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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Today

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Speaker 1: we're talking about human height. We're talking about the limits

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Speaker 1: of human height. We're talking about the giant humans start humans.

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Speaker 1: So it seemed like the most natural place to begin

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Speaker 1: this discussion is, of course, with nineteen fifty seven's classic film.

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Speaker 1: Some of you may remember it from Mystery Science Theater

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Speaker 1: three thousands, some of you may have just experienced it

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Speaker 1: straight up, The Amazing Colossal Man. Now, Robert, I am

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Speaker 1: sitting here looking at this looping gift that you put

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Speaker 1: in our outline of a gigantic dude who seems to

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Speaker 1: be filmed with like rear projection to make him look

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Speaker 1: bigger than he is, throwing some sort of instrument that

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Speaker 1: seems hand sized for him, but he's impaling a tiny,

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Speaker 1: tiny person with it. Oh yeah, this is a great

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Speaker 1: scene because he's the character is is Glenn Manning, Lieutendant

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Speaker 1: Colonel Glenn Manning. There's an atomic blast, he ends up

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Speaker 1: growing uncontrollably. He loses all his hair and his clothes

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Speaker 1: except for you know, alloying the loth that I assume

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Speaker 1: is made out of sale made out of sale cloth

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Speaker 1: or something. And there's a scene where they they're trying

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Speaker 1: to arrest his growth by jabbing him with this giant

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Speaker 1: hypodermic needle. Of course looks like a giant hypodermic needle. Um.

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Speaker 1: So they come in, they jab him, and then he

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Speaker 1: picks the thing up, looks at it with anger, and

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Speaker 1: then just throws it down like a javelin and impales it. Dude.

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Speaker 1: It's a classic scene. So this was nine seven, and

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Speaker 1: this was this was part of the era of filmmaking

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Speaker 1: in America where it was just giant everything all the time.

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Speaker 1: Giant bugs, giant you know, leeches, giant rats, giant what else,

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Speaker 1: giant giant spiders of course, any of those grasshoppers praying Mann.

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Speaker 1: This is I mean, yeah, you name it. If it

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Speaker 1: looked good or if it just looked passable and giant form,

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Speaker 1: somebody was blowing that thing up. I think they'd figured

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Speaker 1: out how to do rear projection technology that looked okay

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Speaker 1: in film, uh, and so that they were like, oh god,

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Speaker 1: we can make anything look you know, hugely out of proportion.

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Speaker 1: Let's just exploit this to the max for fifteen years

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Speaker 1: and then throw it up on a drive in the

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Speaker 1: kids will come and see it. Yeah, And of course

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Speaker 1: the plot was always atomic radiation, right as it was

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Speaker 1: in this case. So in The Amazing Colossal Man, the

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Speaker 1: guy you said he gets uh irradiated by nuclear blast.

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Speaker 1: I think he actually he's like he's they're observing the

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Speaker 1: blast from the safety of a trench, but he gets

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Speaker 1: up out of the trench to rescue somebody or something

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Speaker 1: that it's just you know, it's an heroic act. But bam,

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Speaker 1: he gets blasted and it's a great scene of just

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Speaker 1: standing there at the with the radiation washing over him

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Speaker 1: and yeah, and he's reborn as this colossal being uh

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Speaker 1: and it begins messing with his mind too. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: it's sort of similar to Beast of Yucca Flats. Same

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Speaker 1: thing happens to Tour Johnson, and that he gets hit

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Speaker 1: with an atomic blast and instead of vapor I sing

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Speaker 1: him burning him up. It just kind of makes him

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Speaker 1: look crazy, makes him look a little bit bigger, and

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Speaker 1: he has some oat meal on his face. Yeah. But

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Speaker 1: then but the thing is, I mean, I don't want

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Speaker 1: to undersell Tour as an actor, but Glenn Langan, who

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Speaker 1: plays Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Manning in the in the film

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Speaker 1: here like he brings. He brings a certain amount of

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Speaker 1: at times hammy but still legitimate humanity to this character

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Speaker 1: where you end up feeling for him like he's meeting

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Speaker 1: his his wife. Uh you know, he's he still has

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Speaker 1: his humanity about him. He's even as the condition begins

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Speaker 1: to go through his head. So you think this is

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Speaker 1: actually a pretty good B movie, right, Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: going into it knowing what to expect out of a

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Speaker 1: B movie. I think this is a great movement B movie.

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Speaker 1: I think this is just a fabulous example of a

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Speaker 1: particularly of a bomb B movies directed by Oh yes,

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Speaker 1: the great Burt Eye Gordon bert I Gordon. So he's

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Speaker 1: actually still alive and yeah, I was looking him up

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Speaker 1: and yeah he was born in two. He's still kicking

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Speaker 1: at ninety two as of this recording, and IMDb claims

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Speaker 1: that he directed a film in Okay. So Burt Iye Gordon.

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Speaker 1: You you might have noticed his initials are b I

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Speaker 1: G This Uh this. He didn't, as far as I know,

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Speaker 1: he didn't change his name to be like this. It's

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Speaker 1: just a happy coincidence that Bert Eye Gordon was known

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Speaker 1: as Mr Big, Mr b I g because he loved

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Speaker 1: to make movies about things that grow bigger than they

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Speaker 1: usually can. Uh. So. Other movies of Burt Eye Gordon's

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Speaker 1: include War of the Colossal Beast that's the follow up,

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Speaker 1: and then there's The Spider or Earth Versus the Spider,

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Speaker 1: that has a larger than normal spider and it's not

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Speaker 1: just like a suitcase size spider, it's like a giant spider. Like,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you gotta go go big with your giant spider.

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Speaker 1: Like she lops size pretty much. And then there is

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Speaker 1: Village of the Giants. There's King Dinosaur, which has a

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Speaker 1: fun Mystery Science Theater episode in which astronauts travel to

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Speaker 1: a planet full of giant reptiles and then they sort

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Speaker 1: of flirt and romance each other. And then there's a

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Speaker 1: lizard that is supposed to be a t rex I think,

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Speaker 1: and then the astronauts nuke the planet to wipe out

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Speaker 1: indigenous life and make it safe for human colonization. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then of course there's also the Beginning of the End,

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Speaker 1: another Mystery Science Theater episode, but that movie has a

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Speaker 1: Midwestern town threatened by giant grasshoppers again, atomic radiation. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but since we're talking about human height primarily today, back

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Speaker 1: to the Amazing Colossal Man. Yeah, so nobody's gonna gonna

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Speaker 1: bring up The Amazing Colossal Man is like a perfect

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Speaker 1: example of science, but it does at least flirt with

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Speaker 1: some of these ideas because you have this this guy.

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Speaker 1: He's gigantic, he's powerful, and yet he seems to be

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Speaker 1: in a fair amount of just constant misery. Um, it's

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Speaker 1: been a little while since to actually have seen it,

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Speaker 1: but I I seem to recall that not only there

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Speaker 1: there's there's elements of it affecting his mind, but but

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Speaker 1: perhaps just being that big is at least a little

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Speaker 1: bit painful as well. Um, and the mind thing is interesting.

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Speaker 1: I have a feeling in the in the in the film,

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Speaker 1: it's more about like radiation or something affecting his mind,

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Speaker 1: making him a little crazy, a little hostile. But I

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Speaker 1: can't help but wonder it has something to do with

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Speaker 1: the blood flow to his head. Oh yeah, like you're

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Speaker 1: just trying to scale up the human body that things

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Speaker 1: aren't necessarily gonna work right. Yeah, Because as we'll discussed,

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Speaker 1: that's a major issue when you start thinking about gigantic

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Speaker 1: human bodies or gigantic bodies of any kind. Um. For

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Speaker 1: after after all, look at the draff right tallest vertebrate

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Speaker 1: on Earth. Uh And and it has to uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of quite a bit of energy to pump blood

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Speaker 1: up to its brain. It has like an amazing amount

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Speaker 1: of hypertension. I mean, the same kind of hypertension that

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Speaker 1: would cause vascular damage to a human being and eventually

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Speaker 1: perhaps lead to uh, internal injury and death. Is just

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Speaker 1: normal for a draft because it's got to get all

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Speaker 1: the blood up the neck to the brain and then

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Speaker 1: when it lowers its head to drink gravity. You can't

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Speaker 1: have gravity then like sending all this blood to the

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Speaker 1: head and what may in the draft's head explode. Nobody

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Speaker 1: wants that, And that's why the giraffes have this system

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Speaker 1: known as the rete mirabel and that's Latin for wonderful

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Speaker 1: net uh. And it's just this net of arteries and

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Speaker 1: veins that diverts some of the blood flow, equalizing the

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Speaker 1: giraffe blood pressure when the animal lowers its head. That's beautiful. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like a natural release valve to keep you from

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Speaker 1: living in a world full of exploding giraffes. But it's

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Speaker 1: an example how to have a creature that big, you

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Speaker 1: have to have additional engineering constraints thrown in there to

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Speaker 1: allow that creature to live on that scale. Yes, and

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Speaker 1: though The Amazing Colossal Men didn't get into a lot

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Speaker 1: of the details of the science of what it would

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Speaker 1: take to scale up a human body, other other writers

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Speaker 1: have sort of dealt with this, right, Um, yeah, you know,

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Speaker 1: I have not read a lot of the you know,

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Speaker 1: they guess as far as a literary trope, that the

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Speaker 1: giant humanoid is not really explored all that much. But

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Speaker 1: the late Heart writer Michael Shay, he explored this a

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Speaker 1: little bit in his novel uh Niff. One of his

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Speaker 1: niff the Lean Novel's Minds of the Bahina, which is

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Speaker 1: a fine, fine work of dark fantasy that I highly

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Speaker 1: recommend anyone out there looking for that sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: But he also wove a lot of science into his work.

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Speaker 1: And at one point in this book we encounter a

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Speaker 1: human who has grown to colossal size. But he's so

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Speaker 1: colossal that like he basically is just in constant pain.

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Speaker 1: He can't even sit up. He has to just crawl

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Speaker 1: into the ocean and float away just because the body,

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Speaker 1: the proportions of his body are not made to support

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Speaker 1: that kind of mass. Now, wasn't there an old theory?

