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Speaker 1: Howdy, Extraordinaries. Most of this episode is about social behavior

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Speaker 1: and cooperation in animals, and in particular human animals, but

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Speaker 1: towards the end we talk a little bit about cases

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Speaker 1: where humans and non human animals have not gotten the

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Speaker 1: love that they deserve early on in life, in the

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Speaker 1: implications of that for their behavior, which is a little

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Speaker 1: bit hard to hear, So just a heads up so

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Speaker 1: you can decide if you want to listen to the

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Speaker 1: last third of the episode or not. Thanks. Natural selection

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Speaker 1: doesn't exactly sound like the kind of mechanism that would

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Speaker 1: result in a lot of cooperation and snugly social behavior.

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Speaker 1: Let's imagine it. You take variation in some trait, say

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Speaker 1: differences in running speed, and link that trait to survival

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Speaker 1: and reproduction. And so imagine that running speed determines who

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Speaker 1: escapes from predators and then goes on to survive and

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Speaker 1: have babies. And if that trait is heritable, so if

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Speaker 1: the babies of fast parents are fast themselves, then you

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Speaker 1: have all the ingredients necessary for natural selection. Over time,

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Speaker 1: you'd expect that fast individuals survive and become more common,

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Speaker 1: while the slow individuals, well, they get eaten. That sounds

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Speaker 1: kind of cutthroat, Yet somehow we've still ended up in

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Speaker 1: a world where animals will call out to warn others

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Speaker 1: of a nearby predator, even if calling out increases the

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Speaker 1: risk that the predator goes after the caller in particular,

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Speaker 1: and honey bees will sting us to protect their hive mates.

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Speaker 1: Even though stinging us will pull out their stinger and

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Speaker 1: effectively disembowel the bee. They give their lives to protect

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Speaker 1: their buddies living inside the hive. So how did this

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Speaker 1: seemingly brutal mechanism give rise to so much cooperation and

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Speaker 1: helpful behavior. That's what we're going to talk about today.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's surprisingly cooperative universe.

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Speaker 2: Hi.

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Speaker 3: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I think people

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Speaker 3: are the most interesting thing in the universe and also

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Speaker 3: the most terrifying.

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Speaker 1: Oh hello, I'm Kelly. I study parasites and space and

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Speaker 1: I completely agree with Daniel's assessment, and at the end

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Speaker 1: of this episode when I describe human behavior, I will

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Speaker 1: try not to cry.

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Speaker 3: So my question for you today, Kelly is do you

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Speaker 3: consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert? And when did

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Speaker 3: you know?

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Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, definitely an introvert. I think I hide it well,

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Speaker 1: but I very much enjoy hanging out with people. But

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Speaker 1: at the end of like a conference or something, I

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Speaker 1: will crawl into my bed and like just be absolutely exhausted.

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Speaker 1: And I get very nervous when I go in a

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Speaker 1: room and I have to like pick a group to

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Speaker 1: go hang out with because I assume that nobody really

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Speaker 1: wants to talk to me, And so I love situations

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Speaker 1: where people come up to talk to me because then

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Speaker 1: I don't feel like I'm putting anyone out. So if

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Speaker 1: you ever see me somewhere, feel free to come up

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Speaker 1: and talk to me, because that relieves the pressure on

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Speaker 1: me and makes me feel so much better. And I

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Speaker 1: don't know when I realized that. I think it was

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Speaker 1: probably in undergrad when I had to like start meeting people. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess I don't know what about you.

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure how I would classify myself, because on

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Speaker 3: one hand, I feel the same way at the end

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Speaker 3: of a lot of socializing that like at a conference

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Speaker 3: when it was like, hey, let's go out to dinner

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Speaker 3: and I'm like, no, thank you. But also I find

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Speaker 3: that people are my best source of energy, you know,

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Speaker 3: if I go and teach in the classroom. I love

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Speaker 3: that engagement and the response. I love getting emails from listeners.

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Speaker 3: I love hanging out with friends, Like moments laughing with

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Speaker 3: your friends are more enjoyable than anything you could ever

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Speaker 3: do by yourself. Yeah, and so people are like the

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Speaker 3: greatest mystery and source of joy and happiness in the universe.

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Speaker 3: And also they are completely exhausting.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So I'm not sure where that puts me on the spectrum.

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Speaker 1: Maybe we're exo introverts intro exoverts. Because I agree, I like,

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Speaker 1: I also really look forward to going to conferences because

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Speaker 1: I cannot wait to see the people at conferences and

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Speaker 1: hear about how they were doing and laugh about stuff

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Speaker 1: and find out if they purposefully infected themselves with any

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Speaker 1: parasites in the last year, and you know, all that stuff.

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Speaker 1: But you know, on the other hand, at the end

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Speaker 1: of the day, I am also like.

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Speaker 3: I need to see Yeah, exactly. Well, today we are

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Speaker 3: not just telling personnel stories. We are talking about the

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Speaker 3: larger question of human being behavior. Why do people act

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Speaker 3: the way they do? Is it driven by evolution or

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Speaker 3: something else? Even weirder, and today's episode is inspired by

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Speaker 3: a question we got from an eleven year.

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Speaker 1: Old, didn't we Actually they're thirteen years old now and

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Speaker 1: they are the child of some friends of mine, and

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Speaker 1: I was super excited to get their questions. So let's

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Speaker 1: go ahead and listen to it.

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Speaker 5: Hi, Daniel and Kelly, I love your podcast, And I

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Speaker 5: have a question why did humans evolve to be social?

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Speaker 5: And why do we go crazy if we're isolated for

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Speaker 5: too long? I also want to know what happened at

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Speaker 5: the human related it's whole life without having contact with

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Speaker 5: other humans, and why could some animals like whales go

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Speaker 5: for so long without having contact with other whales but

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Speaker 5: humans can, thanks, all right?

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Speaker 3: So on one hand, this is a really fun question,

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Speaker 3: but also a really deep question about evolution, because like

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Speaker 3: the whole foundation of modern biology is evolution and natural selection,

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Speaker 3: and things are the way they are because of this process,

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Speaker 3: and that forces us to think about everything we see

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Speaker 3: through that lens. But it can sometimes be hard to

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Speaker 3: understand how something evolved to exist. You know, you have

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Speaker 3: the examples of the eye and stuff, but human behavior

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Speaker 3: is a great example. So tell us, Kelly, how do

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Speaker 3: you interpret this question.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'll be honest, I kind of put this question

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Speaker 1: off for a while because I was like, Okay, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to I'll look it up real quick and see, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, what are people saying these days? And generally

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Speaker 1: the answer I found was, oh, well, humans are social

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Speaker 1: because it benefited us in our evolutionary past. And I

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Speaker 1: was like, yeah, okay, well yeah, but how and like

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Speaker 1: there's got to be a richer answer to that. But

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Speaker 1: there was generally not a much richer answer. And I

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Speaker 1: think at the end of the day, it's hard to

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Speaker 1: know for a particular species why a behavior arose, in

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Speaker 1: part because behaviors don't leave fossils. But at the end,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to try to give a much better answer.

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Speaker 1: But I thought that we could start by taking a

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Speaker 1: look at why we think we see cooperation and social

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Speaker 1: behavior in general in animals at all, because actually that's

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a Darwinian puzzle.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, it's really a fascinating question. On one hand,

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Speaker 3: it seems like maybe it's simple because people learn to

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Speaker 3: cooperate because that's more effective. But if everybody else is cooperating,

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Speaker 3: then like the one jerk who's like lazy and then

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Speaker 3: just steals the results of the mammoth hunt is going

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Speaker 3: to benefit. So it's not obvious why cooperation is always

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Speaker 3: a successful strategy. That's how you have to think about.

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Speaker 1: It, right, yeah, right, exactly. So in order for natural

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Speaker 1: selection to happen, you have to have variation in a trait. So,

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Speaker 1: for example, maybe you have variation in speediness, and then

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Speaker 1: that variation needs to be important for survival and reproduction.

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Speaker 1: So maybe the faster individuals are able to run away

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Speaker 1: from the predator and then they survive to reproduce, right,

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Speaker 1: and that trait needs to be passed from parents to offspring,

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Speaker 1: So the faster parents makes faster offspring, and over time

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Speaker 1: you end up with faster individuals in the population, and

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Speaker 1: the genes that produce faster individuals become more common in

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Speaker 1: the population. And that doesn't necessarily sound like a mechanism

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Speaker 1: that would result in more like hugs and cooperation. That

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Speaker 1: seems like a bit of a cutthroat thing. You know,

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Speaker 1: if you are faster and better able to get away

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Speaker 1: from the predators, are better able to secure the food,

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Speaker 1: then you're the one who gets to reproduce and you're

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Speaker 1: the one who, you know, gets to pass your genes

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Speaker 1: to the next generation. But when when look out in

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Speaker 1: nature we see tons of cooperation. So you know, for example,

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Speaker 1: honey bees, if you walk up to a honeybee nest okay,

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Speaker 1: and you disturb the nest, do not recommend a honey

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Speaker 1: bee will come out and they'll sting you. And they've

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Speaker 1: got these barbed stingers that get stuck in your skin,

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Speaker 1: and so the stinger will stay behind and the venom

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Speaker 1: gland and like the insides of the honey bee will

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Speaker 1: get pulled out of the bee. The bee will get

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Speaker 1: disemboweled and will die to protect its hive mates. And

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Speaker 1: so that bee is giving its life to protect the

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Speaker 1: rest of the hive. And we see ants that are

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Speaker 1: willing to, for example, like plug the whole of a

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Speaker 1: nest overnight, even though the temperature is going to kill

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Speaker 1: them overnight. They give their lives to like protect the

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Speaker 1: temperature for the rest of their hivemates. And we see

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Speaker 1: just loads of examples of animals dying for you know,

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Speaker 1: their buddies, and you know, why does that happen?

