Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And
Speaker 1: we're looking at the future again. That's weird. It's like
Speaker 1: we're letting our futurist flag fly again. Yeah, well we
Speaker 1: have to. I mean that we're talking about going to
Speaker 1: the edge of what's possible, and the edge of what's
Speaker 1: possible generally lines up with the edge of what has
Speaker 1: happened and what's going to happen in the future. So
Speaker 1: I have a question for you. Yes, are you ready
Speaker 1: for the neo evolution? I don't know, that's a really
Speaker 1: intimidating question. Yeah, especially when I say it like that. Huh.
Speaker 1: I would probably yell ya if it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: like a DJ yelling it, because it sounds like the
Speaker 1: kind of thing you would hear, like, are you ready? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Are you ready for the neo evolution? And then everybody
Speaker 1: goes yeah, but yeah, are the Beatles? Yeah? Are you
Speaker 1: ready for evlution? All right, so obviously we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about evolution today, specifically new evolution as defined by
Speaker 1: one guy. But before we get to that, let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about what is evolution. Yeah, let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and hammer this out, um. And I'm drawing from
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works own article how Evolution Works, which is
Speaker 1: a great read, especially if you don't understand evolution, or
Speaker 1: if you find yourself in the familiar situation of thinking
Speaker 1: you understand something that is so talked about, but but
Speaker 1: you're not really sure on the the finer points of it.
Speaker 1: It lays it out really nicely, like most How Stuff
Speaker 1: Works articles handle a topic, but basically it breaks down
Speaker 1: to three essential parts. First part is that it's possible
Speaker 1: for the DNA of an organism to occasionally change or mutate,
Speaker 1: And a mutation changes the DNA of an organism in
Speaker 1: a way that affects its offspring, either immediately or several
Speaker 1: generations down the line. So that's the first condition, right.
Speaker 1: The second one, the change brought about by a mute patient,
Speaker 1: is either beneficial, harmful, or neutral. I think I've hammered
Speaker 1: on this before, but the whole the word de evolved
Speaker 1: or devolved, like the idea that oh in a post
Speaker 1: apocalyptic movie, people devolved in the monsters and Chud's and
Speaker 1: they did not go backward. Right, there's evolution doesn't go backwards.
Speaker 1: Evolution always goes forward. It's possible cases very rare. But yeah,
Speaker 1: but but but evolution does. But no, evolution doesn't really
Speaker 1: go backwards. It's like it'll it's it's altering, but it's
Speaker 1: it's moving forward like it's well for adaptation is what
Speaker 1: I'm talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's moving forward and adapting,
Speaker 1: all right. So, yeah, it can be beneficial, it can
Speaker 1: be harmful, it can be neutral. It's still evolution. If
Speaker 1: the change is harmful, then it's unlikely that the offspring
Speaker 1: will survive to reproduce, so the mutation dies and goes nowhere.