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Speaker 1: I can't remember where I read this, but I remember

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Speaker 1: hearing there was some old theory that these the largest

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Speaker 1: of the dinosaurs, say like a brachiosaur or something like that,

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Speaker 1: could only exist by by standing around in water all

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Speaker 1: the time to partially support its weight with buoyancy. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I've read some of those as well. In fact, we

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Speaker 1: have an article on how stuff Works dot Com that

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Speaker 1: I put together, like what's the largest land animal that

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Speaker 1: ever lived? And he's a part some of these issues

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Speaker 1: with the sauropods. But for to whatever extent that was

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Speaker 1: ever proposed as a theory, I don't think that is

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Speaker 1: believed today, right. And the other co course important thing.

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Speaker 1: You look at these most massive creatures, the most massive

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Speaker 1: land creatures living today, uh, are definitely walking around on

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Speaker 1: four legs. The Saara pods walked around on four legs.

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Speaker 1: So um, it's it's very difficult to imagine a bipedal

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Speaker 1: creature of that size. But then again, we have examples

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Speaker 1: like the Tarrannosaurus rex, a bipedal creature that is extremely large,

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Speaker 1: and they're actually there are larger bipedal dinosaurs than the

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Speaker 1: sarannosaurs rex. Yeah, not quite as big as the sauropods,

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Speaker 1: but certainly yeah. Okay, well, so we should look at

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Speaker 1: the issue of height and size in humans because obviously

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Speaker 1: you don't have to look any further than the science

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Speaker 1: fiction films of the fifties to see this general obsession

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Speaker 1: with the idea of things being bigger than normal humans

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Speaker 1: and other animals. But while we're captivated with height and

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Speaker 1: size in that kind of simple brutal part of our brains,

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Speaker 1: we also have this counter narrative running right where in

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Speaker 1: our literature and folklore there's always this story of the

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Speaker 1: smaller person defeating the larger person David and Goliath to

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Speaker 1: Jack and the bean Stalk, which you know, the folklora

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Speaker 1: says a variation on this very ancient story they called

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Speaker 1: the Boy who Stole the Ogre's Treasure. There are a

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Speaker 1: lot of variations of the story. And then in the

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Speaker 1: modern day we have, for example, Bruce Lee always beating

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Speaker 1: the bigger guy. Right, have seen a film where Bruce

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Speaker 1: Lee does not just beat everyone up. It's true to

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Speaker 1: the point of boredom, where it's like, really, these villains

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Speaker 1: don't have shot. They seem to know that the thing

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Speaker 1: you want to see most is this little guy, this

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Speaker 1: little Bruce Lee, just killing somebody who's much bigger than

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Speaker 1: him by punching him to death. And how would we

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Speaker 1: fit Master Blaster into the scenario? Ad Max taking a

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Speaker 1: Master Blaster who himself is a giant with a little

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Speaker 1: person on his shoulder. That seems to subvert the trope,

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Speaker 1: doesn't it. So anyway, we we've obviously got this obsession.

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Speaker 1: We're we're very into the idea of size as a

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Speaker 1: basic indicator about how we should judge other people. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and that sort of makes sense. I mean, it doesn't

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Speaker 1: make sense morally judging other people by their sides, but

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Speaker 1: it sort of makes a biological sense why we would

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Speaker 1: have these instincts. And and height is a sort of

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Speaker 1: basic biometric indicator. For example, it's useful for scientists to

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Speaker 1: track because it can be objectively measured, though not always

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Speaker 1: with perfect act accuracy, because you know your height varies

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Speaker 1: a little bit from different parts of the day, and

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Speaker 1: you know it's not going to be exactly the same

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Speaker 1: every time you measure it. But it's correlated with other

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Speaker 1: important facts like nutrition and health. Uh, and in humans,

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Speaker 1: height is, of course, on average, sexually dimorphic. We know this.

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Speaker 1: Average male height is usually a few inches taller than

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Speaker 1: average female height. One thing that I was really interested

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Speaker 1: in was I was wondering if there's any population of

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Speaker 1: humans on Earth where that's not the case, And I

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Speaker 1: couldn't find evidence of it, but I wonder if there

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Speaker 1: is one out there that would be kind of cool

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Speaker 1: to know. Would Yeah, it's just so so so far

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Speaker 1: just talking about human height, as we've discussed, you have

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Speaker 1: you have of the the the the inherent sexism in

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Speaker 1: the in the situation right, men on average or taller

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Speaker 1: and there and therefore we're putting this focus on on

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Speaker 1: height being an indicator of power. Um. Certainly, increased height

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Speaker 1: can conceivably be an advantage in various combat scenarios. Of course,

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Speaker 1: a lot of that depends. Most of that depends on

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Speaker 1: the skill of the fighters involved, and of course just linguistically, right,

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Speaker 1: even if you're in a profession where really the height

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Speaker 1: of an individual has no role at all, you'll still

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Speaker 1: hear people say like, oh, well he's a giant in

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Speaker 1: the industry, or oh she's a she's a looming figure

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Speaker 1: in her profession, or or you might hear someone put

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Speaker 1: down to say, oh, well that that was very small

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Speaker 1: of them to do that. Like what, what do all

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Speaker 1: those words even mean? You know, we're we're still populating

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Speaker 1: as if it's Game of Thrones and we're surrounded by

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Speaker 1: giants and dwarves and giant blooded people. Yeah, but even

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Speaker 1: if you are not, say, applying to be a pro

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Speaker 1: wrestler or something like that, there are jobs, such as,

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Speaker 1: for example, being a salesperson where somebody might hire you

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Speaker 1: based on height because they know that the the inherent

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Speaker 1: biases of the customers might favor somebody who's taller. So

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Speaker 1: one of the big scientific questions about human height would

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Speaker 1: obviously be what controls human height? It's a clear fact

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Speaker 1: of nature that we see obvious, you know, metric differences

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Speaker 1: in the height of different adult individuals. So where does

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Speaker 1: this difference come from? And I found according to a

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Speaker 1: two thousand six explainer I found in Scientific American by

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Speaker 1: molecular biologists Chow Kwing Lae and Gene Mayor of the U.

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Speaker 1: S Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging

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Speaker 1: at Tufts, twenty two percent of differences in human height

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Speaker 1: are controlled by environmental factors, and sixty to eighty percent

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Speaker 1: are controlled by genetics. So scientists have arrived at these

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Speaker 1: numbers through a number of different means, including things like

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Speaker 1: twin studies, you know, studying people who Okay, so we

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Speaker 1: have monozygotic twins here, they should have pretty much the

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Speaker 1: same genes, but can we see any variations in height

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Speaker 1: between them or between them and other siblings and sibling studies, Uh,

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Speaker 1: depending on what what environmental factors they're getting, such as nutrition,

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Speaker 1: especially nutrition and early childhood, early childhood health, access to healthcare,

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Speaker 1: and things like that. And from this that they've discovered

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Speaker 1: that the rate of influence of genes and environmental factors

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Speaker 1: is variable, but it's variable around these basic ranges. But

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Speaker 1: one thing that is true is that on average, humans

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Speaker 1: today are significantly taller than they were a few hundred

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Speaker 1: years ago. Have you ever noticed this, like if you,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's clear if you just look at environments

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Speaker 1: and appliances designed for people a long time ago. There

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Speaker 1: are lower ceilings, lower doorways, smaller beds, smaller pieces of

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Speaker 1: clothing such of armor was one I believe you mentioned earlier. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so I though, that's an interesting one because I

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Speaker 1: was looking into that and then I couldn't. I have

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Speaker 1: this impression that I've seen suits of armor that appear

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Speaker 1: kind of small compared to what I would think of

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Speaker 1: as a you know, a large warrior today. But I

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Speaker 1: was looking for evidence of this online and I couldn't

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Speaker 1: really find anything as saying that suits of armor are

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Speaker 1: smaller than we would expect them to be. So it

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Speaker 1: made me wonder if suits of armor being made for

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Speaker 1: the nobility and military classes of previous eras may actually

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Speaker 1: have been larger than would have been required for the

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Speaker 1: regular people, because, as we've discussed in previous episodes, we

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Speaker 1: have these examples of noble individuals, ruling class individuals from

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Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of years ago who still were tremendously

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Speaker 1: hot at tall even by today's standards. Oh yeah, I

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Speaker 1: remember Old krogan Man, Old krogan Man, the bog body.

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Speaker 1: What was he like six four or six six? He

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Speaker 1: was incredibly tall, um, And of course history is full

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Speaker 1: of these stories. Sometimes, I mean a lot of times

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Speaker 1: you have to take him with a grain of salt, right,

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Speaker 1: because there's a ruler and he was really tall. Do

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Speaker 1: I believe you, was he really really taller? He was

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Speaker 1: he just he's just always standing on something or is

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Speaker 1: this just you know, the myth and the legend of

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Speaker 1: the man like one that always comes to my mind.

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Speaker 1: And this is I think in large part because my

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Speaker 1: my dad would tell me stories like this is a

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Speaker 1: kid but um uh in ten sixty six, the events

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Speaker 1: of ten sixty six Battle Hastings and all that. You've

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Speaker 1: got stories of ten sixty six when you were a kid. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: my dad would tell me about all that. That's pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: Of course, you had, you know, three different forces vying

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Speaker 1: for control. There. You had Harold Godwinson, uh, king of England,

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Speaker 1: who had William the Conqueror coming up from from the continent.

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Speaker 1: And then of course you had Harold Hadrada, the King

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Speaker 1: of Norway, and he was according to many accounts here,

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Speaker 1: he was taller than most men. And Harold Godwinson makes

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Speaker 1: equip that he is going to uh, he's going to

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Speaker 1: offer him something, and he's gonna offer him six feet

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Speaker 1: of English soil or perhaps more. Sometimes it is say

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Speaker 1: perhaps seven feet of English soil, since he's taller than

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Speaker 1: most men. Um. The idea that he's going to you know,

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Speaker 1: gift him the grave here but but yeah, here, here's

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Speaker 1: a giant. Uh in history to what extend was an

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Speaker 1: actual giant? I'm not sure, but but certainly we have

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Speaker 1: tales like this of of and in some cases skeletal

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Speaker 1: evidence of tall noble individuals. And yet we have evidence

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Speaker 1: that the average person of of a hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: years ago or earlier maybe you know, even going back

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Speaker 1: longer than that, was just not as tall as the

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Speaker 1: average person from the same ethnic groups and societies are today.

