WEBVTT - Carl Sagan and the Samurai Crabs 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:08.160 Dressed in a dove gray robe, his hair now done 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:12.320 in boyish loops, one either side of his head. The child, 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:16.759 his face bathed in tears, pressed his small hands together, 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:21.159 knelt down and bowed first towards the east, taking his 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.200 leave of the deity of the shrine. Then he turned 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:29.480 towards the west began chanting the Nimbootsu, the invocation of 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:33.240 Amida's name. The nun then took him in her arms. 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:38.400 Confronting him, she said, there's another capital down there beneath 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.760 the waves. So they plunged to the bottom of the 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:54.000 thousand fathomed sea. Welcome to Stuff to blow your mind 0:00:54.160 --> 0:01:02.960 from housework dot Com. Hey, you wasn't a stuff to 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.080 blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.560 Joe McCormick and Robert what was that? A reading from? 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.280 That was a reading from a work that is sometimes 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.720 referred to as the Japanese Iliad, The Tale of the 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:18.760 Haka fourteenth century epic Japanese poem that recounts the struggles 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:23.200 between the Haka and the Genji families for control of 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:27.680 medieval Japan. It's a tale of Samurai heroes, war and 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:32.920 the tragic fall of the hak family with every everything 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.160 coming to a bloody climax in the sea Battle of 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:40.080 Dana Lura in five Okay, so that's the sea battle 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.360 that was said to take place in the twelfth century 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:44.480 a d r. A long time ago, at the end 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:46.640 of the courtier era. And this would be, I guess, 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:50.800 sending us into another era of Japanese history, right, the 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.400 heir of the shogunate, the rule of the military class. 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.720 Now we should say there are multiple translations of this 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:01.240 of this classic epic. This is from the translation by 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:05.360 Burton Watson. That's right, yeah, and you know, different translate. 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:07.040 I looked at a few different ones and they all 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:11.160 add a little something different to it. For instance, sometimes 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:15.480 the words are there's another kingdom beneath the waves, and 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:17.600 I kind of like that one a little more. But 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:19.839 this seems to be one of the more popular translations 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.400 out there. So we're stuck with it. So why did 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:26.200 these why did this child leader and the people around 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.200 him have to plunge into the ocean? Well because they 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.040 were on the losing side. They were on the what 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:34.440 turned out to be the wrong side of of of 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.800 history at the time. So this again comes at the 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.800 end of the Hayan period seven through eleven eighty five, 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:44.919 and it was largely a peaceful period. Uh the Genj 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.560 were weakened in the eleven fifties following two key power 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.680 struggles in the court, and the Genji leaders involved were executed, 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.160 but two young boys were spared. You're a Tomo and 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.400 yoshiot Suni, and they and these guys they've ended up 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:03.560 plotting vene it's twenty years of Genj dominance followed. But 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.840 you had all these factions that were plotting against the 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:10.639 hey K rule, leading to revolt in eleven eighty five 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.320 years later they would finish the Hayk, bringing an end 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.720 to the court aristocracy and again beginning this age of 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:19.720 the shogun to hate the rule of the warrior class. 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.679 And this particular heartbreaking read here, which seriously every time 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:25.720 i've I've read it in preparation for this podcast, it 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.520 gives me chill bumps, um. It takes us to the 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:33.000 very end. So the Haka battle fleet has been annihilated, 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.840 So the Genji have completely defeated them. Right, the few survivors, 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.400 the warriors and sailors have thrown themselves into the sea 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.760 to drown instead of being captured and in this reading, 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.640 the lady knee grandmother of the emperor, which in this 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.040 in this translation she's just she's described as a nun, 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.520 but that is the grandmother. She takes the seven year 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:58.000 old emperor a Toku out on a boat and sees 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.040 that he is not captured by the victor, so they 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.640 drowned themselves in their defeat, and she consoles him with 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:07.760 this line, there is another capital beneath the waves. Yeah, 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:11.640 it's it's haunting and tragic and heartbreaking. Well, but but 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:15.360 