1
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:04,840
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

2
00:00:04,880 --> 00:00:14,040
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff

3
00:00:14,040 --> 00:00:16,000
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and

4
00:00:16,040 --> 00:00:18,560
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. And if you've been listening to us

5
00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:20,440
Speaker 1: for a while, you probably know that one of our

6
00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:24,160
Speaker 1: favorite subjects in the whole world is evolution. Uh, it's

7
00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:26,680
Speaker 1: got to be right where Science podcast and evolution by

8
00:00:26,720 --> 00:00:30,640
Speaker 1: natural selection, I think is the single most interesting phenomenon

9
00:00:30,840 --> 00:00:33,360
Speaker 1: in the entire world, right, I mean, it's the It's

10
00:00:33,400 --> 00:00:38,199
Speaker 1: the subject underlying any discussion of cool biology. Whether you're

11
00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:41,839
Speaker 1: talking about about a really interesting insect, some sort of

12
00:00:42,200 --> 00:00:45,519
Speaker 1: a strange of you know, um microbe out there in

13
00:00:45,520 --> 00:00:49,519
Speaker 1: the world, or or just the human condition itself, it

14
00:00:49,600 --> 00:00:52,479
Speaker 1: always brings us back around to evolution. It's the science

15
00:00:52,520 --> 00:00:54,760
Speaker 1: of a child's curiosity where you go out and you

16
00:00:54,760 --> 00:00:57,040
Speaker 1: you know, you look at an insect or an animal

17
00:00:57,080 --> 00:00:59,040
Speaker 1: and you want to know, like, why does it have

18
00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:03,120
Speaker 1: that little thing there? How did it get that way? Uh? Yeah,

19
00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:05,600
Speaker 1: And so obviously we're not the only people who feel

20
00:01:05,640 --> 00:01:09,199
Speaker 1: this way. I always like this analogy if some people

21
00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:12,240
Speaker 1: have criticized it. But uh, but in his book, Darwin's

22
00:01:12,280 --> 00:01:16,320
Speaker 1: dangerous idea. The philosopher Daniel Dennett characterized evolution by natural

23
00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:20,560
Speaker 1: selection is what he called a universal acid quote. It

24
00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:23,959
Speaker 1: eats through just about every traditional concept and leaves in

25
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:27,200
Speaker 1: its wake a revolutionized worldview, with most of the old

26
00:01:27,240 --> 00:01:32,200
Speaker 1: landmarks still recognizable but transformed in fundamental ways. I like

27
00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:34,839
Speaker 1: that quote. I think it makes a lot of sense

28
00:01:34,840 --> 00:01:38,240
Speaker 1: to me, because evolution kind of it changes the way

29
00:01:38,240 --> 00:01:41,400
Speaker 1: you see everything in a way that this this he's

30
00:01:41,400 --> 00:01:43,440
Speaker 1: approaching it from the standpoint of if you didn't know

31
00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:46,360
Speaker 1: about evolution and then you learned about it, or certainly

32
00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:50,640
Speaker 1: the history of human beings trying to understand their natural environment. Yeah. Though,

33
00:01:50,640 --> 00:01:52,560
Speaker 1: of course, then it goes to another space where he

34
00:01:52,720 --> 00:01:57,240
Speaker 1: applies sort of evolutionary framework, the evolutionary mechanism to things

35
00:01:57,280 --> 00:01:59,560
Speaker 1: other than just biology. Like he gets into the idea

36
00:01:59,600 --> 00:02:03,080
Speaker 1: of moment tics. You know, does evolution apply to units

37
00:02:03,080 --> 00:02:06,960
Speaker 1: of information shared between people? And there are people who debate,

38
00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:08,960
Speaker 1: you know, whether that's a useful concept or not. We

39
00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:10,880
Speaker 1: could come back to that sometime in the future. But

40
00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:14,160
Speaker 1: there's some actually some really great research that I've read

41
00:02:14,520 --> 00:02:20,560
Speaker 1: related to supersonic airlines and helicopters and applying evolutionary theory

42
00:02:20,880 --> 00:02:23,760
Speaker 1: to to to the way that that we see these

43
00:02:23,760 --> 00:02:27,000
Speaker 1: different forms of airplanes emerge and then go extinct in

44
00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:30,359
Speaker 1: many cases like designs of what do you call them, chassis,

45
00:02:30,440 --> 00:02:32,079
Speaker 1: the hull, what do you if fuse a lot of

46
00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:35,360
Speaker 1: designs of the form, the form changing over time, but

47
00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:40,160
Speaker 1: then reaching forms that ultimately are unsustainable in the long term.

48
00:02:40,440 --> 00:02:43,480
Speaker 1: So in the same way that nature may produce the mammoth,

49
00:02:44,440 --> 00:02:48,440
Speaker 1: which which this may not be a direct line of

50
00:02:48,440 --> 00:02:51,720
Speaker 1: comparison here, but because I can't remember the exact phrasing

51
00:02:51,720 --> 00:02:55,800
Speaker 1: in the paper, but um, but the the the supersonic airline,

52
00:02:56,040 --> 00:02:58,640
Speaker 1: that the Concorde could be thrown up as an example

53
00:02:58,720 --> 00:03:01,799
Speaker 1: of like a like a giant beast that evolved and

54
00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:04,480
Speaker 1: was very very good in a particular role, but then

55
00:03:04,600 --> 00:03:08,960
Speaker 1: due to changes in its environment when it could not

56
00:03:09,080 --> 00:03:12,880
Speaker 1: be sustained by the energy economy of its environments. Uh. Yeah,

57
00:03:12,960 --> 00:03:16,000
Speaker 1: And so of course evolutionary biology has come a long

58
00:03:16,040 --> 00:03:19,440
Speaker 1: way since the days of Charles Darwin's in the original

59
00:03:19,480 --> 00:03:22,760
Speaker 1: publication of On the Origin of Species. Uh, and always

60
00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:25,360
Speaker 1: that one of my pet peeves get the title of

61
00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:28,680
Speaker 1: that right, it's on the origin of species. It's about

62
00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:31,600
Speaker 1: where species come from. What do people think it means

63
00:03:31,600 --> 00:03:35,080
Speaker 1: when they say on the origin of the species? What species?

64
00:03:35,720 --> 00:03:38,640
Speaker 1: I've never heard it us. A lot of people call

65
00:03:38,680 --> 00:03:43,560
Speaker 1: it the origin of the origin of the species. Yeah,

66
00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:45,720
Speaker 1: that would be incorrect, doesn't but no, it's on the

67
00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:48,080
Speaker 1: origin of species. Where does species come from? Why are

68
00:03:48,080 --> 00:03:51,520
Speaker 1: there all these different species? But anyways, since the days

69
00:03:51,560 --> 00:03:54,200
Speaker 1: of On the Origin of Species, a lot of new

70
00:03:54,520 --> 00:03:57,240
Speaker 1: you know, nuance and understanding has been developed since then.

71
00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:00,320
Speaker 1: But Darwin's theory, I think, still remains one of the

72
00:04:00,320 --> 00:04:03,480
Speaker 1: most brilliant and startling moments in the history of science.

73
00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:06,840
Speaker 1: And yet there is an extremely common phrase that people

74
00:04:07,040 --> 00:04:10,320
Speaker 1: use to refer to evolution by natural selection. It's a

75
00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:13,120
Speaker 1: phrase that even appears in some later editions of On

76
00:04:13,200 --> 00:04:16,440
Speaker 1: the Origin of Species. And this phrase really bugs me,

77
00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:18,440
Speaker 1: and that this is what I want to focus on today.

78
00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:21,080
Speaker 1: A criticism of this particular phrase, a case that you

79
00:04:21,080 --> 00:04:24,200
Speaker 1: should not use it, and that phrase is survival of

80
00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:29,000
Speaker 1: the fittest. I think these four unfortunate words, while meant

81
00:04:29,120 --> 00:04:33,800
Speaker 1: to communicate a revolutionary truth, actually cause a host of

82
00:04:33,920 --> 00:04:38,240
Speaker 1: misunderstandings about evolution. And there's a reason why you don't

83
00:04:38,320 --> 00:04:42,960
Speaker 1: often hear actual biologists talking about survival of the fittest.