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Speaker 1: And so why are people taller today? You know? One

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Speaker 1: of the obvious questions is has height been selected for

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Speaker 1: as a gene? Has there been evolution? Are we evolving taller?

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Speaker 1: And I would postulate we can get into why in

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Speaker 1: a moment. I don't think that seems to be the cause.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't look like it. I think scientists think that

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Speaker 1: the change in human height is more due to environmental

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Speaker 1: factors that I was talking about earlier, rather than major

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Speaker 1: changes in the genetic factors controlling height. And this would

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Speaker 1: make sense given what we know about improved access to

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Speaker 1: healthcare and nutrition around the world. Right, Yeah, A lot

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Speaker 1: of the a lot of material that I was looking

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Speaker 1: at for this was definitely focusing in on England and

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Speaker 1: looking at industrial heights, you know, the industrial age heights

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Speaker 1: and how they differed between the classes. So over the

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Speaker 1: last a hundred and fifty years, um, we have seen

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Speaker 1: the average height of people and in an industrialized nations

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Speaker 1: increase approximately ten centimeters or about four inches. Okay, that's

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Speaker 1: nothing to sniff at, no, no, Now, it's a lot

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Speaker 1: of people would would pay dearly for an extra ten centimeters.

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Speaker 1: It's true. Uh, certainly, you know, glued on the bottom

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Speaker 1: of their shoes. But anyway, it's inner of saying that

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Speaker 1: this should occur, right because you think that evolution would

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Speaker 1: be selecting for shorter heights, because based on previous studies,

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Speaker 1: we know that you find taller heights and fewer offspring

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Speaker 1: among wealthy industrial British families of the time. Um, but

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Speaker 1: also you find shorter offspring among the poor, and the

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Speaker 1: poor are having more offspring. So wouldn't it mean that

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Speaker 1: the short poor are going to inherit the earth because

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Speaker 1: they're just gonna outnumber and outbreed the tall rich people. Huh.

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Speaker 1: But it doesn't seem to play out that way. And

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Speaker 1: most geneticists you have, believe that it's uh that what

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Speaker 1: we've seen here, what's been the driving voice and force

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Speaker 1: and increased heights has been the improvement in shildhood nutrition. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And that then that has been the most important factor

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Speaker 1: in allowing humans to increase so dramatically in size. So

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Speaker 1: there are a few different facts that kind of support this.

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Speaker 1: So height increases only begin to manifest somewhere around the

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Speaker 1: middle of the nineteenth century, and we do see dips

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Speaker 1: in times in places of World war related famine, so

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Speaker 1: we can see that. Put it out. So here's here's

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Speaker 1: an area that we saw a significant decrease in nutritional

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Speaker 1: um quality, and therefore heights went down as well. The

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Speaker 1: next generation you mean this order, and then the trend

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Speaker 1: toward increasing height is actually largely leveled off, suggesting that

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Speaker 1: there is an upper limit to height beyond which our

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Speaker 1: genes are just not equipped to take us, regardless of

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Speaker 1: the environmental improvement. Okay, So you're saying like, if we

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Speaker 1: get improved improved diet and access to healthcare as children,

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Speaker 1: we're sort of trending further toward the upper range of

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Speaker 1: natural human height. We're not extending what the range is. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's no there's no quantity of carrots or no quantities

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Speaker 1: of multi vitamins, they're gonna get you beyond what is

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Speaker 1: essentially like the normal threshold for what we are as

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Speaker 1: a species. Right. Um, you know, in the same way

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Speaker 1: there's not there's not a multi vitamin you can take

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Speaker 1: that's gonna make you grow an extra arm um. And

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Speaker 1: also we house it's one of those atomic radiation multi

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Speaker 1: vitamins from the fifties and uh, and this kind of

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Speaker 1: goes back to some of the data that has to

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Speaker 1: do with famine. But conditions of poor nutrition are well

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Speaker 1: correlated to smaller stature. So we've seen that born out

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Speaker 1: time and time again. So that's not like a tenuous

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Speaker 1: hypothesis of modern science. We pretty much know now that

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Speaker 1: if you're a kid and you don't get good nutrition,

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Speaker 1: you won't be as tall exactly. So you know, the

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Speaker 1: the answer there, why why are people taller today? It's

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Speaker 1: it's as exciting and unexciting as all of that. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: to answer the question why are people taller than debt

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Speaker 1: today than they were in the past, While it basically

403
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Speaker 1: comes down to nutrition, well that's interesting, but then again

404
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Speaker 1: it it makes me wonder how size does vary when

405
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Speaker 1: it comes to genetic change over time because like you

406
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Speaker 1: obviously do see size changes in the average size of

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Speaker 1: a population of animals over time. UH, the norm does

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Speaker 1: go up and down. So what happens there? What when

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Speaker 1: that happens? How does it happen? Well, one of the

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Speaker 1: more interesting UH scenarios that occurs it has to do

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Speaker 1: with the the island rule also known as Foster's rule,

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Speaker 1: named for J. Bristol Foster in nineteen sixty four. UH.

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Speaker 1: And this is this has to do with what happens

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Speaker 1: when you take uh, you know, an existing organism and

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Speaker 1: landed on an island somewhere. UM. So generally speaking, when

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Speaker 1: one species arrives on an island, it can change forms

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Speaker 1: in ways. They don't necessarily generate a new species. So

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Speaker 1: body size conforms to what we call the island rule.

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Speaker 1: And it holds true for various vertebrates. So large specimens

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Speaker 1: they become small, small species become large. And one of

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Speaker 1: the more extreme examples of this is the the dwarf

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Speaker 1: is um of megafauna. During the ice age. We saw

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Speaker 1: dwarf elephants in ice age sicily and the small wooly

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Speaker 1: mammoths of Wrangle Island in Siberia. So how big were they? Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean you couldn't fit them in your in your pocket,

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Speaker 1: but noticeably smaller, like I would say, small enough to

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Speaker 1: be cute based on the uh, the the average size

428
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:08,439
Speaker 1: of the normal organism. So the basic idea just here

429
00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 1: is that smaller creatures get larger when predation pressure is

430
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:14,359
Speaker 1: relaxed due to the absence of some mainland predators, and

431
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:17,800
Speaker 1: larger creatures become smaller when food resources are limited due

432
00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:20,879
Speaker 1: to land constraints. That's interesting. So the thing about smaller

433
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:24,080
Speaker 1: creatures becoming larger in the absence of predators, that points

434
00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 1: out one natural advantage to being smaller, which is that

435
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:31,280
Speaker 1: it's you know, you're you are not as delicious and

436
00:23:31,359 --> 00:23:34,680
Speaker 1: nutritious of a treat, and it's easier for you to hide.

437
00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:38,639
Speaker 1: So there there are plenty of selection pressures that would

438
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:43,040
Speaker 1: favor being not as large as one could be, uh

439
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:46,359
Speaker 1: not having the maximum size allowed by your body plan.

440
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:48,680
Speaker 1: And I think that's something that's going to be interesting

441
00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:50,880
Speaker 1: to keep in mind, especially for a thing I want

442
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:53,359
Speaker 1: to talk about later on. So I know what everyone's wanting.

443
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:57,199
Speaker 1: How does the island rule affect humans? Well, most of

444
00:23:57,200 --> 00:23:59,679
Speaker 1: the time you don't see humans thrown into these scenarios,

445
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 1: and certainly some people may be thinking, oh, well, pigmies right, um.

446
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:06,120
Speaker 1: But in those situations there seem to be a lot

447
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:08,640
Speaker 1: more Um. There are a lot more factors at play there,

448
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:12,119
Speaker 1: including nutrition. So it's difficult to just apply the straight

449
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 1: simplistic island rule to the scenario. But some have theorized

450
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:22,000
Speaker 1: that Homo floresi incests also known as flores Man or

451
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 1: you know, hobbit man. You can probably a popular press,

452
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:30,520
Speaker 1: popular press. Yeah, So some have theorized that this is

453
00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:35,640
Speaker 1: an example of of island island rule, island dwarfism at

454
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:39,560
Speaker 1: play with a humanoid creature. Uh. This was this particular

455
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 1: specim was discovered in two thousand three at Langbau on

456
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: the island of Flores in Indonesia. And it's from numbers

457
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 1: vary on this. I've seen the number drift in both

458
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 1: directions as additional research has been conducted, but it seems

459
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:58,159
Speaker 1: like fifty thousand years ago is a general timeline we

460
00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: can stick to. Um. Uh that And there's a two

461
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:04,879
Speaker 1: thousand seven paper that came out title Primates follow the

462
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 1: Island Rule. Implications for interpreting Homo Floresien says by Lyndelle

463
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:15,479
Speaker 1: Broham and Marcel Cardillo, and they argued that that that

464
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:17,840
Speaker 1: that primates do follow the rule, and they used a

465
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:22,920
Speaker 1: comparative database of thirty nine independently derived island endemic primate

466
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:28,000
Speaker 1: species and subspecies to demonstrate that primates do conform to

467
00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:30,960
Speaker 1: the island rules. Small bodied primates tend to get larger

468
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:36,159
Speaker 1: on islands, and large bodied primates get smaller. Furthermore, large species,

469
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: they argued, to undergo a proportionally greater reduction in the

470
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 1: size on islands. But again that being said, human height

471
00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 1: especially as far more complex than this. Uh. Anytime you

472
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: take you know, the the human organism, you start laying

473
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 1: over all these various cultural concerns, when you start throwing

474
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:57,399
Speaker 1: in war and UH and and are more complex relationships

475
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 1: with nutrition. Um, it's it's very difficul well to just

476
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:03,440
Speaker 1: apply to rule to humans and in a fast and

477
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,440
Speaker 1: slick way. Another thing would be time scales. I mean,

478
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 1: I think that within the time scales we'd be working

479
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 1: with observing human history, there is not nearly as much

480
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 1: time for for significant genetic evolutionary changes to accumulate like this.