it seeds this idea that at least in the boy 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:19.320 emperor's mind, that he wasn't killing himself, but he was 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:24.360 like transitioning to another like stage of rule. Yeah, it's 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:27.560 it's it's it's a heartbreaking passage for a number of reasons, 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.880 because on one hand they're describing the boy is very 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:34.320 regal and king like, you know, almost kind of a 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:39.479 holy child emperor, which on one hand makes his decision 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.839 to h or or at least acceptance of his fate 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:46.880 like a little more beautiful and noble. But at the 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:50.000 same time, you can't help it. Read that, and and 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:54.320 and and imagine the alternate view where it's just as 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:57.719 noble as the child's birth. Maybe it's just a child. 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:00.240 He's just a child, and he is about to to 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:05.240 die beneath the waves instead of being captured by the enemy. 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:08.040 And then there is also this idea that the world, 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:13.599 that the actual kingdom is just so rife with violence 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.040 and horror at this point that the kingdom beneath the waves, 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:21.640 the kingdom of death, is ultimately the better choice, just 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.440 complete annihilation over trying to live in this sort of 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:29.000 world anymore. Yeah, that sadness does come through, But also 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:34.279 there is this interesting suggestion of a hierarchy even after 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:37.400 they have drowned, because what like his servants, that the 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.680 samurai who have survived come with him, right, and they 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.000 all they drowned themselves as well. You can imagine them 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:46.719 and maybe heavy armor drowning in the waves with their master, 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:49.520 and the boy drowns with them. And the suggestion of 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:51.760 you mentioned that there are a couple of different translations 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.280 of that line. There's another kingdom beneath the waves, or 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.880 another capital beneath the waves. The idea of a capital 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:02.320 suggests there's a whole society in a hierarchy within the society, 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.000 and that you will be in this capital here like 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:07.200 we're going to the We're going to the big boss, 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.039 and maybe you will be the big boss. Who knows? Yeah, 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:14.120 I mean, especially after our recent episodes about myths of 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.400 my people and beings that live beneath the sea, Like 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.680 the magical uh ramifications of this are pretty obvious. The 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:25.840 idea that the fallen ruler and his followers will continue 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:30.880 to to to live and thrive in another magical place. Now, 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:32.880 this is going to be the bridge to our actual 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:34.719 topic today. How are we going to get from this 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:40.800 beautiful and sad medieval Japanese epic to some crab biology. 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:44.240 So members of the hey K family did survive, mostly 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:46.839 they were women, and they descended still remember the Battle 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.920 of Donna Lura. According to legend, however, the waters near 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:53.640 the battle or home to the ghosts of the drowned 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:58.160 hey K warriors, and those ghosts take the form of crabs. 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.719 And indeed there is a variety of crabs to be 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.840 found in these waters with a curious arrangement of ridges 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:08.839 on its back, ridges that seem to form the drastic 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:14.120 lines of a grimacing samurai warface is depicted in medieval 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.400 Japanese art. Yes, and I would say not just the 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.920 faces depicted in medieval art. But it also somewhat depicts 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:25.000 the Samurai masks you will sometimes see, like uh, where 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.000 a Samurai armor suit might have a helmet that would 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:31.280 have a mask that partially covers the face and the 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.680 backs of these crabs. The carapace of the crab looks 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.080 an awful lot like some of these masks. You have 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:42.280 these kind of highly stylized oh a faces, these sort 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.120 of demonic war grimaces that you see on the face 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:47.680 plates of the armor. Yeah. So the idea here would 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.960 be the samurais transformed into crabs, or their spirits transformed 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:54.560 into crabs, and that if you if you see one 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.040 of these scuttling along, then you are seeing this. Uh. 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.760 This this this remnant a fall in Samurai Warrior, a 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.559 pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floor of silent 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.800 seas exactly. Now, of course, before we go too much further, 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:10.640 we should let you know this is not the case. 