Evolutionary Conundrum

Here's a conundrum that only those who believe in evolution and science will appreciate.

A little background first as to how I got here : many years ago (70's) British Rail designed an Advanced Passenger Train. This was a tilting train intended to eliminate the forces felt as you went round a corner. The trials were unsuccessful and the technology ended up being developed in Italy and we now have Italian built tilting trains. It was unsuccessful because it was too successful !!!!!!!!!!!!!! I kid you not. The tilting was so perfect that people on the train felt no centripetal force whatsover. This made the people on the train (journalists) looking out of the window feel sick due to that well known problem of your eye and your ear not experiencing the same thing. The idiotic journalists panned the experience and the bad publicity killed the experiment. FYI BR applied less tilting to solve the problem by "feeling" the curve, which cured the sickness, but the bad publicity prevailed and the Italians took over.

Now think about this for a second. If you go back 150 years (I was reading about Brunels railways - a genius) we did not have trains nor road vehicles nor even horse drawn vehicles capable of inducing that disconnect between the eye and the ear. So how did this come about ? How did the biology of the brain evolve in such a way as to cause this problem when no human being ever experienced the problem until the 20th century! Surely, given our evolutionary history, we should be able to tilt round corners , experience VR etc with no sick feelings ?

The only solution I can think of is that God knew we would invent tilting trains and VR ! .......kidding honest...

Or could it be that whenever we experience something that causes a "thinking" disconnect between the senses we feel sick? This would imply that human beings "knowledge of physics" makes him/her sick! Put a stupid person on a perfect tilting train or VR helmet on his/her head and they would be quite happy and nausea free.

Now that would be a real bummer. The only people not to feel sick with VR gaming are the stupid ones who don't appreciate what they are experiencing.....sad sad sad.

Anybody else any ideas how this evolutionary conundrum occurred?

a reply to: yorkshirelad

I'm not really following. Are you asking why we evolved the ability to not tolerate automotive transport? Surely the obvious answer is that we get travel sick because we didn't evolve the ability to handle automotive transport?

It's like asking why did we evolve the ability to die when drinking bleach. The conclusion is all backwards.

a reply to: GetHyped
I think the question is why do we feel physically sick as a result of our brain getting conflicting signals about motion. I would imagine one possibility is it is a defensive measure where the body reacts byvomiting in case it has ingested something to cause the conflict. There is probably an even simpler explanation.

a reply to: yorkshirelad

I agree with GetHype. Your OP hardly makes sense.

Why can't God, if he knows we'll be inventing tilted trains, give us the ability to STOP having nausea when aboard said trains?

Nice post.. I learned something.

I often think of physiological functions like an object oriented program. The basics of OOP is that you create objects that have properties that instruct the object how to provide a desired output given certain input parameters (good enough for the sake of this explanation). How this interaction occurs is not explicit but inherent to function. Perhaps the output of these two objects (sight and balance) interacting with each other with this particular data set is vertigo. Vertigo maybe the desired output in scenario, or maybe it is not. So maybe the desired output of not getting vertigo is a yet-to-evolve trait that our species has not had time to develop. And the more we experience vertigo, the more we will adapt to in the future.

Or maybe the output of vertigo is useful for some reason I don't know. Just my thoughts anyway. Not saying I'm correct.

originally posted by: yorkshirelad
The only solution I can think of is that God knew we would invent tilting trains and VR ! .......kidding honest...

Wait -- if God knew we would one day develop tilting trains (or any other sort of experience where our brains get conflicting messages regarding whether or not we are in motion), then why exactly do we get sick on tilting trains??

It seems more likely that we get sick on tilting trains because we were not designed to be able to reconcile visual signals that we are moving with the conflicting sensation that we are not moving (whether it was God or Evolution that was the mechanism of that design).

originally posted by: yorkshirelad
Put a stupid person on a perfect tilting train or VR helmet on his/her head and they would be quite happy and nausea free.

Or just have no windows. If they can't see the motion of the landscape going by, then they would not get sick.