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Speaker 3: And so this is a great analogy, for example, to

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Speaker 3: like soldiers dying in a war. Right, they're not going

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Speaker 3: to be around to experience the benefits of victory, and

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Speaker 3: yet they give up their lives. But then it's always

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Speaker 3: easier to understand these things in terms of like ants

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Speaker 3: and bees because you can actually do experiments on them ethically. Right, Yes,

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Speaker 3: so what do we know about why honey bees act altruistically?

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Speaker 3: Is it because they have like more sophisticated genetic relationships

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Speaker 3: among themselves and with their queens or what's the story?

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Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely so that is part of it. But first

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Speaker 1: I want to dig down a little bit more and

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Speaker 1: clarify what level we think evolution is happening at. Evolution

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Speaker 1: at the end of the day, is just changes in

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Speaker 1: gene frequencies over time. So when we were talking about

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Speaker 1: natural selection happening for fastness, like being able to run

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Speaker 1: away from the predators, evolution happening there, you'd end up

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Speaker 1: with a higher frequency of the types of genes that

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Speaker 1: are associated with moving quickly. So over time, the versions

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Speaker 1: of the genes for slow individuals go away and you

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Speaker 1: get more of the versions of the genes for fast individuals.

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Speaker 1: Does that make sense?

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Speaker 3: It does make sense, But it sounds like you're choosing

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Speaker 3: this set of words gene frequencies changing over time through

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Speaker 3: natural selection very specifically, maybe in contrast to something you

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Speaker 3: imagine is in the minds of the listeners or a

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Speaker 3: general misunderstanding of evolution. What are you contrasting this with, Well.

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Speaker 1: So I'm eventually going to make the point that individuals

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Speaker 1: are the ones who are carrying these genes around, and

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Speaker 1: selection is going to be happening at the level of

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Speaker 1: individuals and not the level of groups.

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Speaker 3: I see. So it's not like evolution is this like

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Speaker 3: mastermind guiding some species towards some predetermined goal or something.

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Speaker 3: It's just a bunch of individuals changing over time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a frequency of genes that are found in

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Speaker 1: a population, and those genes are carried by individuals that

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Speaker 1: some of which will die and some of which will not.

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Speaker 1: All right, yeah, okay, so individuals are carrying around these genes.

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Speaker 1: And then in the nineteen sixties there was this guy,

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Speaker 1: when Edwards, who was arguing that selection might be happening

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Speaker 1: at the level of like groups, or maybe even at

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Speaker 1: the level of species, and this idea kind of makes sense. So, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, you look around and there's for example, maybe

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Speaker 1: rodents having two babies each, and you might say, oh, okay,

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Speaker 1: two babies, that's not a lot of babies. Maybe what

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Speaker 1: they're doing is they're trying to not eat all of

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Speaker 1: the seeds. They're trying to make sure that they don't

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Speaker 1: over exploit the seeds for the good of the species.

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Speaker 1: They want to make sure that they're able to survive

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Speaker 1: for many generations.

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Speaker 3: What considerate and well organized rote.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, you know, maybe we should take some lessons

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Speaker 1: from their behavior, but unfortunately it turns out that we

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Speaker 1: don't actually usually see group selection being a good explanation

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Speaker 1: for what animals are doing in the wild. So imagine

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Speaker 1: you did have like a population of individuals who were

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Speaker 1: very responsible rodents and were limiting themselves to two babies

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Speaker 1: each because they didn't want to over exploit the seeds.

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Speaker 1: And then you had a mutation in a gene, and

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Speaker 1: a selfish gene popped up. Okay, and those parents six babies.

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Speaker 1: The jerk rats had six babies, and there's all these

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Speaker 1: extra seeds because everybody else is being responsible, and so

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Speaker 1: all of their babies survive. And they also got the

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Speaker 1: jerk gene, and so they have six babies too.

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Speaker 3: Dominion of the jerk rats.

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Speaker 1: Dominion of the jerk rats exactly. So over time, that

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Speaker 1: selfish gene is going to pass through the population. You're

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Speaker 1: going to end up with a lot more of this

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Speaker 1: jerk gene.

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Speaker 3: So does this argue against when Edward's idea of evolution

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Speaker 3: at the population level.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it does. And so just about whenever we look

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Speaker 1: when we go out into nature, we see that animals

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Speaker 1: are trying to have as many babies as they can,

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Speaker 1: maybe not in a particular season, but across their entire lifetime.

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Speaker 1: We don't see much evidence of individuals sort of doing

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Speaker 1: things for the good of the species. Most of the

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Speaker 1: evidence we find is that they're doing it for the

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Speaker 1: good of themselves. And we think that's because selfish strategies

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Speaker 1: could easily invade populations where everyone's you know, trying to

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Speaker 1: do things for the good of the species. That's just

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Speaker 1: a strategy that's very easy to invade by more selfish behaviors.

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Speaker 3: This is a cool test because the cooperative strategy is

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Speaker 3: actually more successful. Right, if nobody's a jerk, everybody does better.

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Speaker 3: It's sort of a prisoner's dilemma situation. But if everybody

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Speaker 3: else is cooperating and you're the jerk, then you individually

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Speaker 3: win out and then your babies dominate the future. Yes,

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Speaker 3: and so if you were operating at a population level,

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Speaker 3: you would definitely choose no jerks.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: If selection was acting at the level of the group,

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Speaker 1: then maybe that would be better for everybody, but we

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Speaker 1: don't see evidence of that happening. And additionally, like even

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Speaker 1: if you could get a group of individuals to be

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Speaker 1: like super nice and everybody cooperates, usually we see migration

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Speaker 1: between groups because they don't usually exist completely in isolation.

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Speaker 1: So if you had a jerk group, you know, a

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Speaker 1: little north of you, some jerks might move south and

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Speaker 1: invade your population. And since you've left all these resources unexploited,

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Speaker 1: they're going to come in and sort of mess everything

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Speaker 1: up for everybody else.

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Speaker 3: Those northern jerks.

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Speaker 1: Every time time I know, I'm looking at you, Canada,

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Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. Canadians are way nicer. We should have

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Speaker 1: done it in reverse.

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Speaker 3: Oh, now you're offending the Mexicans.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, I meant it's the Americans ruining

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Speaker 1: things for the Canadians, is what I was saying. No, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: don't get me wrong. Okay, So there are some arguments

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Speaker 1: still that there could be some situations where it makes

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Speaker 1: sense to think about selection from a group or a

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Speaker 1: species level, But I think in general, we think that

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Speaker 1: most of the time selection is happening at the level

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Speaker 1: of the individual and that you can, you know, get

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Speaker 1: away with not thinking about group selection most of the time.

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Speaker 3: And this is true for behavior and also for more

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Speaker 3: like mechanical traits like cheetah's running fast and stuff.

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Speaker 1: Yes, okay, okay, And actually I bought a recent animal

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Speaker 1: behavior textbook because that's what I learned in like the

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Speaker 1: early two thousands, and I was like, I just want

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Speaker 1: to be one hundred percent chore that this is what

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Speaker 1: everybody still says and it is.

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Speaker 3: So then you're telling me that you can't choose behavior

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Speaker 3: based at the population level, like hey, everybody be nice

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Speaker 3: or everybody like to have go to parties or whatever.

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Speaker 3: And so in that case, how do we get things

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Speaker 3: like altruism or social behavior if natural selection acts only

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Speaker 3: on individuals.

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Speaker 1: That's the puzzle, right, Yeah, that is the puzzle. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about three or four different

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Speaker 1: ways that we think you can get it by individual

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Speaker 1: level selection. Oh all right, So the first way is

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Speaker 1: what we call kin selection. This is an idea by

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Speaker 1: William Hamilton. It was proposed in the sixties, and the

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Speaker 1: idea is that you've got genes for particular traits, and

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Speaker 1: you can get those genes passed from one generation to

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Speaker 1: another by having your own babies directly, but you can

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Speaker 1: also increase the frequency of those genes by doing things

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Speaker 1: like helping out your brother, and so that indirectly increases

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Speaker 1: your fitness because you probably share about fifty percent of

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Speaker 1: your genes by descent because you come from the same parents.

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Speaker 1: And you know, for example, if you're a diploid organism,

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Speaker 1: so humans are diploid organisms, that means we have two chromosomes.

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Speaker 1: We got fifty percent of our genes from our mom,

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Speaker 1: fifty percent of our genes from our dad, and just

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Speaker 1: by random chance, you and a sibling probably share about

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Speaker 1: fifty percent of the versions of the genes that you

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Speaker 1: have in your body. Does that make sense?

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Speaker 3: Yes, So basically, I have a big nose. My brother

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Speaker 3: is a big nose. If I help my brother's kids,

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Speaker 3: then I'm increasing the big nose fraction of future generation.

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Speaker 3: So I'm not really being altruistic by helping people who

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Speaker 3: are not my direct offspring.

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Speaker 1: As long as they're related to you. Yeah, yes, right right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: as long as they're related.

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Speaker 3: That's why it's called kin selection.

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Speaker 1: I guess, yes, exactly right, and so are there's some

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Speaker 1: predictions that come from this. You should care about how

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Speaker 1: closely related people are to you, and so for example,

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Speaker 1: you should be more likely to help a brother or

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Speaker 1: a sister, and you should be, you know, sort of

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Speaker 1: willing to help like a half sibling or a cousin.

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Speaker 3: Depends how big their nose is.

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Speaker 1: Actually that's maybe, that's right. Depends on the gene. But

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Speaker 1: you know, for example, if you imagine that there is

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Speaker 1: a gene out there for altruism, and that gene does

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Speaker 1: make you more likely to help out other members of

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Speaker 1: your family, then you can imagine that that gene would

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Speaker 1: pass through a population if family members are helping each other.

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Speaker 1: And so there's this fameless quote by a scientist named

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Speaker 1: JBS Haldane and he was asked, would you save a

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Speaker 1: drowning brother if it risked your own life? And he

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Speaker 1: said no, but I would save two brothers or eight

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Speaker 1: cousins because.