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:16.760 This is the magical, mythic, legendary connotation of the story 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:21.000 because certainly, as marine biologist Joe W. Martin points out 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:26.160 in his three article The Samurai Crab published in Tara, Uh, 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.440 the myth of crab people off the coast of Japan 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.760 likely predates the Battle of Donna, or going back at 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.720 least as far as the thirteenth century, maybe even before, 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.040 and is as as is often the case with myths 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:40.599 and legends, it was merely adapted to the hey k 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.040 after the battle. Okay, so you've got these crabs that 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:45.840 you can pull up off the floor of the Silent 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.199 Sea in this area, and they look like faces. And 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.040 so he's saying that probably before this battle, people were 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:54.160 pulling up these crabs and saying, I see a face, 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.400 But after the battle people started to say not just 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.120 I see a face, but look, it's the face of 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.000 those Samurai warriors who drowned in these waters. Yeah, and 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:06.160 it makes makes perfect sense. Right. You can apply additional 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:08.880 narrative to the to the myth, to the legend here 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.600 and it it brings it to new life. But of course, 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:14.720 the reality is you can find these crabs. These crabs 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.640 are an actual species. They exist. They have nothing to 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.960 do with ghosts, but they exist, and they really really 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.880 do look like faces like a lot. Yeah, we'll try 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:26.240 to include some photos of these crabs on the landing 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:28.320 page for this episode. Stuff toblew your mind dot com. 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:30.959 There is an awesome painting that has included along with 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:34.319 Joel Martin's article from nineteen nine. It's a painting by 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:39.360 Utagawa Kuniyoshi, and it depicts these these drowned rulers down 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.079 at the bottom of the ocean, and they've got this 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:47.000 this phalanx of crabs coming towards them with those samurai 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.640 warrior faces on the backs of them. But they're lining 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.280 up almost as if to serve their new leaders. And 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.840 this painting is awesome. We've got to include this if 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.120 we can on the landing page because it has this 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:07.199 this manic, hyperactive, hallucinatory, hieronymous bosh kind of energy blasting 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:09.480 out of it. This is such a good painting. Yeah, 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.400 it's it's dramatic with its human elements within the crabs. 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:16.760 Add this additional scuttling horror to the whole piece. I 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.520 love it. And it captures the inherent irony of the 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:25.560 legend of ghosts of samurai warriors becoming becoming crabs, because 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:31.440 such a legend is both haunting and scary and also funny. 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:34.719 Crabs are funny, right, I mean, it's not just me 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:37.880 right like other people probably look at crabs and think 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:40.280 that's a kind of funny animal. The way they move, 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.120 they're they're they're walking styles, the way they wave their 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.920 their claws around like it is funny, right, Yeah, yeah, 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:48.760 crabs are inherently funny. I mean, the word crab is 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:52.360 inherently funny because of the kr sound in English. But 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.199 but yeah, the crabs are fun to look at and 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.160 and chase and to catch if you if you can 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:02.120 catch them, crabs are tremendous fun and they're delicious or 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:06.040 them are delicious. Yeah, but like you you can't take 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:10.760 a crab ghost or a crab monster too seriously, I think, 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:13.280 I don't know. Maybe maybe in Japanese culture it's different, 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.240 but at least for me, it's impossible. Like I think 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.640 of one of my favorite old horror movies from the 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.679 fifties is Attack of the Crab Monsters, the Roger Corman movie, Uh, 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:28.480 which just proves you know, if you're talking about killer crabs, 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:32.320 it's inherently funny, even if they don't look funny. Well, 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:34.440 they have to be gigantic to be perceived as a threat, 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:36.079 and so maybe that's part of the horror of the 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.600 legend here, is that the ghosts of the samurais are 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:44.040 trapped in this lesser form. They're they're all bluster. You know. 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.719 A crab will will wave its claws at you, but 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:48.959 all that can really do is run away or maybe 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.559 pinch you a little bit. It's not an actual mortal threat. 