Speaker 1: If the change is beneficial, then it's likely that the
Speaker 1: offspring will do better than the offspring uh, then the
Speaker 1: other offspring, and it will reproduce more and and through reproduction,
Speaker 1: the beneficial mutation spreads and eventually becomes dominant and the
Speaker 1: bad mutations disappear. Um all right. And the third thing
Speaker 1: is is as mutations occur and spread over long periods
Speaker 1: of time, they cause new species to form. So over
Speaker 1: the course of millions of years, the process of mutation
Speaker 1: and natural selection, which we cover in the first two points,
Speaker 1: have created every single species that we have in the
Speaker 1: world today, from the simplest bacteria to you know, elephants
Speaker 1: and dogs and cats and reptiles. And yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean we're talking about his variation, selection and heredity, right
Speaker 1: and um and you think about it, even with us,
Speaker 1: there are about twenty five species of hominids that came
Speaker 1: before us, right, and we just happened to have the
Speaker 1: ability to adapt to our environment. Um and and we
Speaker 1: have done so pretty successfully. But there is a medical
Speaker 1: ethicis named Harvey Fineberg. He has a talk on ted
Speaker 1: dot com and it's called are We Ready for a
Speaker 1: New Evolution? And he has talked about this this specific
Speaker 1: conditions for us evolving as humans, not necessarily talking about
Speaker 1: our animals or bacteria or anything else. Um. And he
Speaker 1: wants to talk really about what our future might hold
Speaker 1: in terms of evolution. He says that there are three
Speaker 1: different ways we could go. Yeah, because it basically comes
Speaker 1: down to these three key facts of evolution that we discussed,
Speaker 1: whether or not they're still relevant in modern human culture
Speaker 1: or if we've managed to sort of elbow them out
Speaker 1: of the conversation. Yeah. So, um, Like, one basic idea
Speaker 1: is if if we have through medicine managed to preserve
Speaker 1: a lot of genes that would otherwise otherwise be selected out,
Speaker 1: in other words, harmful mutations or or or just traits
Speaker 1: that would that we would eventually improve upon and and
Speaker 1: would be again elbowed out of the evolutionary conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's talking about the possibility that we might not evolve anymore,
Speaker 1: right because as you say, we have, we've sort of
Speaker 1: tinkered enough that we've, um, we've sort of flatlining as
Speaker 1: a species, right right, Um. And then he's also talking
Speaker 1: about how we have made our environment adapt to us
Speaker 1: rather than us adapt to it. Right. It's the idea
Speaker 1: that it's like, oh, the world's getting hot, or let's
Speaker 1: create air conditioning or let's you know, we even in
Speaker 1: our more drastic, hilarious and tragic examples where we talk
Speaker 1: about geoengineering or planet hacking, things like like like you know,
Speaker 1: tinkering with the atmosphere to reverse global climate changes, right, right,
Speaker 1: even with China and the Olympics, right when they were
Speaker 1: trying to change the weather by shooting. Um was it
Speaker 1: wasn't missiles, but it was some sort of munition up
Speaker 1: into the air that would make it rain. So yes,
Speaker 1: we're we're um, we're manipulating our our environment all the time, right, um.
Speaker 1: And then uh. He also says that we're so interspersed
Speaker 1: that there's very little isolation and populations now that would
Speaker 1: allow for the conditions of evolution. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: a Richie Rich scenario or something like the kid who
Speaker 1: has everything and doesn't have to grow up and maybe
Speaker 1: confusing involve and grow up arrested development as as sort
Speaker 1: of yeah, I guess you know. It's Um, it's the
Speaker 1: idea that, no, we don't have to adapt to the
Speaker 1: world around us because the world around us doesn't touch us.
Speaker 1: We're insulated in this bubble Umchi rich. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. You know. It's like I'm not that smart,
Speaker 1: but I got all this money, right, so you know,
Speaker 1: I'm good to go, right. And then the second thing
Speaker 1: he talks about this, the second route we could take
Speaker 1: is just the traditional evolution. In other words, evolution is
Speaker 1: a juggernaut. You cannot stop it in somewhere or another.
