Everything in our body has strengths and weaknesses.
It is impossible to achieve an ideal in the body, since the improvement of one trait means the deterioration of others. If you buy a car that goes to 60 mph in four seconds, don’t expect it to consume just a gallon of gasoline for fifty miles and fit eight. You can embed a panoramic sunroof into the roof of the car, but it is possible that it will leak in the rain. You can put Velcro tires – they perfectly keep on ice (an indispensable thing for Michigan winters), but at the same time they are expensive, wash quickly and smack when driving.
Our body is a collection of costs. Wherever you look, there is a continuous scope for improvement, only these improvements will not go for nothing. If the immune system fights back more forcefully, the risk of tissue damage increases. If the bones of the wrist become thicker, so that you can ride a skateboard without protection, the joint will decrease in mobility, and you will not be able to throw a stone as far as now.
To get an eagle eye that can see a mouse a mile away, you have to say goodbye to color and peripheral vision. Want a bigger brain? You can, only then you risk dying in childbirth. Is the pressure lower? Okay, just move slower and weaker. If we reduce the sensitivity to pain, there will be no living space on us from various injuries. If the stress system begins to react less violently, it will be more difficult for us to cope with the danger.
Whatever sign you take, any extreme will be pernicious. The optimal combination of “price and quality” is somewhere in the middle. Too low a pain threshold or excessive anxiety is bad, but complete numbness to pain and no anxiety are no better. Natural selection, as a rule, does not lead to radical transformations; it maintains a certain averaged status quo. A life without pain and anxiety seems like a dream, but in reality it would be very short-lived.