WEBVTT - Will future humans look different? 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:15.120 Forward Thinking. Hey everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:17.920 podcast that looks at the future and says that face, 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.360 that face, that lovable face. It melts my Swedish heart. 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.079 I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Focab, and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:27.320 And I'm not supposed to be here for this episode. 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:30.880 I was on vacation, but you guys actually decided to 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:33.920 wait for me and let me talk about about human 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:39.400 appearances changing over time, and it's so exciting to be well, 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:41.800 we knew we were going to have to talk about 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.279 what humans would look like in the future, and Jonathan, 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:46.800 I think you are what humans are going to look 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:49.879 like in the future. So sorry for all of humanity. 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:52.920 We couldn't really do it without you. I appreciate that. No, 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:55.760 I mean the more I've read into your notes and 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.760 read the references and everything you guys had had really 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:02.080 put together, I was really excited to hear this because 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.600 this is pretty fascinating stuff. Oh yeah, and this is 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:08.320 kind of part of our series. This originated as part 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.880 of our series on what we don't see enough of 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:14.080 in science fiction, right, though you do see some of this. 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:18.000 But yeah, if you project forward a little bit in 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.920 science fiction, look a few thousand years into the future. 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:24.760 Part of the problem is you've got aliens who look 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.680 alien and then unless it's Star Trek, in which case 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:31.679 they look human, right or yeah, yeah, there's some sort 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.840 of ridge somewhere on their face. And you've got humans 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:39.080 who look exactly like humans look whenever the movie was made. 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.240 Although you know, Patrick Stewart is captain Jean Loup Picard, 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:44.600 you know what, you might be onto something about they 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.760 look the future looks like me. He needs a goateee 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.600 but yeah, yeah, and he needs to put on a 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.840 few pounds. But other than that, yeah, no, we wanted 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.040 to I'm okay with it now, we we we we 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.760 really wanted to take a look at what will I mean, 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:04.080 what what's the prevailing thought about what human appearance is 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:05.720 going to be? And as it turns out, it's a 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.359 very tricky thing to talk about for multiple reasons. Well, 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:11.119 of course you can't really predict, right, I mean, it's 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.600 one of those things where there's not a a clear 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:19.520 projection that will be controlled by human behavior. Right, It's 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:21.640 like kind of a it's kind of willy nilly, and 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.079 it's kind of random. Right, there's not like a a 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:27.560 simulation we can pull up where we just have a 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:29.880 slider and we said, all right, let's just slide it 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:35.320 forward fifty years. Oh, that's what we're gonna look like arms. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:37.280 So we wanted to kind of talk about some of 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:40.920 the scholarship behind this and the thoughts behind this, and 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.560 really kind of dive into this topic and talk about 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.600 some of the possibilities. Right. So, just last year, there 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:51.079 was actually a funny news story and then a lot 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:53.440 of back and forth between people in the media and 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:59.560 the scientific community about this one particular article that Forbes published, Right, 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.400 it went pretty viral. They published this this tech blog 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:07.079 and or article and or content piece. I'm not sure 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:11.520 exactly what, right um, it was called how the human 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.639 Face Might look in a hundred thousand years. So this 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:18.040 was June of last year. This was junect and h 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.280 in it, Forbes staffer Parmi Olsen reported on work that 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:24.880 had been done by by this digital artist named Nicola 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:29.480 Lamb in collaboration with a computational genomist named Dr Alan Quan. 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.800 I didn't even know computational genomist was a was a 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:37.560 thing me neither. Pretty awesome, congratulations to that guy. And 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.520 so in their work they speculated on what the face 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.680 might look like in twenty thousand, sixty and a hundred 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.480 thousand years. Okay, So so what did they come up with. Well, 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:49.080 you guys might have seen a picture of this somewhere. 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.880 It basically the furthest view out was the sort of 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:56.240 anime character looking thing, right, okay, gigantic eyes, gigantic eyes, 0:03:56.320 --> 0:04:00.839 kind of weird big forehead. Uh and you're not so 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:04.920 far sunny like me. Now, My eyes are not gigantic. 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.320 I do have the weird big forehead though, That's okay. 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.720 So their predictions fall into into a few broad categories. Okay. 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.360 They suggested that the forehead will get longer and wider 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.680 to accommodate a larger brain. We'll talk more about this 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:19.200 way at the end of the podcast. Um that the 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.880 eyes will get larger approaching and I quote unnerving lye large. 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.960 This is what we call Disney princess large. As as 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.479 we adapt to dimmer off earth environments and as we 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:36.920 become more innocent, right. Um that our nostrils will get 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.560 larger and our hair denser to help with breathing and 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.760 heat retention off world. That way, I hope the timeline 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.360 on this is really accelerated because that hair density thing 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:50.599 is very very pertinent to me. Um. That our skin 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.760 will get darker to help combat UV radiation outside of 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:59.000 Earth's ozone, That we'll ditch wearable tech for subtle implants um. 