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Speaker 3: And mathematically that checks out.

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Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. And so whether or not you

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Speaker 1: should engage in a behavior that helps out your family

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Speaker 1: members to some extent depends on how closely related they

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Speaker 1: are to you. How much the cost would be to

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Speaker 1: yourself and how much they would benefit. And so you

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Speaker 1: should expect to see altruistic behaviors arising a mon closely

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Speaker 1: related individuals if it's going to result in, for example,

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Speaker 1: your siblings having more kids that are going to carry

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Speaker 1: some of the genes that you would find in yourself.

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Speaker 1: And so maybe you're not having as many kids personally,

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Speaker 1: but if your siblings are having loads of additional kids,

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Speaker 1: then your genes are still getting out there, and so indirectly,

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Speaker 1: your fitness is doing great, and so maybe we see

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Speaker 1: altruism happening because selfishly, that still helps your genes pass

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Speaker 1: through the environment.

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Speaker 3: All right, So just to make sure I understand, we

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Speaker 3: started out wondering why would anybody die for other members

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Speaker 3: of the population, And this seems like to me a

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Speaker 3: partial answer, because it doesn't suggest you would die for

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Speaker 3: any member of the population, but it tells you that

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Speaker 3: you might sacrifice yourself for people you're related to who

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Speaker 3: are not directly your offspring. Yes, exactly, And that to

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Speaker 3: me described as sort of like limited local altruism that

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Speaker 3: like falls off with the size of the nose of

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Speaker 3: people in your family. But then you added this twist

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Speaker 3: about a gene for altruism itself, right, because this doesn't

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Speaker 3: require a gene for altruism. You just support people who

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Speaker 3: have enough genes that overlap with you.

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Speaker 1: Yes, but you could imagine that a gene for altruism

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Speaker 1: would be how you get this trait to pass from

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Speaker 1: family member to family member to family member.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I see, yeah, The gene for altruism helps you

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Speaker 3: recognize that this is beneficial.

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Speaker 1: It helps make sure that the trait passes in families

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Speaker 1: and is maintained.

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Speaker 3: I see, all right.

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Speaker 1: And we have some examples of this. So, for example,

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Speaker 1: there are these squirrels that you find in California building's

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Speaker 1: ground squirrels, and the females tend to stay in the

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Speaker 1: areas where they were born, whereas the males tend to

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Speaker 1: go away. And so if you're a female, your sisters

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Speaker 1: are likely to be nearby, your aunts are likely to

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Speaker 1: be nearby. And what they find is that the females

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Speaker 1: are more likely to call when there's a predator around.

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Speaker 1: And so when a predator's around, they call, and then

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Speaker 1: their sisters and their aunts, maybe their mom and even

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Speaker 1: their kids go and hide in their burrows. But when

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Speaker 1: you call, you also increase the probability that the coyote

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Speaker 1: goes after you because you've drawn its attention. So it's

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Speaker 1: a risky behavior that has a cost. But they've also

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Speaker 1: found that females will call even if none of their

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Speaker 1: own kids are around, so it's not just a direct

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Speaker 1: fitness thing. They will call to help their aunts get

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Speaker 1: out of the way or some or their sisters get

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Speaker 1: out of the way. So it looks like they're also

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Speaker 1: willing to take a cost to get an indirect fitness benefit,

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Speaker 1: so to help their sisters and stuff.

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Speaker 3: So females without any kids of their own still raise

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Speaker 3: the alarm, putting themselves at risk even though they have

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Speaker 3: no offspring. That's fascinating. Are squirrels smart enough to do

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Speaker 3: this calculation of the little jbs haldines adding up like

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Speaker 3: you know, fractions and cousins and stuff.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question. So I think they really

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Speaker 1: just need to know, like, Okay, I was raised with uh,

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Speaker 1: so you know, for example, they were raised in a

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Speaker 1: nest with their sisters, and so they don't necessarily have

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Speaker 1: to be like, all right, I've got three sisters out here,

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Speaker 1: I'm fifty percent related to all of them. So that's

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Speaker 1: point five plus point five plus point five, that's one

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Speaker 1: point five. So that's more than just me. So you know,

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Speaker 1: they don't necessarily have to do those calculations. They just

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Speaker 1: have to, like, you know, have some affiliative feeling for

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Speaker 1: the individuals that they were raised in a nest with

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Speaker 1: and be willing to call. And so maybe the genes

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Speaker 1: that are being passed aren't necessarily like altruism genes. They're

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Speaker 1: just genes for you know, having like a nice feeling

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Speaker 1: about the people that you were raised in a nest

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Speaker 1: or you know, the squirrels you were raised in a

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Speaker 1: nest with and being willing to call if you think

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Speaker 1: that they're in danger.

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Speaker 3: Or does it work even if it's more instinctive, like

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Speaker 3: if every female squirrel responds to a predator with a call,

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Speaker 3: than in general that increases the fitness and the whole population,

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Speaker 3: including their own, and then that gene tends to survive.

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Speaker 1: Is that a reasonable argument, Well, there is evidence that

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Speaker 1: females are less likely to call if they are surrounded

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Speaker 1: by females they are not related to. Oh wow, so

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Speaker 1: they will withhold calling when they're not around family members.

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Speaker 3: So it's really context dependent. They are doing fractions in

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Speaker 3: their head. When deciding whether to save your.

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Speaker 1: Life, they are at least deciding are there people who

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Speaker 1: were at the last family reunion or not?

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Speaker 3: What did they bring to the pot luck?

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Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. And if you didn't bring enough,

438
00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:24,560
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna call that coyote, can have you for dinner.

439
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:27,480
Speaker 3: I know that akon casserole didn't pass muster, and so

440
00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:28,920
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.

441
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:34,080
Speaker 1: Okay, let's take a break, and when we get back,

442
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:36,879
Speaker 1: we're going to return to the honey bees and the

443
00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:39,919
Speaker 1: insects that Daniel asked about like fifteen minutes ago. And

444
00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:41,359
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, get right back to it, and

445
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:57,960
Speaker 1: then I didn't.

446
00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:05,000
Speaker 3: All right, we're back, and we're answering a question from

447
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 3: a listener about how behaviors can evolve and a broader

448
00:23:08,640 --> 00:23:13,440
Speaker 3: question about altruism in evolution. So tell me about insects.

449
00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:17,119
Speaker 3: Why do bees give up their lives for their fellow bees?

450
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:20,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, in particular, we're talking about hymenopteran insects, and

451
00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:24,399
Speaker 1: hymenoptrans are like the bees and the ants and stuff

452
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:27,919
Speaker 1: like that, and the wasps and these have some of

453
00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:33,520
Speaker 1: the most amazing examples of hymenopterans. Oh yeah, you'd ask that.

454
00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 3: Well, it's just it has an interesting prefix.

455
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:42,720
Speaker 1: So hymen is Greek for membrane and turin is wing,

456
00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: and so they have wing membranes.

457
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:48,719
Speaker 3: Got it. Okay, Yeah, so membrane. That's a great answer.

458
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:52,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks. Okay. So they have a really interesting sort

459
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:55,159
Speaker 1: of system for determining whether or not they end up

460
00:23:55,160 --> 00:23:57,200
Speaker 1: being males or females. And we talked about this a

461
00:23:57,240 --> 00:24:00,920
Speaker 1: little bit in the Listener Questions episode. But briefly, males

462
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:04,480
Speaker 1: are haploid, which means they only get one set of

463
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:09,639
Speaker 1: genetic information, so they develop from unfertilized eggs. So females

464
00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:12,200
Speaker 1: will not mate with males, they'll just lay an egg.

465
00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:14,960
Speaker 1: It will have one set of chromosomes instead of two,

466
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 1: whereas females will get two sets of chromosomes. And so

467
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:24,320
Speaker 1: when a daughter is born, she gets one hundred percent

468
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 1: of the info from dad because you only had one

469
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:29,919
Speaker 1: set of chromosomes to give. So all of the sisters

470
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:32,679
Speaker 1: they're going to get the same chromosome from Dad, So

471
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:36,119
Speaker 1: that chromosome's one hundred percent the same the chromosome they

472
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 1: get from mom. They're going to have a like fifty

473
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:40,400
Speaker 1: percent chance of having the same information if you're comparing

474
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 1: between two sisters. So if you look at two sisters,

475
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:47,440
Speaker 1: seventy five percent of their genetic information is going to

476
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 1: be the same.

477
00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 3: Whereas between me and my brothers and humans it's only

478
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:51,959
Speaker 3: fifty percent.

479
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,280
Speaker 1: That's right, I see. And if you compare the mom

480
00:24:55,680 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 1: to her daughters, they're only fifty percent similar. And so

481
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 1: the daughters are like super hyper similar to each other.

482
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:05,200
Speaker 3: They're more like clones than our sisters.

483
00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:08,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they're much closer. And so you find that

484
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:11,159
Speaker 1: they're willing to help their mom produce a bunch of

485
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:15,199
Speaker 1: additional sisters because they're producing more individuals that are very

486
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:18,399
Speaker 1: similar to each other, and they are quite willing to

487
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:20,479
Speaker 1: give up their lives to protect each other because they

488
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:24,200
Speaker 1: are very genetically similar. And so we think that that's

489
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:27,640
Speaker 1: why you tend to see these amazing examples of animals

490
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 1: being willing to give up their lives to protect each

491
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:32,880
Speaker 1: other because in these systems, at least the sisters tend

492
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:36,040
Speaker 1: to be very genetically similar. So kin selection seems to

493
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:39,440
Speaker 1: be able to particularly work well in these systems.

494
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:45,399
Speaker 3: It's fascinating that behavior seems to follow these relationships. You

495
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:49,359
Speaker 3: know that people who are more closely aligned tend to

496
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,440
Speaker 3: act in a way that benefits people who are more

497
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 3: related to them. And isn't it because selection at the

498
00:25:57,200 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 3: level of individuals, when individuals have these complex overlaps, tends

499
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:06,679
Speaker 3: to benefit behaviors that leads to the selection of those

500
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:09,440
Speaker 3: genes that led to those behaviors. Is that right?