I do understand why people would want to look outside, because people feel less in control if they can't see what's going on. However, consider the person in the aisle seat on a plane; they really can't see what's going on outside, but thousands and thousands of people sit in aisle seats every day.

The methods of smooth travel in the future may get past the problem of being "too smooth" by simply not letting the passengers see what's happening outside.

a reply to: yorkshirelad
I agree with others, that it's not a conundrum.
The "disconnect" you're describing represents "not being able to cope with an unfamiliar physical situation". That doesn't need any evolutionary development. It comes up quite naturally if the situation is unfamiliar.

If you want to find conundrums, it would make more sense to look at the ways we CAN cope with unfamiliar situations.

Your body has many senses, not just the five we learned in nursery school. Time and sense of direction are just two. When your body gets conflicting input, it gets confused. That's why you feel sick on the train. Don't blame god for this one.

I was reading about how we get our balance from our ears as a rule . But some how def figure skaters can spin and not get dizzy . I can hear but I get dizzy if I spin . I have been blind in one eye for most of my life and I have a restriction on my drivers licence . apparently I have no dept of perception but have never had a problem judging distances for some reason . In fact I usually do a better job at it then some who have 2 eyes . It's really about using other senses in a different way then what could be considered normal . I get sea sick plain and simple . I don't get sick using other modes of transport ,just boats ....

originally posted by: GetHyped
a reply to: yorkshirelad

I'm not really following. Are you asking why we evolved the ability to not tolerate automotive transport? Surely the obvious answer is that we get travel sick because we didn't evolve the ability to handle automotive transport?

It's like asking why did we evolve the ability to die when drinking bleach. The conclusion is all backwards.

Travel sick is one thing, the feeling as in the surge when we take off in a plane or get moved side to side in a car when travelling. The issue I have is the disconnect between what you see and what you don't feel. If a human has never travelled at speeds where the lack of feeling does not match what what we see how on earth do we "know" what we should feel?

originally posted by: swanne
a reply to: yorkshirelad

I agree with GetHype. Your OP hardly makes sense.

Why can't God, if he knows we'll be inventing tilted trains, give us the ability to STOP having nausea when aboard said trains?

a reply to: newWorldSamurai
Aha, you get what I say. But there is no way our brains can evolve to react to any disconnect between the senses without having any experience over hundreds of thousands of years. Where did it come from?

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: yorkshirelad
The only solution I can think of is that God knew we would invent tilting trains and VR ! .......kidding honest...

Wait -- if God knew we would one day develop tilting trains (or any other sort of experience where our brains get conflicting messages regarding whether or not we are in motion), then why exactly do we get sick on tilting trains??

It seems more likely that we get sick on tilting trains because we were not designed to be able to reconcile visual signals that we are moving with the conflicting sensation that we are not moving (whether it was God or Evolution that was the mechanism of that design).

OOps careful "we were not designed". If not design then there has to be some "reaction", beneficial to the species that gives this reaction......hundreds of thousands of years before we ever experience it.

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
The methods of smooth travel in the future may get past the problem of being "too smooth" by simply not letting the passengers see what's happening outside.

Doesn't resolve the impending VR issue this xmas though

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71
Your body has many senses, not just the five we learned in nursery school. Time and sense of direction are just two. When your body gets conflicting input, it gets confused. That's why you feel sick on the train. Don't blame god for this one.

I am far from blaming god, it was a dig at the anti evolutionists. There is god.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: yorkshirelad
I agree with others, that it's not a conundrum.
The "disconnect" you're describing represents "not being able to cope with an unfamiliar physical situation". That doesn't need any evolutionary development. It comes up quite naturally if the situation is unfamiliar.

If you want to find conundrums, it would make more sense to look at the ways we CAN cope with unfamiliar situations.

The underlying question is "what is the evolutionary argument for motion sickness"?