481
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 1: So you might you might have for example, sexual selection

482
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:27,400
Speaker 1: among humans or something like that, uh, tending people toward

483
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 1: you know, a certain end of the natural spectrum. But

484
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:33,639
Speaker 1: the time factor is going to cause significant problems for

485
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 1: seeing a large, very noticeable changes in the human genome

486
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 1: over you know, the short period of history we have

487
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:45,480
Speaker 1: access to. YEA. Indeed, all right, we're gonna take a

488
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 1: quick break and when we come back, we're gonna jump

489
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 1: right back into this topic. And hey, we're gonna talk

490
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:53,639
Speaker 1: about phantasm a little bit. Hey, everybody, you know, in

491
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 1: this day and age, you've got to have a website.

492
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:58,520
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493
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494
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Not everybody has the money to spend

495
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Speaker 1: on a super fancy web designer. Not everybody has the

496
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: tech expertise to go in there and tinker with a

497
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: bunch of code. And that is where square space comes in.

498
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:16,040
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499
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500
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501
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502
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503
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504
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505
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506
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507
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508
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509
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510
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511
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,879
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512
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513
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514
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:08,640
Speaker 1: Build yourself a new website. Alright, we're back, Joe. You've

515
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: seen Phantasm right? Oh yeah, h can you refresh the

516
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 1: listeners out there? Um about the details in this cinematic masterpiece, Well,

517
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 1: Phantasm is a horror movie. Don Coscarelli. Is that the

518
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: guy who directed it? That's the man? Yeah? Okay, So

519
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,960
Speaker 1: the main characters in the oh god, could I even

520
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:28,679
Speaker 1: explain what the plot is? I don't know what the

521
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:30,919
Speaker 1: plot is. That's kind of the beauty out it right. Essentially,

522
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: the main characters get chased around by this guy known

523
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 1: as the Tall Man. Who is a grim, dour funeral director,

524
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 1: who who shows his teeth and he squints his eyes,

525
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: and he's got lanky, gross hair. And this guy runs

526
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 1: around a cemetery stealing corpses for strange purposes we can

527
00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: get to in a moment. And he kills people with

528
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 1: a flying silver ball that jams itself into your head

529
00:28:55,840 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 1: and then drills you with some sort of extremely produce

530
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 1: just blood funnel that just pumps all the blood out

531
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 1: of your head out a jet in the back. Anyway,

532
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 1: that guy was played by Angus scrim And. Uh, he's

533
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 1: the actor who played the Tall Man. He was only

534
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: about six four in real life, or so I read,

535
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: but they used a bunch of movie tricks to make

536
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:18,719
Speaker 1: him seem taller. I think they gave him tall shoes,

537
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:20,680
Speaker 1: and they put him in a tight suit and stuff

538
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 1: like that. Shot him at the right angles, maybe, yeah, exactly.

539
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 1: But what is the tall Man when we find out

540
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 1: what he's doing spoiler for this nineteen nine movie, when

541
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: we find out his whole plot, what is it that

542
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 1: the Tall Man is going about doing with these stolen corpses? Well,

543
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 1: he has a whole industry um and I forget how

544
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 1: many of these details are presented in the first film,

545
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 1: and how many come out in the subsequent films, But

546
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 1: essentially he seems to be from another planet or another dimension,

547
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: and he is taking the corpses, crunching them down into

548
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: little undead dwarfs that presumably are being sent through this

549
00:29:56,400 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: stargate to serve as slave labor on another in it. Uh.

550
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 1: And the idea here, I guess is that this other

551
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: planet has is a is a larger world. There's a

552
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 1: greater gravity, and therefore you need crunched down bodies to

553
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 1: serve as the labor. Uh. He's also I think, using

554
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 1: brains from the corps is to make the flying silver

555
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 1: balls of Death. And of course that this this shines

556
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 1: potential new light on his height. Okay, so he's crunching

557
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 1: down creatures to go to this other world. He's tall

558
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 1: on ours, So does that mean is he is he

559
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: shorter on another world? Is he a normal size like here?

560
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 1: So when Superman comes to the Solar System with the

561
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 1: yellow Sun, he gets special abilities. When the tall Man

562
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: comes to a planet with much lower gravity in this

563
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 1: sort of relaxed atmosphere, he almost sort of unwinds or

564
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: uncoils and grows taller. Yeah, that would be a great

565
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: scene for any remake they do where the tall man

566
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: steps out of the little stargate here and then you

567
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 1: just his spine elongates like by like a foot or so.

568
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: Just god, well, that's funny because it actually is a

569
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 1: fact that human beings grow taller in lower micro gravity environments.

570
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 1: Not that much taller. I don't think you know, a

571
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: normal high, average height adult male would reach the size

572
00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: of Anger Scrim or even uh the size of Anger

573
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 1: Scrim and all of his tall man Kutraman. But it

574
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 1: definitely is true that astronauts, for example, get taller while

575
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 1: they're in the International Space Station. That's right. Uh, And

576
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 1: NASA is known about this for a while. Uh. You

577
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 1: going a trip into into orbit, and you can add

578
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 1: up to three in height while you're up there. So

579
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: if you're six ft tall, that's that's two inches you know,

580
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: nothing to sneeze that. And that's because when the spine

581
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 1: is free from the constraints of gravity, the vertebrae can

582
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 1: expand and relax. Now, once you get back on Earth,

583
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 1: everything sinks back down to normal, but for a little

584
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:55,600
Speaker 1: bit you gain, you know, maybe a couple of inches

585
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 1: I read actually that once you come back to Earth,

586
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 1: you you return to normal height extremely rapid. It takes

587
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: like less than two days. Uh. So when astronaut Scott

588
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 1: Kelly returned from three hundred and forty days in space,

589
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: that's a long time he was on the I S S. Uh.

590
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: Scott Kelly came back earlier this year in twenty sixteen.

591
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 1: He'd grown about one point five inches while he was

592
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 1: in the I S S. And when he returned his

593
00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 1: his normal height was restored within about twenty eight hours.

594
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 1: And of course this would mean the same the same

595
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: thing would hold true for low gravity worlds. Take Mars

596
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:32,040
Speaker 1: for instance, which has just one third of Earth's gravity.

597
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, so that would conceivably be a factor

598
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 1: there if you were to visit it for extended length

599
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 1: of time, and certainly if you're talking about long term

600
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: human habitats. Uh. Mars settlement proponent Robert Zubrin, who actually

601
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 1: interviewed a few years back, if very very passionate dude

602
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:53,719
Speaker 1: about Mars colonization like he is, he is of the mindset,

603
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: we should, we should be doing it yesterday. Uh. And

604
00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 1: here all the reasons we should and we can. Uh. Certainly,

605
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:02,960
Speaker 1: I recommend checking out any interviews with the man who's

606
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 1: very Did he try to sign you up for the

607
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 1: Mars death trip? No, No, that he was. He was

608
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 1: very passionate, because I think it was. There was an

609
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 1: article that I did for Discovery News asking the question,

610
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:17,400
Speaker 1: you know, is it morally cool to terra form another world?

611
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: And there were some that are saying, well, no, you

612
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 1: you know you don't. We don't want to just go

613
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:23,720
Speaker 1: will annaling with it with the terraforming. You want to

614
00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 1: be respectful, you want don't want to disrupt the evidence

615
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:29,360
Speaker 1: of past life or certainly get in the way of

616
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 1: any present life that might be there or future life.

617
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:35,000
Speaker 1: But Zuber and he presented the opposite to argument that

618
00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 1: we should definitely be there. We should go there. It's

619
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: a dead world, let's do it. I've actually read a

620
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: lot about that. I think that's a very interesting debate,

621
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: like what what should be our ethical obligations when dealing

622
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: with other planets? Do we have the right to make

623
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 1: them earth too? If we have that ability? Yeah, I

624
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: mean we could do a whole episode of essentially on

625
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: the prime directive, right, yeah, um, but how does the

626
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: prime directive apply to potentially dead world? Yeah, and yet

627
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:02,959
Speaker 1: and who are we to label a world dead, you know,

628
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 1: because we have just have this one idea of what

629
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 1: life is, right. Yeah, So anyway, Zubran has has spoken

630
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 1: a great deal about Mars colonization issues, and one of

631
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:14,440
Speaker 1: the things that has come up is he's theorized that

632
00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:17,400
Speaker 1: children born on low gravity worlds like Mars would have

633
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:20,600
Speaker 1: a few inches on everyone else. But you'd have problems

634
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:23,879
Speaker 1: adjusting to high gravity worlds like Earth if you ever

635
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 1: try to go in a pilgrimage here, and indeed you

636
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:29,319
Speaker 1: might not be able to return home at all, or

637
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 1: there might be problems inherently, like even with the low

638
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:37,240
Speaker 1: gravity world. I mean, we've never seen what a micro

639
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: gravity or low gravity environment does to a human body

640
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 1: over a really long term. Like the longest we've ever

641
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:46,240
Speaker 1: seen is what happens when you stay in a space

642
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:49,399
Speaker 1: station for you know, a year or whatever amount of time.

643
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 1: The longest space station stay is now. I think Kelly

644
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 1: was up there, if he's not the longest one of them.

645
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:58,600
Speaker 1: But anyway, astronauts report back pain. I don't know if

646
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 1: you've read about this, but you know, according to materials

647
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 1: provided by the I S S Program Science Office, Lower

648
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 1: back pain is sixty eight percent more prevalent in space

649
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:10,720
Speaker 1: than on Earth. And is this caused by the lack

650
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 1: of the intervertebral discompression due to gravity. It's the same

651
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 1: thing that makes you taller, the same thing that makes

652
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:19,319
Speaker 1: you taller. Actually, when you're lying down horizontally as you

653
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 1: sleep at night. In the morning you get up your

654
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 1: taller than you were when you went to bed. Uh.

655
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 1: Does being separated from that that downward pull of Earth's gravity.