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:03.719 And that perhaps most importantly, genetic manipulation will render natural 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:09.880 evolution moot um, likely resulting in increasingly normal human features 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.120 with an emphasis on on symmetry and the golden ratio 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.760 and that kind of ideal of human and normal normal 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:20.919 and ideal there being in quotation really heavy quotation marks 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:22.919 in case you can't tell my sarcasm voice, which I 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:28.000 am told sometimes sounds a lot like my normal. Well yeah, 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.839 now the exactly because normal, I mean, who defines what 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.000 normal is in this case and this they're specifically looking 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:39.240 at these these uh ideals which have been held up 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:44.040 as ideals only by certain types certain cultures. Um. So yeah, 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:45.760 you gotta take that with a grain of salt. Yeah. 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.400 Another thing to note is that they're not suggesting that 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:52.000 this is how humans will grow to look because of say, 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.400 natural selection, they're saying that this is how we will 0:05:55.680 --> 0:06:00.120 basically decide will engineer, We will choose features and you know, 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:03.240 so Gattica ask everyone will end up looking like Jude Law. 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:08.440 Well I'm okay with that too actually, but the uh 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:12.000 pretty man. But anyway, the the what I was going 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:14.599 to go into here is that, uh, if some of 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.919 this kind of makes sense from sort of a top 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.440 level approach, right, the idea that if we are to 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:27.240 go colonize other planets, there will likely be uh situations 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:29.479 there that will be different enough from what we have 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:31.960 here at Earth that we would need some form of 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:36.400 adaptation to be able to thrive on said planet. And 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:41.080 so while it might not be uh efficacious for us 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.560 to wait for evolution to take hold so that whichever 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:49.680 humans survive that initial colonization end up producing generation upon 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:53.279 generation upon generation. Uh you know, multiply that out ten 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.080 thousand times. Do you get to a group of human 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:57.920 beings or what used to be human beings who are 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:00.679 ideally suited for that planet. It may it's more sense 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.679 that we would be taking an approach where we're making 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.880 those choices consciously. Well, I mean, these days, in the 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.240 ideal scenario, we do all we can to prevent natural 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:16.920 selection from happening to humans frequently. Yeah, I had a joke, 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:19.080 but I'm going to leave it on this case. You cat, 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:23.040 you can thank me later, all right. So an observation 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.920 I had about their predictions is that if you just 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.360 take them as like, these are some kind of fun, 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:32.400 interesting guesses, I think they are interesting total to go with. 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:35.320 But there's sort of the question of, like, at what 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:37.840 level are these being pitched. Are they just saying, here 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.320 are some interesting suggestions, or are they saying we've got 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:44.200 a pretty good idea what humans are going to look like? 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:48.840 And I think that exact distinction was embodied in a 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:51.320 lot of the responses. Oh yeah, because there is this 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.120 whole flurry of response on the internet. Do you, guys, 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:56.400 do you believe that the Internet took something way more 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:58.640 seriously than they perhaps should have and blew it out 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:02.400 of proportion. Um. I'm sorry, that's my sarcasm voice is 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.280 strong today. UM. And I do want to point out 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.600 here that that Nicolae Lamb is the guy who created 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:12.200 that average Barbie doll that also went viral in um. 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.520 If you remember the side by side photos of a 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:17.960 of a of a store bought Barbie with a barbie 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.559 who is shaped more or less like a human person. 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.360 Um uh, yeah, he's that guy. He also is behind 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.840 the Lammily doll line, which he kicks started in two 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.960 to work towards producing realistic shaped dolls for kids. Because Okay, 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:33.959 a thing to keep in mind about Lamb's work is 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:37.480 that he's really savvy about producing stuff that will capture 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:41.840 the public's imagination and click throughs. So, in other words, 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:46.360 like this could be something where uh he imagines a 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.320 scenario and then and then frames it in such a 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.280 way that it's compelling enough for people to look at, 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:56.959 participate in discussion about, but doesn't necessarily indicate any kind 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:00.680 of expertise necessarily that or or scholarship that went into 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:05.680 the the ultimate design or or or guess I think 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.160 very much that Um that you know that that he 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:12.520 and the other fellow Quan were trying to make an 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:18.320 interesting thing, perhaps more so than an extraordinarily accurate future prediction. Well, 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.040 and and one other thing I would point out, and 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:23.840 some of the other discussions we're going to to chat 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.600 about will sort