Speaker 1: It's going to continue. And he says, particularly if we
Speaker 1: colonize planets, right, yeah, we're sending people to other plant
Speaker 1: and of course we could really go off in a
Speaker 1: tangent here. But instead we'll just say see the episode
Speaker 1: titled the Werewolf Principle that we did about adapting humans
Speaker 1: for space, because yeah, there's this whole idea as we
Speaker 1: send people out to colonize distant worlds. We certainly have
Speaker 1: the the sci fi storybook idea of terraforming planet to
Speaker 1: make it just like Earth, which is it, which is
Speaker 1: again ties back into that hole. Let's change an environment
Speaker 1: to fit us, But realistically there's going to be at
Speaker 1: least a little us changing to fit that environment, whether
Speaker 1: we want it to happen or not. Right, And he's saying, like,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously if we tried to call anize Mars
Speaker 1: for example, which you know, this is what we've been
Speaker 1: proccupied with a lot in terms of um, you know,
Speaker 1: science technology. Um, you know, those are the conditions. You've
Speaker 1: got the isolation, you have this environment that is new
Speaker 1: to us, so you know you'd have to evolve in
Speaker 1: someone like and at the very basic level, if there
Speaker 1: were minimum physical requirements to colonize another planet, you're automatically
Speaker 1: selecting for those minimum requirements. Yeah, yeah, absolutely right. And
Speaker 1: then the big one, which is obviously the one that
Speaker 1: he's very interested in talking about is called new evolution, yes,
Speaker 1: which we are going to get to right after this
Speaker 1: quick break. This presentation is brought to you by Intel
Speaker 1: sponsors of Tomorrow. All Right, we're back and we're ready
Speaker 1: for the neo evolution. Okay, we are finally ready. Let
Speaker 1: the evolution begin. All right? What is he talking about?
Speaker 1: This guy? That's hard you fine, Bert. He's talking about
Speaker 1: new evolution as being UM guided and chosen by us.
Speaker 1: So what he's saying is that we are at a
Speaker 1: point technologically where we can begin to tinker with our
Speaker 1: own genes and select for ourselves, so we no longer
Speaker 1: need this randomness. We we can sit there and say, okay,
Speaker 1: self directed evolution, let's do this. Um. And he's even saying,
Speaker 1: you can see this in very basic ways, where people
Speaker 1: are choosing to have more females than males. Right because
Speaker 1: we know we can do this, we can choose the
Speaker 1: gender of a child. Um. And he's saying, like, let's
Speaker 1: let's look at this in a more specific way. Let's
Speaker 1: look at genetic changes. Let's talk about taking out diseases
Speaker 1: like diabetes and cancer in your genes so that your
Speaker 1: children's genes could be a better, a little bit more
Speaker 1: fit for their environment, um they would be healthier. And
Speaker 1: then he's talking about something called the one thousand dollar
Speaker 1: human genome, which I think is really an interesting concept.
Speaker 1: We all know about the Human Genome project. This was
Speaker 1: like a twelve year project UM two point seven billion
Speaker 1: dollars and they were able to um decode the human
Speaker 1: genome and it's had huge implications all over the place.
Speaker 1: But he's saying that today today you can have a
Speaker 1: complete sequence of the three billion base payers of the
Speaker 1: human genome for just twenty dollars in one week. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're talking about the comparison there. And this is what
Speaker 1: we're seeing here is that technology, just like your TV right,
Speaker 1: becomes cheaper over the years. So what he's saying basically
Speaker 1: is and no time at all, the costs will be
Speaker 1: down to a thousand dollars. You can sequence your own
Speaker 1: human genome, and then after that pretty much becomes available
Speaker 1: to anyone. So I can go in sequence my human
Speaker 1: genome and or my genome and see what might be
Speaker 1: in my children's future or what I might even be
Speaker 1: susceptible to and start to tinker with that. Now it's
Speaker 1: or to treat that those diseases now, which is really interesting.
Speaker 1: So this is what he's talking about in terms of
Speaker 1: neo evolution, is that we are genetically driving the ship
Speaker 1: here rather than nature. Right, we are taking the steering
Speaker 1: wheel away from natural selection and all these other properties.
Speaker 1: Not to personify evolution done in the past a little bit,
Speaker 1: just sort of in the in the name of storytelling. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, metaphors help us understand, right, so at least
Speaker 1: it does for me. Um. So he's saying that technology
Speaker 1: can make this happen. He's talking about doctors Francis Arnold
Speaker 1: and Willem Stemmer and the fact that they have been
Speaker 1: able to create desirable properties in proteins and cells. And
Speaker 1: this again is this directed evolution, um, and which they
Speaker 1: synthetically harness the power of natural selection to evolve proteins
Speaker 1: or rna to again create desirable properties not found in nature.