84
00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:46,520
Speaker 1: You mostly hear it in like a very like you know,

85
00:04:46,839 --> 00:04:50,720
Speaker 1: regular person's understanding of evolution. They might refer to like,

86
00:04:50,839 --> 00:04:53,840
Speaker 1: you know, animals fighting each other and point out, yeah,

87
00:04:53,839 --> 00:04:56,280
Speaker 1: that's survival of the fittest, right, Or they'll use it

88
00:04:56,320 --> 00:04:58,560
Speaker 1: in a social context to sort of like back up

89
00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:01,800
Speaker 1: bad behavior about whining at evolution and be like, yeah,

90
00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:03,880
Speaker 1: I'm kind of a jerk at work, but hey, survival

91
00:05:03,880 --> 00:05:07,200
Speaker 1: of the fittest exactly. Uh. And I think that's one

92
00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:09,680
Speaker 1: of the reasons that it is it often feels so

93
00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:12,400
Speaker 1: distasteful to hear those words because it does have a

94
00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:16,560
Speaker 1: distinctly Nietzschean vibe to it, doesn't it. You know, it

95
00:05:16,600 --> 00:05:20,400
Speaker 1: brings to mind the Hunger Games or the Running Man. Yeah,

96
00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:24,240
Speaker 1: and every real also every reality TV show that has

97
00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:26,680
Speaker 1: been inflicted on us thus far, or even like a

98
00:05:26,720 --> 00:05:29,000
Speaker 1: true I don't know if you're referring to Battle Royale

99
00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:32,120
Speaker 1: the movie, the Japanese film, yeah, or you know it's

100
00:05:32,160 --> 00:05:35,760
Speaker 1: like a dozen school kids enter, one school kid leads exactly,

101
00:05:35,839 --> 00:05:38,680
Speaker 1: or yeah it's or it's Thunderdome right, or in a

102
00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:41,000
Speaker 1: pro wrestling context, you so it's a Battle Royal, like

103
00:05:41,040 --> 00:05:43,520
Speaker 1: the Royal Rumble. You know, there can only be one

104
00:05:43,520 --> 00:05:45,760
Speaker 1: winner at the end of this thing, and uh, it's

105
00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:47,480
Speaker 1: getting They're gonna be standing in the ring and it's

106
00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:51,240
Speaker 1: gonna be the you know, the sweatiest, the most muscular,

107
00:05:51,320 --> 00:05:54,080
Speaker 1: the most skilled performer of them all is the one

108
00:05:54,120 --> 00:05:56,680
Speaker 1: that has the most offspring. Apparently that would be an

109
00:05:56,720 --> 00:05:59,120
Speaker 1: interesting study. I'd like to see the look at the

110
00:05:59,160 --> 00:06:04,240
Speaker 1: offspring of all Royal Rumble winners. But anyway, what like

111
00:06:04,360 --> 00:06:08,880
Speaker 1: championship possession to fertility rates or something. I think just

112
00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:11,280
Speaker 1: the Royal Rumble, Let's let's keep it limited. You know

113
00:06:11,320 --> 00:06:14,160
Speaker 1: that then you have fewer data points to look at.

114
00:06:14,520 --> 00:06:16,839
Speaker 1: But I'll leave that work to someone else. Uh though,

115
00:06:16,839 --> 00:06:20,120
Speaker 1: because basically the point is that natural selection doesn't really

116
00:06:20,160 --> 00:06:22,200
Speaker 1: have anything in common with the Royal Rumble, but there's

117
00:06:22,279 --> 00:06:27,080
Speaker 1: there's because there's obviously more going on and with evolution

118
00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:30,400
Speaker 1: and it resists so easy a metaphor, because what does

119
00:06:30,440 --> 00:06:33,560
Speaker 1: this metaphor really do for us? The survival of the fittest?

120
00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:38,320
Speaker 1: It takes a gradual process that is transgenerational, and it

121
00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:41,640
Speaker 1: breaks it down to an individual level. Yeah, I'd say

122
00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:46,640
Speaker 1: it reduces it along multiple axes to terms that give

123
00:06:46,680 --> 00:06:49,359
Speaker 1: people a narrow view of what evolution is and the

124
00:06:49,360 --> 00:06:51,599
Speaker 1: mechanism by which it happens, right, And of course we

125
00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:53,520
Speaker 1: have a narrow view, and that's one of the things

126
00:06:53,520 --> 00:06:57,839
Speaker 1: about about being humans with brains that have evolved, you know,

127
00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:01,560
Speaker 1: like we're we're not really, we didn't really evolve to

128
00:07:01,760 --> 00:07:04,480
Speaker 1: be able to gaze backward in time with this kind

129
00:07:04,480 --> 00:07:06,800
Speaker 1: of depth and have some sort of sort of innate

130
00:07:06,880 --> 00:07:08,760
Speaker 1: understanding of it. So we end up falling back on

131
00:07:09,600 --> 00:07:11,840
Speaker 1: tools like this at times. Yeah, and we're going to

132
00:07:11,920 --> 00:07:14,880
Speaker 1: talk about some specific like list of reasons why we

133
00:07:14,920 --> 00:07:17,520
Speaker 1: don't love this phrase later in the episode, and reasons

134
00:07:17,520 --> 00:07:19,600
Speaker 1: why maybe it's not the best phrase to use when

135
00:07:19,640 --> 00:07:23,200
Speaker 1: talking about evolution. But yeah, it's clear that one of

136
00:07:23,240 --> 00:07:25,920
Speaker 1: the problems with it is it makes us think about fighting.

137
00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:28,240
Speaker 1: What it's like, it makes us think about the wrestlers

138
00:07:28,280 --> 00:07:30,840
Speaker 1: getting into the ring. I'm not sure exactly why that is.

139
00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:33,920
Speaker 1: Maybe it's, uh, it's the combination of the word fit,

140
00:07:34,080 --> 00:07:37,840
Speaker 1: which makes you think like muscly and survival, which makes

141
00:07:37,880 --> 00:07:41,160
Speaker 1: you think violent conflict. Yeah, and it's also it's also

142
00:07:41,280 --> 00:07:45,000
Speaker 1: used in in describing various conflicts among animals, I think.

143
00:07:45,960 --> 00:07:48,880
Speaker 1: But but yeah, it works on an individual level, to

144
00:07:48,880 --> 00:07:50,880
Speaker 1: a certain extent, you can say, all right, why did

145
00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:54,480
Speaker 1: Ray Mysterio when the two thousand six royal rumble, Yeah,

146
00:07:54,480 --> 00:07:56,160
Speaker 1: he did. But you can say, oh, well, he was

147
00:07:56,200 --> 00:07:59,680
Speaker 1: the fittest, he was the fastest, he was the most skilled, etcetera. Um,

148
00:07:59,760 --> 00:08:01,600
Speaker 1: you wait a minute, No, it wasn't that act. I mean,

149
00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:04,480
Speaker 1: this is like pro wrestling, right, well, I mean it.

150
00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:06,800
Speaker 1: It is an athletic fiction, to be sure, But within

151
00:08:06,920 --> 00:08:09,760
Speaker 1: the confines of the athletic fiction, he was the most skilled.

152
00:08:09,880 --> 00:08:11,720
Speaker 1: But then also, okay, so you're saying if we go

153
00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:14,000
Speaker 1: with the narratives, right, but even if you go outside

154
00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:16,119
Speaker 1: of the narrative, you could you could point to certain

155
00:08:16,160 --> 00:08:18,920
Speaker 1: things and say, well, based on the appeal of that

156
00:08:19,080 --> 00:08:23,200
Speaker 1: character and how much merchandise the character was selling, perhaps

157
00:08:23,200 --> 00:08:26,160
Speaker 1: other factors, sort of in the zeitgeist of pro wrestling

158
00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:28,520
Speaker 1: fandom at the time, he was the fittest and therefore

159
00:08:28,600 --> 00:08:31,720
Speaker 1: was selected to be the star of that attraction. This

160
00:08:31,760 --> 00:08:34,200
Speaker 1: makes me think that pro wrestling outcomes might be more

161
00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:38,040
Speaker 1: like real evolution, because there's actually a very complex, nuanced

162
00:08:38,080 --> 00:08:41,400
Speaker 1: network of factors going into who wins, including who's most

163
00:08:41,400 --> 00:08:44,480
Speaker 1: popular with the crowds, who's best at playing politics with

164
00:08:44,520 --> 00:08:47,960
Speaker 1: the internal you know, wrestling network people, who's best at

165
00:08:47,960 --> 00:08:51,680
Speaker 1: sucking up to the bosses or whatever, who's injured, who's not? Yeah,

166
00:08:51,920 --> 00:08:54,720
Speaker 1: just you know, random factors like that. Maybe who happened

167
00:08:54,720 --> 00:08:57,120
Speaker 1: to be standing around when somebody was looking for somebody

168
00:08:57,120 --> 00:08:58,880
Speaker 1: to talk to about who is going to win that time?

