Drayan shuttle in 2372
IMPORTANT FORBIDDEN TRUTH! READ (OR COPYPASTE HOME) BEFORE IT IS DELETED!: There is evidence for many dramatic environmental changes throughout geological history. That means natural selection must have favoured the ability of rapid adaptation. But with random mutations, that would have increased the risk of lethal mutations. That means natural selection must have favoured the ability of non-random adaptive mutations. Life expends much energy on enzymes that protect and repair DNA (mammals do fine in the Chernobyl forbidden zone while birds die there because they expend much energy on flying which limits their energy budget for DNA repair). Why expend so much energy on repairing an unstable genome when stabler genetic materials (XNA 1-5) are proven to exist? Since DNA is too unstable to be the genetic material without protection and repair enzymes, it cannot be because the first life just happened to use it. The only viable evolutionary explanation is that primitive ancestors of life used stabler genetic material and that more and more unstable genomes (and eventually DNA) coevolved with correspondingly more and more efficient enzymes to protect and repair them. And considering how energy-expensive it is, there must have been a very good reason for it. As shown in “Bacteria evolved way to safeguard crucial genetic material”, mechanisms for control of mutation probability does exist. Red blood cells survive for weeks with no nucleus or DNA. If coordination of cell functions were centralized to the DNA, they would have died within a split second after their denucleation. This proves that genes do not control the cells. Genes are mere tools for functions such as protein manufacturing. This provides a mechanism for determining what mutations are adaptive and guide the repair enzymes using them as modification enzymes. It has often been claimed, based on experiments where bacteria were exposed to rapidly lethal viruses, that mutations are random and not adaptive. But when Joseph Cairns in 1988 and later other independent researchers placed bacteria genetically incapable of feeding on the available food in environments where no other food existed, the bacteria did adaptively guide non-random mutations. The extremely limited amount of functionally active genetic material neutralists accept based on calculations of lethal mutation frequency based in turn on random mutation theory is hopelessly inadequate for steering the construction of complex organs. Weissman’s experiment with severed mouse tails is often supposed to have disproved the inheritance of acquired characteristics, but severed tails were a purely damaging external force as opposed to the kind of inheritance of acquired characteristics that variability selection and lethal mutation risk reducing selection predicts which is inheritance of the organism's adaptive reactions. There is epigenetic research that proves that inheritance of acquired characteristics do exist. A disproportionally large part of it is actually about behaviour and metabolism, but the fact that inheritance of acquired characteristics and a rudimentary intelligence also exist in single-celled organisms and that anatomical growth is behaviour on a cellular level means that acquired changes in cell behaviour can indirectly affect the anatomy of offspring. When yeast were centrifuged for some 60 days, they evolved multicellularity. This can be explained by disaster cooperation, a rudimentary version of when hostile tribes become friends during natural disasters, but also implies that complex self-regulating systems improves adaptability. The fact that poo is just about the most bacteria-rich thing that exists and that poo comes from inside animals shows that simple organisms are better off in symbiosis with complex organisms than independent. When the baboon group Forest Troop was struck by disease that killed the dominant male along with all strong candidates for succession, they formed a culture where males do not fight for females at all, and that culture is still maintained today despite extensive immigration and the restoration of the gender ratio. Orangutans are usually solitary, but in environments with extra food (such as Orangutan island) they have formed social groups and invented complex social behaviours similar to those observed among chimpanzees. In Fongoli in Senegal, chimpanzees have adapted to living on a grassland. In most chimpanzee groups plant eating is the source of nutrition and hunting expends more energy than it gives and is only practised by adult males, but in Fongoli, they have invented pointed stick weapons that save so much energy that hunting pays off nutritionally, and most hunting is practised by females and young males, while the majority (with some exceptions) of adult males are vegetarians. Unlike other chimps, those in Fongoli are not afraid of water (they actually take baths voluntarily) and have invented a level of empathy unheard of in other chimps (such as males helping sick females to care for young). Octopus and squid species that are normally solitary have acquired the ability of observational learning and to only break rules when the animal care staff are not watching in captivity. In the wild, a population of a normally solitary octopus species off the shore of Spain have, as a response to a dwindled supply of small, easy-to-catch prey, started hunting in packs. They have