1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:06,400 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey 2 00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:10,879 Speaker 1: brain Stuff laurenvog Obam here. The butterfly effect isn't just 3 00:00:10,960 --> 00:00:14,440 Speaker 1: a movie from two thousand four. It's the idea that small, 4 00:00:14,600 --> 00:00:18,520 Speaker 1: seemingly trivial events may ultimately result in something with much 5 00:00:18,680 --> 00:00:22,800 Speaker 1: larger consequences. In other words, that small things have non 6 00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:27,800 Speaker 1: linear impacts on very complex systems. For instance, when a 7 00:00:27,920 --> 00:00:31,080 Speaker 1: butterfly flaps its wings in New York, that tiny change 8 00:00:31,080 --> 00:00:34,720 Speaker 1: in air pressure could eventually cause a cyclone in Beijing. 9 00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:39,559 Speaker 1: In the aforementioned film, Ashton Kusher's character finds a way 10 00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:42,240 Speaker 1: to travel back in time to his childhood. Every time 11 00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:44,960 Speaker 1: he makes the journey, though, he does small things differently, 12 00:00:45,320 --> 00:00:48,560 Speaker 1: and those tiny changes wind up having major and horrifying 13 00:00:48,560 --> 00:00:52,720 Speaker 1: effects on his adult life. The term butterfly effect was 14 00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:56,840 Speaker 1: coined the nineteen sixties by Edward Lawrenz, a meteorology professor 15 00:00:56,880 --> 00:00:59,760 Speaker 1: at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was studying weather 16 00:00:59,760 --> 00:01:03,120 Speaker 1: path turns. He devised a model demonstrating that if you 17 00:01:03,200 --> 00:01:06,640 Speaker 1: compare two starting points indicating current weather that are near 18 00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:10,480 Speaker 1: each other, they'll soon drift apart, and later one area 19 00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:13,080 Speaker 1: could wind up with severe storms while the other is 20 00:01:13,160 --> 00:01:17,679 Speaker 1: calm at the time, Whether satisticians thought you should be 21 00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:21,039 Speaker 1: able to predict future weather based on looking at historical 22 00:01:21,080 --> 00:01:23,760 Speaker 1: records to see what had happened when conditions were the 23 00:01:23,800 --> 00:01:28,080 Speaker 1: same as they are now, Lorenz was skeptical. He was 24 00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:31,560 Speaker 1: running a computer program to test various weather simulations, and 25 00:01:31,600 --> 00:01:34,960 Speaker 1: he discovered that rounding off one variable from zero point 26 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:38,520 Speaker 1: five zero six one to seven to zero point five 27 00:01:38,640 --> 00:01:42,600 Speaker 1: zero six dramatically changed the two months of weather predictions 28 00:01:42,600 --> 00:01:46,399 Speaker 1: in his simulation. His point was that long range weather 29 00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:51,040 Speaker 1: forecasting was virtually impossible, in large part because humans don't 30 00:01:51,080 --> 00:01:55,160 Speaker 1: have the ability to measure nature's incredible complexity. There are 31 00:01:55,200 --> 00:01:58,960 Speaker 1: simply too many minute variables that can act as pivot points, 32 00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:04,559 Speaker 1: cascading into much bigger consequences. As The Boston Globe wrote, 33 00:02:05,040 --> 00:02:08,960 Speaker 1: the innumerable interconnections of nature, Lorenz noted, mean a butterfly's 34 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:11,640 Speaker 1: flap could cause a tornado, or, for all we know, 35 00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:15,760 Speaker 1: could prevent one. Similarly, should we make even a tiny 36 00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:18,960 Speaker 1: alteration to nature quote, we shall never know what would 37 00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:21,840 Speaker 1: have happened if we had not disturbed it, since subsequent 38 00:02:21,960 --> 00:02:25,959 Speaker 1: changes are too complex and entangled to restore a previous state. 