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:55.120 But let's take a look at what this crab species 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.000 actually is, the one with the supposed samurai face on 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:00.880 its carapacet. The scientific name of this crab would be 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.880 Hakia japonica a formerly known as the Dora pay crab 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.840 until it was officially granted. It's older and more traditional 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:12.360 name of Hakia in. And so it's got these ridges 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:16.080 on its back. That's the thing that captures everybody's it's attention. 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.600 You look on its back. It's got this carapace shell 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:21.280 on the top of it, and it looks a lot 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:25.040 like a face. What are these ridges that form the face? 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.959 Are they purely decorative wells Joe W. Martin points out 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.440 in that article sent the Samurai crab, they do serve 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:37.679 a purpose. Their external indicators of supportive ridges or epodems 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:42.040 inside the creatures carapacet, these are the places where muscles attached. 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.560 He points out that these features are subject to natural selection, 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.480 but they occur in nearly all members of the crab 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:52.559 family uh doripiday all over the world. At least seventeen 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:56.200 crab species in two families in the Indo West Pacific 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:00.439 are similar enough to be called Haika ghani by locals. 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.160 This also includes a variety of Chinese crab is known 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:07.160 as the ghost or demon face crab. Right, and Hayka 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:09.160 ghani that that would be the more common name for 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:12.840 this crab haka from the story we told, and ghani 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:15.960 the Japanese word for crab ghani or khani. Al Right, 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:21.160 so we've established the legend, We've established the biological reality 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.880 of the crab species. But the lingering question is is 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:29.200 there any connection between the two? And remarkably, uh, there's one, 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.120 or at least a couple of very famous arguments for 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:36.520 a connection here in actual connection between the perceived faces 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:41.760 on the crabs backs and the legend of the samurai crabs. Yeah. Right, 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:44.559 So the question is we've established what the crab is 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:46.679 and and what it looks like, but why does it 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.120 look that way? How did it come to resemble a 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.280 samurai mask so strongly? Or rather, maybe maybe we should 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.760 ask instead why do. We so strongly believe we see 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:59.160 a samurai mask when we see the crab. So to 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:01.360 sort those quests, Jen's out, We're gonna have to go 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.000 to our friend Carl Sagan. That's right. We're gonna take 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:05.959 a quick break and when we come back we will 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:11.160 introduce Sagan. Than alright, we're back, So, Robert, I think 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:12.800 it's a shame that we're never going to get to 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:15.640 have Carl Sagan on the podcast. It's such a loss 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:19.600 that he's gone. Yeah, I mean, Carl Sagan was one 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:23.280 of the most important science communicators of his time. For 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:31.200 anyone who's not familiar, he lived or n American astronomer, becausmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:35.720 and uh an, author of several books, host of the 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:41.000 wonderful TV series Cosmos. Sagan was one of those those 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.920 great rare people who was actually a great working scientist himself. 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.200 You know, he was an astronomer, he worked with NASA, 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:51.640 He did lots of interesting space research astrophysics, and at 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:55.240 the same time was a great science communicator. And those 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.920 are very different skills. One other name that comes to 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.440 mind when I think of that pairing is Darwin, Right, 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:04.720 Darwin was both a great scientist and a great science communicator. 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.240 But you don't always have those same two skills in 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:11.000 one person. Yeah, I mean he was. He was intelligent, charismatic, 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:13.920 he had the scientific pedigree, but he also had this uh, 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:18.640 this this this outward passion. He was able to to 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:21.320 appear on these television shows and you were just instantly 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:24.640 enraptured by what he had to say. Yeah, so let's 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.400 turn to Cosmos. I want to set the scene. It's 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.360 the fall of nineteen eighty. You are settling in to 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:34.600 watch episode two of this magnificent new PBS science show Cosmos. 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:37.400 It's hosted by Sagan. Whether or not you know Sagan 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:41.200 by now, if you've seen the first episode, you're already enraptured. Uh, 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:42.920 you want to hear what he has to say next. 