of fall into this as well, is 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.880 that while we could go the engineering route to try 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:34.439 and take tackle some of these these issues. Another thing 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.920 we could try, besides, you know, altering ourselves, is altering 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.079 the environment we're going into, and therefore you wouldn't have 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.720 the environmental requirement to adapt. We could adapt the environment, 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:47.640 which is pretty much what humans have been doing for 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:51.120 the last couple hundred years. Yeah. Typically we don't biologically 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:54.720 adapt to our environments anymore. We adapt the environments, or 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:58.400 we technologically adapt, right, right, right, You don't need crazy 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:02.640 anime eyes if you have lamp, right right, that's a 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:07.000 good point a Pitch Dark couldn't have, or is it 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.160 pitch black? Pitch Black? That Pitch Black couldn't happen because 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:12.960 because you know, that's a that's actually a good Vin 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.800 Diesel movie, and you're gonna destroy the few good I'm 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:18.679 not going to take Pitch Black away from us, all right. 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.640 I think the thinking is that huge anime eyes would 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:26.199 help protect the environment because you wouldn't need to use 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:30.480 as much energy on lamps or in situations where energy 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:33.800 is scarce. I'm pretty sure that our energy problem, I 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:36.040 don't know, I'm pretty sure, and I know you're you're 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:37.920 you're making a joke, but I have to be the 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.400 jerk who who who comments on this. I'm pretty sure 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.360 by the time we're colonizing other world's we've kind of 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.160 nailed the energy problem because that would necessitate us being 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:50.839 able to get to said other world. But off world 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:53.440 is always like the like the crazy wild West. Yeah, 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:57.680 we always have to fusion reactors. Okay, Lauren, you mentioned 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.560 a couple of the people who responded to the original 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.400 article in the illustrations that these people did. What what 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.960 were some of the responses? They were interesting, and we're 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.960 talking a lot about this particular this particular prediction because 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:14.400 the conversation that it generated really was fascinating, even if 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:16.880 it was blown out of proportion. So George Dvorsky for 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.079 I OH nine thought that Lamb and Quain's ideas actually 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:22.600 didn't go far enough. He suggested that they should have 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:27.240 taken into deeper account the possibility of technological additions and 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:32.160 innovations to human biology, including the idea that we might 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:36.640 be totally cyborgs, or have uploaded our consciousness, or be 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:40.440 controlling robotic avatars from a distance. He he didn't really 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.040 comment on the idea that humans might want to stay 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:45.640 human looking, which is that's something I want to talk 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:47.760 about in a bit here, but we can save that. Yeah, 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:49.680 I got I've got some stuff. I think Joe and 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:51.240 I are going to throw down in that in that 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:53.480 part of the conversation, I hope. So all right, just 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:55.240 keep the fight on that side of the table. There 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:59.200 was actually another writer for Forbes responded, though, uh yeah. 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:03.560 Matthew Herper wrote a fairly snippy response entitled and I 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.320 quote no, this is not how the human face face 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.600 might look in a hundred thousand years um. In it, 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.880 he he suggests that the genetic engineering that quantum Lamb 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.920 hypothesized about is going to be taking place much sooner um, 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.480 and also points out that a hundred thousand years is 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:24.040 only about half the time that Homo sapiens have existed. 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:28.120 As such, you know that that this is right, right right, 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.800 This is basically minus you know, grooming and a little 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.040 bit of skull size difference. This is how we've looked 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.520 for that long. So so you know, a, it's unlikely 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.839 that major facial changes will happen in so short and 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.600 evolutionary period of time, and and be that it's impossible 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:46.480 to say what tastes and trends will be like in 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.600 the future. So therefore, Guessing what features we as as 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.920 geneticists and or consumers are going to select in the 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.600 future is just pure sci fi speculation, right. I mean, 0:12:56.640 --> 0:13:00.520 for one thing, we cannot anticipate what a generation that's 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.800 five years removed from our own is going to perceive 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:10.920 as being desirable or attractive. I mean, a fallout has 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:15.240 taught us many things. But no, but but seriously, we don't. 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.840 We can't predict what people are going to find attractive 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.240 about the human form in one way or another. And 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:23.840 that's part of what will really go into our discussion 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.480 little bit later too. But so so yeah, it's really 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.679 difficult to suggest that. Also as far as this this 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:35.679 genetic engineering thing about how it's going to happen much sooner. Uh, 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:38.600 that one I'm really curious about because I I foresee 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.000 there's gonna be a lot of resistance on that front 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:46.040 for a long time, for for for various reasons, including ethics. 