39 00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:30,960 Speaker 1: So while people often think the butterfly effect means that 40 00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:34,120 Speaker 1: tiny changes can have big consequences, and that we can 41 00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:38,080 Speaker 1: track this progression to see what change caused. What Lorenz 42 00:02:38,120 --> 00:02:40,640 Speaker 1: was trying to say that we can't track those changes, 43 00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:43,320 Speaker 1: and we don't really know exactly what would cause a 44 00:02:43,320 --> 00:02:47,400 Speaker 1: weather pattern to go one way or another. Lorenz called 45 00:02:47,440 --> 00:02:51,160 Speaker 1: this sensitive dependence on initial conditions when he introduced his 46 00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:53,560 Speaker 1: work to the public in a nineteen sixty three paper 47 00:02:53,639 --> 00:02:58,400 Speaker 1: titled Deterministic non periodic Flow. The term butterfly effect he 48 00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:01,760 Speaker 1: coined later in speeches about the topic. The paper was 49 00:03:01,880 --> 00:03:06,440 Speaker 1: rarely cited by other researchers, at least at first. Later on, 50 00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:10,919 Speaker 1: other scientists realized the importance of Lorenz's discovery. His insights 51 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:13,680 Speaker 1: laid the foundation for a branch of mathematics known as 52 00:03:13,800 --> 00:03:17,440 Speaker 1: chaos theory, the idea of trying to predict the behavior 53 00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:22,320 Speaker 1: of systems that are inherently unpredictable. You can see instances 54 00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:24,960 Speaker 1: of the butterfly effect every day. The weather is just 55 00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:29,920 Speaker 1: one example. Climate change relatedly is another. For example, as 56 00:03:29,960 --> 00:03:34,720 Speaker 1: it turns out, warming climates are impacting appropriately enough species 57 00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:39,360 Speaker 1: of alpine butterflies in North America. We spoke by email 58 00:03:39,360 --> 00:03:43,360 Speaker 1: with Alessandro Philozola, a community ecologist and data scientist and 59 00:03:43,480 --> 00:03:48,280 Speaker 1: postdoctorate fellow at the University of Alberta. He said climate 60 00:03:48,360 --> 00:03:51,560 Speaker 1: change is expected to have some large impacts, such as 61 00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:54,160 Speaker 1: too hot for some species or too dry for others, 62 00:03:54,600 --> 00:03:58,280 Speaker 1: but there are nearly infinite amount of smaller indirect effects 63 00:03:58,280 --> 00:04:01,640 Speaker 1: that will also occur. In our research, we looked at 64 00:04:01,680 --> 00:04:04,600 Speaker 1: one of those indirect effects and saw how future climate 65 00:04:04,720 --> 00:04:08,640 Speaker 1: will slowly cause mismatch in spatial location of a butterfly 66 00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:12,720 Speaker 1: and its host plant. As a caterpillar, this butterfly only 67 00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:16,080 Speaker 1: feeds on this type of plant species, so any mismatching 68 00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:20,640 Speaker 1: range will cause a decline in the butterfly. He adds 69 00:04:20,680 --> 00:04:22,640 Speaker 1: that if we were to pause for a moment and 70 00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:25,080 Speaker 1: think of all of the other species in a food web, 71 00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:29,440 Speaker 1: suddenly there's the potential of many species being affected, not 72 00:04:29,600 --> 00:04:32,560 Speaker 1: just one butterfly, but everything that eats it or that 73 00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:35,480 Speaker 1: relies on the decay of its body for nutrients, and 74 00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:38,920 Speaker 1: everything that eats those animals and fungi and plants and 75 00:04:39,080 --> 00:04:42,760 Speaker 1: everything that's in competition with it for resources. That's the 76 00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:46,839 Speaker 1: butterfly effect in action on a large scale. When we 77 00:04:46,839 --> 00:04:50,200 Speaker 1: start to consider how one small change can quickly result 78 00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:54,320 Speaker 1: in a lot of unintended consequence. There's naturally cause for concern. 