WEBVTT - From the Vault: Anthology of Horror, Volume 3 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.880 Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:10.880 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:14.600 Time for a vault episode. This episode originally published on 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:19.000 October thirty one, Halloween Day, twenty nineteen, and it's our 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:23.720 Anthology of Horror Volume three. That's right, horror themed TV 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.760 anthology episodes that are used as a springboard to discuss 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.400 science and historically, you know, stuff to blow your mind topics. 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.840 This one is fun in that one of the anthology 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.440 episodes we discuss is a Simpsons tree House of Horror episode. 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:42.080 Uh So, if you enjoy the moments where we frequently 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.000 referenced Simpsons episodes, well then this is the main event 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:46.840 because we're going to spend a lot of time talking 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:53.440 about the Simpsons. Here. Let us be your hang in Kodos. 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:55.320 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:55.360 --> 0:01:04.200 I Heart Radio's House to Work. Hello, and welcome to 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.559 Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Gooley Lamb. 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.000 I forgot we were doing the voices. Let's see, I 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.200 am what's my name? Also, I'm Corrosive Joseph McCormick exactly, 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:18.959 and we're here with our excellent audio producer death Nicholas Johnson. 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.160 It is Halloween. It is Halloween itself, I believe. Yeah, 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:26.919 And so we are presenting Anthology of Horror volume three. 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.200 So this will be a sequel to our two previous 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.160 Anthology of Horror episodes where we look at old episodes 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.680 of horror anthology TV shows and figure out how they 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.319 might often be deeper than they seem. Yeah, I mean, 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:40.880 and also sometimes they're not very deep, but we we 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:45.600 have a knack for finding some hidden depth in horror 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:48.559 and science fiction. Now. In the last episode, which should 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:50.600 have been just a couple of days ago, we talked 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:54.080 about an episode of The Twilight Zone concerning how you 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:56.240 can know whether or not you are in a dream 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.200 or whether you are someone else's dream. And we talked 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:03.160 about an episode of the old horror anthology Monsters that 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.200 featured story about ghoules called down Below and related to 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:11.600 that to cities dealing with rat problems. Uh So, today 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:13.400 I think we were going to start by looking at 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:18.000 an episode of The Outer Limits, right, yes, the Sixth Finger. 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.360 This is the fifth episode of the first season of 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:25.280 ABC sci fi anthology series legendary sci fi anthology series 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:30.840 The Outer Limits, which originally ran from through It was 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:33.640 created by Leslie Stevens, and unlike a lot of these shows, 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.640 he didn't have a true horror or sci fi host. 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.640 It didn't have like a puppet or an actor that 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.240 spoke to you and introduced everything. But it did have 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:46.480 the control voice, which in and of itself is pretty classic. 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.160 Explain the control voice. So we will control the vertical, 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:51.560 we will control the horizontal. You know, it's like this, 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:55.280 this disembodied voice that is taking over your television set 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:59.560 and presenting you with some sort of cosmic transmission from 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.040 the out or Limits. I see, Is this the one 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.119 that's there's no need to adjust your television exactly? Okay, 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:07.400 I think I for some reason confused that I thought 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.800 that was like an alternate opening to the Twilight Zone. 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:12.679 Uh no, no, no, that Twilight Zone is always like 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:18.480 Rod Serling being like you were entering another dimension. Yeah, etcetera. Um. Yeah, 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.640 the Outer Limits was definitely more in the in the 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.280 science fiction domain. It was in many ways kind of 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.160 like the sci fi side of the coin to the 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:31.440 Twilight Zones horror, but it also got a little spooky, 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.880 a little scary at times. Uh and certainly falls under 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.800 the domain of our our mission statement here. Now wait 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.560 a second, sorry, I just realized that the Outer Limits 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:43.400 introduction you're doing here, that this might be the first 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.360 sort of hint or attempt at doing a kind of 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.720 found footage thing. Right. It's saying like you are receiving 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.520 a transmission. It's like implying that you're part of the 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:56.280 narrative because your TV set is something's being beamed from 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.440 another place to it. Yeah, to a limited extent. I mean, 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.360 once the episode starts, it's pretty leer. You're still safely 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.400 in television land, but you're also in a place that 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:06.560 still feels a little less safe. But this ain't I 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:11.160 love Lucy exactly. So The Outer Limits went two seasons 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.800 and produced forty nine episodes. Again, it's just always amazing 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.839 just how robust these some of these older seasons television were. 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:21.960 Not all of the episodes are classics, but some stand 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.400 out amid the all time greatest achievements in science fiction 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.960 television even today in this sort of golden age of 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:32.400 television and television options. Some of the most famous episodes 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.520 include uh for instance, Demon with a Glass Hand, which 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.880 was scripted by Harlan Ellison, but the Sixth Finger is 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.280 also rather iconic. Like a lot of the episodes, it 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:45.760 features some alien makeup effects that that are pretty astounding. 