656
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we didn't evolve to be like that

657
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:33,880
Speaker 1: for long, long periods of time, So what does that

658
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 1: do to you? It it might have some less than

659
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: positive effects. Yeah, And certainly every human child ever born

660
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 1: has been born on Earth. No one's ever been born

661
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: in space, so we have no idea what human development

662
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: might be like you a lower uh, lower gravity scenario. So,

663
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: with all of those concerns in place, and the idea

664
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:57,920
Speaker 1: that being raised in a microgravity environment might really mess

665
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:00,239
Speaker 1: you up in all kinds of ways, it is possible, Bowle,

666
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:03,399
Speaker 1: that growing up in low gravity or microgravity might make

667
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:06,880
Speaker 1: you taller. Yeah. Maybe so, so if nothing else you

668
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:09,800
Speaker 1: could you could you could cling to that reassuring fact

669
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 1: because as we've touched on already. There's a lot of

670
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: there's a lot of weird human hang ups when it

671
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,359
Speaker 1: comes to height. And there's an entire psychology to human height.

672
00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 1: Oh man. There there are a bunch of studies looking

673
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:23,479
Speaker 1: into this. Uh and and it kind of makes sense

674
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 1: why there would be a strong psychology of height. You know,

675
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 1: height is a primal survival signifier, right. It advertises physical strength, reach, health,

676
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:34,839
Speaker 1: and good nutrition. And so for this reason, I think

677
00:36:34,840 --> 00:36:38,279
Speaker 1: it's not surprising that humans have some natural tendencies when

678
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 1: it comes to our psychological relationship with human height. I

679
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 1: think there's uh there. For example, is this pervasive notion

680
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 1: that taller people have more social and economic success, that

681
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: they're more persuasive, more impressive, that they you know, they

682
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: just get they're just go getters and the all good

683
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:00,439
Speaker 1: things come to them. In fact, I remember I had

684
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:04,319
Speaker 1: a teacher in high school who who told us one time.

685
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:06,399
Speaker 1: I don't know what his source was for this, Maybe

686
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 1: it was just his own wisdom, he was making it up,

687
00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: but I remember he told us that that if you

688
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 1: want to if you want to persuade people or to

689
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:17,800
Speaker 1: be a good leader, the most important thing is height,

690
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 1: and the second most important thing is being funny. I

691
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:24,320
Speaker 1: think the emphasis being on how well, if you're not tall,

692
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 1: you better darn well be pretty funny. Well, I mean

693
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:28,759
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Look at Jeff Goldbluin, seems like a

694
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 1: funny guy, very tall guy. I'd followed him anywhere. Yeah,

695
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:33,960
Speaker 1: he could. He could tell us all to jump into

696
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:35,880
Speaker 1: a volcano, and I'd be pretty sure he had a

697
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: good reason. But anyway, is there anything true to this

698
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 1: or is it just another unsubstantiated folk myth based on

699
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:49,280
Speaker 1: our biases. So there was one huge landmark, highly cited

700
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:51,800
Speaker 1: paper from two thousand four about this in the Journal

701
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:55,840
Speaker 1: of Applied Psychology by Timothy A. Judge and Daniel M. Cable.

702
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 1: And they did this deep investigation on the you know

703
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 1: what could be known at the time about the correlation

704
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 1: between height and success, and they certainly did find a

705
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 1: strong correlation between the height of a human and for example,

706
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:12,280
Speaker 1: career success. And so it was summarized by the American

707
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 1: Psychological Association as with this startling fact, for someone who

708
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 1: is six feet tall, they earn on average a hundred

709
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:25,879
Speaker 1: and sixty six thousand dollars more during a thirty year

710
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:29,320
Speaker 1: career than somebody who is five feet and five inches tall,

711
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 1: even when controlling for other factors that could contribute to that,

712
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: like gender, age, and wait, they found that taller men

713
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 1: and taller women are both more successful in their careers,

714
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: but that the correlation is stronger for taller men. And

715
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:46,239
Speaker 1: they're fascinating questions that come along with research like this

716
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 1: because all, you know, what they can establish is the correlation.

717
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 1: They can't necessarily show exactly why this is true. Uh

718
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:57,040
Speaker 1: So you could have lots of hypothesis hypotheses, Like some

719
00:38:57,080 --> 00:39:00,960
Speaker 1: people would say, is it true that taller people are

720
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: smarter and that's why they make more money? And that

721
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: doesn't appear to be the case though that I think

722
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:10,359
Speaker 1: there have been some studies attempting to link height with

723
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 1: intelligence that they didn't find that that that was the

724
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:17,360
Speaker 1: primary explanation. Uh So, could it be that taller people

725
00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 1: are just respected more by others and you know, the

726
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:22,799
Speaker 1: boss looks at a tall person and says, you look

727
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 1: like you deserve a raise, or could it be that

728
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 1: the way tall people are treated by others leads to

729
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:33,399
Speaker 1: more self actualizing behaviors and you know, makes people more

730
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: confident go in and ask for the raise more often there.

731
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 1: There are a lot of ways you could try to

732
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 1: explain things like this, like maybe in a cubical environment,

733
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:44,440
Speaker 1: when they stand up, it's easier to see their heads,

734
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: so the boss that sees them more often, or perhaps

735
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:52,040
Speaker 1: their brain is closer to Heaven just by virtue of height. Yeah,

736
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:54,760
Speaker 1: how does this all make you feel today, Robert? You're

737
00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:57,120
Speaker 1: being one of the taller people in our office? Um?

738
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:00,400
Speaker 1: You know I do. I kind of like second guess

739
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 1: the role of height a lot in my daily life,

740
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: you know, like I like I find myself second guessing, um,

741
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:10,560
Speaker 1: you know, things that go right, or I'm like, oh

742
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:13,239
Speaker 1: did this didn't did my height play into this? And

743
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 1: then I started thinking of studies like this, and it's like,

744
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 1: is this just all a virtue of me being a

745
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:20,719
Speaker 1: little bit tall? Um? And then and then of course

746
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 1: I curse my height when I bump into things. And

747
00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 1: then I then I wonder like, well do I I

748
00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 1: actually end up looking like like an ungainly tall person

749
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 1: as I'm walking around the office. And therefore I'm like

750
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:34,359
Speaker 1: I don't fit in as well, like I'm more of

751
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:37,319
Speaker 1: a like a freak. You know, Yeah, you really are? Well?

752
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:40,719
Speaker 1: Thank you? Oh no, I mean being tall might be

753
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:43,759
Speaker 1: another one of those things where we discovered that there

754
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:47,120
Speaker 1: are just natural biases at play, for example, like the

755
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 1: natural advantages or privileges some people might enjoy for being

756
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:52,880
Speaker 1: male in the workplace. You know, sometimes you're just gonna

757
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:56,799
Speaker 1: be treated differently and you might benefit from that. Yeah,

758
00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: And I guess like you just end up it's like

759
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 1: second guessing, like how everyone around you is interpreting things,

760
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:05,399
Speaker 1: Like I've often found it weird, like I've always been

761
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: taller than my bosses. And obviously being tall has nothing

762
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 1: to do with being or being short in height has

763
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 1: nothing to do with your ability to lead in a

764
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 1: workplace or being effective boss. But for some reason, there's

765
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,000
Speaker 1: always this like weird, Like I don't know if it's

766
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:25,239
Speaker 1: like a grade school or lizard brain voice in the

767
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 1: back of my head. It's always like like, is this

768
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 1: weird that my boss is shorter than me? My boss

769
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: gonna hold it against me because I'm taller, like as

770
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 1: if as if like one if one gave man is

771
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 1: going to rise against the others, like he must be

772
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:40,920
Speaker 1: punished because he was taller than me. But still like

773
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:45,239
Speaker 1: you can't help, but but here those just nutty paranoid

774
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:47,839
Speaker 1: voices from time to time. That's great, Robert. I hope

775
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:50,120
Speaker 1: you will always share what these voices are telling you

776
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:52,360
Speaker 1: with me like I had. It probably has to be

777
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 1: the same for people with great beards, um um. And

778
00:41:56,080 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 1: you have pretty great beard yourself. I don't know about that.

779
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 1: I do not grow that that great of a beard.

780
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 1: So if I had, if I were to have a

781
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:04,840
Speaker 1: great beard, and I was to have a boss with

782
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:06,879
Speaker 1: a lesser beard like that would feel a little weird,

783
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 1: like I would. I don't want my my beard to

784
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 1: get me in trouble because of its boldness. Uh. Yeah,

785
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 1: Well the beard and the and the height thing again

786
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:16,920
Speaker 1: this comes into I wonder if this is uh, this

787
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: is natural sexism in our mindset also playing into because

788
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 1: of the sexual dimorphism of height, the fact that on

789
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:26,920
Speaker 1: average men or taller. I wonder if sexism also plays

790
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:30,000
Speaker 1: a role, Like if height in some way manifests in

791
00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 1: our minds as some attribute of manliness, And because we

792
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:38,240
Speaker 1: have this unconscious bias favoring manliness, is that another reason

793
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: that we pay tribute to the tallest? Yeah, the tallest

794
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 1: and an accidental invader Zim reference there where the the

795
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 1: leaders of Zim's race alien invader race um. They are

796
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:53,360
Speaker 1: called referred to as the tallest. They are the tallest

797
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 1: of their species, though clearly they've been augmented with with

798
00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 1: outfits and machinery to make them appear. Oh they're cheating.

799
00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're cheating, and they're lifting. Yeah, they're definitely lifting. Uh,

800
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,400
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's the tallest. Well, this brings us to

801
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:12,319
Speaker 1: the question I think that maybe we could conclude with,

802
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 1: which is how tall exactly could humans grow? We've talked

803
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:19,840
Speaker 1: about how humans have gotten, on average a little bit

804
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:22,600
Speaker 1: taller over time, though this doesn't seem to be from

805
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 1: you know, serious genetic mutation or revolution, but more through

806
00:43:26,760 --> 00:43:31,240
Speaker 1: nutrition and access to healthcare. But imagine we were, for example,

807
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 1: able to genetically alter the human race. You know, we're

808
00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:37,359
Speaker 1: going to go in and tinker with our genes and

809
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: try to create the world's tallest human. Could we make

810
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:44,279
Speaker 1: a human that was like Glenn Manning. Could we make

811
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: a fifty foot human? Could we make you know, Attack

812
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 1: of the fifty Foot Woman. That's another b movie about

813
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 1: the giant human. Could we make a hundred foot tall human?