79 00:04:55,400 --> 00:04:59,720 Speaker 1: For example, limiting the construction of hydroelectric dams might reduce 80 00:04:59,760 --> 00:05:03,920 Speaker 1: certain types of environmental damage, but in eliminating this potential 81 00:05:03,920 --> 00:05:06,279 Speaker 1: source of clean energy, we tend to fall back on 82 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:11,159 Speaker 1: fossil fuels that accelerate global warming, and biofuel subsidies meant 83 00:05:11,160 --> 00:05:14,880 Speaker 1: to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels have increased rainforest 84 00:05:14,920 --> 00:05:18,400 Speaker 1: destruction and freshwater waste, and have lead to increases in 85 00:05:18,440 --> 00:05:21,280 Speaker 1: food prices that have affected the poorest segments of the 86 00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:25,320 Speaker 1: human population. How can we possibly do much of anything 87 00:05:25,360 --> 00:05:28,559 Speaker 1: in our lives then, without fear of causing harm? Philo 88 00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:32,440 Speaker 1: Zola returns to the butterflies as an example. He said, 89 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:36,200 Speaker 1: better understanding of indirect effects is probably one of the 90 00:05:36,240 --> 00:05:41,120 Speaker 1: most important steps in trying to mitigate those effects. More simply, though, 91 00:05:41,560 --> 00:05:44,640 Speaker 1: just keeping nature as close to its original state is 92 00:05:44,680 --> 00:05:49,200 Speaker 1: really the most important thing. Ecosystems are vastly complex, and 93 00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:51,400 Speaker 1: the loss of a single species might not have a 94 00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:54,400 Speaker 1: perceived effect, but it could have cascading effects on the 95 00:05:54,520 --> 00:06:00,279 Speaker 1: entire system. For another example, reintroducing wolves to yellow Stone 96 00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:03,000 Speaker 1: park where they had previously been hunted out of their 97 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:07,880 Speaker 1: historical range, has wound up increasing beaver populations and increasing 98 00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:11,159 Speaker 1: the number of willow and aspen plants, and provided food 99 00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:16,000 Speaker 1: for birds, coyotes, and bears, among other benefits. Then we 100 00:06:16,080 --> 00:06:18,839 Speaker 1: have to consider how the butterfly effect can play into 101 00:06:18,880 --> 00:06:22,960 Speaker 1: our individual lives. With nearly eight billion humans on the planet, 102 00:06:23,279 --> 00:06:26,640 Speaker 1: can just one person make changes that echo around the earth? 103 00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:31,000 Speaker 1: Phila Zola says that he does wonder about the indirect 104 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:34,960 Speaker 1: effects of his personal actions. He said, the items I buy, 105 00:06:35,120 --> 00:06:37,800 Speaker 1: the people I interact with, the things I say I 106 00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:41,800 Speaker 1: believe each can have their cascading effects that rippled through society. 107 00:06:42,440 --> 00:06:44,680 Speaker 1: That's why it's important to try and be a good 108 00:06:44,720 --> 00:06:48,320 Speaker 1: person to create a positive influence. One thing I also 109 00:06:48,360 --> 00:06:50,960 Speaker 1: think about is how these indirect effects are often not 110 00:06:51,040 --> 00:06:53,440 Speaker 1: as small and removed as I believe many would think. 111 00:06:58,720 --> 00:07:01,000 Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by an Than Chandler and produced 112 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:03,040 Speaker 1: by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of 113 00:07:03,080 --> 00:07:05,680 Speaker 1: other small topics with big impacts, visit how stuff works 114 00:07:05,720 --> 00:07:08,360 Speaker 1: dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio. 115 00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:10,680 Speaker 1: Or more podcasts of my heart Radio, visit the I 116 00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:13,520 Speaker 1: heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to 117 00:07:13,520 --> 00:07:14,320 Speaker 1: your favorite shows.