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.120 A lot of the alien designs on the Outer Limits, 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:52.200 uh kind of you know, leaned into old school ideas 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.279 of what an extraterrestrial might look like. You know. There 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:59.400 are a lot of oversized heads and long ears and whatnot, 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.240 like the rain mutant from the Silent Earth. Yeah, yeah, 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:04.039 so some of them are a little bit dated, but 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:07.400 but they were still pulled off exceptionally well, shot in 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.240 black and white, and and and you know, sometimes with 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.839 an almost avant garde kind of style. That being said, 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.000 there are some effects that they pulled off on that 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.120 show that stand up I think really well today. The 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.720 Galaxy being I think, is an exception where we had 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.440 like this kind of sharp contrast of black and white 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.480 where it seems to be just radiating on the screen. 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:32.520 But the Sixth Finger was directed by James Goldstone, who 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:35.679 also directed the pilot for a little show called Star Trek. Okay, 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:38.800 so that's before Kirk is the captain, right right, Yeah, 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.120 And it was written by Ellis st. Joseph, who did 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:44.080 a lot of TV work in his career and It 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:48.160 also starred British American actor David McCallum, who starred opposite 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:52.120 Robert Vaughan in The Man from Uncle. So McCollum stars 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:55.520 in this episode as the character Griffiths, a Welsh miner 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.680 who agrees to let a rogue scientist named Professor Mathers 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.480 experiment on him, which is of course always a solid 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.800 life choice. Mathers played a role, we're told, in the 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.120 development of atomic weaponry, and he wants to aid humanity instead, 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.320 and so he has invented of means of speeding up 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.479 evolutionary development and he wants to try it out on 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.200 a human being. Now, I can say, in the early 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:22.200 nineteen sixties this would actually be not that far fesched 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:23.719 of a scenario. I mean, I think there were a 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:26.120 number of scientists who were known at the time to 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.520 have worked on the creation of atomic weaponry who were 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:34.479 deeply publicly regretful of their work. Even Oh yeah, absolutely, 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.240 I mean to typified for the most part by the 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:42.560 the heavily quoted bit from from Oppenheimer Now and become Death, 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:47.119 where he himself is of course to quoting Vedic scriptures. Yeah, 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.560 because certainly the atomic bomb is this uh, you know, 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.640 continues to to loom over us as this the symbol 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:57.640 of of of of great human achievements that are put 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:01.320 to work in in the name of our worst impulses 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:05.440 as as a species, as a civilization. Totally and uh 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:07.680 and yes, So the idea of someone involved with that 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:10.800 wanting to do something that that you know, that it 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.560 saves us, that changes us, that you know, that puts 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:15.560 us in a different direction, I think that that makes 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:17.840 perfect sense. And I think a lot of people would 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.080 would agree that. You know, this, this period of of 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.400 of nuclear power, you know, is something we hope it's 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:25.200 it's kind of a bottleneck, right, It's like it's a 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:28.320 period of extreme danger to the species that we hope 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:32.600 to move past, we hope to evolve through. And and certainly, 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:34.360 you know, we tend to think of that evolution as 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:40.240 more or less biological and more cultural, more political. But 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.520 in a science fiction story, you know, it makes sense 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.080 to go with the more literal interpretation of that, like 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:50.880 human beings need to evolve beyond this point of extreme danger. 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:53.080 So I'm going to put a human being inside of 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:55.920 a crazy sci fi contraption and see what kind of 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:58.800 you know, peaceful being comes out the other side, right 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.240 as you increase our oldie to destroy ourselves in one another. 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.160 It seems like every year that goes by, we're just 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.480 sort of like barely eking. You know, we're just making 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.040 it if we don't use that power unless you change 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.160 us somehow, that it would be inconceivable to us to 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.440 use it right now. To be clear, evolution, as we've 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.120 discussed plenty of times on the show, is a process 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:22.840 of mutation and natural selection that takes place across the 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:27.240 vast periods of time due to various environmental stressors. Would 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.880 you agree with that? You're more Darwin's bulldog on this 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:33.079 show than I am. I mean, our modern picture of 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:35.600 evolution I think has become a little bit more nuanced, 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.240 and that we we learn more and more things that 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:42.480 uh that affect it, like epigenetic factors possibly and things 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.680 like that. But yeah, basically, I mean the standard model 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:49.280 is that there is variation and then there is selection 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.040 by the environment. And yeah, the big thing, of course, 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.800 the way this happens in nature is it happens over 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:58.840 many generations. The way evolution is often conceived of in 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.520 stories like this is it basically just means like changing 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:06.720 somebody like changing an individual's body in their lifetime, which 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.240 would be different from biological evolution. That would be more 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.880 like that, I don't know, bioengineering of the body. Yeah, 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:14.880 and and also I mean the other thing too, is 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.560 this this model in this science fiction story it has 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.240 this It kind of implies that there's an exact map 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.320 of our evolution inside of our bodies, inside of our genes. 