501
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:14,359
Speaker 1: When you are closely related to individuals, you might be

502
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 1: more likely to see a benefit to any genes associated

503
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:23,159
Speaker 1: with behaviors for cooperation.

504
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 3: But you have to see the benefit. I guess that's

505
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 3: my question, you know, because like we were talking earlier

506
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 3: about like the squirrels knowing whether their people are related,

507
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 3: But in the case of like a bee, like a

508
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 3: bee isn't aware that they're related in some way? Isn't

509
00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:40,879
Speaker 3: it just that their behavior benefits people who are more

510
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:43,640
Speaker 3: closely related to them without them being aware of their

511
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:47,120
Speaker 3: like sisterly relationship? I mean, are bees feeling a sisterly

512
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 3: bond with their clone sisters?

513
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 1: I see? Okay, So I think ants are able to

514
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:55,480
Speaker 1: tell the difference between nestmates and not nestmates based on

515
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:58,920
Speaker 1: their chemical smell. I wouldn't be surprised if bees could

516
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:04,440
Speaker 1: do something similar. There are social trematodes We talked about

517
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:06,480
Speaker 1: this in a prior episode, Living in the go nedes

518
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: of snails that are able to tell the difference between

519
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: members of the same species that are a different genotype

520
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,399
Speaker 1: that are trying to invade and take over the snail.

521
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:19,360
Speaker 1: And so I think even for species that we think

522
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 1: of as like you know, quite quote unquote lower, they

523
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:26,359
Speaker 1: are able to tell even within the same species, you know,

524
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:29,200
Speaker 1: are you my family or not? Which is kind of amazing.

525
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 1: But I think there are a lot of techniques for telling,

526
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,679
Speaker 1: even in a hive, are you in my family or

527
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 1: are you not in my family?

528
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:38,959
Speaker 3: Yeah? I see, And that makes sense because if you

529
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 3: can do that, then you can act differently based on

530
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:45,680
Speaker 3: that information. And that also will help propagate your genes

531
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 3: if you help people who have your genes more than

532
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:51,440
Speaker 3: you help people who don't have your genes. Yes, yeah,

533
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 3: that makes sense.

534
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:54,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think being able to recognize family is a

535
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:56,280
Speaker 1: big part of how this stuff works.

536
00:27:57,200 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 3: All right. Cool, So in the future when the aliens

537
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:02,879
Speaker 3: come and they create like an army of ten thousand

538
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 3: Daniel clones, I will just like naturally help those guys

539
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 3: out more than like all the Kelly clones, because I'll

540
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 3: know that I'm more closely related to the damn clones,

541
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 3: and it's just nature. Kelly, don't be offended.

542
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,920
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, but let's move on to mechanism too, which

543
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,640
Speaker 1: is mutualism, which is there are some instances where there

544
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:26,880
Speaker 1: is mutual benefit to working together and you both get

545
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:31,879
Speaker 1: higher fitness by cooperating. And so, for example, although I

546
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 1: was going to say, you know, we both have this

547
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: great fitness together, but I don't think it's going to

548
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: help either of our reproductions. So maybe that's not going

549
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 1: to work. You help the Daniel clones, I understand. So

550
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 1: all right, So here here's an example in paper wasps.

551
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 1: You may have seen like these giant wasp nests that

552
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 1: kind of look like they're made of paper, Like you know,

553
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: they're literally using their mouth parts to sort of scrape

554
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 1: parts off of trees or parts off of your furniture,

555
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: and then they make these giant nests. They're made by

556
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: several females, and some of those females, up to thirty

557
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 1: five percent are actually not related. And so why would

558
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 1: they be helping to make these giant nests if they're

559
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: not related, Because only one of the females in that

560
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 1: nest is laying the eggs, and everybody else is subordinating

561
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 1: themselves and choosing to not lay eggs. Yeah, and so

562
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 1: why would they do that, Well, it turns out that

563
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:21,720
Speaker 1: at some point the dominant female will die and one

564
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 1: of the subordinate females will get the chance to take

565
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 1: over that giant nest when she dies. And the giant

566
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 1: nests have a much better chance of surviving like a

567
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 1: predator attack than teeny tiny nests that are made by

568
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 1: solitary females. So there are nests like that are made

569
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: by solitary females who try to go it alone. And

570
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 1: so there are some females who will say, all right,

571
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:44,840
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not related to you, but I

572
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: am going to help you out in the hope that

573
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 1: maybe one day I'm going to get to take over

574
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 1: this giant kingdom and my turn will come. And so

575
00:29:52,920 --> 00:29:54,920
Speaker 1: I'm going to cooperate now in the hope that later

576
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:57,080
Speaker 1: I'm going to get to take this over. And so

577
00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:00,440
Speaker 1: it's like a delayed benefit with it. This is called

578
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 1: postponed coordination. And actually this idea of like territorial inheritance,

579
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 1: where if I help you now, I might get to

580
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:10,600
Speaker 1: take over this amazing territory later is a pretty common

581
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 1: thing that we see in like birds and insects and

582
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 1: lots of other lots of other species.

583
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:18,719
Speaker 3: Okay, so then my question here is it makes sense

584
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 3: to cooperate. Everybody benefits. But what about the prisoner's dilima

585
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 3: example we talked about earlier. Why aren't there jerk wasps

586
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 3: who come and wait for you to build your nice

587
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 3: nest and then say, oh, wouldn't it be a tragedy

588
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 3: if something were to happen to your paper wasp nest

589
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 3: and you know, kill everybody and take it over.

590
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 1: Ah. Yeah, So usually the individuals who are helping are

591
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 1: weaker and couldn't be the dominant individual for whatever reason.

592
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 1: And so, for example, if you are one of the

593
00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: thirty five percent of individuals who are not genetically related

594
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:55,400
Speaker 1: to the dominant individual who's making the nest, you probably

595
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: couldn't try to oust the dominant individual who's laying the eggs.

596
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:01,719
Speaker 1: You'd probably get slaughtered if you tried to do that.

597
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 1: And so I think in a lot of cases you

598
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: would be outnumbered, and you are kind of like waiting

599
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: to get older, and in the meantime, you're probably also

600
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 1: like learning how things are done. It's also like an apprenticeship,

601
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: and so I think that if you could go it alone,

602
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 1: maybe you would, but you're just sort of waiting for

603
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 1: your chance.

604
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 3: I see, all right, cool, so that makes.

605
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 1: Sense, okay, And then option three is manipulation. So maybe

606
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: it looks like cooperation, but you are just straight up

607
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:32,120
Speaker 1: being coerced. And you should go to our episode on

608
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 1: interspecific brood parasitism where we talk about birds who take

609
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 1: care of eggs that are not theirs because they were

610
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 1: tricked into doing so.

611
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 3: So definitely not altruism, right.

612
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 1: Definitely, just you have straight up been duped. And so

613
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: last let's talk about reciprocity. This used to be called

614
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: reciprocal altruism, but we stop calling it that because altruism,

615
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:59,240
Speaker 1: in my mind, is when you do something nice with

616
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 1: no anti a patient that you'll get paid back. But

617
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 1: this is really like you're doing something nice because you

618
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 1: expect to get paid back eventually.

619
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 3: This is like a gift exchange.

620
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:09,840
Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, that doesn't really feel like ultruism, So

621
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: we call it reciprocity. And my favorite example of reciprocity

622
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 1: is vampire bats in Costa Rica. So the idea here

623
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: is that you are doing something nice because you expect

624
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 1: that you're going to interact with this individual over and

625
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 1: over and over again. So you mentioned the prisoner's dilemma,

626
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: and so the prisoner's dilemma is a game that is

627
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 1: often used to think about these reciprocal interactions. And it

628
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: doesn't work if you're only going to interact with somebody once.

629
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 1: If you interact with someone once, you should probably dupe

630
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: them to try to get, you know, the best outcome

631
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:45,040
Speaker 1: from the interaction for that one iteration. But if you're

632
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: going to interact with someone over and over and over

633
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 1: and over again, maybe it makes sense to cooperate and

634
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:51,360
Speaker 1: try to make it so that both of you are

635
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 1: getting the best outcome from interacting over and over and

636
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 1: over again.

637
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 3: And I remember they did this experiment and they showed

638
00:32:57,040 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 3: that like the best strategy for the prisoners to dumble

639
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 3: is called like tit for tat. Basically, people are being

640
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 3: nice to you, you're nice to them. People are not

641
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 3: nice to you. You're not nice back.

642
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 6: Right.

643
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 1: Excelelrod is the one who's set up I think the

644
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 1: games and people could submit different strategies and tit for

645
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 1: tat one.

646
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 3: Right, Okay, classic game theory. Cool stuff.

647
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 1: All right, So with these vampire bats that live in

648
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: Costa Rica, they go out for a blood meal at night.

649
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 1: If they unfortunately don't get a blood meal, they can

650
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: make it for one night, but if they don't get

651
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 1: a blood meal for three nights in a row, they're

652
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: probably gonna die. But if they get a blood meal

653
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 1: and they could find an animal, they probably get more

654
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 1: than enough blood and they could afford to share some.

655
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: So helping out a roost meat so they live in roosts,

656
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:43,480
Speaker 1: isn't a big cost to you, but could be a

657
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 1: big benefit to an individual who didn't get any food

658
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:47,400
Speaker 1: that night.

659
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 3: How do they help them out? They're like, spit up

660
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 3: some blood.

661
00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they puke in their mouth. Yeah, super gross.

662
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: Puke up blood in their mouth?

663
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 3: You very much?