169
00:08:59,240 --> 00:09:01,600
Speaker 1: I don't know how it really works, but yeah, this

170
00:09:01,679 --> 00:09:04,959
Speaker 1: is more like evolution because actually all of these complex

171
00:09:05,080 --> 00:09:07,640
Speaker 1: environmental factors are coming into play and it's not just

172
00:09:07,800 --> 00:09:11,600
Speaker 1: about fighting and strength and who's bigger and stronger. Well,

173
00:09:11,640 --> 00:09:14,080
Speaker 1: let let me base it in a fiction that you're

174
00:09:14,080 --> 00:09:16,880
Speaker 1: a little more familiar with. One might ask why did

175
00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:21,000
Speaker 1: Connor McLeod outlast all the other immortals and eventually slay

176
00:09:21,040 --> 00:09:24,280
Speaker 1: the Kurgan to win the prize in nine six? Well,

177
00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:28,640
Speaker 1: I went sayings, because he just had that special kind

178
00:09:28,679 --> 00:09:32,840
Speaker 1: of magic. We're talking about the movie Highlander, of course,

179
00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:37,839
Speaker 1: and that's a uh, that's an impersonation of of the

180
00:09:38,080 --> 00:09:42,560
Speaker 1: wonderful actor Christopher Lamb there. But yeah, he past It's

181
00:09:42,679 --> 00:09:45,360
Speaker 1: it's a survival of the fittest in that movie, right,

182
00:09:45,840 --> 00:09:49,120
Speaker 1: this the best to be header wins. Yeah. Also he

183
00:09:49,200 --> 00:09:52,480
Speaker 1: had a friend, a girlfriend, whereas the kurgan did not,

184
00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:56,080
Speaker 1: And if I remember correctly, she hits the kurgan with

185
00:09:56,120 --> 00:09:57,880
Speaker 1: a pipe at one point. So you can make an

186
00:09:57,960 --> 00:10:00,199
Speaker 1: argument that it's not only like is he really good

187
00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:02,560
Speaker 1: at fighting with the sword, but can he build up

188
00:10:02,559 --> 00:10:05,120
Speaker 1: the kind of social relationships that are going to be

189
00:10:05,160 --> 00:10:08,960
Speaker 1: necessary to see him through to the end of the

190
00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:11,160
Speaker 1: the ordeal? But as you point out, I mean, these

191
00:10:11,200 --> 00:10:14,800
Speaker 1: are all questions where we're looking at like an individual

192
00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:18,920
Speaker 1: organism in an individual struggle, like some fight with another

193
00:10:19,600 --> 00:10:23,199
Speaker 1: you know, being of the same highlander category. Um. Where

194
00:10:23,400 --> 00:10:26,280
Speaker 1: As in reality, in biology, that's not usually the question

195
00:10:26,280 --> 00:10:28,440
Speaker 1: we're asking. We're not usually asking like why did this

196
00:10:28,520 --> 00:10:31,720
Speaker 1: snake win in a fight against this other snake? We're

197
00:10:31,760 --> 00:10:35,760
Speaker 1: usually asking something more like why does this animal have

198
00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:40,640
Speaker 1: this trait it has? Or where did this species come from? Yeah,

199
00:10:40,720 --> 00:10:43,000
Speaker 1: Like like when you start asking the same questions about

200
00:10:43,040 --> 00:10:46,080
Speaker 1: specific organisms that it's a lot more difficult, like why

201
00:10:46,080 --> 00:10:49,560
Speaker 1: did the orca emerges the ocean's top predator? Um. You know,

202
00:10:49,600 --> 00:10:51,560
Speaker 1: it's not as simple as like, oh, well, orca beet

203
00:10:51,679 --> 00:10:55,920
Speaker 1: beat megalodon or whatever you're you know, it's it's you

204
00:10:55,960 --> 00:10:59,640
Speaker 1: can't just use a thundernome analogy to really explain it away,

205
00:10:59,760 --> 00:11:03,120
Speaker 1: or why did why have earthworms thrive for six d

206
00:11:03,160 --> 00:11:06,800
Speaker 1: million years? Um? You you can't just point to a

207
00:11:06,840 --> 00:11:09,800
Speaker 1: tournament bracket and say, well, here's why you beat the Kurgan,

208
00:11:10,600 --> 00:11:12,839
Speaker 1: or or just even broader like like what is it

209
00:11:12,880 --> 00:11:16,920
Speaker 1: about birds? Why? What is it about why? What are birds?

210
00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:20,840
Speaker 1: What are birds? Nobody knows for sure, but yeah, I

211
00:11:20,840 --> 00:11:22,800
Speaker 1: mean I think it's pretty obvious. How you know, when

212
00:11:22,840 --> 00:11:25,600
Speaker 1: you start thinking about the phrase survival of the fittest,

213
00:11:25,640 --> 00:11:28,280
Speaker 1: you can see where it breaks down in any kind

214
00:11:28,320 --> 00:11:34,400
Speaker 1: of even half serious contemplation of species and why they exist,

215
00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:37,080
Speaker 1: why they've thrived, or why they ceased to thrive, why

216
00:11:37,160 --> 00:11:40,920
Speaker 1: they go extinct, Because we've seen some really fit organisms

217
00:11:40,960 --> 00:11:44,720
Speaker 1: over the years that have have simply gone away. Yeah,

218
00:11:44,840 --> 00:11:47,800
Speaker 1: was the tyrannosaurs rex not fit enough? Well, I mean

219
00:11:47,880 --> 00:11:50,000
Speaker 1: in one sense, of course it was not, But in

220
00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:53,000
Speaker 1: the sense that people most often conjure in their minds

221
00:11:53,040 --> 00:11:55,720
Speaker 1: when they think about being fit in an evolutionary sense,

222
00:11:56,120 --> 00:11:58,240
Speaker 1: like yeah, it was really big, it was strong, it

223
00:11:58,280 --> 00:12:00,240
Speaker 1: was a top predator. Yeah. And of course, as we've

224
00:12:00,240 --> 00:12:02,880
Speaker 1: discussed on the show before, how we often have this

225
00:12:02,880 --> 00:12:05,280
Speaker 1: this the wrong idea in our heads about what it

226
00:12:05,280 --> 00:12:07,600
Speaker 1: means to be a top predator. This is actually a

227
00:12:07,720 --> 00:12:11,880
Speaker 1: very fragile place in the ecosystem. Yeah, exactly, Uh and

228
00:12:11,920 --> 00:12:14,280
Speaker 1: it but but again, it's not like a simple like, oh,

229
00:12:14,320 --> 00:12:17,000
Speaker 1: well t rex won the royal rumble. Uh, you know

230
00:12:17,080 --> 00:12:19,920
Speaker 1: that's a secure position. No, it's it's not. Well, I

231
00:12:19,920 --> 00:12:21,360
Speaker 1: think we should take a quick break and then when

232
00:12:21,400 --> 00:12:24,000
Speaker 1: we come back, we can discuss the origins of this

233
00:12:24,120 --> 00:12:26,840
Speaker 1: phrase that we believe is somewhat unfortunate, and then we

234
00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:29,240
Speaker 1: can get into reasons why we think maybe it should

235
00:12:29,280 --> 00:12:36,120
Speaker 1: be maybe put by the wayside. Thank thank Alright, we're back.

236
00:12:36,120 --> 00:12:39,679
Speaker 1: So we're talking about evolution. We're talking about the phrase

237
00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:43,480
Speaker 1: survival of the fittest. So we're asking the question, now,

238
00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:46,520
Speaker 1: where did the phrase survival of the fittest come from

239
00:12:46,559 --> 00:12:49,360
Speaker 1: in the first place. It was actually not coined by

240
00:12:49,440 --> 00:12:53,280
Speaker 1: Charles Darwin. For a brief refresher, because we gotta look

241
00:12:53,320 --> 00:12:56,280
Speaker 1: back at Darwin's version of evolution. What did Darwin have

242
00:12:56,400 --> 00:12:59,320
Speaker 1: in mind when he published On the Origin of Species?

243
00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:01,679
Speaker 1: You know what was his theory? Well, his theory basically

244
00:13:01,760 --> 00:13:06,600
Speaker 1: has three components. I'd say, you've got heritability. You know

245
00:13:06,679 --> 00:13:10,040
Speaker 1: that offspring can inherit traits from their parents. You've got

246
00:13:10,160 --> 00:13:14,200
Speaker 1: random variation in those heritable traits, and then you've got

247
00:13:14,360 --> 00:13:18,360
Speaker 1: natural selection. So of course, the heritable variation happens when

248
00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:21,559
Speaker 1: individuals of the same species are born with little differences.

249
00:13:21,559 --> 00:13:24,920
Speaker 1: So you've got like earthworms that have little bristly hairs

250
00:13:24,960 --> 00:13:27,240
Speaker 1: on their segments, and they use these tiny hairs to

251
00:13:27,320 --> 00:13:30,920
Speaker 1: push themselves along through the soil. And maybe some earthworms

252
00:13:30,920 --> 00:13:33,840
Speaker 1: have longer hairs and maybe some have shorter hairs, and

253
00:13:33,920 --> 00:13:37,640
Speaker 1: these differences can be inherited from their parents after their

254
00:13:37,640 --> 00:13:40,040
Speaker 1: parents have earthworm sex. And you should look up what

255
00:13:40,120 --> 00:13:43,360
Speaker 1: earthworm sex looks like. By the way, it's it's pretty good. Uh.

256
00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:46,160
Speaker 1: They kind of like join join like uh, I don't

257
00:13:46,160 --> 00:13:48,000
Speaker 1: know which end it is actually one end of their

258
00:13:48,040 --> 00:13:50,600
Speaker 1: bodies to that little bulbous stripe in the middle of

259
00:13:50,640 --> 00:13:53,280
Speaker 1: their bodies, and then they go both ways. I make

260
00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:57,680
Speaker 1: sure you use a responsible image search application on that

261
00:13:57,559 --> 00:14:00,280
Speaker 1: in that one though. But yeah, So the idea would

262
00:14:00,280 --> 00:14:02,440
Speaker 1: be that these differences in the length of the hairs

263
00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:04,240
Speaker 1: could be in the genes, and thus they could be

264
00:14:04,280 --> 00:14:07,520
Speaker 1: passed on to offspring. It's a heritable variation, and then

265
00:14:07,600 --> 00:14:12,240
Speaker 1: natural selection occurs. When those little differences, those random heritable

266
00:14:12,320 --> 00:14:17,240
Speaker 1: variations interact with the environment to produce different levels of success.