814
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 1: Or even just being more modest, could we make up

815
00:43:56,719 --> 00:44:00,439
Speaker 1: fifteen foot tall human? Are are any of these things

816
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:04,920
Speaker 1: really possible or would we hit insurmountable problems. Well, I

817
00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 1: guess it's easier to shoot down the more extremes first, yeah,

818
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:11,920
Speaker 1: and then and then scale back down, because yeah, when

819
00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:15,360
Speaker 1: you're talking about Glenn Manning, when you're talking about Godzilla,

820
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 1: King Kong, any of the or any of these various

821
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 1: giant creature movies we've discussed already, Um, there are engineering

822
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:26,720
Speaker 1: limits to the body size. Yeah, and I would totally

823
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:29,760
Speaker 1: agree with that. I think that Unfortunately, for the people

824
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:32,960
Speaker 1: who want to, you know, change their their genetic code

825
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:36,280
Speaker 1: to be twenty ft tall, it's just not gonna happen.

826
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:38,960
Speaker 1: That's just not the way humans are gonna work. And

827
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:42,279
Speaker 1: we'll try to explain why. So. The tallest man who

828
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:44,680
Speaker 1: ever lived, as far as we know, was a guy,

829
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:48,959
Speaker 1: an American guy named Robert Wadlow, who at the time

830
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 1: of his death was eight feet and eleven point one

831
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 1: inches tall, as almost nine ft tall two hundred and

832
00:44:55,920 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 1: seventy two centimeters. That is so tall. If you see

833
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:04,600
Speaker 1: pictures of this guy, you're probably not imagining him tall enough. Uh,

834
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,880
Speaker 1: look up a picture, You've got to see it. Wadlow

835
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 1: died at the age of twenty two though, unfortunately, and

836
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:15,759
Speaker 1: he had serious health issues that seemed to be associated

837
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 1: with size. This might come as a surprise because our

838
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:20,839
Speaker 1: natural intuitions, as I've said earlier, sort of, I think

839
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:23,840
Speaker 1: we group height as a health indicator. We think of

840
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 1: somebody who's very tall as somebody who's strong and healthy,

841
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 1: and you know that they like their body is doing good.

842
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 1: But the issue with Wadlow was that he he encountered

843
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:39,359
Speaker 1: multiple problems because of his size. His He suffered from

844
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 1: a condition where his body produced excess growth hormone, and

845
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 1: it was continuing to produce excess growth hormone as he

846
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:48,960
Speaker 1: kept growing, and this just kept making him larger and larger. Yes,

847
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:52,440
Speaker 1: I believe the condition here is the acronola. Yeah, yeah,

848
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 1: I think so. But anyway, so he had problems and

849
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: for example, what led to his death was that Wadlow

850
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 1: an infected blister on his foot from braces that he

851
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 1: had to wear on his legs because of his size.

852
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:10,040
Speaker 1: And one of the problems that he would have is

853
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:13,640
Speaker 1: that he had very little sensation or feeling in his

854
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:18,440
Speaker 1: lower limbs. Again probably because of his size. The body

855
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 1: is just not built to be that big and in

856
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 1: many cases the supporting organ structures can't accommodate it. Uh,

857
00:46:26,520 --> 00:46:29,239
Speaker 1: And so he got an infected blister that he wasn't

858
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 1: really aware of because he had this lack of sensation

859
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:34,359
Speaker 1: in his lower limbs. And he died at the age

860
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:37,360
Speaker 1: of twenty two. And also I've read in several places

861
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 1: that there was no sign when he died at the

862
00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:42,600
Speaker 1: age of twenty two that his growth had stopped. He

863
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:45,440
Speaker 1: seemed to be still growing. So that's a sad story,

864
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:48,920
Speaker 1: but it doesn't introduce the idea that there are design

865
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 1: constraints essentially on the human form. Yeah, I mean he

866
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:56,240
Speaker 1: You can also look at at other cases of acromegalay,

867
00:46:56,400 --> 00:47:00,480
Speaker 1: at cases of gigantis and acromegalay in particular layer which

868
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:04,120
Speaker 1: is again this has caused when the anterior pituitary gland

869
00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:08,480
Speaker 1: produces um excess growth hormone. UH. This can result in

870
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:12,160
Speaker 1: a number of different symptoms such as severe headache, arthritis,

871
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 1: and carpal tunnel syndrome in a large heart, liver fibrosis,

872
00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:23,040
Speaker 1: bile duct hyperplasia, hypertension, um diabetes, heart failure, kidney failure,

873
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:26,399
Speaker 1: as well as cancer and loss of vision. Because again

874
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 1: it's just the design constraints. I often think about this

875
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 1: in terms of like a business scenario. So say you

876
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:35,799
Speaker 1: have a food truck, right and you want to evolve that.

877
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:37,960
Speaker 1: You want to grow that into a you know, a

878
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: brick and mortar restaurant, and for there, you want to

879
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:42,440
Speaker 1: grow that into a restaurant chain, and from there you

880
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:45,759
Speaker 1: want to grow it into a restaurant franchise. Each of

881
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 1: those is not just a larger version of the preceding form.

882
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 1: Each of those is a a more complex system um

883
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:56,720
Speaker 1: and and if you attempted to do to to achieve

884
00:47:56,760 --> 00:47:59,160
Speaker 1: the goals of one with the with the smaller form,

885
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 1: there would be massive problems. Yeah. I think that's a

886
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:05,360
Speaker 1: really good example. And the one I was actually going

887
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 1: to use was the comparison of just regular buildings, like

888
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:13,920
Speaker 1: building a house versus building a skyscraper is a completely

889
00:48:14,040 --> 00:48:16,839
Speaker 1: different type of project. It's not just a question of

890
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:20,800
Speaker 1: scaling up the house. You can't use the same materials

891
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 1: and techniques that you would use in building a house

892
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 1: to build a skyscraper because it's not gonna work. I've

893
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:29,120
Speaker 1: I've had to research skyscrapers for the other podcasts that

894
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,280
Speaker 1: I do here on uh how Stuff Works, on forward Thinking,

895
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:34,719
Speaker 1: where we talked about the future of skyscrapers, and one

896
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:37,440
Speaker 1: of the things that impressed itself upon me from that

897
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:42,000
Speaker 1: is that skyscrapers aren't static. They're not like a building.

898
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 1: They're really more like a giant machine because you have

899
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:51,880
Speaker 1: to keep in mind all of these incredibly voluminous uh

900
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:54,879
Speaker 1: amounts of things that are coming in and out, all

901
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:57,680
Speaker 1: of the heating and air, all of the plumbing, plumbing,

902
00:48:57,680 --> 00:48:59,600
Speaker 1: you gotta have pumps that get stuff up to the

903
00:48:59,640 --> 00:49:03,439
Speaker 1: top of the skyscraper. Just the transportation of people exactly. Yeah,

904
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:06,560
Speaker 1: elevators managing elevators, Like so, if you're in a hundred

905
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:10,759
Speaker 1: story building, can you just have normal elevators that go

906
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 1: up and down like normal elevators? How long are you

907
00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 1: going to be on the elevator if you're trying to

908
00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:17,120
Speaker 1: get up to an upper floor. Uh So, you know

909
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:20,839
Speaker 1: they've got to have design considerations like that, express elevators

910
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 1: and different types of elevator lobbies and stuff like that. Yeah,

911
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:25,759
Speaker 1: I could remember correctly. This is like one of the

912
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 1: major design problems with the highly conceptual um Illinois mile

913
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:34,880
Speaker 1: high skyscraper that Frank Lloyd right designed, because you know,

914
00:49:34,880 --> 00:49:37,239
Speaker 1: tremendous mile high in the sky. But then when you

915
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:40,160
Speaker 1: start breaking down how people are going to get to

916
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 1: the upper floors, how many elevators you're going to need,

917
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:47,080
Speaker 1: that's when you run into the real engineering problems that

918
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:49,759
Speaker 1: prevents such a structure from coming to reliship. What do

919
00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:52,440
Speaker 1: you do if there's a fire drill? Yeah, I mean

920
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 1: it's hard. It's bad enough when you just have a

921
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:58,759
Speaker 1: what you know, fifteen or those stories, yeah, much less

922
00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 1: a mile of skyscrape are up there. Yeah, So we

923
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 1: should actually get into some of the examples of why

924
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:07,759
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense to just continue scaling up the

925
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:12,080
Speaker 1: human body from its normal size. Indeed, so there's a

926
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:15,440
Speaker 1: as an offer by the name of our McNeil Alexander,

927
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 1: and he has a wonderful article titled engineering limits of

928
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:20,759
Speaker 1: the Body Size of land Animals. And this is actually

929
00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:22,920
Speaker 1: available in a couple of different forms. I have it

930
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:26,879
Speaker 1: in a big book of scientific essays about like big

931
00:50:26,960 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 1: questions about life on Earth. But he uses the example

932
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:32,080
Speaker 1: of King Kong. King Cong is a great example. It's

933
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:35,319
Speaker 1: a giant gorilla and uh as as you know, as

934
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:39,680
Speaker 1: as most people are aware. Yeah, but I thought it

935
00:50:39,719 --> 00:50:42,239
Speaker 1: was a giant human and a gorilla costume. No, no,

936
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:45,280
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a real gorilla now. But King Kong

937
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:48,320
Speaker 1: as a giant gorilla. If if he were to step

938
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:50,240
Speaker 1: off of the screen and exist in our real world,

939
00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:53,160
Speaker 1: he would collapse under his own weight. He would be

940
00:50:53,320 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five times the volume of a

941
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 1: real ape loaded with one hundred and twenty five times

942
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,960
Speaker 1: the weight of a real gorilla, and his legs would

943
00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 1: just simply snap like kindling. So one way to look

944
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:08,360
Speaker 1: at this is to apply the spherical cow example. And

945
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:14,759
Speaker 1: what you've heard of us about you've heard about spherical cows, Okay, well,

946
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:18,960
Speaker 1: spherical cows in general concern. It's sometimes for any time

947
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:22,320
Speaker 1: you take an engineering problem and you like simplify something

948
00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 1: like we're talking about a cow, so will just make

949
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 1: it a sphere so as to more easily talk about it.