664
00:33:55,840 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you know, yeah, well you wanted to do

665
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: a podcast with an animal behavior person, this is what

666
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 1: you get. So anyway, Okay, So they looked and they

667
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:11,799
Speaker 1: saw that bats that didn't manage to get a meal

668
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:14,480
Speaker 1: for the night, they weren't very likely to get fed

669
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:17,359
Speaker 1: by family members. So that's totally consistent with our kin

670
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:21,399
Speaker 1: selection discussion. But they were also really likely to get

671
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: fed by roostmates. So there was a guy who went

672
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 1: out and they collected a bunch of bats from the wild,

673
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 1: brought them into the lab and then held onto some

674
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:31,240
Speaker 1: of the bats and made it so that they couldn't

675
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 1: get food, and then they released them back into a

676
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:38,160
Speaker 1: room that had some individuals from the same roost and

677
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:41,400
Speaker 1: some individuals that were completely new to the bats, so

678
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:45,040
Speaker 1: they essentially had like friends and non friends, and the

679
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 1: friends were much more likely to feed the bats when

680
00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:51,000
Speaker 1: it went in asking for food and essentially was like,

681
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 1: I'm hungry, and individuals that knew the bat were like, okay,

682
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 1: I'll feed you bat, And so it does seem like

683
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 1: having some familiarity with an individual and essentially like some

684
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 1: anticipation that you'll see this individual again so they might

685
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 1: be able to pay you back. Yeah, made you more

686
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 1: likely to feed them. And individuals who were fed were

687
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 1: then more likely to feed individuals later on in the experiment,

688
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,040
Speaker 1: And so it does look like other individuals expect you

689
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:19,719
Speaker 1: to ante up later if it's known that you were

690
00:35:19,760 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 1: helped out, and if you see someone pretty often, then

691
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:25,520
Speaker 1: you feel like you can ask them for help. And

692
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 1: so it does look like these bats have this reciprocal

693
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 1: altruism system going on, where if you've got these iterated

694
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:33,880
Speaker 1: interactions where you know you're going to see them pretty often,

695
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 1: you can ask them for help and expect to get

696
00:35:36,600 --> 00:35:37,280
Speaker 1: help in return.

697
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 3: I see, all right, So that's like another reason why

698
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 3: what seems like altruistic behavior might benefit the individual, And

699
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 3: that seems to be the common thread is that you're

700
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 3: arguing that all of this behavior, which seems like it

701
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 3: might have been selected at the group level, can sometimes

702
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:56,279
Speaker 3: be explained by evolution on the individual because in the end,

703
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 3: all of this behavior really does come back to benefit

704
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 3: the individual, and that's why it would.

705
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 1: Be selected exactly. Yep, that's the perfect way. At bottom

706
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:06,279
Speaker 1: line it whenever we've seen examples of cooperation, we've been

707
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:09,719
Speaker 1: able to find explanations that can be explained by individual

708
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 1: level selection, don't require group selection, and can be completely

709
00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 1: understood through the lens of natural selection.

710
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:17,720
Speaker 3: So everybody out there is selfish, you're.

711
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:21,240
Speaker 1: Saying, well, we do see a lot of selfish behavior

712
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:24,480
Speaker 1: in nature. We also, this is kind of interesting. We

713
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: don't see a lot of examples of spite, which is

714
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:31,480
Speaker 1: where someone is willing, which is where someone is willing

715
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:36,680
Speaker 1: to accept a negative impact on themselves just to see

716
00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:39,959
Speaker 1: something bad happen as someone else. But we do see

717
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 1: humans do that. That's a unique thing.

718
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 3: Now, this sounds like a Mary roach book spite. Spite

719
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:50,800
Speaker 3: examples of people hurting themselves just to get back at somebody.

720
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:52,319
Speaker 1: Else we know of at least one case. So like,

721
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:54,880
Speaker 1: there's been studies on monkeys in the lab, capuchin monkeys,

722
00:36:54,920 --> 00:36:58,560
Speaker 1: I think, where if a capuchin monkey was observed getting

723
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 1: too many of the most delicious snack, another monkey would

724
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:06,839
Speaker 1: take a less delicious snack as long as it meant

725
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:10,319
Speaker 1: the other monkey would get punished in some way like no, no,

726
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:12,480
Speaker 1: you've been getting too many good snacks. This is not cool.

727
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:14,839
Speaker 1: You're getting punished and I'm getting punished. I don't care,

728
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 1: it's not cool. So other animals are capable of spite.

729
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:20,799
Speaker 3: I'm willing to have a less delicious snack as long

730
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 3: as I get to see you suffer.

731
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 1: That's right.

732
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:24,840
Speaker 3: Wow, that is cold cold.

733
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:26,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we don't see it as often as we

734
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:30,880
Speaker 1: see humans doing it, but we also see amazing examples

735
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:34,360
Speaker 1: of cooperation and social behavior in humans, which gets to

736
00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:51,240
Speaker 1: Kurran's question, which we will get to after the break.

737
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 3: All right, we're back when we're taking a long detour

738
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 3: to answer this question, first giving you a background and

739
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 3: how evolution works, and reminding you that there is no

740
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:09,839
Speaker 3: true altruism out there in the animal kingdom, and that

741
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 3: in the end, it all benefits the individual and that's

742
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 3: how evolution works. So tell us, Kelly, how does this

743
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 3: help us understand the answer to Karen's question about human behavior?

744
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:22,400
Speaker 1: All right, Well, first of all, I'm hoping this wasn't

745
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:26,800
Speaker 1: too painful for Karen. They have professor parents, so hopefully

746
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:31,240
Speaker 1: they're accustomed to long winded answers and so they're not surprised.

747
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:35,160
Speaker 3: I'm afraid you might be making the wrong assumption there. Now.

748
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 3: My daughter Hazel is like oversensitized to long answers. If

749
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:41,480
Speaker 3: she sends us when coming, she's like, I didn't ask

750
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:42,600
Speaker 3: for a college lecture.

751
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 1: All right, well, I'll tell them that they can fast

752
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:47,959
Speaker 1: forward to forty minutes in and get right to the point. Okay,

753
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 1: so let's hone in on mammals, and so you'll see

754
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: I actually haven't quite gotten the answer. We're just getting

755
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:57,879
Speaker 1: to mammals. So all right, two thirds of mammals are

756
00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: actually living alone. So only of mammals are social. In

757
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 1: other cases, they get together to mate and then they

758
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:08,319
Speaker 1: tend to split up, and the females will spend some

759
00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:11,399
Speaker 1: time with the babies because mammals do lactation, which means

760
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 1: the moms need to be around the babies for a

761
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 1: while to feed them. But okay, so now, why did

762
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 1: humans in particular evolve to be social? Yeaht hey, they're extraordinaries. Well,

763
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:30,320
Speaker 1: Daniel and I actually recorded an answer to the question

764
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:33,360
Speaker 1: that I just asked, but after I listened to our answer,

765
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 1: I decided it's like not a super satisfying answer. So

766
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,400
Speaker 1: instead I reached out to an expert to get away

767
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 1: better answer, and I'm having our amazing audio guy Matt,

768
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:49,280
Speaker 1: drop that much better answer in here. Doctor Nathan Lynz

769
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 1: is a professor of biology at John Jay College, City

770
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 1: University of New York, and he's the author of three

771
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:57,839
Speaker 1: books that touch on human evolution topics. We had him

772
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 1: on the show on February twenty seventh, twenty tw to

773
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 1: talk about the sexual evolution How five hundred million years

774
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:07,560
Speaker 1: of sex, gender, and mating shape modern relationships, which is

775
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: a book you all should definitely check out, and you

776
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:12,080
Speaker 1: can also find more of his writing over at the

777
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 1: Human Evolution Blog and today we're bringing him on to

778
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 1: answer one of Karen's questions. And so, Nathan, welcome back

779
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:20,240
Speaker 1: on to the show.

780
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:22,280
Speaker 4: It's a pleasure. I love this podcast.

781
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: Well, we love having you on the show. This is

782
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 1: your third appearance now, which I think makes you tied

783
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 1: with Scott Solomon for most regular appearances on the show.

784
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 1: So that's awesome for us.

785
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:35,359
Speaker 4: The gauntlet has been thrown down.

786
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:40,280
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. Yeah, So folks submit more human

787
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 1: evolution questions and then we can you know, we can

788
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 1: get Nathan on even more.

789
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 3: So.

790
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, So why did humans evolve to be social? And

791
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 1: a little bit of context here. We just spent forty

792
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 1: minutes talking about social evolution and other animals. We've talked

793
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 1: about kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and now we're talking about humans.

794
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: Why do we cooperate and why? Why are we social?

795
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 1: What do we know about this?

796
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:02,839
Speaker 4: Yeah?

797
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 7: So, I mean humans, So mammals and then primates evolved

798
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:10,000
Speaker 7: to be very very social. Very few mammals live solitary lives.

799
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 7: They live in communities, they live in families, and they

800
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 7: interact with one another and they're obviously they're better off

801
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 7: when they do. So humans have taken this to an

802
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 7: incredible extreme. And the reason why is humans are the

803
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 7: ultimate generalists, right, We're actually not particularly well evolved or

804
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 7: suited for any particular habitat or lifestyle. Instead, we went

805
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 7: the other way. We evolved to be adaptable and to

806
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:37,320
Speaker 7: live in a whole variety of ways.

807
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 4: So, you know, there are animals.

808
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 7: That can throw better, that can run faster, that can

809
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:44,920
Speaker 7: climb better, that can swim better. But we can run

810
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 7: and climb and jump, and we could do it all,

811
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 7: and we can eat a variety of diets. Think of

812
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 7: how different world diets are around the world, you know,

813
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:56,400
Speaker 7: from chore lines and seafaring peoples to desert people to

814
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:01,560
Speaker 7: tundra to rainforest. So that that quality of being very

815
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 7: general in our approach lends itself to division of labor

816
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:08,719
Speaker 7: where individuals do not have to all do.

817
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:09,479
Speaker 4: The same thing.

818
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 7: Whereas most other animals they all do the same thing.

819
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:15,240
Speaker 7: They can do different things, and they can work together.