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.000 And so episode two of the cot in the original 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.640 Cosmos series in nineteen eighty starts with Sagan telling the 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.080 story we started with today. He starts to tell the 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:56.119 story of the Battle of dano Ura and its legendary aftermath. 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:57.840 And not only does he tell it, but there is 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.520 a dramatic reenactment of anything. It's it's beautiful to watch. 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.800 Will include a link to this episode of Cosmos on 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.440 the landing page of this episode. Right, So we're going 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:10.440 to quote from Carl Sagan's explanation of what's going on 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.560 with the crab and the legends. So he says, quote, 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.920 this legend raises a lovely problem. How does it come 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:20.480 about that the face of a warrior is cut on 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.680 the carapace of a Japanese crab? How could it be? 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:28.360 The answer seems to be that humans made this face. 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.880 But how like many other features, the patterns on the 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:37.280 back or carapasts of this crab are inherited. But among crabs, 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:42.520 as among humans, there are many different hereditary lines. Now suppose, 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:46.520 purely by chance, among the distant ancestors of this crab, 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.360 there came to be one that looked just a little 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:52.960 bit like a human face. Long before the Battle of 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.640 Danna or he's talking about, fishermen may have been reluctant 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.720 to eat a crab with a human face and throwing 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.600 it back into the sea. They were setting into motion 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:07.080 a process of selection. If you're a crab and your 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:10.760 carapist is just ordinary, the humans are going to eat you, 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:14.560 But if it looked like a face, they'll throw you 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.000 back and you'll be able to have lots of nice 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.840 little baby crabs that all look just like you. As 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.680 many generations passed of crabs and fisher folk alike, the 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:28.040 crabs with patterns that looked most like a samurai face 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:32.960 preferentially survived, until eventually there was produced not just a 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.600 human face, not just a Japanese face, but the face 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:41.000 of a Samurai warrior. Now that's that's an incredible idea. Yeah, 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.600 it's it's the idea of artificial selection. Sagan was saying 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.840 that by accident, the fisher folk of Japan for many 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:52.800 generations had been breeding crabs that looked like samurai in 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:56.640 the same way that we breed agricultural crops or agricultural 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:00.480 animals for desired traits. You might breed cows or pigs 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:03.119 to produce more milk or to have more meat. You 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:05.680 might breed dogs to look a certain way or to 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.520 be more friendly or tow herd sheep. It would be 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:12.320 like if we bread pugs because we didn't want to 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:14.399 eat them, like, we just don't eat any of the 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:17.440 dogs that look kind of like grotesque human babies. And 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:19.320 then you just have pugs running all over the place 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.000 because they they may be delicious, but they look too 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:24.320 much like babies. Right. Well, there's a lot of thought 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.679 about how we began to breed dogs, right How did 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:32.840 domestic dogs become separated from their wolf like ancestors. And 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:35.240 I think a lot of the thinking about that is 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:39.320 that the process did not begin intentionally, That we started 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:44.000 breeding dogs by accident, selecting for certain traits by accident, 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:47.600 before we started breeding for certain traits on purpose. For example, 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:51.320 we might have been breeding for the wolf like ancestor 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:55.640 of a dog that had more approach behaviors toward humans 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.800 because if this if it had more approach behaviors toward humans, 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:01.879 it would come closer, would be more likely to get 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:05.320 some scraps from our campsite or something like that. And 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.479 the dogs that had less approach behaviors towards humans, who 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:10.560 were more wary and wanted to stay farther away would 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.680 not get that extra food, would be less likely to survive. 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:18.200 And over time we were accidentally artificially selecting for dogs 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.840 that like getting close to bipedal primates. And then when 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:25.239 we actually begin involving ourselves and the decisions that when 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:27.920 we that's when we start saying, well, let's Let's use 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.160 these dogs at a little smaller so they can get 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.040 through the wall and eat the rodents that are disturbing 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:35.440 our grain crops. That sort of thing, Yeah, or just 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.000 I mean, it can be purely aesthetic. You might say, 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:40.960 this dog is very cute. I really like the way 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.800 it looks. I I want to see more dogs like it. 