950
00:51:28,200 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's a criticism of sort of physics approaches

951
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:34,040
Speaker 1: to solving problems, but it actually works really well in

952
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:36,799
Speaker 1: this scenario. So assume the cow is a sphere, right,

953
00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:40,319
Speaker 1: So as the sphere gets bigger, it's volume increases more

954
00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: rapidly than its surface area. Double the radius of a

955
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:46,560
Speaker 1: sphere and the surface area increases four times, and the

956
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 1: volume increases eight times. So double something size and keep

957
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 1: its proportions the same. Its weight doesn't double or even quadruple,

958
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:58,839
Speaker 1: it increases by a factor of eight. This gets into

959
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:02,400
Speaker 1: situations why you would to to take a small creature

960
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 1: and make it bigger. You would have to drastically change

961
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:08,439
Speaker 1: its proportions to support the weight. So you know, Keen Kong,

962
00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:12,279
Speaker 1: a giant human. The basic morphography of the creature would

963
00:52:12,320 --> 00:52:15,360
Speaker 1: have to upgrade as well. Yeah, okay, so the strength

964
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:17,839
Speaker 1: of the molecules and the bonds that make up your

965
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:21,239
Speaker 1: bones is not going to get proportionally stronger. It's gonna

966
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:23,759
Speaker 1: be You're dealing with the same molecules either way, and

967
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:25,800
Speaker 1: the same issue as you'd be dealing with the same

968
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 1: energy constraints either way, right right, Like, So a proportionally

969
00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:35,320
Speaker 1: voluminous creature like this would have proportionally great energy needs

970
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:39,439
Speaker 1: and ways of dissipating excess heat energy to right, Yeah,

971
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 1: it would just have to eat more bananas. You'd have

972
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 1: to take into account. It's hair, you'd have to take

973
00:52:45,200 --> 00:52:49,800
Speaker 1: into account, it's metabolism. So, as arm McNeil Alexander points

974
00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:53,279
Speaker 1: out in his article, uh, a mammal one five times

975
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:56,640
Speaker 1: heavier than its original form, would need to metabolize forty

976
00:52:56,680 --> 00:52:59,680
Speaker 1: times as fast, which means Coong would have to lose

977
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:03,040
Speaker 1: x has heat from his skin, which has only twenty

978
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:05,200
Speaker 1: five times the area of a real to eight skin

979
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:08,200
Speaker 1: due to proportions, and he has all that super thick

980
00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:11,319
Speaker 1: fur five times as thick as a real guerrillas, which

981
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 1: is not going to help matters either. So not only

982
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 1: would call collapse under his own weight, he then overheat

983
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:19,000
Speaker 1: and die right there on the pavement before he could

984
00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:21,839
Speaker 1: ever climb the skyscraper. So then what's going on with

985
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:26,280
Speaker 1: these incredibly large animals that we do see, like, for example,

986
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:30,320
Speaker 1: I I'm excluding water dwelling animals because once you're living

987
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:32,359
Speaker 1: in water, that seems like that's a very different kind

988
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:36,319
Speaker 1: of environment and different things are possible. But but these

989
00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:40,239
Speaker 1: land dwelling animals, like the largest sauropods, big dinosaurs, what's

990
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:42,920
Speaker 1: going on with them? Well, I mean it's it's ultimately

991
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:45,960
Speaker 1: going to be more a matter of what's competitive in

992
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:51,080
Speaker 1: the struggle for existence, as as Alexander points out, because uh,

993
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:53,200
Speaker 1: I mean that's gonna be the deciding point. Can the

994
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:56,239
Speaker 1: can the market bear it? Can the can the market

995
00:53:56,480 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 1: allow a restaurant this huge to exist. Um, you know,

996
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:04,160
Speaker 1: it's it's similar to the giant aircraft. Right, there's certainly

997
00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:08,200
Speaker 1: giant aircraft that can be built, but will they be built? Well,

998
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 1: is there actually a reason to build it? And then

999
00:54:10,280 --> 00:54:11,840
Speaker 1: if built, is there going to be a reason for

1000
00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:15,440
Speaker 1: it to remain a part of our aeronautic um you

1001
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:19,040
Speaker 1: know Kingdom? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wonder And now

1002
00:54:19,080 --> 00:54:20,920
Speaker 1: I've not looked this up. It just occurred to me.

1003
00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:23,720
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's an upper limit on the mass

1004
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:25,919
Speaker 1: of a thing that we can make fly? Is there

1005
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:28,759
Speaker 1: just an object so heavy that there's no way to

1006
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:32,520
Speaker 1: make a vehicle this heavy fly? That's a good question. Yeah,

1007
00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:36,600
Speaker 1: what is the what is the heaviest possible air vehicle?

1008
00:54:36,680 --> 00:54:38,360
Speaker 1: This would be a fun one to explore, especially in

1009
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:40,840
Speaker 1: light of you know, some of these Marvel films that

1010
00:54:40,960 --> 00:54:45,480
Speaker 1: have come out with the like the aerial aircraft carrier ships.

1011
00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:47,040
Speaker 1: You know, well, I mean I guess it would. It

1012
00:54:47,040 --> 00:54:50,440
Speaker 1: would depend on whatever is the maximum limit on the

1013
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:54,239
Speaker 1: the opposing forces that we can create. I'm assuming we're

1014
00:54:54,239 --> 00:54:58,080
Speaker 1: not using like gigantic balloons and stuff like that. Going

1015
00:54:58,160 --> 00:55:02,240
Speaker 1: with with with fat s flying airplane style, Yeah, balloons

1016
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 1: tend to be the best way to get them up there.

1017
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:09,520
Speaker 1: Failing that magical anti gravity. Yeah, but I think it

1018
00:55:09,520 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 1: should be clear at this point that you can't just

1019
00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:15,440
Speaker 1: scale up the form. And uh and and you mentioned

1020
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:18,480
Speaker 1: also one thing about insects, right, this this also applies

1021
00:55:18,520 --> 00:55:21,520
Speaker 1: to other films of the nineteen fifties, right. You know,

1022
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:24,560
Speaker 1: you've got the Giant Spider Invasion Earth versus the giant

1023
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 1: spider huge ants in them them as huge ants. They're

1024
00:55:29,560 --> 00:55:34,160
Speaker 1: big bugs everywhere. Yeah, I mean even things like I

1025
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:37,040
Speaker 1: hesitate to drag those xenomorphant into all of this. But

1026
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:39,360
Speaker 1: take say the Gartham from the Dark Crystal, you know,

1027
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:45,120
Speaker 1: giant presumably exoskeletal creatures, or the giant crabs of of

1028
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:50,920
Speaker 1: of various beloved works of British horror um. These largely

1029
00:55:51,160 --> 00:55:53,319
Speaker 1: just don't work when you start blowing them up that

1030
00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 1: big because they're exoskeletons. Would have to just get increasingly

1031
00:55:57,120 --> 00:56:00,560
Speaker 1: and eventually impossibly thick to support them, because the exo

1032
00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:03,000
Speaker 1: skeleton is not just armor, it is a skeleton. It

1033
00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:05,560
Speaker 1: is a supportive structure. Yeah. And if you'll allow me

1034
00:56:05,600 --> 00:56:08,319
Speaker 1: to go on a quick tangent from human height here

1035
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:10,560
Speaker 1: I do. I looked into this a little bit because

1036
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:13,480
Speaker 1: I thought this was interesting. I was wondering, why don't

1037
00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:16,880
Speaker 1: giant spiders exists. I'm not sure exactly what the limitations

1038
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:20,360
Speaker 1: on the upper on the upper end of insects and

1039
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:24,720
Speaker 1: spiders are. Could we have bert I Gordon's giant grasshoppers

1040
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:26,560
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And my guess was that it

1041
00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:30,080
Speaker 1: actually might have something to do with their open circulatory system,

1042
00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:35,200
Speaker 1: being you know, spiders and insects don't have full body

1043
00:56:35,239 --> 00:56:38,000
Speaker 1: blood vessels like we do that maintain blood pressure and

1044
00:56:38,120 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 1: keep everything going to the right place. They've got open

1045
00:56:41,040 --> 00:56:44,920
Speaker 1: circulatory systems, meaning they might have some main artery just

1046
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:47,359
Speaker 1: like one big one or something like that, and then

1047
00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:50,320
Speaker 1: through a lot of the body cavity the body fluids

1048
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:52,760
Speaker 1: in the blood or they don't have blood exactly like ours,

1049
00:56:52,760 --> 00:56:56,760
Speaker 1: but their oxygen distributing juices are just kind of loose,

1050
00:56:57,560 --> 00:57:01,040
Speaker 1: they go wherever. It seems like that system works less

1051
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:03,200
Speaker 1: and less well the bigger you get, the more you've

1052
00:57:03,239 --> 00:57:06,760
Speaker 1: got gravity pulling down on those body fluids. But anyway,

1053
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:09,000
Speaker 1: I decided to look into this, and what do you know,

1054
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:12,440
Speaker 1: I could not find any scholarly articles on why insects

1055
00:57:12,440 --> 00:57:15,520
Speaker 1: and spiders can't grow to the size of tour buses. Uh.

1056
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:17,840
Speaker 1: This seems like a massive oversight. Somebody needs to start

1057
00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 1: a peer reviewed journal for this. But I did find

1058
00:57:20,560 --> 00:57:23,600
Speaker 1: some pop science articles that at least interviewed some insect

1059
00:57:23,680 --> 00:57:28,440
Speaker 1: physiology experts to get their informed opinions. And so there

1060
00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 1: was a twenty twelve piece on Science World that spoke

1061
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:34,360
Speaker 1: to a few experts about why we don't encounter giant spiders. Uh.