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.320 You know, is if like we're a Pokemon and you 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:29.920 can look at a chart saying like how it advances 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.840 to its final form, if I have my Pokemon references correct, 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.080 I don't know my Pokemon all that well. But but 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:38.080 still yet it implies that there's like a certain path 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:40.400 that an organism should take and it's all written in 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:44.560 the genes, as opposed to being this process, uh you know, 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.040 being you know, driven by this process of natural selection 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.040 that depends so heavily upon environment. So on one hand, 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:51.880 it's a tad silly to think that some manner of 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.400 mad science process could simply speed up human evolution. But 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.120 again they're trying to make a statement here, so we'll 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.719 roll with it, okay, So as Griffith evolves and there 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.160 there this is a this is a real talking. By 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:06.720 the way, as far as um you know, anthology shows 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:08.559 Go and Outer Limits tended to be I think a 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:12.520 little more cerebral than the many of the other anthology 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:15.040 and you know shows that would come in its wake. 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:19.040 There's a lot of discussing what this means and discussing, uh, 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.040 you know, how we might apply it to our understanding 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.760 of the world. And so Griffith's you know, he goes 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.920 through these prod like a I guess a treatment of evolution. 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:28.800 Then he comes back out and he's changed, and he 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:30.440 talks about it, and he goes back in, he gets 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:34.280 another treatment, he comes back he's even different. But basically 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:38.600 these are the changes biological and mental that take place. Okay, 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.719 First of all, he gets an extremely over developed cortex 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:46.160 like a giant alien melon head, which again is very 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.920 impressive makeup effects, but at the same time it's kind 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:51.920 of a dated look for our idea of like a 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:56.400 far future speaking. Okay, so just to clarify, basically is 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.640 the idea that this is naturally how humans would evolve 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:01.760 if we were allowed to just you know, keep living 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.640 for thousands of years. But the scientist has figured out 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:07.800 a way to get us there. Down the already mapped 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.439 path ahead of time, right. I think that's what the 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.240 model is here. We just have to sort of, you know, 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:15.720 take their word for it on the sci fi process 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.520 that's getting it to us. Sure, so huge yet great Now, 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.080 as the title implies, one of the other major changes 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:25.559 is that there is a sixth finger on each hand, 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:30.920 so a total of twelve digits on the hands. Now 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:35.240 better to press nuclear launch buttons with yeah. In addition, 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.280 long l fears, which you know isn't I don't really 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.400 have a good discussion lined up for that, but there 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:46.400 are L fears uh, mental powers such as telekinesis, vastly 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:52.320 enhanced intelligence and ultimately enhanced empathy and understanding, and in 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.360 the original script, he also eventually develops a means of 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.679 photosynthitus and lives on pure light and kind of transcends 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.199 into a being of light. In the show, however, he 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.320 attempts to push himself even further in evolution, but his 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.360 wife betrays him out of love and turns him back 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:11.920 into his original self, you know, turns back the dial 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.640 on the evolution machine to try and get the you know, 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.760 the man that she loves back in the room. But 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:21.000 the process ends up killing him. It's just too much 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.200 for him. So it all makes for a great mad 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:26.319 science tale and one that I think works well thematically. 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.400 Plus McCallum has that kind of like old school Leslie 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.280 Howard Delivery, you know which show, which I really love, 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:34.520 because if you're watching a show like The Outer Limits 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:38.200 of the Twilight Zone, you do have to you find 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.080 a reason to love some of the more you know, 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:44.280 by today's standards antiquated uh aspects of say acting or 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:48.040 pacing or even the effects. And Joe, I have a 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:52.079 picture of of the the being here for you, and 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.640 it certainly anybody wants to see this. Just look up 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:58.160 The Outer Limits the sixth Finger. You can also find 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.920 it on like Hulu or Netflix, naming pretty much everywhere. 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:02.400 But you can also find lots of images of this. 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.320 It's very iconic cost him. Okay, so first of all, 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:07.319 I see the giant melon head and that look that 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:09.480 looks great because you fit so much brain in there. 