820
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:19,080
Speaker 7: But there's not like trades, you know, there aren't professions.

821
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 7: They all basically do the same thing, and they basically

822
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:26,719
Speaker 7: all have to learn everything they need to know each generation. Right,

823
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:29,319
Speaker 7: they don't inherit a whole bunch of knowledge. They do

824
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 7: learn from each other, but they don't intentionally teach anything.

825
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 7: And that's what humans do is we have this huge

826
00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 7: toolkit of knowledge, of cultural knowledge that gets passed on

827
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 7: each generation and then get specialized. So some individuals can

828
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 7: do one thing. They can be homesteaders, you know, they

829
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 7: can work with their hands. Other people are out hunting

830
00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:49,399
Speaker 7: and they have great vision, whatever it is. There's lots

831
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 7: of different ways that you can contribute to the group

832
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:54,879
Speaker 7: and be important and valuable, and therefore your genes are

833
00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:58,440
Speaker 7: more likely to find success, not because you're good at

834
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 7: this one specific thing, but because you're good at something.

835
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 7: So we were all contributing in this wide variety of ways. Well,

836
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:09,800
Speaker 7: that creates a social network that is better the larger

837
00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 7: it gets, because then that's how you add more and

838
00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 7: more skills to the toolkit, is that any one person

839
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 7: doesn't have to do it all. They only have to

840
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 7: do one thing. And so our groups became highly intricate,

841
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:24,360
Speaker 7: highly cooperative, and also large reservoirs of knowledge.

842
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:27,719
Speaker 8: And the best support for this hypothesis is that the

843
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:30,759
Speaker 8: few examples we have of population declines where you get

844
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 8: a bottleneck, they lose tons of skills. So we have

845
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 8: societies like in Tasmania where we can tell from the

846
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 8: fossils and the archaeology that they used to be able

847
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:43,279
Speaker 8: to do some things that they no longer can. I

848
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 8: mean now they can, but when they were first kind

849
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:48,040
Speaker 8: of studied anthropologically, they had actually lost a lot of

850
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 8: cultural knowledge when the population shrunk to a small size.

851
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:55,840
Speaker 4: So our large groups with intricate social structures.

852
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:59,320
Speaker 7: And division of labor, that created a society that was

853
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 7: much better than just the sum of its parts. Right,

854
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 7: we're not all doing the same thing, we're contributing to

855
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:06,359
Speaker 7: this larger group set.

856
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 4: So that's why social evolution just really ran out of control.

857
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:14,239
Speaker 7: And in fact, it's what Dan Lieberman calls evolution in

858
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:17,440
Speaker 7: warp drive because you don't have to wait around for

859
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:20,759
Speaker 7: new genes or new alleles, you know, mutations to provide things.

860
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:22,799
Speaker 7: You can actually learn a new skill, teach it, and

861
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 7: then boom, everyone has it. So it's really our sociality

862
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 7: is key to our success.

863
00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 1: Why just us? Why don't more animals do this generalist

864
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:34,399
Speaker 1: thing that has clearly been so great for us?

865
00:44:34,680 --> 00:44:37,520
Speaker 7: Well, to be honest, it's an unlikely scenario to play

866
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:41,160
Speaker 7: out because if you think about it. Selection generally operates

867
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 7: on the level of the individual, right, so you don't

868
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 7: get anything out of helping other people, for example, it

869
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 7: doesn't unless it directly benefits you.

870
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:52,360
Speaker 4: It won't. Those genes won't persist.

871
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:54,759
Speaker 7: And in fact, I just finished a book not too

872
00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 7: long called The Accidental Homo Sapiens, and it talks about how,

873
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 7: in many ways our particular trajectory was not destined for success.

874
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 7: It's actually quite costly to be have these big, huge

875
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 7: brains at the expense of our bodies. We use our

876
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:12,479
Speaker 7: brains instead of our bodies, and so our bodies actually

877
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 7: aren't that great.

878
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 4: I read a book about that.

879
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 7: Because we rely on our on our brains so much,

880
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:21,160
Speaker 7: our bodies kind of aren't as heavily scrutinized by natural selection.

881
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:24,479
Speaker 1: That book is called Human Errors. Right, Yes, another great book.

882
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:27,239
Speaker 7: Thanks for the plug. It's available at fine stores near you.

883
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't miss those opportunities.

884
00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 7: But the best proof of the sort of futility of

885
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 7: our approach is if you look at all of our

886
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 7: close relatives. They all went extinct, right and everywhere, whether

887
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:44,520
Speaker 7: it's Homo erectus or you know, Homo habilists, and you know,

888
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:47,719
Speaker 7: total rid of fences. Think of all of the named species,

889
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 7: those were all the smartest things that they were planet

890
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,879
Speaker 7: had ever seen, and they all went extinct, right, some

891
00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:56,239
Speaker 7: of them because of direct interaction with us, but most

892
00:45:56,239 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 7: of them probably not. You know, so this is not

893
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:02,480
Speaker 7: actually that successful a strategy. And our own species was

894
00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:05,120
Speaker 7: kind of on the nice edge of extinction multiple.

895
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:05,760
Speaker 4: Times in our history.

896
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 9: Right.

897
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:08,880
Speaker 7: We have a lot of population bottlenecks in our genetic history.

898
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:11,760
Speaker 4: So what that means is it's a great system.

899
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:15,240
Speaker 7: Once you get big enough and spread around far enough,

900
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:19,120
Speaker 7: then it's a great system. But until then, favoring the

901
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:22,760
Speaker 7: development of the brain over everything else was a recipe

902
00:46:22,760 --> 00:46:23,320
Speaker 7: for extinction.

903
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 1: How sure are we of this hypothesis? This seems like

904
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:30,480
Speaker 1: a hard thing. You know, studying behavior is tough because

905
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 1: behavior rarely leaves fossils, Like, you know, what percent confidence

906
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 1: would you put on this explanation for why we're social?

907
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 4: I don't know. It's really hard to say. What we

908
00:46:41,239 --> 00:46:41,640
Speaker 4: can do.

909
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 7: The best way to test these is to look at

910
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 7: animal correlates and to look at closely related species that

911
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:50,279
Speaker 7: have some key difference and kind of see how it

912
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 7: plays out. And you know, for example, if you look

913
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:57,160
Speaker 7: at chimpanzees and bonobos. They're very closely related. They're sister species,

914
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 7: separated by about a million and a half year of

915
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:03,920
Speaker 7: distinct evolution, and their sociality is very very different, and

916
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:06,760
Speaker 7: a very short amount of time they developed very different

917
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:09,799
Speaker 7: social structures. The bonobo seems to be a bit more

918
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 7: cooperative and egalitarian and gregarious. You know, they still have

919
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:17,400
Speaker 7: some you know, competition and it can be ruthless, but

920
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 7: in general they're more pro social than the chimpanzees, which

921
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:23,440
Speaker 7: are much more aggressive and hierarchical. But the common chipanzees

922
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:26,280
Speaker 7: are more successful if you use numbers as your outfit,

923
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 7: so it's you know, our sociality, it was no guarantee

924
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 7: of success. So we don't really know. A lot of

925
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:36,640
Speaker 7: social evolution.

926
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:41,360
Speaker 6: Is speculative, but you know, when these hypotheses attract a

927
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:44,200
Speaker 6: lot of attention and a lot of scrutiny, and you

928
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:46,279
Speaker 6: have a lot of scientists who, you know, would try

929
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:47,759
Speaker 6: to think of clever ways to test them.

930
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 4: So all we can do is say that this explanation.

931
00:47:52,120 --> 00:47:54,560
Speaker 7: Has so far held up and no a lot without

932
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:56,799
Speaker 7: a time machine, we don't really know for sure. As

933
00:47:56,800 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 7: you said, behaviors don't fossilize, but archaeology does, and we

934
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:05,239
Speaker 7: have a lot of evidence of an intricately pro social ancestry.

935
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:07,479
Speaker 7: I mean, they're they're. My favorite fossil of all time

936
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:10,359
Speaker 7: is called the old Man from Demonissi. He's it's a

937
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:12,879
Speaker 7: fossil of a homoerectus from about two and a half

938
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:15,200
Speaker 7: million years ago. And this is an old man who

939
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:18,799
Speaker 7: lost all of his teeth and survived because we can

940
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 7: tell by the healing of his bones that he survived

941
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 7: for at least two years beyond having any teeth in

942
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 7: his head. How does one survive before you know, soft

943
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,760
Speaker 7: cooked foods, you know, the only explanation is that somebody

944
00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:35,320
Speaker 7: was chewing his food for him, someone was preparing his food,

945
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:38,239
Speaker 7: softening it. And why would you do this to this

946
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 7: old man who was a burden to his group because

947
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:42,719
Speaker 7: he knew things.

948
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 3: Or maybe he was really fun to have around.

949
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:49,359
Speaker 6: Yeah, he made him laugh, you know, But the point

950
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 6: is he contributed, like and that's I think, as far

951
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:55,440
Speaker 6: as I know, the oldest evidence we have that that

952
00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:59,719
Speaker 6: just being older, you know, was a value to the

953
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 6: group because you old people know things, you know, they've been.

954
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 7: Around longer, they teach things, and so when and by

955
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:08,080
Speaker 7: the way, that fossil does not stand alone. We have

956
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:11,279
Speaker 7: a lot of other examples of clearly individuals that had

957
00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 7: been helped by their group that by having all kinds

958
00:49:14,440 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 7: of you know, injuries and deformities and yet continue to

959
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 7: live for years on end, they couldn't have done that

960
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,160
Speaker 7: without help. So we've been caring for each other, taking

961
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 7: care of each other, and also respecting each other's contributions.

962
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 7: We've been doing that for a very, very long time,

963
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,759
Speaker 7: and I'm pretty convinced that that's that our sociality is

964
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 7: the key the key aspect.

965
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:36,360
Speaker 3: What do you think is the sort of leading alternative hypothesis.