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.800 So you're saying it's not just that we might not 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.679 have the technological expertise to do it, but that there 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.600 might be reasons not to do There will be cultural 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:58.840 and social taboos against genetic engineering, at least in certain 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:01.320 parts of the world. For are a good long time, 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.880 is my guess. That's a guess because we don't have 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.640 enough right now to really say one way or the other. 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:11.160 But just based upon the reactions we've seen to basic 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:16.959 foundation research that would lead maybe one day to genetic engineering, 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:19.880 we've already seen examples of people really kind of putting 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.760 up barriers. Oh sure. Also, I think, and I think 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.360 that a few of these nice people brought this up, 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.040 um that if we're going to do genetic engineering, we're 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:32.120 probably not going to be peddling around with eye color. 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:34.400 We're going to be say, like wiping out really terrible 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:39.160 diseases and stuff like that first and then maybe after that, Like, 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:41.200 you know, my nose is a little bit big, I'd 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:43.560 like to give my daughter a smaller nose. Is that possible? 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:48.800 Stuff like that. Yeah, I've got more to say about 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:51.560 that in the next setting too, just because just because 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:56.400 human history is filled with people altering themselves. So my 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.280 hair is blue right now, so so I totally get that, 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.400 But I want to be born with blue hair. I'm 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.400 not sure anyway. So uh. There was a response actually 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:08.400 to Herper's response, and a response to the response, Yes, 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.720 Kwan actually wrote him this really sick burn email that 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:17.280 was the computation who worked on the original hypothesis here, 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.400 and in which Kwan said, and I think this sums 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.560 up his I mean, it was a really long email, 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:23.960 so I'm just going to quote part of it, but 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:27.040 I think it sums up his overall argument really well. Okay, 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:30.600 so here we go. The operative word might, as in 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:32.920 this is what the human face might look like in 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:36.960 a hundred thousand years, makes the statement an existential statement, 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:40.200 which means that there is a non zero possibility that 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.440 a given event may occur. Given that we agree that 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:45.960 no one can make an absolute statement about the future, 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.080 by the same token, you cannot claim to know the 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:52.040 negation of an existential statement. This is not how a 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.240 face might look like or it's equivalent. There is no 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.000 chance that the human face will look like this, all right, 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:58.720 But I see this other thing in our notes here. 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.080 This is kind of interesting to me. Uh, the question 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.960 about whether or not we will be taller. Yeah, this 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.800 is something that I think has often sort of been imagined. 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.760 It might be that we will get taller in the future, 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:14.920 or that we are currently very tall compared to our ancestors, 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:17.920 which I mean, if you've ever been in an old house, yeah, yeah, 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.000 or a castle. I just I just walked around a 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.160 few castles and there were times where I had to 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:25.240 duck my head and I am not a tall person. 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:28.360 Well it depends on which ancestors, it turns out, and 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:30.680 that's going to come into something. But um so, yeah, 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.520 there's this question have we grown taller than we used 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.600 to be as a species and will we continue to 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.040 grow taller as time goes on? So I want to 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:44.480 start with one fact. A March paper in the Oxford 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:48.560 Economic Journals found that from the mid eighteen hundreds to 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:53.200 nineteen eighty, the average height of European adult males grew 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:58.840 eleven centimeters. That's about four point three is significant. Wait 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.480 that was in the Oxford Economic Journals. Was it based 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.520 upon how expensive it is to build higher doorways? No, 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:09.840 it turns out actually studying human height uh factors into 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:16.560 economic papers a lot interest. It may reflect certain economic conditions, 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:20.280 like a little bit of a spoiler, but for how 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:22.280 this discussion is going to turn out. But there was 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:25.159 also this other thing I found online that was funny. 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.480 It was quote a living bar graph, So it was 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:33.280 a comparison of height distribution among students at Connecticut State 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:38.640 Agricultural College comparing photos taken in nineteen fourteen and then 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:43.560 nineteen seven. So they had different bars basically with like 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.840 a you know, five ft two, five ft three, and 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:49.960 then they'd have the students who measured those heights line 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:52.840 up behind each bar, so you'd get a bar graph 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:55.879 made out of actual humans in the phototch and you 0:17:55.920 --> 0:18:00.520 can see over time that the distribution of males students 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.120 goes up. So the average height of the male students 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.840 was sixty seven point three inches in nineteen fourteen, and 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:11.840 that increased to seventy point one inches in nine seven. 