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:46.800 Let's breathe this dog and make it have lots of babies, 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:48.680 and then things get out of control and you wind 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:51.560 up with the pug anyway, Right, if only you could 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.479 see the pug equivalent of of what our agricultural crops 0:19:55.600 --> 0:20:00.359 look like genetically, the crazy breeding process is that have 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.520 gone into creating the bananas and the corn and all 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:05.640 the stuff we eat. It's one of the funny things 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:10.320 about people's complaints about genetically modified organisms and food crops 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:13.240 is that the food crops we eat today are so 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:18.439 amazingly genetically modified from their ancestral natural variants. Yeah, it's 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:20.600 a little late in the game in any respects to 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:22.719 start saying, oh, we don't want to we don't want 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:28.000 to control or dictate what these organisms, uh manifest as 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:30.720 like we've been doing that throughout recorded history and before 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.119 recorded history. Yeah, but anyway, we need to get back 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:35.880 to the crabs. So Sagan is talking about the fact 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:38.920 that this is this is an idea, it's a hypothesis 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:41.960 to explain why the carapace of this crab looks so 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:44.879 much like a human face, and specifically so much like 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:48.320 a samurai face, that it's not just a coincidence, but 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:52.800 that it has been artificially selected for by human sorting 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:56.680 practices in fishing. Now, Sagan was not the originator of 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.720 this idea. No. Sagan's idea apparently comes a originally from 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:05.119 the British zoologist Sir Julian Huxley, of the of the 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:08.600 famous Huxley family. That's right, he was the grandson of T. H. Huxley, 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:12.200 also known as Darwin's Bulldog. Right, And so Huxley wrote 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:14.800 an article that was actually believed it or not published 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:19.920 in Life magazine and on June nineteen fifty two. And 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:23.600 reading the words of Julian Huxley in Life magazine in 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:26.119 nineteen fifty two is really funny because I found a 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:28.960 scan of the original magazine and it's got all these 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:32.320 like carnation instant milk ads right across from him, and 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:36.679 the like pard dog food ads and weird, weird recipes 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:40.920 of the fifties that involved what cooking cooking tuna with 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:45.000 with with carnation instant milk. It's like the only carnation 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.800 instant milk will make this amazing tunic casserole. Anyway, So 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:50.920 he's writing in life and he writes the same idea 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:54.600 and an article that's more generally about imitation in nature. 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:58.200 But he writes, quote the resemblance of Dora Pay and 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:00.200 remember that was the original, that was the name Sam 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.119 they were using for this crab back then. The resemblance 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:06.720 of Dora Pay to an angry Japanese warrior is far 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.600 too specific and far too detailed to be accidental. It 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.640 came about because those crabs with a more perfect resemblance 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:19.040 to a warrior's face were less frequently eaten than the others. 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:22.359 So again, this is an elegant theory, you know, it 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:25.800 makes a certain amount of logical sense. We can all 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:32.480 envision the scenario taking place, even without a dramatic reinterpretation 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:37.080 from Cosmos. We can we can see the fisher folk 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:39.119 pulling up these crabs, looking at him and going, oh, 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:41.560 that one's that's a little bit too much like a face. 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:43.560 For me to eat it. I'm just gonna throw it 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:45.840 back and we'll just see what the next one looks like. Right, 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:48.920 I mean, you can imagine that any food animal that 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:52.960 looked unnaturally human probably would end up getting selected for 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:57.880 in this way, Right, But is it really true? Does 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:00.760 it stand the test of time, time, and the test 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:06.200 of additional inquiry into the the origins of the crabs 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:09.720 weird samurai face? Right? So for the rest of the episode, 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:12.480 we're going to try to address this question. Is the 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:18.520 Sagan Huxley hypothesis correct? Was it actually artificial selection by 0:23:18.840 --> 0:23:22.240 fisher folk being creeped out by faces that made the 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:25.400 crabs look like this? Or is it just a coincidence? 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:30.040