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:14.120 I am immediately imagining some problems having to do with birth, 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.400 like the size of the human birth canal, which you 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:21.720 would have to assume it would also evolve to be 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:24.319 much bigger to allow a birth of that kind of creature, 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.480 though I believe it's it's widely thought that we're already 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:29.640 pretty much as sort of the limits of what our 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.920 bodies will allow in terms of cranial size, right, I mean, 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:34.680 And the other thing that comes to mind is our 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:38.600 discussions in our episode on brain soup and liquefied brains. Uh, 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:41.720 the actual size of the brain would not be as 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.200 important as the number of neurons within it, right, So, 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.280 I think by our modern understanding, it was kind of 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:49.600 it was very much in vogue at the time to 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:52.440 to see, like, you know, outside craniums as being a 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.719 sign of super intelligence and your fictional creatures. But I 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.960 think nowadays we realize that would not be necessary. But 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:01.120 I mean, like I are you mentioned this island Earth. 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:02.800 It shows up in a lot of sci fi from 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:05.640 the mid century that you've got aliens with huge old heads. 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.080 I guess because they're very smart. But also I like 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:12.960 how he's got extremely defined facial bone structure, like this 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:16.360 guy has cheekbones to die for? He does, yes. And 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:18.960 then of course there are the lf ears, which, again 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:20.760 we don't really have anything to say about them. I'm 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:24.920 not sure what point of ears would really accomplish evolutionarily. 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.560 Oh man, this seems like something that has to have 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:31.120 been explored in a kind of speculative paper, like somebody 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.600 who's an expert on the morphology of the ears and 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.040 how they help you here, How would you hear differently 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:37.960 if you had l f ears. I don't know, we 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:39.800 should come I bet we should come back to that, 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:42.640 because there is a good answer for it. Uh. You know, 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.480 there's a whole world of of elve and ear structure 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:47.520 that we could discuss in the future. But what I 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:50.880 want to talk about is that extra finger. Okay, so 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:52.880 we're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.680 we will get into the the five digit rule invertebrate 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:01.200 evolution and we'll discuss the possibility of a sixth finger 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:06.280 coming into play. All right, we're back. So we've been 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:10.120 talking about the classic Outer Limits episode The sixth Finger, 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.400 about a man who speeds up his own evolution within 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.400 his own lifetime and he gets a gigantic melon head, 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:20.440 he gets really defined facial bones, beautiful cheekbones, he gets 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:24.080 elf ears, but he also grows a sixth finger. And 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:27.240 so Robert, you looked into what it would mean to 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:29.520 grow a six finger is that kind of thing possible? 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.480 Why or why would not we Why wouldn't we see 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:36.120 that in human evolution or primate evolution. Yeah, it's really 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.360 it's really fascinating because, first of all, the five digit 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:42.680 rule does run pretty deep invertebrate evolution. According to Michael Coates, 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:47.000 Associate professor in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:49.480 at the University of Chicago and co editor of Evolution 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:53.400 and Development, writing for Scientific American, the condition of having 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.600 no more than five fingers and toes probably goes back 0:15:56.720 --> 0:16:02.160 before the evolutionary divergence of amphibians and amniots, birds, mammals, reptiles. 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.200 We were talking three hundred and forty million years ago. 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:08.240 Go back three hundred sixty million years ago, and there's 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:12.920 evidence of tetrapods with six, seven, eight digits. Uh. The 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:17.080 the decrease to five or fewer came about alongside the 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:22.360 development of sophisticated wrist and ankle joints. So basically, the 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:27.800 creatures with more digits had simpler skeletons and simpler limb mobility, 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:30.400 and they were generally, you know, something along the line 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:33.680 of flippers. Because we're talking about creatures of the water here. 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:37.400 But as these limbs evolved to allow certain organisms to 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:42.840 stand or to push off with those limbs essentially, you know, 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:47.000 as they move towards being land creatures, we see the 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:49.680 reduction of digits, and indeed we tend to see, you know, 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.960 the further reduction of digits because the rule of evolutionary 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.280 thumb here is that it's easier to lose something than 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:57.800 it is to gain something. Absolutely. I mean you can 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.160 see that with many tetrapod mammals to for example, look 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:03.640 at a dog's paw. I mean, they have a sort 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:07.520 of vestigial other thumb type thing up there on the 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:10.520 on the leg, but basically they got four toes that 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:12.639 go go down on the ground. It's the what the 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.720 do claw? Yeah, yeah, up there? Or I mean even 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.600 look at the feet of ungulates. Yeah, I mean, horses 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.360 are a great place to look because we see how 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:26.200 far it's reduced now. But you know, various prehistoric horses 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.880 had three or four toes. And when animals actually do 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.359 gain digits well, uh Coats points out that the lack 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.320 of true six toed or six fingered creatures in today's 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.920 fauna quote highlights some sort of constraint. For instance, one 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:43.439 of the rare cases we see of you know, the 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:48.399 creature gaining digits is the marine reptile uh Ethosaurus. This 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:51.120 is the these sixty years ago. We've talked abou about 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:54.040 them on the show before. They essentially are dolphin like creatures. 