

Stem Cells Cure Blind Man - dstik
http://gizmodo.com/5433391/stem-cells-cure-blind-man

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WesleyJohnson
This is pretty remarkable and will hopefully lead to further exploration and
research regarding using one's own stem cells to grow additional cells for
cures and replacements.

One thing I don't fully understand is why the human body doesn't do this
process on its own. If the cells can indeed be regrown or "incubated" using
byproducts of the human donor her/himself and reintroduced into the body with
little chance of rejection, you wonder why the infinite genius of the human
body hasn't evolved to do this naturally. I suppose one might argue that the
healing we ARE capable of is a form of this process and you might be right
(I'm no doctor), but are their cases of something as grand a scale as
restoring your own eyesight happening naturally?

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gnaritas
Why would evolution favor this, by the time this helped the individual he'd
already have had all his children. Evolution optimizes more babies, not
healthier individuals with long lifespans. A naturally blind person probably
wouldn't have survived childhood for most of human evolution.

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Xichekolas
The value of an individual to the evolution of a species doesn't stop when
they have their offspring. Long lifespans or intelligence may allow the
formation of culture and society, which improves the chances of survival of
the group as it works together. Even individuals that have already had
offspring still have value to the group in that they may allow the group to
operate more effectively as a unit, increasing the likelihood that it (and
thus the species) will thrive.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that 'evolution' doesn't care about the
individual... it 'cares' about the species. We think of 'evolving' in terms of
mutations to individuals that get passed on via reproduction, but it's just as
valid to look at 'mutations' in group behavior that make any given group more
fit for survival. These mutations aren't passed on via genes... they are
passed on as cultural norms within the group, with the aid of both
intelligence and sufficient lifespans that allow offspring to learn from their
parents.

Groups with better cultural norms will enjoy more success than other groups.
These other groups will either adapt the ideas, or they will be at a
disadvantage and eventually lose out. Either way, the species will have
'evolved' in such a way as to improve it's chances of survival, even though no
physical improvement was made and handed to offspring via genes.

With this in mind, it's almost as if we are evolving more rapidly than ever.
The sweeping changes to human culture (and technology, which is another vector
to improve fitness of a group) over the last few centuries (new forms of
government/economies/law/freedoms) has been extremely beneficial to the
survival of the human species.

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klipt
Absolutely. Comparing the evolution of ideas to the evolution of genes is like
comparing a programmable chip to a hardwired circuit. I remember reading about
this in _The Science of the Discworld_ , a hilarious yet informative book
where the authors described these concepts in terms of "memes" (a word coined
by Dawkins, I think, to refer to the mental analog of genes) and
"extelligence" (knowledge that lives outside you head, like Wikipedia).

Even though we haven't evolved the ability to regrow eyes automatically, we've
evolved enough intelligence to approach the level of civilization where, by
playing with our own biology, we can _make_ eyes regrow. How's that for a
hack!

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RiderOfGiraffes
Cross reference: <http://searchyc.com/stem+cells+blind>

Very similar reports from both very recently and from 2 years ago, with some
discussion.

