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303elliott t1_iy0oc1f wrote

Everything evolved because it was passed along. This doesn't mean the trait is perfect, but rather that it's good enough to survive evolution. One adaptation humans have to an infection is a fever. If you have unwanted guests, then turn up the temperature until they leave. Usually, this works great. You run a fever, the unwanted guests die off, and everything goes back to normal. But what if they don't die? Unfortunately there's not a backup plan for that. We keep cranking up the heat, waiting for the signal that the threat is gone, until we start causing damage to ourselves. Because this is relatively rare, we didn't evolve a better system. Thankfully, we did evolve a higher intelligence, which allowed us to discover medication, so this issue rarely leads to death if medical intervention is allowed

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leigh094 t1_iy0pn5p wrote

Little bit of brain damaged is better than dead

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peenutbuttherNjelly t1_iy1fijw wrote

This! And the fact that everything we've evolved to feel n experience is a result of millions of years of evolution. Not that it's perfect. Just that it's been a few million years. Billions more years of evolution and we shld be able to figure out human deceit from truth, cool off instantly after getting angry (selecting for the ones that cool down quicker). For now, the temperature rising beyond and staying on longer is the result of an evolution that has served us well. Once too many of us experience negative outcomes off of it, nature would begin selecting for those that eventually get cooler cause the meds kick in and the body can just chill from then on.

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303elliott t1_iy1g6b0 wrote

I love your enthusiasm, but you seem a bit misguided. Evolution has essentially stopped for humans, as natural selection no longer determines our survival. If anything, more evolved humans will be those that are better at getting laid with modern technology.

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peenutbuttherNjelly t1_iy1hgi6 wrote

I understand where you're coming from, but evolution is not something we have any control over. Natural selection is always at play. Just that we've intervened to an unimaginable degree that we cannot predict the direction of selection anymore. It's also not a single direction but multiple directions now. Agreed! Getting laid needs to out-select not getting laid cause our very survival's at stake.

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303elliott t1_iy1kkg3 wrote

You say we don't have any control over it, and then follow that up by saying we've intervened to an unimaginable degree lol. What I'm saying is people will not naturally evolve a fever limiter, because death by fever is prevented with modern medicine. There's no evolutionary incentive for it, so if it happens, it's just a mutation that's not selected out. Therefore it's unlikely to be widespread.

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Commercial_Item_9591 t1_iy0mi8o wrote

IIRC it's not exactly a "defense" it's plan A when something just happens to pass through the real defenses, like the mucus in your nose, the white blood cells in your blood etc

Like someone triggering the fire alarm in a building that may or may not be on fire

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Mammoth-Mud-9609 t1_iy0mdeg wrote

High temperatures are only used as a last ditch attempt, it is really a desperation measure, that evolved before modern medicine could solve the issue.

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