267
00:14:17,280 --> 00:14:20,240
Speaker 1: So maybe shorter bristles are better for moving through one

268
00:14:20,280 --> 00:14:23,440
Speaker 1: type of soil, and maybe longer bristles are better from

269
00:14:23,480 --> 00:14:25,480
Speaker 1: for moving through a different type of soil, And this

270
00:14:25,600 --> 00:14:29,360
Speaker 1: leads to different soil environments favoring the flourishing of different

271
00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:32,760
Speaker 1: variations of earthworm. So maybe the soil in my backyard

272
00:14:33,440 --> 00:14:35,920
Speaker 1: makes it a lot easier to survive and reproduce and

273
00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:40,080
Speaker 1: have lots of little worm kids if you have longer hairs.

274
00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:41,960
Speaker 1: So the worms back there over time are going to

275
00:14:42,040 --> 00:14:45,560
Speaker 1: have longer and longer hairs. That mechanism there, where the

276
00:14:45,680 --> 00:14:49,000
Speaker 1: environment selects for that trade of longer hairs, is the

277
00:14:49,120 --> 00:14:52,560
Speaker 1: natural selection part. It's the way that the environment allows

278
00:14:52,600 --> 00:14:55,800
Speaker 1: some heritable traits to flourish more than others. Uh. And

279
00:14:55,840 --> 00:14:58,280
Speaker 1: of course, if differences like these build up over time

280
00:14:58,280 --> 00:15:01,560
Speaker 1: in different environments and the worms become more and more different,

281
00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:04,560
Speaker 1: you may eventually get two different species of worm that

282
00:15:04,600 --> 00:15:07,720
Speaker 1: are reproductively isolated. They don't mate with each other anymore.

283
00:15:07,960 --> 00:15:11,320
Speaker 1: This is of course the origin of species. Now to

284
00:15:11,360 --> 00:15:14,600
Speaker 1: come back to Thunderdome for just to motion. Um, you know,

285
00:15:14,640 --> 00:15:17,640
Speaker 1: I think it's also like, even if you're you're using

286
00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:21,880
Speaker 1: a thunderdome analogy, Um, the whole idea of like two

287
00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:25,520
Speaker 1: organisms enter one organism leaves with two species in our

288
00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:30,080
Speaker 1: one species leaves like that that also wouldn't hold up because, uh,

289
00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:33,040
Speaker 1: you know, for for obvious reasons, because we have speciation

290
00:15:33,160 --> 00:15:36,960
Speaker 1: like we've been discussing. But also different traits are sometimes

291
00:15:36,960 --> 00:15:39,800
Speaker 1: favored within a species. So an example that that comes

292
00:15:39,840 --> 00:15:43,120
Speaker 1: to mind here is the cuttlefish, where selection pressures will

293
00:15:43,120 --> 00:15:46,960
Speaker 1: favor seem to favor both aggressive, um large male cut

294
00:15:47,160 --> 00:15:50,400
Speaker 1: cuttle fish, but also smaller, sneakier male cuttle fish. So

295
00:15:50,440 --> 00:15:54,120
Speaker 1: there's not just one way to be a successful male cuttlefish, right,

296
00:15:54,520 --> 00:15:58,240
Speaker 1: They're like multiple niches even for the same one species. Right.

297
00:15:58,280 --> 00:16:01,480
Speaker 1: And in some cases you'll see eaciation occur where you know,

298
00:16:01,840 --> 00:16:05,160
Speaker 1: it essentially becomes two species and you have subspecies, etcetera.

299
00:16:05,560 --> 00:16:09,280
Speaker 1: But but yeah, it's it's it's limiting to really come

300
00:16:09,320 --> 00:16:12,640
Speaker 1: back to this notion of survival of the fittest, because again,

301
00:16:12,680 --> 00:16:15,640
Speaker 1: evolution is not thunder don't right. So to come back

302
00:16:15,720 --> 00:16:18,000
Speaker 1: to to Darwin and where this phrase came from, there's

303
00:16:18,040 --> 00:16:21,640
Speaker 1: a great online research tool from Cambridge University that allows

304
00:16:21,640 --> 00:16:24,720
Speaker 1: you to read Charles Darwin's letters, And I was reading

305
00:16:25,040 --> 00:16:27,960
Speaker 1: the exchange that introduced the phrase survival of the fittest

306
00:16:28,040 --> 00:16:31,360
Speaker 1: into the Darwinian canon. And this exchange took place in

307
00:16:31,440 --> 00:16:34,600
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six, and it was between Darwin and another

308
00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:39,400
Speaker 1: British naturalist named Alfred Russell Wallace. Now Wallace is often

309
00:16:39,440 --> 00:16:41,600
Speaker 1: noted as somebody who got the short end of the

310
00:16:41,640 --> 00:16:45,560
Speaker 1: stick in history because he independently developed a theory of

311
00:16:45,600 --> 00:16:48,840
Speaker 1: evolution by natural selection pretty much at the same time

312
00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:52,920
Speaker 1: Darwin did. But Darwin's work was ultimately the more influential,

313
00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:55,600
Speaker 1: and so Darwin is the one who gets remembered. And

314
00:16:55,640 --> 00:16:58,160
Speaker 1: I think one reason was that Darwin is not only

315
00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:00,160
Speaker 1: such a great scientist, but it's because he was a

316
00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:03,920
Speaker 1: writer and that made his work more more powerful and memorable.

317
00:17:04,520 --> 00:17:07,359
Speaker 1: But a huge part of Darwin's struggle in the scientific

318
00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:10,040
Speaker 1: world was after he had already made the bulk of

319
00:17:10,040 --> 00:17:14,800
Speaker 1: his observations and formulated his theory about where species come from.

320
00:17:14,840 --> 00:17:19,399
Speaker 1: His task then became primarily a science communication problem. This is,

321
00:17:19,440 --> 00:17:22,959
Speaker 1: you know, this is like the classic science communication problem.

322
00:17:23,240 --> 00:17:27,600
Speaker 1: How do you convince a skeptical audience that animal species

323
00:17:27,640 --> 00:17:30,119
Speaker 1: can be of course not just animals, all organisms. But

324
00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:32,760
Speaker 1: you know, this often focuses on animals because they're the

325
00:17:32,800 --> 00:17:36,040
Speaker 1: clearest example to us that how do you convince a

326
00:17:36,080 --> 00:17:39,720
Speaker 1: skeptical audience that animal species can be changed in form

327
00:17:39,760 --> 00:17:43,320
Speaker 1: by their natural environment and that organisms is diverse as

328
00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:47,040
Speaker 1: the bullfrog and the wolf might share a common ancestor,

329
00:17:47,680 --> 00:17:51,920
Speaker 1: especially given that it was like a really common theological

330
00:17:51,960 --> 00:17:55,359
Speaker 1: belief at the time that nature was a fixed hierarchy

331
00:17:55,520 --> 00:17:58,120
Speaker 1: with us at the top, in which species had been

332
00:17:58,160 --> 00:18:01,440
Speaker 1: created separately since the beginning, and Man had been granted

333
00:18:01,480 --> 00:18:03,560
Speaker 1: dominion over all of them. Yeah, I mean, that's the

334
00:18:04,200 --> 00:18:09,879
Speaker 1: classic Old Testament Garden of Eden scenario created Man created

335
00:18:09,880 --> 00:18:12,679
Speaker 1: all these animals, Man got to name the animals, but

336
00:18:12,800 --> 00:18:15,520
Speaker 1: that that hierarchy was in place from the beginning in

337
00:18:15,560 --> 00:18:19,400
Speaker 1: this theological understanding, whereas evolution reveals that this is something

338
00:18:19,400 --> 00:18:21,760
Speaker 1: we touched on recently on the show, that that the

339
00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:26,240
Speaker 1: human beings are just primates, uh, and primates that evolved

340
00:18:26,280 --> 00:18:29,000
Speaker 1: into their current state. Yeah, and just that all of

341
00:18:29,040 --> 00:18:32,280
Speaker 1: these other animals, they're not in fixed categories that have

342
00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:36,160
Speaker 1: been established since the beginning of time. They change constantly. Yeah,

343
00:18:36,200 --> 00:18:38,600
Speaker 1: it's kind of It's the difference between say, a divine

344
00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:41,439
Speaker 1: being saying yep, I got this this concept for a

345
00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:45,199
Speaker 1: frog here it is in fact here various takes on

346
00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:48,119
Speaker 1: the frog. But it's more like, I have this process

347
00:18:48,119 --> 00:18:51,440
Speaker 1: in mind, and uh, at one for a while, it's

348
00:18:51,440 --> 00:18:53,880
Speaker 1: going to match up with this frog thing, but it's

349
00:18:53,880 --> 00:18:56,159
Speaker 1: also going to go in a million different together. Like it,

350
00:18:56,160 --> 00:18:59,680
Speaker 1: it's totally out of keeping with this anthropomorphic of you

351
00:19:00,160 --> 00:19:03,440
Speaker 1: of how nature should come together. Yeah, And to be fair,

352
00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:05,720
Speaker 1: there are tons of people you know today or theistic

353
00:19:05,760 --> 00:19:08,800
Speaker 1: evolution as people who believe in, you know, some form

354
00:19:08,840 --> 00:19:11,159
Speaker 1: of God or religion and also believe in evolution, and

355
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:14,560
Speaker 1: many of them believe something like the latter thing you said. Yeah,

356
00:19:14,560 --> 00:19:16,240
Speaker 1: I mean you know, because yeah, I think it's the

357
00:19:16,240 --> 00:19:22,119
Speaker 1: difference between expecting a divine being to approach a creation

358
00:19:22,200 --> 00:19:25,120
Speaker 1: in the same way that we approach approach making pottery.

