WEBVTT - Will we soon be extinct? 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to stuff you should know from house stuff works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.280 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast You've got Josh, 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:15.640 You've got Chuck Here, we're a couple of writers from 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:19.480 how stuff works dot com. Right, Chuck, that's right, so Chuck, Yes, 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:25.880 are you familiar with any Turkish authors? I've heard this one. Um, 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.320 what's the punchline? There's no punch line. Oh, that's a 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:31.880 real question. Now. I don't know if the Turkish authors. 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.040 I didn't either until I was reading an article to 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.320 Day about a Turkish author who writes in the name 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.000 Haroon Yahiah. Yeah, I believe that's how it's pronounced, and 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.839 maybe butchering. Yet my Turkish is a little rusty. Um, 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:52.720 but Mr Yahia recently offered ten trillion Turkish lira, which 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.240 is about eight trillion dollars. It's not one of those 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:00.240 upside down things. It's about point eight um point eight 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.200 Turkish lyric to the dollars last time I checked. Um 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:12.479 to anyone who can provide definitive fossil evidence of evolution. Wow, yes, 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.080 that's a lot of money. What's his motive? His motive? 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:22.360 He's an outspoken creationism creationist crea. He's an outspoken creationism misted. 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.800 That's in the word now um and uh he he 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:30.959 is so vehemently opposed to Have you heard of Richard Dawkins. Okay, 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.560 Dawkins has a website and uh, you know he's a 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:39.320 zoologist who's a huge evolutionary theorist. He actually believes that 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.479 we're nothing more than a vehicle for our genes. That's all. 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:44.759 We are, just big bags of flesh and our genes 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.120 are really in control. Um So he's a huge, huge evolutionist. 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:53.320 Um and uh mr Yahiah got the um got Dawkins 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.080 website band in Turkey, So really if you go to Turkey, 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:58.520 you can't get unto Richard Dawkins dot com or what 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.360 dot ceo dot uk or whatever. Um So, he's he's 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.680 really kind of he thinks evolutionary theory is false and 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:09.440 it's not correct. So he's sort of ingested throwing out 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.240 this huge sum of money because he claimed he doesn't 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:14.560 think anyone can actually prove this right. Yeah. I I 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.000 didn't get the impression that he is a trillionaire. I 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:20.200 don't know how many trillionaires there are. And it sounds 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:22.200 like a smart alec to me, kind of a smart 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.160 Alec sure, but he was pretty specific. He said that 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:28.960 he wanted an intermediate form fossil. And this is like 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:33.000 an animal that is clearly um a species that is 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:37.720 the the connecting species between one and another, like UM, 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:43.120 some fossil that that links us humans to frogs. Because 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:45.320 on the tree of life, we all, if you go 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:49.480 back far enough, are related. Everything. Every species on Earth 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.960 came from some little strand of RNA in the primordial 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.480 soup here on Earth billions of years ago. Right, That's 0:02:57.480 --> 0:02:59.760 what I believe. That's that's what a lot of people. 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:05.519 But the fossil record, which is this UM, this this 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.880 record of all the fossils, all the um sedimentary layers, 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.400 all this stuff over the last five and fifty million 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:17.480 years UM is admittedly spotty. The history of our planet. 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:20.280 It is. It is. It's a it's a it is. 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:22.880 So you go and take an nice sample, you know, 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:24.800 when you go down far enough and you reach a 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.040 point where no one is sampled yet that gets added 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.880 to the fossil record. It paints this whole picture of 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:33.280 the evolution of life on Earth. Depending on what you believe, 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.320 everything may have been placed there. That's another theory. Okay, 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.000 So UM we're still trying to figure out if evolution 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:45.520 occurs like consistently over a long period of time, which 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:49.120 is called phyletic gradualism, or it could be in short. 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:53.240 First is the competing theory, which is punctuated equilibrium. So 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:56.360 it's still like I said, it's spotty, but it does 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.800 have its uses. What uses, I'll give you a use 0:03:59.880 --> 0:04:04.280 to a chuck uh. Last year, October of two thousand seven, uh, 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:07.400 some British researchers came up or where they published a 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.880 study that where they used the fossil record and compared 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:15.200 it to global climates over a five twenty million year period, 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:19.359 because we have what climate information in the fossil record 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.880 as well, And what they found was that in times 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:27.400 of warm global temperatures like we have now, I think 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:31.520 the mean global temperature, which is land and ocean average 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:35.760 temperatures put together, it's about fifty four degrees fifty six 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.279 degrees ferret height, which is about which historically we're in. 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.880 It's a greenhouse period, which is what we're in now. Traditionally, 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:48.080 when the Earth has seen greenhouse periods, mass extinction has 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:51.760 taken place. So the question we're forced to explore is 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.840 will we soon be extinct, right, which if you look 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.640 at the history of our planet, there's you know, there's 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:02.800 a case for that. And if we're not extinct, certain 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.560 uh organisms on our planet might become extinct, which could 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.800 lead to the domino effect and eventually we might be 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.400 extinct after all. It is very true. Um, there's one 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:17.200 case in point a mass extinction, the worst one, apparently 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.640 on the fossil record, happened at the end of the 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.640 Permian period. I believe two fifty one million years ago 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.280 of all the species on Earth died out like all 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:30.000 at once. I read. When I read that, I was 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:31.920 just blown away. I mean, can you imagine if all 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:37.320 of a sudden it was like, you know, humans, dogs, cats, 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.680 and yeah, mosquitoes and maybe a cockroach something like that, 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.240 with all the rest just gone. You know, you didn't 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.960 see anything