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

Are evolutionary hypotheses for motion sickness "just-so" stories?
Oman CM.
Author information
Abstract
Vertebrates have evolved rapidly conditionable nausea and vomiting reflexes mediated by gut and brainstem receptors, clearly as a defense against neurotoxin ingestion. In 1977 Treisman proposed that sensory orientation linkages to emetic centers evolved for the same reason, and that motion sickness was an accidental byproduct. It was an "adaptationist" explanation for motion sickness, since it assumed that evolution has shaped all phenotypic traits for survival advantage. Treisman's "poison" theory is plausible, and frequently cited as the accepted scientific explanation for motion sickness. However, alternative explanations have been proposed. The creation of hypotheses is an essential part of science - provided they are testable. This paper reviews the evidence for the Poison theory and several other adaptationist explanations. These hypotheses are certainly not "just-so stories", but supporting evidence is equivocal, and contradictory evidence exists Parsimony suggests an alternative "pluralistic" view: The vertebrate reticular formation maintains oxygenated blood flow to the brain, discriminates unexpected sensory stimuli- including postural disturbances, and detects and expels ingested neurotoxins. The three systems share neuroarchitectural elements but normally function independently. Brainstem sensory conflict neurons normally discriminate brief postural disturbances, but can be abnormally stimulated during prolonged passive transport (e.g. by boat, beginning about 150-200 generations ago). Sensory conflict signals cross couple into the neurotoxin expulsion and avoidance system, producing an arguably maladaptive emetic phenotype.

If you believe this, then the connection between motion sickness and nausea is entirely accidental by virtue of nerves not being sufficiently shielded from one another in the brainstem. It's analogous to the connection between bright lights and sneezing---the optic nerve is close to olfactory nerves, and high optical stimulation results in an 'expulsion' response in the nose; like high postural stimulation (motion sickenss) results in an expulsion response in the gut.

You might call it half-assed engineering.

originally posted by: the2ofusr1
I was reading about how we get our balance from our ears as a rule . But some how def figure skaters can spin and not get dizzy . I can hear but I get dizzy if I spin . I have been blind in one eye for most of my life and I have a restriction on my drivers licence . apparently I have no dept of perception but have never had a problem judging distances for some reason . In fact I usually do a better job at it then some who have 2 eyes . It's really about using other senses in a different way then what could be considered normal . I get sea sick plain and simple . I don't get sick using other modes of transport ,just boats ....

The problems you are describing are because the body is being moved and thus the crystals in the inner ear start to swirl around causing a disconnect between what we feel and what we see. The important bit being an actual physical reaction by the human body.

What I am describing is the opposite. A complete lack of physical feeling compared to the visual. without the inherited knowledge of what the physical feeling should be to match the visual how does the human body "know" what it "should" feel ????? It was not until we started to travel at speed that the human body had that disconnect.

originally posted by: yorkshirelad

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: yorkshirelad
The only solution I can think of is that God knew we would invent tilting trains and VR ! .......kidding honest...

Wait -- if God knew we would one day develop tilting trains (or any other sort of experience where our brains get conflicting messages regarding whether or not we are in motion), then why exactly do we get sick on tilting trains??

It seems more likely that we get sick on tilting trains because we were not designed to be able to reconcile visual signals that we are moving with the conflicting sensation that we are not moving (whether it was God or Evolution that was the mechanism of that design).

OOps careful "we were not designed". If not design then there has to be some "reaction", beneficial to the species that gives this reaction......hundreds of thousands of years before we ever experience it.

I'm not sure what you mean. We get disoriented because our brains get confused over the conflicting information -- i.e., the conflict between the visual cues that we are moving and the balance cues that say we are not moving.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say we developed this reaction. We didn't develop anything; our eyes say we are moving, but our bodies don't, so our brain gets confused. It didn't "develop" this ability to be confused through evolution; on the contrary -- it would need to evolutionarily develop the need to "not" get confused by conflicting cues.


By the way, when speaking about evolution, I use the word "designed" broadly. In the broad sense of the word, evolutionary processes DID "design" us.

I recall when I was younger going into a cinema 180 at the circus . I couldn't stand up and had to sit down and hold onto a railing . It was the strangest thing I had ever experienced . a reply to: yorkshirelad