966
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,480
Speaker 7: Well, there's a lot of people still to this day

967
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:44,120
Speaker 7: who have a hard time accepting any benefits to the

968
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:50,000
Speaker 7: group that a particular you know, genetic trade, certain adaptation

969
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 7: would have because if it doesn't directly benefit the individual

970
00:49:53,840 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 7: and quickly, some biologists, many biologists, can't see a way

971
00:49:58,560 --> 00:49:59,200
Speaker 7: that it would.

972
00:49:58,960 --> 00:49:59,600
Speaker 3: Be selected for.

973
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 7: I'm not convinced of that. I think that the tide

974
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:05,320
Speaker 7: is turning against the opponents of group selection. The reason

975
00:50:05,360 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 7: why is it's not hard to imagine when you have

976
00:50:08,239 --> 00:50:11,960
Speaker 7: multiple groups competing against each other that a cooperative group

977
00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:15,800
Speaker 7: would outcompete a non cooperative.

978
00:50:15,239 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 4: Or less cooperative group.

979
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:20,680
Speaker 7: And this is the work of Davis Loan Wilson, and

980
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 7: he's been ringing this bell for fifty years. And the

981
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 7: idea is that it's true that really competitive, kind of

982
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:31,680
Speaker 7: antisocial instincts can be rewarded within a group, rewarded meaning success.

983
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:35,400
Speaker 7: But when you have groups competing against each other, that

984
00:50:35,560 --> 00:50:39,600
Speaker 7: actually becomes the more powerful selective force. And to be honest,

985
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 7: Darwin mentioned this in the Descent of Man when he

986
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:45,200
Speaker 7: talked about if you look at any two human groups

987
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 7: when they clash, the differences between them that determined which

988
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:53,600
Speaker 7: group is successful is never genetic, right, It's always has

989
00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:57,600
Speaker 7: to do with something entirely non genetic, something social, something cultural,

990
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 7: something technological. And if you can imagine that same competition

991
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:04,800
Speaker 7: playing out for millions of years, not just a few generations,

992
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 7: but millions of years, what you would see emerging is

993
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:11,400
Speaker 7: very cooperative, pro social groups would tend to outcompete those

994
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 7: that aren't.

995
00:51:12,760 --> 00:51:15,680
Speaker 3: But isn't that social behavior somehow encoded in the gene

996
00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:18,800
Speaker 3: so indirectly, it is still a genetic advantage.

997
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:19,120
Speaker 4: Right, It is?

998
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:22,279
Speaker 7: It is and so and that's why I think group

999
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 7: selection is starting to experience this renaissance where people can

1000
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:28,480
Speaker 7: recognize that if the genes make you more social than

1001
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:30,839
Speaker 7: your whole group really is better. And if your group

1002
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:34,520
Speaker 7: is competing against the less one than those genes would accumulate.

1003
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:36,400
Speaker 7: You know, the jury still out on a lot of

1004
00:51:36,440 --> 00:51:39,520
Speaker 7: these a lot of these questions. But one thing I

1005
00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 7: would point out is that competition and cooperation we think

1006
00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:46,960
Speaker 7: of them as opposites, but actually they involve all of

1007
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:50,920
Speaker 7: the same skill sets, right, because to cooperate with someone

1008
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:53,360
Speaker 7: requires the same things to compete against them, you have

1009
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 7: to understand them. You have to be able to predict

1010
00:51:55,200 --> 00:51:57,799
Speaker 7: their behavior, you have to be able to manipulate them.

1011
00:51:57,800 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 7: And whether that's good or bad, you know, depending on

1012
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:02,239
Speaker 7: who it is. But you know, if you can kind

1013
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:04,640
Speaker 7: of get someone to do what you want, you have

1014
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:07,000
Speaker 7: to understand them. So it's like empathy, and I mean

1015
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:09,920
Speaker 7: that is like emotional empathy, cognitive empathy. And when you

1016
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 7: have that ability, you can either work with them or

1017
00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:14,520
Speaker 7: work against them. So it's the same skill set. So

1018
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:17,880
Speaker 7: what the difference is who do you identify as groups?

1019
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:21,600
Speaker 7: So what makes you cooperative versus competitive is in group

1020
00:52:21,680 --> 00:52:25,920
Speaker 7: versus outgroup identification, which to me still proves the point

1021
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:29,280
Speaker 7: that you had cooperative groups competing against each other. Cooperation

1022
00:52:29,360 --> 00:52:32,719
Speaker 7: and competition do exist together at the same time in

1023
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:35,480
Speaker 7: the same individuals, and that's why you can have someone

1024
00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:40,040
Speaker 7: who's you know, extremely you know, generous and nice to

1025
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:43,120
Speaker 7: his friends and absolutely ruthless to his enemies. I mean

1026
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:45,759
Speaker 7: the classic caces that Nazi soldiers used to come home

1027
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:48,040
Speaker 7: and kiss their children gently on the head, you know,

1028
00:52:48,120 --> 00:52:52,360
Speaker 7: Like we're all capable of both evil and pro social acts.

1029
00:52:53,400 --> 00:52:55,880
Speaker 7: Even on a dying we can switch, right, So, because

1030
00:52:55,960 --> 00:52:57,759
Speaker 7: I think it's the same parts of our brain. It's

1031
00:52:57,800 --> 00:53:00,160
Speaker 7: just whether or not we identify as pro social or

1032
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:06,160
Speaker 7: anti is in group outgroup identification, which is depressing given

1033
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 7: the way the world is increasingly pitting us against each other.

1034
00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:13,480
Speaker 3: Agreed, fascinating. Do you think when we meet aliens we

1035
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 3: will discover the same sort of social structures there, and

1036
00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:19,680
Speaker 3: the same sort of you know, arguments apply.

1037
00:53:22,719 --> 00:53:26,680
Speaker 7: It's really hard to predict anything about how life outside

1038
00:53:26,719 --> 00:53:29,239
Speaker 7: of you know, the selective pressures of Earth, how that

1039
00:53:29,320 --> 00:53:30,080
Speaker 7: would evolve.

1040
00:53:30,280 --> 00:53:32,640
Speaker 3: But the arguments you've made are fairly general, right.

1041
00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:33,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.

1042
00:53:33,440 --> 00:53:36,320
Speaker 7: It's very hard to imagine how a very anti social

1043
00:53:36,360 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 7: species could ever evolve very far, and we see that

1044
00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:42,040
Speaker 7: in our own planet, right, So there are some creatures

1045
00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:44,480
Speaker 7: who have evolved to be very solitary as adults and

1046
00:53:44,480 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 7: are fairly hostile to one another. The orangutan is our

1047
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:50,120
Speaker 7: closest relative that, at least among the males. They're just

1048
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:54,680
Speaker 7: generally hostile. They kind of hate each other. So it's

1049
00:53:54,920 --> 00:53:59,200
Speaker 7: probably a dead end evolutionarily. It's hard to imagine getting

1050
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:01,719
Speaker 7: much And you know, Tasmanian devils are sort of the

1051
00:54:01,719 --> 00:54:03,400
Speaker 7: same way that they pretty much hate one another.

1052
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:06,240
Speaker 3: So we're not going to be visited by space orangutangs,

1053
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:07,760
Speaker 3: that's your prediction.

1054
00:54:08,800 --> 00:54:09,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think.

1055
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:11,640
Speaker 9: I think like if you if you watch Star Trek

1056
00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:14,000
Speaker 9: and and and you know Galaxy, you know all of these,

1057
00:54:14,280 --> 00:54:17,920
Speaker 9: it's hard to imagine the really nasty, anti ruthless ones

1058
00:54:17,920 --> 00:54:19,520
Speaker 9: ever becoming that successful.

1059
00:54:21,040 --> 00:54:23,480
Speaker 6: But I'm an optimist, so maybe that's where that's coming from.

1060
00:54:23,560 --> 00:54:25,799
Speaker 6: Is I just refuse to believe that evil's gonna win?

1061
00:54:26,800 --> 00:54:27,440
Speaker 4: But I don't know.

1062
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:30,359
Speaker 1: I think that attitude is helpful to keep us all

1063
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:31,280
Speaker 1: going personal.

1064
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:35,640
Speaker 7: Yeah, but even if it's wrong, it's a youthful illusion, right, Yeah.

1065
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:36,960
Speaker 1: I mean, you need something to get you up in

1066
00:54:36,960 --> 00:54:38,399
Speaker 1: the morning. And get you out of bed and keep

1067
00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:41,239
Speaker 1: you going personally. Maybe I'm speaking for myself now, but.

1068
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, use useful illusions. That's a whole area of

1069
00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:47,560
Speaker 7: evolutionary thought as well. Useful illusions. I mean, free will

1070
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:49,240
Speaker 7: is very likely a useful illusion.

1071
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:52,040
Speaker 6: Even our sense of self as a as a as

1072
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:54,880
Speaker 6: an identity is a useful consciousness, useful illusion.

1073
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:58,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we are getting into a whole new episode there,

1074
00:54:58,760 --> 00:55:00,759
Speaker 1: and we will have you back on to talk about

1075
00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: that some other times. So thank you so much for

1076
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:10,560
Speaker 1: answering that question, and we'll chat with you later. Okay,

1077
00:55:11,239 --> 00:55:15,080
Speaker 1: we're back to our regularly scheduled Daniel and Kelly programming.