when you went outside, right with, humans wouldn't 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.120 last long if that were the case. No, because we 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:52.360 require biodiversity exactly you want to tell them about biodiversity. Yeah, 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:54.599 I can speak a little bit about that. You know, 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:57.840 the Earth basically, Josh is like just a big machine 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:00.760 and if you were compared to like a car engine, 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.840 each each little part has its own function. And if 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.640 one you know, nut on the car engine goes off, 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.320 that leads to something else to break and something else 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:11.159 to break in. And the earth is kind of like 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.120 that as well. Um, there are no unnecessary parts. Everything 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:17.000 is important. Even even if looking at a car engine 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:19.720 you don't really understand, you know, what this does or 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.880 what that does, It's still essential. It was put there 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:26.080 for a reason. If you'll, you know, excuse the comparison, 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.280 excuse thanks. Uh so, I know when one example you 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:32.760 use was a nitrogen in your article if you wanted 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.880 to enlighten some folks, what I love enlightening folks. You're ready, folks, 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:39.440 let's do this. So Um, nitrogen basically is present in 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:45.320 the soil. It's it's an essential food for crops or crops, right. Um. 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:49.599 We we've learned to harness wild crops to to be 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:54.600 produced under conditions we like corn um and you know, 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.479 we can control how many grow and how well it 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.479 grows in that kind of thing. But really, ultimately, none 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:02.440 of this would work if it wasn't for the nitrogen 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:04.680 present in the soil. And we can add nitrogen, but 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:09.880 it occurs naturally in the soil through like worms digesting 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.960 you know, all sorts of different microbs that kind of thing. Um, 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.400 and the microbs themselves are involved in digesting things, and 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.080 they what they put out is a waste product in 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:25.320 many cases is nitrogen which feeds the crops which feed us. Yeah, 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:30.400 so I mean the lowly worm or the even lowlier microbe, bacteria, 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.280 things that just seems so unimportant or even threatening to us. 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.480 We are essential life on Earth. That's that. It kind 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:40.320 of goes with that machine you were talking about, the 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.720 interrelated parts that each one's very important, even if it 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.040 doesn't seem like it. So it with a loss of biodiversity. 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:49.200 So we lose the worms, we lose a lot of 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:51.360 the nitrogen in the soil. All of a sudden, our 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:54.520 crops fail. So we will be effective when we're one 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:58.200 way or another despite our technology. It's pretty amazing when 0:07:58.240 --> 0:07:59.920 you think about that. The smallest thing can have the 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.040 the trickle effect and we may actually be able to 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:06.240 survive some sort of mass extinction. I mean, we're we're 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:10.960 pretty smart species. Like technically we're subtropical, you know what, right, 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:15.360 And we've mastered the colder climbs by a technology like 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:20.000 clothes or you know, um, tankless hot water heaters that 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.480 kind of thing. UM. So we're supposed to be living 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:27.480 kind of near the equator, UM, so we could conceivably 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:31.120 survive a mass extinction we have before. Actually, supposedly about 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:37.560 seventy thousand years ago, human humanity faced a an evolutionary bottleneck, 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.880 which is where there's some a species is brought to 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:44.559 the brink of extinction. So imagine it like a bottle, 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.040 and then the bottleneck comes and you lose all that 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:50.920 all that life and all those genes and UM. Basically 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.199 the population squeezed down and they estimate that there is 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:58.800 about fifteen thousand people worldwide on planet on planet Earth 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:02.040 at that time because of that bottle from what number 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:04.160 you know, I don't know the number, but I think 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:08.440 a lot more than UM. So on the other end 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:11.720 you come out. So really the evolutionary bottleneck, if the 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:15.559 species survives, goes from a bottleneck to an evolutionary hourglass 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:19.480 where it becomes robust again and populated. But at that 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:21.800 if you go back to that bottleneck, it took a 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.800 lot of inbreeding to get past that point. Or which 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.840 under a theory that I have, UM explains why a 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:33.439 lot of people today mouth breathe Wow, yeah, let's hear it. 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:37.000 That was it. I think I think there's mouth breathers 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:39.599 on planet Earth today because seventy thousand years ago it 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.439 took a lot of inbreeding to get past our evolutionary bottleneck, 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.240 and previously we breathe. I'd probably throw a nose guilt. 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:48.480 There's no no, no, no no. I mean you know, 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:52.040 you know, like you ever watched twenty four Uh I 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.400 watched the first day? Okay, Well keep for Sutherland. He's 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:57.640 a good example of a mouth breather. He breathes through 0:09:57.640 --> 0:09:59.760 his mouth, breathe with his mouth open. It's still a 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:02.720 little slack jaw. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, Okay, 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:07.439 Mr Sutherland, no offense, he doesn't listen, so um chuck. 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:09.880 That's pretty much the long and short of whether or 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.000 not we will face a mass extinction. I think it's 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:17.320 entirely possible. Um. I know I've been storing water ever 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:19.640 since I wrote this. Really, in your basement, do you 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:22.480 have a bomb shelter? Um? I don't know if I 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:25.439 call it a bomb shelter. It's more like an emergency 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.280 bachelor pad. So you've got your Nintendo and your liquor 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.160 and yeah, exactly, and the water well. I got plenty 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:37.520 of that sleeping bags over. You can learn whether or 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:39.880 not you're going to die in the next couple of 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.840 years by reading will We Soon Be Extinct? On how 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:48.640 stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.920 of other topics. Because at how stuff works dot com, 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:54.160 let us know what you think. Send an email to 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:58.839 podcast at how stuff works dot com.