Speaker 1: And then he points to another person named Shinya Yamanaka,
Speaker 1: who in two thousand and seven discover how to tinker
Speaker 1: with human skin cells so that they behave like embryonic
Speaker 1: stem cells. This is huge because that could potentially morph
Speaker 1: into things like heart and nerve cells. You could repel
Speaker 1: repair yourself on a number of levels just with these
Speaker 1: human cells and this and this, and instantly flows into
Speaker 1: a number of ideas we've discussed before, such as the
Speaker 1: idea of defeating death or at least putting it off
Speaker 1: for nine centuries. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And the podcast
Speaker 1: nine Birthday Candles, we talk about this guy named Aubrey
Speaker 1: De Gray who is a biogenerontologist, and in a very
Speaker 1: similar way, he's saying that it's very possible for us
Speaker 1: to extend our lives. We can very now, very it's
Speaker 1: very possible for a fifty year old man now to
Speaker 1: be able to extend his life significantly, maybe even five
Speaker 1: hundred years, if we are able to use these therapies
Speaker 1: that are available to us. UM, So all be de Gray, Um,
Speaker 1: Harvey Feinberg, they're talking the same thing, really, but just
Speaker 1: different ways. Harvey Feinberg is just bringing a bigger question
Speaker 1: into the picture, which is evolution, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: are we going to get to the point where we
Speaker 1: can so well manipulate our environment and ourselves that it
Speaker 1: becomes we become the evolution, but we become the catalyst
Speaker 1: for it, which is an interesting question, it is. And
Speaker 1: and also just like what is the end picture, because
Speaker 1: when when I think of us changing ourselves to meet
Speaker 1: our own ends, I instantly think of of like people
Speaker 1: have had tremendous amounts of plastic surgery, you know, and
Speaker 1: and granted hopefully you would have more of an ethical
Speaker 1: guidance system when it comes to choosing our genetic destinies
Speaker 1: and the genetic destiny of the of the species. Well
Speaker 1: we're talking about here is like a utopian version or
Speaker 1: a dystopian version, right, or just a really mismanaged version
Speaker 1: where you know, where people make sort of you know,
Speaker 1: surface level choices that have severe ramifications. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: the question is for me, I thought, well, okay, you
Speaker 1: can you can probably uh steer the ship so to speak,
Speaker 1: for a certain amount of time. But evolution, particularly in
Speaker 1: um bacteria viruses, those are gonna going to continue to mutate.
Speaker 1: This is what I think at least. But then I
Speaker 1: saw that there's an article UM that was talking about
Speaker 1: professor Floyd Romesburg and he looked at superbugs resistance to
Speaker 1: antibotics like E. Coli, and he actually found that you
Speaker 1: can you can stop evolution in certain strains, which is
Speaker 1: really interesting. He was, I mean, in order to evolve,
Speaker 1: organisms have to mutate, right, uh So they turn on
Speaker 1: the mutation process when they're threatened with extension. We see this,
Speaker 1: that we see this. This is why cancer cells are
Speaker 1: so aggressive sometimes, right, because they're they're turning on this
Speaker 1: sort of ancient pattern and trying to vanquished the disease um,
Speaker 1: they're actually ending up splitting more and more self. Uh So,
Speaker 1: Romesburg reason that since mutations can be turned on full force,
Speaker 1: perhaps they could be shut off as well, and doing so,
Speaker 1: he says, would put a halt to evolution. Wow, an
Speaker 1: interesting prospect. Because mutation is responsible for evolution, are the
Speaker 1: underlying causes of cancer and aging. So he says, evolution
Speaker 1: is not an unstoppable force. There is a biochemistry underlying,
Speaker 1: and it is subject to intervention. So I mean, can
Speaker 1: we be all The question is could we be all
Speaker 1: over evolution all the time in order to control every