created an imitation culture similar to that in apes and started using their chromatophores, which they before the lifestyle change only used for camouflage, as communication for coordinating their hunting and signal what type of prey they are hunting. The evolutionary importance of such behavioural transgressions is proved by first individual evolvability paradoxes. Many behaviours, especially social ones, would be useless for a first individual having them. In some cases, such as morality, the first individual having it in a group of individuals not having it would not be able to survive (either hating all the others for their amoral behaviour and become a hopeless extreme outsider or be unable to survive the competition and be bullied and exploited to death, depending on what type of morality, the former being the one most psychologists seem to believe in). There are also superfluous phonemes (Polynesian languages show that very few phonemes is enough for complex language) that cannot have been of any use to evolve in the first place, debunking all claims of a wide innate range of phonemes that must be stimulated early or disappear. There is also the fact, documented especially in domestication research, that evolution can go extremely fast. People across the world have also faced different environments. So even the most extreme Out of Africa models still leave enough time for formation of significant mental racial differences, and yet empirical studies show that all alleged such differences disappear from the statistics when social factors are taken into account. At the same time, most psychologists believe that individual psychiatry is genetic. Obviously there must be some environmental factor that are taken into account by studies debunking racism but overlooked by studies of individual psychiatry. As shown by Kurt Fischer and Christina Hinton in “Mind, Brain and Education”, tolerant environments are the key to restoring mental abilities after brain damage. There we have the missing factor! Social explanations for allegedly racial differences of course automatically took factors related to tolerance (or more commonly intolerance) into account, while the traditional versions of sociological theories about individual psychiatry only mentioned factors such as affection and attachment and totally overlooked the tolerance factor. The most extreme documented mental restorations are in cases where the whole cerebral cortex is missing, proving that the neuroplastic principle can explain evolution of human brains from brains even more primitive than monkey brains. Why brains have not enlarged in size for over a hundred thousand years? Well, rational thought is critical and falsificative, and modern neurology proves that rational judgement is linked to pruning of erroneous synapses. Above a certain level of intelligence, further smartening does not make brains any bigger. There is evidence that training of rational thought without time stress shifts thinking from faith to science. It is often claimed that brain training cannot improve fluid intelligence (creativity) but the inability of traditional brain training programs to improve creativity are better explained by the fact that formal IQ tests, which traditional brain training programs are shaped after, are under time stress which is bad for creativity. There is also evidence that the use of non-native language improves rational thought. Irrational thought is causing destruction of the environment on a global scale. The inefficient resource waste means that when irrational “civilization” falls, there will still be enough resources left to build a rational civilization. The evolvability problem about morality illustrates the counter-productivity of punishment. But the trials in court is actually even worse than the punishment itself because it forces people to justify their actions. Justification is the enemy number one of self-improvement. But feud-dropping during disaster cooperation shows that it can be transcended. When the fall comes, everybody should confess all their crimes more or less simultaneously. Consider that if everybody confesses the crimes they inevitably must commit to survive such situations, the sheer mass of confessions makes the risk to be caught minimal, and when the jails are all full there is nothing to force the poor survival-struggling masses (which they will be by then) to pay tax to keep the jails going, so even if you are caught you will very soon after it be free. The most important thing to do before the fall is to debunk the myth of “the faster the smarter”. In fact, gorillas with an obviously childish understanding have passed as average on IQ tests for adult humans by answering fast and exploiting the fact that the test rewards fastness to their advantage. So take time to think, use foreign languages, say the premise/reason before the conclusion/particular when you talk, do not justify your decisions, do not exert any social pressure on others to justify their decisions, do not expect arguments to be justifications (discuss instead, you will notice on the reasoning style if the arguments are intelligently leading to the conclusions or stupidly used as justifications), do not ridicule anyone for past actions or ideas.
A Drayan shuttle was a small, armed shuttle used by the Drayans. It was capable of space travel as well as maneuvering inside a planet's atmosphere. (VOY: "Innocence")