WEBVTT - How Does the Butterfly Effect Work? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.400 Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:10.879 brain Stuff laurenvog Obam here. The butterfly effect isn't just 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:14.440 a movie from two thousand four. It's the idea that small, 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:18.520 seemingly trivial events may ultimately result in something with much 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.800 larger consequences. In other words, that small things have non 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:27.800 linear impacts on very complex systems. For instance, when a 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.080 butterfly flaps its wings in New York, that tiny change 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.720 in air pressure could eventually cause a cyclone in Beijing. 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.559 In the aforementioned film, Ashton Kusher's character finds a way 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:42.240 to travel back in time to his childhood. Every time 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:44.960 he makes the journey, though, he does small things differently, 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.560 and those tiny changes wind up having major and horrifying 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:52.720 effects on his adult life. The term butterfly effect was 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.840 coined the nineteen sixties by Edward Lawrenz, a meteorology professor 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.760 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was studying weather 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:03.120 path turns. He devised a model demonstrating that if you 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:06.640 compare two starting points indicating current weather that are near 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:10.480 each other, they'll soon drift apart, and later one area 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.080 could wind up with severe storms while the other is 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:17.679 calm at the time, Whether satisticians thought you should be 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.039 able to predict future weather based on looking at historical 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:23.760 records to see what had happened when conditions were the 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:28.080 same as they are now, Lorenz was skeptical. He was 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:31.560 running a computer program to test various weather simulations, and 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.960 he discovered that rounding off one variable from zero point 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:38.520 five zero six one to seven to zero point five 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:42.600 zero six dramatically changed the two months of weather predictions 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.399 in his simulation. His point was that long range weather 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:51.040 forecasting was virtually impossible, in large part because humans don't 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:55.160 have the ability to measure nature's incredible complexity. There are 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.960 simply too many minute variables that can act as pivot points, 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:04.559 cascading into much bigger consequences. As The Boston Globe wrote, 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.960 the innumerable interconnections of nature, Lorenz noted, mean a butterfly's 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:11.640 flap could cause a tornado, or, for all we know, 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:15.760 could prevent one. Similarly, should we make even a tiny 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.960 alteration to nature quote, we shall never know what would 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.840 have happened if we had not disturbed it, since subsequent 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.959 changes are too complex and entangled to restore a previous state. 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:30.960 So while people often think the butterfly effect means that 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:34.120 tiny changes can have big consequences, and that we can 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:38.080 track this progression to see what change caused. What Lorenz 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:40.640 was trying to say that we can't track those changes, 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:43.320 and we don't really know exactly what would cause a 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:47.400 weather pattern to go one way or another. Lorenz called 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:51.160 this sensitive dependence on initial conditions when he introduced his 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:53.560 work to the public in a nineteen sixty three paper 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:58.400 titled Deterministic non periodic Flow. The term butterfly effect he 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.760 coined later in speeches about the topic. The paper was 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:06.440 rarely cited by other researchers, at least at first. Later on, 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.919 other scientists realized the importance of Lorenz's discovery. His insights 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.680 laid the foundation for a branch of mathematics known as 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:17.440 chaos theory, the idea of trying to predict the behavior 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:22.320 of systems that are inherently unpredictable. You can see instances 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:24.960 of the butterfly effect every day. The weather is just 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:29.920 one example. Climate change relatedly is another. For example, as 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:34.720 it turns out, warming climates are impacting appropriately enough species 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:39.360 of alpine butterflies in North America. We spoke by email 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:43.360 with Alessandro Philozola, a community ecologist and data scientist and 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:48.280 postdoctorate fellow at the University of Alberta. He said climate 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.560 change is expected to have some large impacts, such as 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.160 too hot for some species or too dry for others, 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:58.280 but there are nearly infinite amount of smaller indirect effects 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:01.640 that will also occur. In our research, we looked at 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.600 one of those indirect effects and saw how future climate 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:08.640 will slowly cause mismatch in spatial location of a butterfly 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.720 and its host plant. As a caterpillar, this butterfly only 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.080 feeds on this type of plant species, so any mismatching 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:20.640 range will cause a decline in the butterfly. He adds 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:22.640 that if we were to pause for a moment and 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.080 think of all of the other species in a food web, 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.440 suddenly there's the potential of many species being affected, not 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:32.560 just one butterfly, but everything that eats it or that 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.480 relies on the decay of its body for nutrients, and 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.920 everything that eats those animals and fungi and plants and 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.760 everything that's in competition with it for resources. That's the 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.839 butterfly effect in action on a large scale. When we 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.200 start to consider how one small change can quickly result 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:54.320 in a lot of unintended consequence. There's naturally cause for concern. 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.720 For example, limiting the construction of hydroelectric dams might reduce 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:03.920 certain types of environmental damage, but in eliminating this potential 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.279 source of clean energy, we tend to fall back on 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:11.159 fossil fuels that accelerate global warming, and biofuel subsidies meant 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.880 to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels have increased rainforest 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:18.400 destruction and freshwater waste, and have lead to increases in 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:21.280 food prices that have affected the poorest segments of the 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:25.320 human population. How can we possibly do much of anything 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:28.559 in our lives then, without fear of causing harm? Philo 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.440 Zola returns to the butterflies as an example. He said, 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.200 better understanding of indirect effects is probably one of the 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:41.120 most important steps in trying to mitigate those effects. More simply, though, 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:44.640 just keeping nature as close to its original state is 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:49.200 really the most important thing. Ecosystems are vastly complex, and 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:51.400 the loss of a single species might not have a 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:54.400 perceived effect, but it could have cascading effects on the 0:05:54.520 --> 0:06:00.279 entire system. For another example, reintroducing wolves to yellow Stone 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.000 park where they had previously been hunted out of their 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:07.880 historical range, has wound up increasing beaver populations and increasing 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:11.159 the number of willow and aspen plants, and provided food 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:16.000 for birds, coyotes, and bears, among other benefits. Then we 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.839 have to consider how the butterfly effect can play into 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.960 our individual lives. With nearly eight billion humans on the planet, 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:26.640 can just one person make changes that echo around the earth? 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.000 Phila Zola says that he does wonder about the indirect 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.960 effects of his personal actions. He said, the items I buy, 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:37.800 the people I interact with, the things I say I 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.800 believe each can have their cascading effects that rippled through society. 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:44.680 That's why it's important to try and be a good 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:48.320 person to create a positive influence. One thing I also 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:50.960 think about is how these indirect effects are often not 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.440 as small and removed as I believe many would think. 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:01.000 Today's episode was written by an Than Chandler and produced 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.040 by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:05.680 other small topics with big impacts, visit how stuff works 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:08.360 dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio. 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:10.680 Or more podcasts of my heart Radio, visit the I 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.520 heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:14.320 your favorite shows.