359
00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:29,360
Speaker 1: Whereas obviously a god would not need to our godess

360
00:19:29,359 --> 00:19:32,240
Speaker 1: would not need to use that could be limited by

361
00:19:32,280 --> 00:19:35,280
Speaker 1: those kind of skills, like the tools that a god

362
00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:38,320
Speaker 1: would use would be something on the lines of on

363
00:19:38,359 --> 00:19:41,560
Speaker 1: the order of of of evolution and natural selection like

364
00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:44,600
Speaker 1: and and of course we should at times have trouble

365
00:19:44,880 --> 00:19:49,000
Speaker 1: fully fitting those tools into our own heads, right, right, So,

366
00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:51,439
Speaker 1: so you'r Darwin in the eighteen sixties, how do you

367
00:19:51,520 --> 00:19:54,960
Speaker 1: convince this skeptical audience? Obviously a big part of appealing

368
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:57,600
Speaker 1: to a skeptical audience is choosing the right words to

369
00:19:57,640 --> 00:20:00,679
Speaker 1: convey your meaning in a way that isn't confusing. So

370
00:20:00,880 --> 00:20:03,879
Speaker 1: if you're Charles Starwin, what words should you choose to

371
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:08,560
Speaker 1: communicate the mechanism by which evolution takes place? And of

372
00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:11,880
Speaker 1: course Darwin, we know, chose the phrase natural selection. It's

373
00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:13,800
Speaker 1: actually there in the full title of the book On

374
00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:17,160
Speaker 1: the Origin of Species by means of natural selection, as

375
00:20:17,200 --> 00:20:21,560
Speaker 1: in nature or the environment selects certain traits to become

376
00:20:21,600 --> 00:20:25,400
Speaker 1: more abundant by allowing organisms with those traits to survive

377
00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:28,639
Speaker 1: and have more offspring. And in On the Origin of Species,

378
00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:33,199
Speaker 1: Darwin compares and contrasts the process of natural selection to

379
00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:36,440
Speaker 1: the process of artificial selection, like the breeding of dogs

380
00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:38,760
Speaker 1: and horses. So you want to make a dog with

381
00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:41,919
Speaker 1: a really short snout, well, you can try to just

382
00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:45,720
Speaker 1: keep breeding the shortest snouted dogs together, and through the

383
00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:49,640
Speaker 1: generations their offspring will probably inherit shorter and shorter snouts.

384
00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:53,480
Speaker 1: Natural selection is like this, except it's the natural environment

385
00:20:53,520 --> 00:20:56,440
Speaker 1: that does the breeding rather than a human. So, for instance,

386
00:20:56,480 --> 00:21:01,199
Speaker 1: the pug is is a product the dog breed. Pug

387
00:21:01,280 --> 00:21:04,840
Speaker 1: is a is a product of artificial selection, right, and uh,

388
00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:07,200
Speaker 1: and and specialized breeding. It's hard to imagine a pug

389
00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:09,800
Speaker 1: being created by nature. I know that's kind of the challenge, right,

390
00:21:09,920 --> 00:21:13,240
Speaker 1: But then again, our imaginations are so limited they are. Yeah,

391
00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:16,720
Speaker 1: conceivably there could be some sort of an environment that

392
00:21:16,840 --> 00:21:21,040
Speaker 1: demands the form of the pug. I have extreme difficulty

393
00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:25,760
Speaker 1: imagining it, but conceivably it could exist, Right, So I

394
00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:28,280
Speaker 1: want to admit that I'm a fan of the phrase

395
00:21:28,359 --> 00:21:31,000
Speaker 1: natural selection. I think it is actually a very good

396
00:21:31,040 --> 00:21:34,880
Speaker 1: phrase to describe what's happening here. Obviously, there is there

397
00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:37,480
Speaker 1: is some level of metaphor going on, because what we're

398
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:42,720
Speaker 1: really talking about is a process that that just unfolds

399
00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:46,520
Speaker 1: and way almost tautologically. It's like the traits that give

400
00:21:46,680 --> 00:21:49,960
Speaker 1: rise to organisms that have the most offspring become the

401
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:53,000
Speaker 1: most numerous. You know, when you phrase it like that,

402
00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:56,240
Speaker 1: that's not that is accurate, but that's not really catchy,

403
00:21:56,320 --> 00:21:58,680
Speaker 1: you know. Um, So you've gotta have a you've gotta

404
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:00,520
Speaker 1: have a short phrase that's the sink to that you

405
00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:03,040
Speaker 1: can refer to. And I think natural selection is a

406
00:22:03,040 --> 00:22:07,240
Speaker 1: great metaphor for saying how that happens it um it Also,

407
00:22:07,520 --> 00:22:09,399
Speaker 1: I think it's this is maybe just be sort of

408
00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:14,600
Speaker 1: accident over over the years. But it also like when

409
00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:16,960
Speaker 1: you hear people that are opposed to evolution or or

410
00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:19,960
Speaker 1: speak out against it and have some other uh, you know,

411
00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:24,040
Speaker 1: generally um, you know, religious view of reality that they

412
00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:28,080
Speaker 1: want to push forward. Instead, generally they're they're they're speaking

413
00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:31,320
Speaker 1: out against evolution. They're not speaking out against natural selection,

414
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:33,560
Speaker 1: or at least natural selection is not it's not not

415
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:36,280
Speaker 1: the wording that's going on the you know, the protest

416
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:38,960
Speaker 1: signs or the bumper stick or whatever it may be. Well,

417
00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:41,919
Speaker 1: a common thing you'll actually hear from some creationists is

418
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 1: that they attack macro evolution but not micro evolution. That's

419
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:49,680
Speaker 1: not a real distinction that's made in science much um.

420
00:22:49,720 --> 00:22:52,480
Speaker 1: But basically I think they're that's just saying like, well, yeah,

421
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 1: you know, species, they might do you know that we're

422
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:58,120
Speaker 1: not so committed to the idea of a fixed hierarchy anymore.

423
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:02,720
Speaker 1: There's widespread acknowledgement I think that species do change. Uh

424
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:05,400
Speaker 1: there's just like more of a rejection of the idea

425
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 1: of common descent and the large view of evolution. Right,

426
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:10,720
Speaker 1: It's it's more it's opposition to some of the key

427
00:23:10,760 --> 00:23:16,399
Speaker 1: take homes, which in my opinion, it's generally squabbling over nothing.

428
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:18,720
Speaker 1: You know. Again, it's coming down to like like, really,

429
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:21,800
Speaker 1: this this, this couldn't be the tools utilized by a

430
00:23:21,840 --> 00:23:24,679
Speaker 1: divine being. Uh So, I I failed to see the

431
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 1: problem most of the time. I guess it depends on

432
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:31,160
Speaker 1: the god, right, uh So. So there were obviously some

433
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:34,840
Speaker 1: problems with the phrase natural selection. Uh of course we've

434
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 1: acknowledged it as sort of a metaphor. And this is

435
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:40,399
Speaker 1: where Alfred Russell Wallace comes in, and that correspondence I

436
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:44,560
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. So by eighteen sixty six Wallace was of

437
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:46,760
Speaker 1: course a supporter of Darwin's and he was trying to

438
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 1: help him make his public case. And in July eighteen

439
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:53,159
Speaker 1: sixty six Wallace wrote a letter to Darwin giving some

440
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:57,199
Speaker 1: examples of how the phrase natural selection was giving fire

441
00:23:57,320 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 1: to his critics. So I'm going to read a select

442
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: from this letter. He writes, My dear Darwin, I have

443
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:07,200
Speaker 1: been so repeatedly struck by the utter inability of numbers

444
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:10,359
Speaker 1: of intelligent persons to see clearly or at all, the

445
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:14,240
Speaker 1: self acting and necessary effects of natural selection, that I

446
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:17,040
Speaker 1: am led to conclude that the term itself in your

447
00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:20,040
Speaker 1: mode of illustrating it, however clear and beautiful to many

448
00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 1: of us, are yet not the best adapted to impress

449
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 1: it on the general naturalist public. The last two cases

450
00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:30,879
Speaker 1: of this misunderstanding are first the article on Darwin and

451
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 1: his Teachings in the last Quarterly Journal of Science, which,

452
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 1: though very well written and on the whole appreciative, yet

453
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:40,960
Speaker 1: concludes with a charge of something like blindness in your

454
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:45,360
Speaker 1: not seeing that quote. Natural selection requires the constant watching

455
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 1: of an intelligent chooser like man selection to which you

456
00:24:49,400 --> 00:24:53,280
Speaker 1: so often compare it and uh Second in Yen A's

457
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:57,240
Speaker 1: work on the Materialism of the Present Day, reviewed in

