How did fainting, shock, and getting knocked unconscious survive natural selection?

Question

It seems to me that being physically and or mentally incapacitated could well lead to you being removed from the gene pool. Say you're out gathering roots and grubs one morning in the Great Rift Valley... Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my! Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my! Enter Megantereon, put um up, put um up! You start running, running, run... you trip and hit your head on a rock (boom, boom out go the lights), just a few yards from the tree that was to be your salvation. Megantereon, makes a late morning snack of you and your DNA. Shouldn't the predilection for getting "knocked out" have been selected out?

Answer 1

Natural selection is an ongoing process. Nobody suggests is has reached it's pinnacle and its doubtful that it ever could.

Answer 2

What your asking is-- how did our species survive when we are apparently so fragile?

Culture, my friend. Culture. Little precursor to us never would've been out getting roots and grubs in the morning all on their lonesome- and if what we know about chimps today is true, it's likely that we might've even been carrying around spears and rocks, and even though megantereon is looking to score some lunch, it probably isn't so hungry that putting up a huge fight (us screaming and throwing ****) is worth it. Even if megantereon is bigger.

To this day it's our ability to act as a unit that has kept us alive- so even though being bipedal makes us slow, awkward and generally easy to pick off, as a unit of slow, awkward and fast thinking primates we're pretty dangerous against even the biggest predator.

That's how fainting and shock survived. Though my idea on shock is that it's a cultural by-product, because there is always something out there that we never fully experience. I think if we lived in the wild where broken bones and death were really common it wouldn't be such a big deal, but most people today have never seen death or serious injury first hand, and so of course don't know how to deal with it.

Answer 3

First of all, every one of us within our species is susceptable to being knocked out.  So the fate of one individual being eaten becuase of the circumstance that you described is not going to act upon the species as a whole.  In order for natural selection to select against it you would have to have a portion of the population who was not as susceptible to passing out so that we could gradually drift towards this circumstance if it presented some competitive advantage.  It seems that even if this were a possibility, however, that NOT passing out would actually be selected against moreso then just passing out.  Why would I assume this?  Well, the question comes down to balancing all the pros and cons of that trait, which is what the process of "survival of the fittest" does.  Through many generations of natural selection an extremely minimal number of the population may have encoutered a fate similar to what you described.  Far more of our species, however, were not caught up in a precipitous situation that killed them but instead when the average individual were knocked unconscious this did not result in their demise.  In fact, because of our human social nature, passing out would have given our brains a chance to recoup and heal while our body was protected by the group.  If we did not pass out, alternatively, our body would have maintained a higher blood pressure and faster heart rate, that would have resulted in that individuals death through a cranial hemorrhage.  Not being able to pass out, therefore has far more selective pressure against it, because not being able to pass out would have been far more detrimental to the majority of individuals who bumped their heads.  One other point that was missed in your analysis are the effects of adrenalin.  In a fight or flight situation where ones life is at stake their adrenalin will temporally put off any tendancy to pass out to give you some additional time to act.  Perhaps enough time to get up that tree and pass out on its limb in some cases?

Answer 4

dont understand ur ?

u might want to rephrase it. be specific

Answer 5

Look up Bill Williams caution on adaption. You have overstepped that here.

Answer 6

In that situation when you got kocked out it was due to your own in abality to get away. But Fainting removes the stress on your nervous system by shutting down. Some animals in the wild faint to confuse their attackers. Furthermore, almost all animals like to kill their pray before they eat it. And those that are scavengers can be scared away with some wild arm flailing or a few rocks. Also an unconscience state can actually help heal the body faster because only the autonomous actions of the body are carried out, removing the decision making process of the brain that can hinder successful rehabilitation.

Think about it, have you ever really heard of someone fainting, then getting hit by a bus or eaten by a lion?

Answer 7

In the case you described, natural selection wasn't the factor, but environment.  I think that your definition of Natural Selection needs to be updated.

Natural Selection isn't a case of "I tripped and something ate me".  Think of it more of "I was born without eyes, as are the rest of my species, and can't see the new predator in the area which will make my and my species an afterthought in the annals of history".  And Natural Selection isn't about the individual, but about the species as a whole.  

The easiest way to think of it is that creatures evolve according to the factors within their environemtn.  Too hot, too cold, wet dry, predators and prey.  So by adapting (or Evolving), the species is making a change.  When it fails, or they're unable to adapt to the new factors,  it is a case of Natural Selection and the failed-adaptation species dies out.

Answer 8

I think your question is a good one and the answer isn't so good.  In my opinion the answer is there are numerous factors that go into the development of every one of our characteristics.  For example, our skin thickness, and the thickness of our arteries and veins is optimized.  If they are too thick, then we spend too much resource on those.  Being knocked unconscious is obviously a bad thing, but if we are built so tough that we can withstand those things, we would be much larger and slower.  A gorilla, for example, has evolved much stronger and tougher, no doubt to cope with some of those things.  Our brain has become so large that human females have difficulty giving birth.  There are trade-offs for everything.  We aren't perfect but we have been optimized for our particular niche.

Answer 9

You are talking about a human miss-step, has nothing to do with natural selection! Anyway, Don't think natural selection is "our job" the Lord selects us "naturally".............

Answer 10

Well, not unless you are the only child and have no children of your own.  

Your DNA closely matches that of your siblings and offspring, and they would carry on the strand.