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:57.080 They have that same sort of shape, but they they 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.760 are reptiles um and as a result alt to returning 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.760 to the sea, they eventually developed paddles that sometimes had 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.080 you know, quite a number of digits in there. Okay, 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:08.960 so the athosaurs, like the marine mammals of today, in 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.119 their evolutionary history, went to land and then went back 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:16.119 to water, right, Yeah, So, which again lines up nicely 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:17.800 with this idea of of as long as you're a 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.159 sea creature, you can have multiple digits within that paddle. 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.880 But when you start using that paddle increasingly again over 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:28.399 you know, generation after generation after generation, if it's used 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:30.880 to push off, if it's new, used even to hold 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:36.080 up your weight, it becomes increasingly um more beneficial to 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:40.040 have fewer digits in that at the end of that limb. However, 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.160 we do see creatures like the mole and the panda, 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:47.840 both of which benefit from remodeled wrist bones that essentially 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.440 serve as a six finger, but which are not true fingers. 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:53.840 And if you haven't seen a picture of this, I 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:58.280 encourage everyone to look up pictures of panda's paw or 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:02.560 the laws of a mole, and you will. You know, 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:04.560 if you start doing some counting, you'll be like, okay, 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.760 one too, three, four, five, and oh kind of six 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.760 again not a true thumb. But for the panda, for instance, 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.320 it serves as a thumb. It has like the roll 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.400 of a thumb in helping them handle food. The panda, 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:21.600 of course, is the herbivore of the bare world, and 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.640 and the and it has to eat constantly, and therefore 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:26.879 it has eventually used the point where it needs a 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:30.960 little extra thumblike appendage to get the job done. Meanwhile, 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:35.520 for moles, uh, this extra little thumblike appendage it helps 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:38.480 them tunnel through the earth, so being almost more like 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:42.520 a flipper, Yeah, help it swim through the earth. Yeah. 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:46.480 These are, in Coats's words quote, rather baroque solutions to 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:50.320 the apparently straightforward task of growing an extra finger. So 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:52.280 you know, if we're going to think back to our 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:55.639 outer limits example here, it would be far more likely 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.959 that one would grow some sort of you know, you know, 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.200 a paddle of a pseudo finger as opposed to growing 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.840 a full finger. No matter how many keyboards you're having 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.280 to use, no matter you know, how many you know, 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:11.240 you know, mad science gadgets you're having to manipulate with 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.600 your far future digits. But I want to talk about 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:19.040 another even more amazing example from real world biology. And 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:20.520 for this we have to turn to the world of 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:24.680 the Lemur, as recently reported in Smithsonian. The I I 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.960 Lemur known for its weird looks and it's elongated middle 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:32.919 finger which it uses to fish grubs out of trees. 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.280 You may have seen this in various documentaries before. It 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.000 looks like a tree goblin and it's I think it 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:43.800 has unfortunately suffered from like superstitious killings in the past, 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:46.040 but it has this it's nocturnal, and it has this 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:50.600 fabulous super elongated in some people's eyes, and I think 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:53.080 it's creepy middle finger which it uses you have to 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:56.240 fish out a grub and uh and then it's it's 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:59.600 you know, it's this highly specialized digit and once it 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:01.359 gets the about I was reading that it will also 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:03.719 like pluck the top of the grub. Off and like 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:05.960 suck the inside of the grub out, like it is 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.280 just a highly evolved grub the eater. But in addition 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:12.960 to this, it also boasts an extra tiny thumb or 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:17.399 pseudo thumb, complete with a fingerprint. This according to Adam 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:22.440 Hearstone Rose, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at North Carolina 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:26.320 State University, It's a pseudo thumb made of bone and cartilage, 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:29.000 but it can be moved in three directions, much like 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:32.440 a human thumb. Now you might wonder, why, why why 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:36.200 is this creature so greedy for crazy digits? It already 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.479 has this super elongated specialized digit. What does it need 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:42.320 an extra digit for? You know what? I realized The 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:44.439 II hand reminds me of I just looked it up 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:48.280 to see it again. It reminds me of the of 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.760 klaus Kinsky's hands in Werner Hertzog's nose fur Aw too, 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:55.840