458
00:24:57,359 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 1: last Saturday's Reader by an extract from which I see

459
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 1: that he considers your weak point to be that you

460
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:06,600
Speaker 1: do not see that quote. Thought and direction are essential

461
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:10,200
Speaker 1: to the action of natural selection. The same objection has

462
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:12,679
Speaker 1: been made a score of times by your chief opponents,

463
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:15,920
Speaker 1: and I have heard it as often stated myself in conversation,

464
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: so that the key criticism here is, if you say

465
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 1: natural selection, it implies that there is a select tour, right,

466
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:25,879
Speaker 1: there's somebody doing selecting. Now, personally, I'm not sure all

467
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:31,199
Speaker 1: of these objections actually arise from genuine confusion created by

468
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: the phrase natural selection. I mean, I think we know

469
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:37,639
Speaker 1: from our experiences with this subject even today, that sometimes

470
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 1: there are just cases of people feeling compelled to lodge

471
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 1: their theological objections and finding any little foothold they can

472
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:47,359
Speaker 1: get to do that. So it might not be in

473
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 1: every case that the phrase is actually confusing people, but

474
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,680
Speaker 1: I can see maybe in some cases it is. Um

475
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:57,640
Speaker 1: But Wallace has a suggestion here. He says, quote now,

476
00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: I think this arises almost entirely from your choice of

477
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:04,919
Speaker 1: the term natural selection and so constantly comparing it in

478
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:08,680
Speaker 1: its effects to man's selection. Also to your so frequently

479
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:14,280
Speaker 1: personifying nature as quote selecting, as preferring, as seeking only

480
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:17,159
Speaker 1: the good of the species. To the few, this is

481
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 1: as clear as daylight and beautifully suggestive, but to many

482
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:23,680
Speaker 1: it is evidently a stumbling block. I wish, therefore to

483
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: suggest to you the possibility of entirely avoiding this source

484
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:30,280
Speaker 1: of misconception in your great work. If not now too late,

485
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: and also in many future editions of the origin. And

486
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:36,200
Speaker 1: I think it may be done without difficulty and very

487
00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 1: effectually by adopting Spenser's term, which he generally uses in

488
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:44,960
Speaker 1: preference to natural selection, viz. Survival of the fittest. So

489
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:48,439
Speaker 1: here's where it comes from. Alfred Russell Wallace suggests it

490
00:26:48,520 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 1: in this letter, and later he writes that quote survival

491
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 1: of the fittest rather than of those who are less fit,

492
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 1: could not possibly be denied or misunderstood. Oh boy, uh

493
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 1: so I think we we have made the case that

494
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 1: it can definitely be denied and can definitely be misunderstood.

495
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 1: Now he brings up the point of the criticism of

496
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:13,400
Speaker 1: personification of of evolution, which happens a lot. I mean,

497
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 1: we've talked about this on the show before, because I

498
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 1: in the past, like we've we've had listeners right in

499
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 1: and say, I think you're personifying evolution a little bit

500
00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:24,920
Speaker 1: in that episode, And at times I feel like it's

501
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 1: you can't help but do it to a certain extent

502
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 1: if you're trying to understand some of these concepts and

503
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,399
Speaker 1: communicate them to a general audience and talk in a

504
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:36,640
Speaker 1: non laborious way like it is possible to talk about

505
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:40,439
Speaker 1: evolution without personifying it, but to do so you often

506
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:44,159
Speaker 1: have to speak in a way that is really it

507
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 1: sounds obnoxious, right, and it's it's actually kind of comforting

508
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: to see that himself. Uh, you know, encountered criticism for

509
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 1: personifying evolution. Um. That I want to stress though, that

510
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,439
Speaker 1: I think it is important to understand the you know,

511
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: the risk of doing so. Yeah, you know, so I'm

512
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:05,679
Speaker 1: not saying just blindly stumble forward and personify like a

513
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:08,719
Speaker 1: mad god and discussing a natural selection. But on the

514
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: other hand, like we're inevitably going to do it, um,

515
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: and hopefully we'll just always keeping in mind the risk

516
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 1: of doing so. Right. So, who is this Spencer guy

517
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: that the phrase survival of the fittest comes from? Well,

518
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:24,919
Speaker 1: Herbert Spencer. Uh So he coined the term survival of

519
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 1: the fittest in eighteen sixty four installment of a book

520
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 1: that was called Principles of Biology. He was an English

521
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: philosopher who is now best remembered as a sort of

522
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: radical individualist. And we'll come back to more on Spencer

523
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 1: a bit later. I think Spencer himself is part of

524
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: the problem with the legacy of the phrase survival of

525
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:47,959
Speaker 1: the fittest. But anyway, in this letter at least Darwin

526
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 1: replied gratefully. He said he thought there was merit to

527
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: Wallace's suggestion, and in on the Origin of Species of

528
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: so it had already been through several editions, but the

529
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:00,479
Speaker 1: next edition that he could add this too was the

530
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 1: fifth edition, and he did. He added several instances of

531
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: the phrase survival of the fittest to a few chapters

532
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 1: of the book, and he also used it in some

533
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: other writings. And personally, I think Darwin made a mistake here.

534
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 1: I think natural selection, which is again in some sense

535
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: of metaphor, is a perfectly good expression. I think he

536
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: explained it well in his original writing. And I think

537
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: a lot of the confusion about selection necessitating a conscious

538
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:29,480
Speaker 1: selector can't really be made in good faith if you've

539
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: read and full about the mechanisms in play in evolution

540
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: and so so, yeah, I I think he should have

541
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 1: stuck with natural selection. And so maybe we should take

542
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 1: another break and then we come back. We can discuss

543
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 1: some reasons why we think maybe survival of the fittest

544
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:51,440
Speaker 1: is a phrase to be avoided. Than alright, we're back,

545
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 1: So we're in the middle of the Battle Royale. Here

546
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: there we have. We have two competitors left in the ring,

547
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 1: one natural selection other, uh, survival of the fittest. Which

548
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 1: will prevail? Which one is going to stay in the ring?

549
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 1: Which one is going over the top rope? All right? Yeah,

550
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:08,720
Speaker 1: So I think we should discuss a number of reasons

551
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 1: why this phrase survival of the fittest is not the

552
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 1: best way to talk about evolution and how it works.

553
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 1: And one reason is something we've already alluded to, but

554
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 1: I think deserves a lot of emphasis. That is number one,

555
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: It creates the false impression that evolution is only driven

556
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: by survival. Now, we talk a lot on the show

557
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 1: about various forms of sexual selection, selection in uh parenting,

558
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 1: in you know, investments made an offspring. In fact, survival

559
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 1: is just one piece of the natural selection equation, and

560
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 1: in fact, sometimes survival is even sacrificed for evolutionary benefits. Uh.

561
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:47,760
Speaker 1: There are all these other traits that are favored by

562
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: natural selection that are either neutral in terms of survival

563
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: or even come directly at its expense. I think about

564
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: the males of some arachneid species, like the relatives of

565
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 1: the widow spiders who willingly offer themselves as meals to

566
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 1: the female that they just made it with, So not

567
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 1: like they happen to get eaten after mating. They just

568
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 1: go right to her mouth there like here, eat me now.

569
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 1: And you know, the idea is that there is probably

570
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 1: an evolutionary tradeoff in play there that after the male

571
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 1: has made it, he can't really do much else and

572
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: so he's best serving as fuel or food for his

573
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 1: mate and his offspring. Yeah, I mean, you think of

574
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 1: against survival the fittest doesn't really apply to an ant colony,

575
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 1: you know, or at least to the individuals. And then

576
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:38,760
Speaker 1: likewise you think of say, um, you know, the males

577
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 1: of of certain rodent species that like mate until they die,

578
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:47,560
Speaker 1: or or a mother octopus that that essentially perishes after uh,

579
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:53,720
Speaker 1: you know, successfully laying her eggs. This these examples run

580
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: calendar to the notion of of survival of the fittest. Now,

581
00:31:57,000 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 1: survival of the fittest, you could say, in the sense

582
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 1: still works if it's only in the sense of a metaphor. Again,

583
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:05,880
Speaker 1: so like you could say, well, what it really means

584
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 1: is the ability of a species to have a member

585
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: of a species to have subsequent generations of its offspring

586
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: survive and do well. But then you're just you're you're

587
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 1: changing all the words there, and survival of the fittest

588
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: it implies something else. Yeah, it tends to imply like

589
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: there is a template right for the for the fittest,

590
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: like this was the perfect skunk, So of course the

591
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 1: perfect skunk, uh, that is the one that went on

592
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 1: to breed. Well, that's another reason I actually wanted to mention.

593
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 1: So maybe the well, we'll come back to that. We'll

594
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: come back to that one. So that's the first thing.

595
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 1: Evolution is clearly not just driven by survival. There are

596
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 1: tons of traits and behaviors in the in the natural

597
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: world that are not just about an organism not dying.

