!!) the survival value of that

for the group, is that when the group is chased by a predator it is

the most decrepit OF that the predator gets for lunch. Those in

their reproductive years escape. So decrepitude with age is also a

survival benefit for the group as a whole, and the group's genes tend

to get perpetuated.

Interesting point that the situation between the group and a predator

from another species is often different from the situation between

one group of humans in one cave and another group in the other cave.

The other species will usually be content with one meal for now. But

in the case of one set of humans against another it is far more

likely that if they achieve surprise none of the attacked group will

be left alive. (Long haired blondes excepted, of course!)

The survival advantage does not need to be much. I read somewhere

that just a one percent improvement in survival to reproductive years

quickly (on a paleontological scale) results in that group dominating

the gene pool.

: ^ )))

Rodney.

> What is the survival value of my knee hurting? This to is a symptom

of

> " old age. " I suppose I could postulate that it is a good predictor

of

> the weather and thus has some survival value, but I do not see

either as

> anything but side effects of the aging process and since it is

beyond

> the normal reproductive years it would be difficult to select for

this.

>

> Positive Dennis