Speaker 1: single variation um instance out there. So I don't think
Speaker 1: that you you could, as a species control evolution. This
Speaker 1: is my take on it. Yeah. I mean it just
Speaker 1: also sound like anytime we talk about controlling of evolution,
Speaker 1: I mean we're still talking about either keeping it, keeping
Speaker 1: things as they are, or we're basically tweaking things as
Speaker 1: they are to become an idealized version of what they are,
Speaker 1: like a best guest, best case scenario for for the
Speaker 1: species as it is today, instead of allowing the continued
Speaker 1: evolution of the species like that, you know that I
Speaker 1: don't think we should necessarily look at ourselves as a
Speaker 1: finished species. Well, I don't think that. Harvey Feinberg, the
Speaker 1: guy he's talking about new evolution, is really talking about
Speaker 1: us as as a finished species. In fact, what he's
Speaker 1: saying is that, I mean, his his real argument is
Speaker 1: that you could take this one hundred thousand year process
Speaker 1: of evolution that you see in humans and boil it
Speaker 1: down to one hundred years, and so you begin to
Speaker 1: select for traits like you could have the fast twitch
Speaker 1: muscle if you wanted to, and your child which would
Speaker 1: allow you to run faster and longer. Um that there
Speaker 1: are certain things that we can twinker tinker with, But
Speaker 1: the problem for me becomes the question of like are
Speaker 1: we talking about trans humanism or are we talking about eugenics?
Speaker 1: Um it can get a little dark, indeed, And I
Speaker 1: mean also it's like, I like I think of things
Speaker 1: like like what if the next phase of actual evolution
Speaker 1: would be the the consciousness, uh, the illusion of consciousness
Speaker 1: fades away. Then you know, then what are we doing
Speaker 1: by preventing that? Maybe that we would be better off
Speaker 1: if that was allowed to take place. But of course
Speaker 1: we've talked about I mean, if you're saying the illusion
Speaker 1: of conscious this is what has driven us quite a
Speaker 1: bit species, right, because we always need a story, um,
Speaker 1: and there's this the mystery, right right. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: maybe it's preventing us from from just turning into smoke. Yes,
Speaker 1: from on a semantic level anyway, Um, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and I mean a lot of the utopian and dystopian
Speaker 1: ideas pretty much speak for themselves, like the idea of
Speaker 1: us becoming uh, you know, twisted monsters, or or are
Speaker 1: we becoming this perfect you know race of of idealized
Speaker 1: twenty one century humans, right, we'll become just um, taller
Speaker 1: and nicer. Yeah, it's a possibility. I instantly think to
Speaker 1: the work works of both Richard K. Morgan and Ian
Speaker 1: and Banks. They both have sci fi stores in which
Speaker 1: they have individuals who, through science have virtually don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about disease anymore. But they get bored so
Speaker 1: it's like among the sort of uh risk taking set,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll intentionally um get the flu just so they
Speaker 1: can experience it. Almost like we're a recreational drug. Well
Speaker 1: exactly recreational drug. It's kind of like the last high
Speaker 1: left to them is to well, I'm going to contract
Speaker 1: this flu and and to see what it's like flu
Speaker 1: for fun. That's fascinating. Yeah. So, I mean there is
Speaker 1: the the idea that that humans need, you know, we
Speaker 1: need strife. We need strife to to feel compassion and
Speaker 1: to and to to make us, you know, do the
Speaker 1: things that make us great. And I'm pretty sure that
Speaker 1: viruses are always going to be there to help us.
Speaker 1: Without the viruses are not going to stop evolving. No,
Speaker 1: So there's that there's that factor to consider as well.
Speaker 1: That's right. Well, there you go. We've got some new evolution.
Speaker 1: Are you ready for it? And are you ready for
Speaker 1: some listener email? Yes? Well I do have some listener email.