598
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 1: They're about all kinds of things related to having healthy

599
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,800
Speaker 1: generations of offspring. The next big thing, and I think

600
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: this might be the biggest one, is that I think

601
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 1: the phrase survival of the fittest contributes to what I'm

602
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:03,320
Speaker 1: going to call all bigger batterism. There might already be

603
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 1: a term for this out there, but I'm going to

604
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: call it bigger batterism. This is the belief that evolution

605
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 1: always favors organisms becoming leveled up in an almost video

606
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 1: game sense. Over time, bigger, faster, stronger, more intelligent, with

607
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: more keen perception, all of their abilities are going up.

608
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Yeah? Absolutely now, And this makes

609
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: sense in terms of our various movie franchises, like the

610
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:31,360
Speaker 1: villain always has to be a little, you know, step

611
00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: above the previous villain. The superheroes weapons have to get

612
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: a little better with each installment. Right, Oh my god,

613
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: how many like superhero movie villains say something like I

614
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: am the next link in the evolutionary chain or something,

615
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:47,360
Speaker 1: you know, they're They're like, I'm evolved more, which means

616
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: like I'm leveled up and stronger and more powerful. Right.

617
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 1: I mean this also ties in the the the idea

618
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 1: or the you know, the I guess, the false idea

619
00:33:56,680 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 1: of the evolution, as if evolution is all ways, uh,

620
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: if it's it's it's directed in a scent of a

621
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 1: mountain and then to go down the mountain. On the

622
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,800
Speaker 1: other side would be the evolution, where it's it's evolution

623
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:14,919
Speaker 1: no matter which direction you're going in. Yeah, exactly. Even

624
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 1: when we're focusing primarily on the survival aspect of natural selection,

625
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:22,399
Speaker 1: this is not always the case that organisms gain more

626
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 1: strength and more speed and more perceptive powers and all

627
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:30,400
Speaker 1: this over time. Uh. And evolution is about becoming adapted

628
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 1: to your environment and thriving in your environment. And so

629
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:36,680
Speaker 1: there are tons of examples in the natural world of

630
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 1: animals becoming smaller, becoming slower, using less energy, losing capabilities

631
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 1: and powers that even or even whole organs that their

632
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 1: ancestors had. And if that that looks to us like

633
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 1: some kind of d motion or leveling down, but in

634
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:54,759
Speaker 1: fact it's just an organism becoming better adapted to its

635
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:58,439
Speaker 1: environment and the stresses encountered there in right, I mean,

636
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a poisonous concept, even bringing to

637
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:03,440
Speaker 1: your own life, right, I mean, because then you're just like, oh,

638
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 1: I'm leveling up, leveling up year after year, year after year.

639
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:09,319
Speaker 1: And I guess if you can maintain that kind of

640
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: trajectory in your life and you remain happy and healthy

641
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,359
Speaker 1: with it, I guess that's one thing. But I don't

642
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: think that's necessarily the case. Uh. I think most of us,

643
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:19,879
Speaker 1: a lot of us probably find that, yeah, leveling up

644
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 1: from year to year or whatever that even means in

645
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 1: in the shape of a human life is not necessarily

646
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 1: a sustainable vision for yourself. Yeah, And there's so many

647
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:33,800
Speaker 1: counter examples to the bigger batterism that it's you almost

648
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: don't even need to mention them because they're so numerous.

649
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 1: A great one that's very common is like island dwarfism

650
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:43,279
Speaker 1: or insular dwarfism in in animals, this is where you

651
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:46,359
Speaker 1: tend to find that larger animals that become isolated as

652
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 1: a population on an island tend to get smaller over time.

653
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 1: Why would that be. Don't they want to be bigger

654
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:54,520
Speaker 1: and stronger. Don't you always want to get bigger so

655
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:56,759
Speaker 1: you can dominate more other animals and be at the

656
00:35:56,800 --> 00:35:59,839
Speaker 1: top and be big, you know. No, it's because there's

657
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: an energy economy on islands, and that on an island

658
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 1: you're probably exposed to a lot less foraging resources and food,

659
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:09,280
Speaker 1: and so actually it pays to have a smaller body

660
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:12,400
Speaker 1: that requires you to eat less. Yeah. So, like, if

661
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:16,319
Speaker 1: you're if you're reading about say, pygmy mammoths, uh, like,

662
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: don't don't feel sorry for the mammoth. Like, this is

663
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: a survival story. This is a success story. Uh, this

664
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:26,840
Speaker 1: is not a defeat now, well, of course, well, the

665
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 1: mammoth's did go extend eventually. But no. But on the

666
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 1: other hand, like the mammoth was extremely successful for a

667
00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:35,759
Speaker 1: very long time. And actually the mammoths that survived the

668
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: longest were the ones that were insular dwarf is um mammoths.

669
00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 1: The mammoths that survived until just about four thousand years ago,

670
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:45,800
Speaker 1: I think we're the ones that were on Wrangle Island

671
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: in the Arctic Ocean, woolly mammoths that that. I think

672
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 1: that was the last place on Earth where mammoths had survived.

673
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 1: Another great example is cave fish blindness. Uh so you

674
00:36:56,719 --> 00:36:59,799
Speaker 1: might think, oh, how could why would evolution take a

675
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,359
Speaker 1: way a sense? Shouldn't it just always be adding more

676
00:37:02,400 --> 00:37:05,440
Speaker 1: and more powerful senses to make you more No. Sometimes

677
00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 1: fish populations that live on the surface in places where

678
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 1: there's light they migrate down into subterranean environments where it's

679
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:15,799
Speaker 1: totally dark, and then they lose their sight. Yeah yeah,

680
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:20,879
Speaker 1: again over generations, generations through natural selection. But uh yeah,

681
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 1: I mean it's not a part of this is Gollum's fault.

682
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 1: Right In modern audiences, we we think of Gollum Sniegel

683
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: and we think, oh, it's this poor, this poor creature.

684
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 1: Look what it has become. Well, it's become great, but

685
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:36,319
Speaker 1: it's thriving in its environment. Put anything else down there

686
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:38,840
Speaker 1: and it would it would die instantly. And this is

687
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:41,120
Speaker 1: you know, in what would be for it a desert

688
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: of scarce resources. Uh. And there are a couple of

689
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:48,239
Speaker 1: hypotheses about why this happens. One one classic hypothesis is

690
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 1: that site and other senses, of course, are costly to

691
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:53,920
Speaker 1: the body, and if you live in a completely dark environment,

692
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,319
Speaker 1: fishes that's been less and less of their energy on

693
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: site are going to have an advantage because they can

694
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:01,240
Speaker 1: use that energy elsewhere, maybe making more eggs or something.

695
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 1: But then another hypothesis I was just reading about in

696
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:08,760
Speaker 1: a paper is that site is lost because the fish

697
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 1: that can see eventually find a way to leave the cave.

698
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:16,360
Speaker 1: Think about that. That that actually is an evolutionary scenario.

699
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 1: The fish that can see eventually can find a source

700
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:21,280
Speaker 1: of light, swim toward it, and eggs at the cave,

701
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: but blind fish can't do that, so they stay there

702
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 1: in the cave, and by being there they become an

703
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 1: isolated population with these mating opportunities, and they can mate

704
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 1: with one another, and this counts as a form of

705
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: natural selection, even though it consists of an adaptation to

706
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 1: the environment that's entirely based on the loss of a

707
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 1: physical capacity. So another way of looking at is that

708
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 1: these species they've thrived so long in in this uh,

709
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:50,400
Speaker 1: this this deep the environment, that they they no longer

710
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: have the capability of thriving elsewhere. You know, there there,

711
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 1: they're obligate darkness dwellers now. But the fact that they're

712
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 1: stuck down there, in a way, it works out to

713
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 1: their advantage because that's their domain. Uh. And the fishes

714
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: that that come in and that can that have sight,

715
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 1: we'll just try to leave. Uh. So another thing is

716
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:14,640
Speaker 1: that I think there's a big problem with the phrase

717
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 1: survival of the fittest because it is historically associated with

718
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:22,480
Speaker 1: social Darwinist ethics that do not follow from the science

719
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:26,399
Speaker 1: of evolutionary biology. Uh, you know, and I hate when

720
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:29,160
Speaker 1: people make this comparison. You know, evolutionary biology is a

721
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 1: descriptive science. It's not a prescriptive philosophy. It tells you

722
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:37,759
Speaker 1: what happens in nature and how species arise and why

723
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 1: they possess the traits they have. It doesn't tell you

724
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 1: how to live your life. For what's a good way

725
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 1: to arrange society and I think unfortunately, there's like this

726
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:50,520
Speaker 1: historical class of sort of the the cutthroat capitalist type.

727
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,680
Speaker 1: You know, Andrew Carnegie was a big subscriber of this guy,

728
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 1: Herbert Spencer, who coined the term survival of the fittest.

729
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 1: Uh and and Spencer, of course, you know, he would

730
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: go on to use the phrase in a very different

731
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 1: context than what Darwin intended when he took a liking

732
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:07,239
Speaker 1: to it. Darwin of course hoped it would remove any

733
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:11,759
Speaker 1: confusion caused about the metaphor of natural selection. Spencer took

734
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 1: survival of the fittest to be more than a description

735
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:18,360
Speaker 1: of what happens in nature, but something like a political credo.