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.840 That's a difference of two point eight inches or seven 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:18.640 point one centimeters in just eighty three years. Now. Of course, 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:21.399 there may be some self selection in this, because the 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.159 Connecticut State at Agricultural College started offering scholarship packages to 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.560 taller students in the nineteen fifties. That's yeah, that was 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:31.639 just tough. I mean, you know, if you if you 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:33.560 were below average height, you got the short end of 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:37.200 the stick on that one. Okay, that was totally a joke. 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:40.200 They did not offer scholarship packages to taller students. No, 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:43.040 the students actually wasn't a joke, because to be a joke, 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:48.960 you have to be funny first. Okay, so they add 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:53.040 the student. The male students actually did get taller on average. Um, 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:57.320 so there are more comparisons of average male height over 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.760 time than average female height. For example, the ving barographed 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:04.119 from Connecticut. There are no women in the nineteen fourteen photo. 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:08.000 The women in the nine photo average sixty four point 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:10.560 eight inches. But don't worry, in another eighty three years 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.080 will be able to compare both men and women. I'm sure. 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:17.120 So can we get a can we get a more 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.040 general estimate? Like? Does this apply to women too? Yeah, 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.600 it seems like it. So. In a nineteen guest article 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:28.240 for Scientific American, the biologist Michael J. Doherty claimed that 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:31.960 the average height of humans in industrialized countries had grown 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:35.760 by about ten centimeters or four inches over the past 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:37.919 century and a half. Okay, well, let me ask you 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:41.640 this joke. Does this mean that we as a species 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:46.800 are evolving rapidly to become like the next generation of 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.639 NBA players? Is that what this is all about? Sadly no, 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:52.960 So what scientists have discovered is that they think we 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:55.639 are not evolving to grow taller and There are a 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:59.120 bunch of reasons for thinking this. Number one is that 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.040 it has been a steady progression of much shorter people 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:06.320 long ago, too much taller people now. Instead, if we 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:10.200 study history, it seems to be inconsistent. People get taller 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.840 and then they get shorter, and then they get taller again. 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:16.359 Are there any correlating effects that seem to go along 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:19.160 with this taller shorter, taller thing, which perhaps we may 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:23.720 have alluded to spoiling this part of the podcast. So Yeah, 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.119 we observe around the world and in recent history that 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.960 generations of children who suffer poor nutrition in early development 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:34.280 remain shorter as adults, and when economic conditions improve in 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.960 the next generation receives better food, those children tend to 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.520 grow up to be taller adults. Is what we seem 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:45.480 to observe. There's this study called anthropometric history, and that's 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.199 the study of historical trends in human height. In the 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:51.280 past couple of decades, people in this field have largely 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.959 used the historical distribution and human height to study environmental 0:20:55.960 --> 0:21:01.000 and economic conditions, not population genetics. Yeah, makes sense. Uh. 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.720 And finally that as far as we can tell, we 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:06.920 sort of seem to have leveled off. So while these 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:09.760 increases in average height can be charted over the past 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.399 century and a half, were a lot taller on average 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:14.879 than we were a hundred and fifty years ago, people 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.680 in industrialized nations aren't really getting much taller anymore. We 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:22.639 we seem to have kind of hit the max. Oh okay, well, 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:25.440 you know that's all right. I wasn't expecting to grow 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:28.080 any taller than I already have figured that my growth 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:31.119 spurts were behind me every day. To be a little taller, 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:35.000 a taller. Well, you know we should. We should put 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.000 a little mark on the wall and just have it 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:40.560 being Lauren's height, and we just have our stand under it. 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:43.760 Every day we take another picture. Just the power of wishing. 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:47.639 That's a scientific experiment. It sounds like testing the power 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:52.480 of how tall the heels I can wear? Okay, okay, 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:57.040 how about brains? Huge, huge brains. Part of that that 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.520 facial features guestimation was was the four head will grow 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:03.440 because our brains will get bigger, right, so therefore we'll 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:06.160 need more space in our our heads to hold those 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:08.280 those big old brains of ours. Have you ever seen 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:11.080 a movie called This Islander? Yes? I have. You're talking 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:17.320 about the aliens with the enormous brains to two different kinds, 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:20.560 two different kinds, Lauren, let me parce it for it. First, 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:23.240 you had the regular human looking aliens. They just have 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:28.480 human looking is being general. They have hilariously huge foreheads, 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:31.680 like you just had to cram an extra brain in there, 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:35.200 so they made the skull bigger, which is yes, almost. 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:38.120 It's why the MST three K version of it has 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:40.760 one of the characters one of the robots. Just every 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:43.879 time the the alien leader has a line to the 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:46.240 humans and he's posing as a human. Is you just 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:48.600 hear one of the robots say, but I'm not an alien. 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:53.280 But then later in the movie you get an alien 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:56.320