1062
00:57:34,680 --> 00:57:38,480
Speaker 1: The spider systematist Wayne Madison of the University of British

1063
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:42,400
Speaker 1: Columbia just suggested the general issue of scaling like we've

1064
00:57:42,400 --> 00:57:45,400
Speaker 1: been talking about here. A guy named Rod Crawford at

1065
00:57:45,440 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 1: the Burke Museum in Seattle suggested that the main problem

1066
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:53,200
Speaker 1: could be respiration. Actually, because the spider has to oxygenate

1067
00:57:53,320 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 1: its tissues and purge carbon dioxide through a system based

1068
00:57:57,200 --> 00:58:01,520
Speaker 1: on breathing tubes called trachea and book lungs and also

1069
00:58:01,640 --> 00:58:05,040
Speaker 1: copper based blood, and its respiratory system just would not

1070
00:58:05,200 --> 00:58:08,920
Speaker 1: scale up because it couldn't get enough oxygen to all

1071
00:58:08,960 --> 00:58:11,720
Speaker 1: the parts of its body fast enough. And the author

1072
00:58:11,760 --> 00:58:13,640
Speaker 1: points out that this could be the reason we see

1073
00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:16,600
Speaker 1: fossil evidence of much larger insects like you know, those

1074
00:58:16,680 --> 00:58:20,600
Speaker 1: huge hawk sized dragonflies living at a time when Earth's

1075
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:23,960
Speaker 1: atmosphere was more oxygen rich than it was today. So

1076
00:58:24,040 --> 00:58:26,400
Speaker 1: there used to be a higher composition of oxygen in

1077
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:30,480
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, and so these less efficient uh, you know,

1078
00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:34,760
Speaker 1: bug breathing systems could could get more oxygen to more

1079
00:58:34,840 --> 00:58:37,760
Speaker 1: tissues that way, allowing a bigger bug. There was also

1080
00:58:37,800 --> 00:58:40,360
Speaker 1: a twenty twelve article in Live Science that interviewed an

1081
00:58:40,360 --> 00:58:44,560
Speaker 1: insect physiologist named John Harrison at Arizona State, and he

1082
00:58:44,600 --> 00:58:48,600
Speaker 1: had a couple of hypotheses. He mentioned the exoskeleton limitation

1083
00:58:48,680 --> 00:58:51,760
Speaker 1: problem that we mentioned, but he also notes that one

1084
00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:55,520
Speaker 1: city has shown that exoskeletons don't necessarily become thicker as

1085
00:58:55,560 --> 00:59:00,439
Speaker 1: insects get larger, so this may not actually be the constraint. Uh.

1086
00:59:00,480 --> 00:59:03,200
Speaker 1: He also he points to the open circulatory system that

1087
00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:06,920
Speaker 1: I mentioned as a potential problem. Uh. He also mentions

1088
00:59:06,960 --> 00:59:11,160
Speaker 1: the respiration issue and uh, and these these ancient dragonflies

1089
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:13,520
Speaker 1: that existed three hundred million years ago that could have

1090
00:59:13,600 --> 00:59:17,160
Speaker 1: these giant wingspans, huge bodies run around preying on other

1091
00:59:17,560 --> 00:59:21,240
Speaker 1: on other animals. But finally he's he suggests something that's

1092
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:23,960
Speaker 1: interesting to me, which is that it's uh, not just

1093
00:59:24,080 --> 00:59:28,280
Speaker 1: a physical architectural constraint, but an evolutionary constraint. This came

1094
00:59:28,360 --> 00:59:31,440
Speaker 1: up earlier when we were talking about pressures on the

1095
00:59:31,480 --> 00:59:35,360
Speaker 1: island rule. You know, why might why might uh? Sometimes

1096
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:38,840
Speaker 1: animals want to be smaller and he he mentions that

1097
00:59:38,920 --> 00:59:43,520
Speaker 1: bigger insects prove more enticing meals to insect eating predators

1098
00:59:43,520 --> 00:59:46,560
Speaker 1: like birds and mammals, so they've got more nutrition in them.

1099
00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:48,800
Speaker 1: They're they're just better to eat, and it's harder for

1100
00:59:48,840 --> 00:59:51,000
Speaker 1: them to hide and go out and noticed. So there

1101
00:59:51,040 --> 00:59:55,280
Speaker 1: could simply be a strong selection pressure against larger insects

1102
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:58,360
Speaker 1: and spiders based on the rate of predation. There's just

1103
00:59:58,600 --> 01:00:01,600
Speaker 1: so many predators out there air. It just doesn't it

1104
01:00:01,640 --> 01:00:06,040
Speaker 1: doesn't pay, evolutionarily speaking, to get bigger. And so finally,

1105
01:00:06,160 --> 01:00:08,240
Speaker 1: I want to conclude with the idea of I wonder

1106
01:00:08,360 --> 01:00:12,480
Speaker 1: if there's anything like that that applies to human beings

1107
01:00:13,280 --> 01:00:16,920
Speaker 1: other than just the limits on what's architecturally possible with

1108
01:00:16,960 --> 01:00:20,280
Speaker 1: our body plans as they are. Are there any selection

1109
01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:23,560
Speaker 1: pressures that would keep humans smaller? I mean, it can't

1110
01:00:23,560 --> 01:00:26,880
Speaker 1: tend to think of any, but that doesn't mean they're

1111
01:00:26,920 --> 01:00:29,960
Speaker 1: not there. Maybe I just don't have enough imagination on this,

1112
01:00:30,080 --> 01:00:33,960
Speaker 1: like scenarios in which a larger person would would not

1113
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:37,880
Speaker 1: have a like a breathing advantage exactly. Well, I mean,

1114
01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:39,600
Speaker 1: we're at the top of the food chain and have

1115
01:00:39,720 --> 01:00:43,240
Speaker 1: been for so very long. It's hard to imagine predation

1116
01:00:43,360 --> 01:00:46,640
Speaker 1: playing in you could I mean, I guess you could

1117
01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:52,240
Speaker 1: maybe make a case for uh, sexual compatibility between males

1118
01:00:52,240 --> 01:00:55,960
Speaker 1: and females in some scenarios without you know, getting too

1119
01:00:56,120 --> 01:00:58,880
Speaker 1: nitty gritty and the details. But I mean, I don't

1120
01:00:58,880 --> 01:01:02,680
Speaker 1: know that could conceivably be an issue if two creatures

1121
01:01:02,680 --> 01:01:08,080
Speaker 1: cannot physically engage with each other, um, you know, that

1122
01:01:08,160 --> 01:01:11,600
Speaker 1: could become that could that could apply at some pressure

1123
01:01:12,160 --> 01:01:14,840
Speaker 1: on the evolution of the form. Yeah, yeah, I mean

1124
01:01:14,880 --> 01:01:17,360
Speaker 1: I can't think of anything really, but I uh, but

1125
01:01:17,440 --> 01:01:20,440
Speaker 1: I wonder maybe you listeners out there have some ideas

1126
01:01:20,480 --> 01:01:24,520
Speaker 1: what what could be any possible evolutionary selection pressures favoring

1127
01:01:24,600 --> 01:01:30,240
Speaker 1: a smaller human being? Mm hmm. You know, I'm instantly reminded,

1128
01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 1: of course, of of just in terms of dimorphism here

1129
01:01:34,600 --> 01:01:38,640
Speaker 1: of a cuttlefish, various cuttlefish where you have both the

1130
01:01:38,800 --> 01:01:42,680
Speaker 1: large males and the smaller males, both vying to breed

1131
01:01:42,720 --> 01:01:46,160
Speaker 1: with the female, and the larger male breeds by just

1132
01:01:46,240 --> 01:01:50,440
Speaker 1: sort of you know, fighting off competitors. Then the smaller

1133
01:01:50,440 --> 01:01:54,280
Speaker 1: male will use deception, will sneak in there, will pretend

1134
01:01:54,320 --> 01:01:56,000
Speaker 1: to be a female so as you get closer to

1135
01:01:56,040 --> 01:01:59,000
Speaker 1: the female, sometimes taking on the appearance of a male

1136
01:01:59,160 --> 01:02:02,200
Speaker 1: on one side of body while taking on the appearance

1137
01:02:02,200 --> 01:02:04,640
Speaker 1: of the female on the other side, and getting in

1138
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:07,880
Speaker 1: there close enough and then breeding with the female while

1139
01:02:08,120 --> 01:02:10,960
Speaker 1: the big scary male is guarding it. So this being

1140
01:02:11,000 --> 01:02:15,360
Speaker 1: an example where you see both big and small bodies,

1141
01:02:15,680 --> 01:02:21,680
Speaker 1: both large and small forms having reproductive advantages. So that's

1142
01:02:21,680 --> 01:02:25,120
Speaker 1: one possibility that's fascinating. I hope that doesn't so much

1143
01:02:25,120 --> 01:02:27,240
Speaker 1: apply to human being. I don't think it's It applies

1144
01:02:27,320 --> 01:02:31,200
Speaker 1: one to one to the complexities of human human love

1145
01:02:31,240 --> 01:02:34,040
Speaker 1: and human reproduction. But it's worth keeping in the back

1146
01:02:34,080 --> 01:02:36,760
Speaker 1: of your mind. Yeah, or anything else. I think that's it.

1147
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:39,400
Speaker 1: I mean, we covered everything from phantasm to the amazing

1148
01:02:39,400 --> 01:02:43,040
Speaker 1: colossal man, from giant spiders to giant guerrillas to people

1149
01:02:43,040 --> 01:02:46,440
Speaker 1: in space, so I feel like we, uh we we

1150
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:49,040
Speaker 1: did it justice. In the meantime, check out stuff to

1151
01:02:49,040 --> 01:02:50,640
Speaker 1: about your mind dot com. That's We will find all

1152
01:02:50,640 --> 01:02:54,080
Speaker 1: the podcast episodes, videos links at our various social media accounts,

1153
01:02:54,080 --> 01:02:57,240
Speaker 1: blog post, you name it, it's all there. Hey, wherever

1154
01:02:57,320 --> 01:03:00,840
Speaker 1: you listen to us, whatever me you have to get

1155
01:03:00,880 --> 01:03:03,680
Speaker 1: this podcast. If they have a way to leave a review,

1156
01:03:03,800 --> 01:03:06,520
Speaker 1: give us some stars. What have you do that, because

1157
01:03:06,560 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 1: that's a great way to support this show. Um tweet

1158
01:03:09,360 --> 01:03:12,360
Speaker 1: various algorithms and ensure that we can give you episodes

1159
01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:14,680
Speaker 1: each and every week. And also if you want to

1160
01:03:14,680 --> 01:03:17,000
Speaker 1: get in touch with us about this episode or any other,

1161
01:03:17,080 --> 01:03:19,640
Speaker 1: you can always email us at below the mind how

1162
01:03:19,680 --> 01:03:31,560
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

1163
01:03:31,560 --> 01:03:56,760
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com