Life's Top 10 Greatest Inventions
New Scientist has a great article about Life's Top 10 Greatest Inventions. (Warning: Don't read it if you believe the Earth was formed in 7 days.)
I love the selections, although I think reproduction should be on the list, not just sex. Sex is a special case of reproduction.
One of the most interesting items on the list is Death. Where would we be without it? Up to our necks in ancestors who never had their wealth inherited. Think of the incredible advantage the elders would have. Where would we put them all? How would we feed them?
I think it's time we start writing our congresscritters. There should be a law that forbids the extension of life past 150 years. After the brouhaha over Terry Schiavo, I know this will be a hard sell. That's why I think we need to start now, before we actually have the technology and the politicians have written laws giving themselves free life extension as a perk of their position. We have to start now, while people believe it won't apply to them anyway.
Who's with me?
Blog Tag: Links Blog Tag: Opinion
Posted 4/08/2005 11:50:00 PM
L
On 4/09/2005 4:59 PM, 
said...
On 4/12/2005 6:04 AM, said...
On 4/19/2005 7:26 AM, 
Rodney Blevins said...
3 Comments:
We are good at extending lives, but it seems that we are best at prolonging the end stage of people's lives. So many of our patients are incapable of doing anything for themselves, such as rolling over or swallowing. They usually have dementia, too, but, we continue to do everything in our power to prolong their lives even though we know, at the age of eighty or ninety plus years, that they are not going to get better. We tend to view death as the enemy instead of a natural process. Instead of dying a peaceful, natural death, we slowly torture people with heroic measures as their organs begin to fail. If science finds a way to extend the dying process by another 60 or 70 years, that would be truly scary and cruel.
If science makes it possible to extend just the prime of our lives, I would still not want any part of it if that means I would live to be 150. (Ask me again, though, when I'm older. I may have a different opinion when I'm closer to death.) Rather than live longer, I would prefer to live better. I would love to be able to grow more cartilage or look young enough that interns would ask me out. (I also don't like the idea of having to work another 80 or so years until I can retire at the age of 130.) Science should aim for quality over quantity. Your proposed legislation gets my vote.
That Top 10 list has only 8 items.
Obviously "Multicellurity" and "Superorganisms" are the same thing.
Less obvious are that 2 others are the same thing. I once looked up parasitism--I don't remember where--and found that it is a spectrum:
1. The parasite kills the host.
2. The parasite sickens the host but the host is free to spread it. Eg, the common cold.
3. The parasite draws down the hosts resources but it almost never noticeable. My blood is listed as O- and CMV-. "CMV" is cytomegalo virus, a disease that 90% of adults have. It is so harmless that only someone with a very compromised immune system could be hurt. I've been told my blood is reserved for surgery on babies.
4. The parasite does no harm. That is symbiosis. Eg. remora on a shark.
5. The parasite benefits the host. That is also symbiosis.
So "Parasitism" and "Symbiosis" are actually one thing.
It's a good idea to limit the age of humans, but I think Someone beat us to it.
Check out this verse in the Bible.
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