Speaker 1: Actually these are not emails. These are from our Facebook
Speaker 1: page where more and more people tend to comment there,
Speaker 1: and both methods are valid, but here're a few. Rachel
Speaker 1: writes and says, hey, guys, I'm halfway through your podcast
Speaker 1: you're so ain earth links so she had to stop
Speaker 1: halfway through the contact. And I like that. And one
Speaker 1: of you brought up the theory that we may be
Speaker 1: living in a matrix type type world. Isn't it the
Speaker 1: case that if at every point of our lives we
Speaker 1: are dreaming, then the word dream becomes synonymous with reality
Speaker 1: and we are simply playing a semantic game. For a
Speaker 1: dream to be a dream, we have to eventually become
Speaker 1: aware that it is a synthetic reality. So if we
Speaker 1: live inside a giant illusion, say the matrix that we
Speaker 1: never wake up from, isn't the matrix just plain old reality?
Speaker 1: The question is the red one or the blue one?
Speaker 1: Which one do you want? I forget which one he took,
Speaker 1: but now these are these are valid questions. It's really interesting, um,
Speaker 1: And I like the idea that someone would yeah, because
Speaker 1: part of what we do with these episodes, I feel
Speaker 1: like is we're stirring the imagination through science, through ponderings
Speaker 1: about trying well. I think we're doing it, stir in
Speaker 1: my mind and stirring these listeners mine. Um. We also
Speaker 1: heard from Thomas. Thomas writes in to say I just
Speaker 1: listened to the Day of the Dolphin podcast, not one
Speaker 1: mention of Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
Speaker 1: not one exclamation point at captain by the way, I
Speaker 1: love the podcast and it is awesome on fifteen and
Speaker 1: I live in Texas and I listen all the time. Sweet.
Speaker 1: Yeah that we did. Yeah, we kind of missed the
Speaker 1: missed the boat. I'm making a Hitchhiker's Guide reference. I
Speaker 1: love that we have younger listeners too, and they always
Speaker 1: have really interesting insights and good critiques. Yea that my
Speaker 1: main experience with fifteen year olds just uh through the
Speaker 1: ones that are our listeners, and it makes me think
Speaker 1: that all fifteen year olds are pretty smart and pretty cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We also heard from Edmundo, and Edmundo writes and to
Speaker 1: say just listen to the Math Invention or Discovery podcast,
Speaker 1: and I was sort of surprised you didn't cover what
Speaker 1: Dan Everett had to say about the Paraha and the
Speaker 1: apparent difficulty in teaching them how to do basic mathematical equations.
Speaker 1: Their language only has two numbers, one and two, but
Speaker 1: even that is in dispute, as there is a strong
Speaker 1: argument that they just indicate a quote small amount versus
Speaker 1: a quote bigger amount. Is this indicative of mathematics being
Speaker 1: a human construct or that the Paraha language socialization restricts
Speaker 1: innate mathematical capabilities to such a degree that reacquiring such
Speaker 1: a capable capabilities is extremely difficult. That's an interesting question,
Speaker 1: particularly since we're looking at it through the lens of
Speaker 1: our language, in our system of calculations. So you have
Speaker 1: to wonder for for that culture, is it a problem
Speaker 1: at all? Do you know what I'm saying? If that,
Speaker 1: if that's their reference material, Um, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's there's something there that we need to scratch out.
Speaker 1: I think it's an interesting way of looking at the
Speaker 1: world around you though, that everything is perhaps either a
Speaker 1: small amount or a bigger amount. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: only viewing films as Coen Brothers films and other films.
Speaker 1: It makes things a little simple, and we know that
Speaker 1: makes happiness when things are simple, right, and we that's
Speaker 1: one of the reports out there. I don't know. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: let me make it simple to our listeners. If you
Speaker 1: want to uh touch base with us about virtually any
Speaker 1: topic that we've covered UH or might cover in the future,
Speaker 1: or just some cool science that happens to be popping
Speaker 1: around your your your headspace. Then drop in at Facebook
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Speaker 1: and you can always drop us an email at blow
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