736
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:22,320
Speaker 1: You know. He believed in lassa fair economics and minimal government,

737
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 1: and believe the government should not intervene on behalf of

738
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:28,719
Speaker 1: the poor because it's against the laws of nature. This

739
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:33,000
Speaker 1: is not something that's implied by evolutionary biology or by science,

740
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:36,239
Speaker 1: and it's it's a real abuse of the science to

741
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 1: imply any connection there. Yeah, I mean it comes back

742
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 1: to just it's like the the someone in an office

743
00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:44,720
Speaker 1: place using survival of the fittest as like free license

744
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:47,480
Speaker 1: to be awful exactly. Yeah, the Survival of the fittest.

745
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 1: You know, it's just science. That's why I can be

746
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:52,040
Speaker 1: a jerk. Yeah, but you ate my yogurt that had

747
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:56,080
Speaker 1: my name, right. I mean, I think so called social

748
00:40:56,200 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 1: Darwinism is a quintessential example of the appeal to nature

749
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 1: or fallacy, the idea that because something would happen naturally

750
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:07,439
Speaker 1: according to some natural principle, then therefore we should make

751
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:10,280
Speaker 1: that thing happen, or we should want that thing to happen.

752
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:13,839
Speaker 1: It's almost like believing that, you know, our knowledge about

753
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:17,000
Speaker 1: the science of gravity compels us to push people off ledges.

754
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: You know, it just it doesn't make any sense or

755
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 1: based on previous episodes we've done on cannibalism and the

756
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 1: basic like economics of cannibalism in natural environment, that we

757
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 1: should have like cannibal Wednesdays here at the office post

758
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:32,400
Speaker 1: with human flesh is is feasted upon because hey, it's it.

759
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:34,400
Speaker 1: It happens in nature all the time. Aren't we a

760
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:38,280
Speaker 1: part of nature? Shouldn't we have cannibalism Wednesdays? Yeah? Okay,

761
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 1: two more really quick points. One more is that I

762
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:43,920
Speaker 1: think a problem with Survival of the Fittest is that

763
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 1: it places emphasis on the individual in evolution rather than

764
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:50,920
Speaker 1: on other places, like say on the gene. You know,

765
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 1: for decades there have been all these arguments in evolutionary

766
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 1: biology about what level it makes most sense to talk

767
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:00,319
Speaker 1: about the selection of natural selection happening at you know,

768
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:04,120
Speaker 1: is it favoring individuals like this discrete blob of cells,

769
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:07,319
Speaker 1: Jeffrey the moose or Jeffrey the oak tree. Uh, that

770
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:10,560
Speaker 1: doesn't always make some sense because in some organisms, like

771
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 1: the individual and its reproductive strategies are less discrete concepts

772
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:17,439
Speaker 1: than in say, large mammals. And then there's a whole

773
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:19,799
Speaker 1: argument about whether or not it makes sense to say

774
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: that groups of organisms can be selected on mass. We're

775
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:24,840
Speaker 1: not going to do that debate today. One of the

776
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:27,640
Speaker 1: arguments that made Richard Dawkins famous was when you know,

777
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:29,759
Speaker 1: in the seventies, when he was advocating the idea that

778
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 1: it's each individual gene or gene complex that's the primary

779
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:37,080
Speaker 1: unit of selection and evolution, and that genes can be

780
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:40,800
Speaker 1: selected independently. Um, you know, we're not going to settle

781
00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:43,440
Speaker 1: this debate about levels of selection today, but I do

782
00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 1: think it's worth acknowledging that they're clearly cases where where

783
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:50,840
Speaker 1: genes are what's being selected, at least in some instances.

784
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:53,399
Speaker 1: We talked about the case of green beer genes and

785
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 1: like organisms that that have a single gene or gene

786
00:42:57,120 --> 00:43:02,200
Speaker 1: complex that appears to uh be noticeable in other carriers

787
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 1: and and makes them treat each other nice. It's like,

788
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:06,719
Speaker 1: I see you have that gene that gives you a

789
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 1: green beard, I'm going to be special to you. And

790
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: then the one last point is that I think survival

791
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 1: of the fittest does a phrase suggests evolutionary changes? Uh,

792
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 1: We're we sort of already talked about this. Are improvements

793
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 1: that exist along a single continuum. Uh. You know, like

794
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 1: if you ever heard the idea that humans are the

795
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:28,920
Speaker 1: most evolved animal, it suggests the idea that all organisms

796
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:31,800
Speaker 1: exist in a kind of single arena or along a

797
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:36,480
Speaker 1: single line of development, and evolution means gaining power over

798
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:39,520
Speaker 1: all the others. And that's mostly just not true and

799
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 1: not a good metaphor and doesn't really make sense. Different

800
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 1: species compete for different ecological niches. It doesn't make sense

801
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:48,719
Speaker 1: to talk about any one species being more evolved than

802
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:51,160
Speaker 1: any other one. That's nonsense, right, I Mean, it's like

803
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:54,880
Speaker 1: talking about an intelligence of a given species. How smart

804
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:56,840
Speaker 1: is a is a dog versus a cat, Well, in

805
00:43:56,880 --> 00:43:59,279
Speaker 1: either case it's as smart as it needs to be,

806
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:01,719
Speaker 1: you know. I mean this is when you're talking about

807
00:44:01,719 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: this the general intelligence of the species. Um. Yeah, you

808
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:07,960
Speaker 1: get into this, you fall into this trap of then

809
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:12,320
Speaker 1: thinking of of the human mind as being this privileged brain,

810
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 1: as the human condition being a privileged condition, and then

811
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:19,280
Speaker 1: ultimately that we're standing apart from nature, that we're standing

812
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:23,280
Speaker 1: apart from natural selection and that and even more extreme

813
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:26,800
Speaker 1: forms that we are not, you know, at subject to

814
00:44:26,840 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 1: the same risks such as the you know, the risk

815
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:32,520
Speaker 1: of extinction. Uh, whereas in reality we we we are

816
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:36,280
Speaker 1: at risk of extinction. You could argue, I think quite

817
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 1: firmly that we're working very hard at at making ourselves extinct.

818
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:43,919
Speaker 1: If you're gonna make the case that something is more

819
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:47,279
Speaker 1: evolved than something else, I think clearly the microbial life

820
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 1: is the most evolved thing on Earth because it's been

821
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:53,360
Speaker 1: here the longest, right, But it has been evolving the

822
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:55,840
Speaker 1: longest period of time. But people, I think they just

823
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:59,880
Speaker 1: generally mean by more evolved, they mean like more intelligent,

824
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 1: to more uh, you know, able to command more of

825
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:07,560
Speaker 1: the energy within its ecological Nauge were focusing on various

826
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:09,640
Speaker 1: types like you like, say, um, you know the human

827
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: hand and it's a it's usefulness in um in the

828
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:17,360
Speaker 1: fine inflation of tools and uh and and whatnot. You know, Um,

829
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: yeah you can. But again it all comes down to

830
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:22,160
Speaker 1: what is the environment of that creature. If we suddenly

831
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 1: had crab claws and crabs had human hands, well I

832
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,879
Speaker 1: don't think it would work out very well for either organism, right,

833
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:32,840
Speaker 1: I want crab clause. Well, yeah, we could probably we

834
00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:34,799
Speaker 1: could figure out things to do, I guess, but we

835
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 1: would be severely limited, and so would the crab. But

836
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:40,320
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe somebody can do a film on this.

837
00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 1: This is the next big crab film, all right, I

838
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:45,400
Speaker 1: think we gotta call it there. All right, As we

839
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:47,320
Speaker 1: close out here, I do have one question we mentioned,

840
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:52,360
Speaker 1: like the bigger batterism of the idea here. I am

841
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 1: too old to have grown up with Pokemon in my life,

842
00:45:56,360 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 1: but I know Pokemon was a huge influence on a

843
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: lot of people. It was a part of people's fildhood.

844
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 1: And there is a like a like a hierarchy of

845
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:07,799
Speaker 1: development and upgrading and like to some level at least evolution.

846
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 1: I am curious like how that plays into everything? Like

847
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:14,759
Speaker 1: his Pokemon was it? Is it useful in in your

848
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:17,759
Speaker 1: understanding of evolution? Uh? Is it? Does it get in

849
00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:20,359
Speaker 1: the way? Like how does it factor into like your

850
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:22,719
Speaker 1: general worldview? That kind of question. I would love to

851
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 1: hear from folks on that all right. In the meantime,

852
00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:27,319
Speaker 1: if you want to check out more episodes of Stuff

853
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:28,680
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, head a number of Stuff to

854
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:30,120
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. That's where we'll find them.

855
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:32,880
Speaker 1: That's where we'll find links to various social pages and whatnot.

856
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:34,960
Speaker 1: But if you want to support the show, the best

857
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:37,560
Speaker 1: thing you can do tell friends about it, rate and

858
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:39,839
Speaker 1: review us wherever ever you have the power to do so.

859
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:42,760
Speaker 1: That helps us like nothing else. Huge thanks as always

860
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:45,960
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Terry Harrison and our guest

861
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:49,120
Speaker 1: producers Paul Decan and Maya Cole. If you'd like to

862
00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:51,080
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, as always, you can email

863
00:46:51,160 --> 00:47:02,960
Speaker 1: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

864
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:04,880
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart

865
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:07,600
Speaker 1: Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,

866
00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:10,320
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

867
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:15,760
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.