1078
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:18,640
Speaker 1: So Karen also wanted to know why do we go

1079
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:22,160
Speaker 1: crazy if we're isolated and why doesn't that happen to

1080
00:55:22,280 --> 00:55:25,359
Speaker 1: other species like whales? And so the first thing I

1081
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:28,359
Speaker 1: do when I have a question like why do we

1082
00:55:28,400 --> 00:55:30,960
Speaker 1: go crazy? Is first I want to ask do we

1083
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 1: go crazy? Let's make sure that there's evidence for that statement,

1084
00:55:33,560 --> 00:55:35,880
Speaker 1: and so you know, first of all, I'll note that

1085
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: some of us, there's a lot of variability and how

1086
00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:42,480
Speaker 1: our species responds to social isolation. Some of us really

1087
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:47,440
Speaker 1: would rather be by ourselves. Yeah, yeah, but for some

1088
00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:50,359
Speaker 1: of us, loneliness is detrimental to our health. And so

1089
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:54,040
Speaker 1: according to the Centers for Disease Control, social isolation and

1090
00:55:54,120 --> 00:55:57,880
Speaker 1: loneliness can increase a person's risk for heart disease and stroke,

1091
00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:02,800
Speaker 1: type two diabetes, depression and anxiety, suicidality and self harm, dementia,

1092
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:06,760
Speaker 1: and earlier death. Yikes. Okay, so lots lots of things.

1093
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:11,520
Speaker 1: And so why well, you know, we for species that

1094
00:56:11,560 --> 00:56:14,720
Speaker 1: are social, our brains are sort of hardwired to expect

1095
00:56:14,760 --> 00:56:17,399
Speaker 1: that level of connection. And so when we don't have

1096
00:56:17,440 --> 00:56:21,200
Speaker 1: that connection, when you want that connection, that can be stressful.

1097
00:56:21,200 --> 00:56:24,279
Speaker 1: And so there's evidence that people who are isolated, who

1098
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:28,360
Speaker 1: are feeling isolated and feeling lonely, they have higher levels

1099
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:31,320
Speaker 1: of stress hormones. So we have these like hormones that

1100
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 1: our body releases when we're stressed out and in acute stressors.

1101
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:38,319
Speaker 1: So like you know, if you need to run out

1102
00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:41,520
Speaker 1: in front of a car to pull your dog out

1103
00:56:41,560 --> 00:56:44,440
Speaker 1: from you know, the path of the car, having a

1104
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:47,040
Speaker 1: big release of stress hormones is good because you you know,

1105
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 1: you run out there quickly, you go back and your

1106
00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:51,400
Speaker 1: body then returns to normal. Like it helps you in

1107
00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:54,040
Speaker 1: that immediate moment. But if you have high levels of

1108
00:56:54,080 --> 00:56:57,320
Speaker 1: stress hormones all the time, that's bad for your body.

1109
00:56:57,320 --> 00:56:59,880
Speaker 1: It does things like mess with your immune system, and

1110
00:57:00,200 --> 00:57:02,080
Speaker 1: if your immune system is messed up, then when you

1111
00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 1: get sick, you get sick worse. And it can do

1112
00:57:05,600 --> 00:57:08,680
Speaker 1: things like increase your risk of type two diabetes, and

1113
00:57:08,719 --> 00:57:10,719
Speaker 1: over time, it can make you sort of depressed and

1114
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:13,359
Speaker 1: anxious and stuff like that. And so this can have

1115
00:57:13,400 --> 00:57:16,200
Speaker 1: negative impacts on our bodies, especially if you're feeling isolated

1116
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:19,880
Speaker 1: for a really long time. So Karen is right, being

1117
00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:23,360
Speaker 1: isolated is definitely bad for your health, but it also

1118
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:26,480
Speaker 1: is bad for other social animals as well. So any

1119
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:30,560
Speaker 1: animal that's highly social does show evidence of being harmed,

1120
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:34,840
Speaker 1: like physically by being isolated socially. And I don't know

1121
00:57:34,840 --> 00:57:37,040
Speaker 1: about whales in particular, because it's hard to do these

1122
00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 1: kinds of studies on big animals like whales, But there

1123
00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:43,640
Speaker 1: are monkeys that have been in labs and we've infected

1124
00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:47,280
Speaker 1: them with viruses, and if they're socially isolated, they show

1125
00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:50,000
Speaker 1: similar things that you see in humans. They show high

1126
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:53,280
Speaker 1: levels of stress hormones, their immune systems don't respond to

1127
00:57:53,320 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 1: the virus as well, and so you see more of

1128
00:57:55,680 --> 00:57:58,320
Speaker 1: the virus particles moving around in their body, and they're

1129
00:57:58,320 --> 00:58:01,320
Speaker 1: more likely to die from that viral infection. So very

1130
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:03,400
Speaker 1: similar to what we were talking about in humans.

1131
00:58:03,760 --> 00:58:06,280
Speaker 3: That's a terrible experiment. Not only are you making the

1132
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:08,720
Speaker 3: monkey sick, but then you make them be on their

1133
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:11,280
Speaker 3: own and see if that makes it even worse.

1134
00:58:12,760 --> 00:58:16,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean so, there's a really interesting book by

1135
00:58:16,120 --> 00:58:18,960
Speaker 1: Robert Sapolski called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers? And this

1136
00:58:19,080 --> 00:58:21,520
Speaker 1: was an example he used in that book. And so

1137
00:58:21,560 --> 00:58:23,720
Speaker 1: you know, monkeys are often used as a way of

1138
00:58:23,760 --> 00:58:28,880
Speaker 1: trying to understand diseases that humans get associated by having

1139
00:58:28,960 --> 00:58:32,920
Speaker 1: chronic stress, and that book is a really interesting look

1140
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:34,800
Speaker 1: at how chronic stress can impact a lot of different

1141
00:58:34,840 --> 00:58:37,720
Speaker 1: aspects of our lives. But yes, I agree, that's a

1142
00:58:37,720 --> 00:58:41,960
Speaker 1: horrible experiment. Here's another horrible experiment. Harry Harlowe in the

1143
00:58:42,000 --> 00:58:44,480
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties in the nineteen sixties was living at a

1144
00:58:44,520 --> 00:58:47,720
Speaker 1: time where people were arguing that the main reason babies

1145
00:58:47,760 --> 00:58:50,520
Speaker 1: were attached to their moms is because they're a source

1146
00:58:50,560 --> 00:58:52,600
Speaker 1: of food, and that's it. They're a source of food.

1147
00:58:53,840 --> 00:58:55,080
Speaker 3: Is the wire monkey experiment?

1148
00:58:55,160 --> 00:58:57,480
Speaker 1: This does the wire monkey experiment? Oh, my God. And

1149
00:58:57,520 --> 00:58:59,840
Speaker 1: so so he was like, no, it's not just food.

1150
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:03,120
Speaker 1: It's because there's like there's comfort and love and that

1151
00:59:03,200 --> 00:59:05,440
Speaker 1: and attachment and those things matter too. And so to

1152
00:59:05,520 --> 00:59:09,480
Speaker 1: show that, he took infant reesiss monkeys and he created

1153
00:59:09,600 --> 00:59:13,240
Speaker 1: two kinds of quote unquote moms. Both of them started

1154
00:59:13,400 --> 00:59:16,920
Speaker 1: from a wooden and wire frame, but one of them

1155
00:59:17,000 --> 00:59:21,240
Speaker 1: also had like a rubber or a foam support and

1156
00:59:21,240 --> 00:59:23,480
Speaker 1: then a terry cloth on top of it. And he

1157
00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:25,800
Speaker 1: alternated which one got a bottle, and so which got

1158
00:59:25,840 --> 00:59:28,200
Speaker 1: a bottle which quote unquote mom, Yeah, got a bottle.

1159
00:59:28,280 --> 00:59:31,920
Speaker 1: And so if like comfort didn't matter, the baby should

1160
00:59:32,000 --> 00:59:34,720
Speaker 1: just stick to the bottle wherever the bottle was. But

1161
00:59:34,760 --> 00:59:36,720
Speaker 1: it turned out if the bottle is on the wire mom,

1162
00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:39,520
Speaker 1: the baby will go over to the wire mom, drink

1163
00:59:39,560 --> 00:59:42,280
Speaker 1: its milk, and then immediately go back to the terry

1164
00:59:42,280 --> 00:59:46,080
Speaker 1: cloth mom for support. So clearly it's more than just

1165
00:59:46,160 --> 00:59:48,800
Speaker 1: where the bottle is. It wants to feel like the comfort.

1166
00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:51,960
Speaker 3: And there's something just so sad about how a terry

1167
00:59:52,040 --> 00:59:55,120
Speaker 3: cloth is a stand in for comfort, I know, if

1168
00:59:55,160 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 3: not even the presence of another monkey. It's like this

1169
00:59:57,960 --> 01:00:00,959
Speaker 3: thing is so desperate for love that a will find

1170
01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:02,200
Speaker 3: comfort in a towel.

1171
01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:05,520
Speaker 1: I know, I know. And then they also did experiments

1172
01:00:05,520 --> 01:00:08,040
Speaker 1: where he just kind of put it in a space

1173
01:00:08,200 --> 01:00:10,920
Speaker 1: like without any sort of comfort, and it would sort

1174
01:00:10,920 --> 01:00:13,760
Speaker 1: of stare at the wall and go in circles and

1175
01:00:13,840 --> 01:00:15,560
Speaker 1: just sort of freak out. And then if you would

1176
01:00:15,600 --> 01:00:17,760
Speaker 1: put it and it would hurt itself. And then if

1177
01:00:17,800 --> 01:00:20,160
Speaker 1: you put it in a room with other infant monkeys,

1178
01:00:20,240 --> 01:00:22,680
Speaker 1: eventually it would be totally confused about how to interact

1179
01:00:22,760 --> 01:00:25,360
Speaker 1: with them, and some of them stopped eating and would

1180
01:00:25,440 --> 01:00:28,160
Speaker 1: pass away. And I should start this episode with a

1181
01:00:28,240 --> 01:00:32,520
Speaker 1: disclaimer anyway, So he did a variety of experiments, and

1182
01:00:32,760 --> 01:00:35,760
Speaker 1: the monkeys that had just the terry cloth were in

1183
01:00:35,840 --> 01:00:38,040
Speaker 1: a much better shape, Like they would go out and

1184
01:00:38,120 --> 01:00:41,160
Speaker 1: explore the environment, and they would like explore the environment

1185
01:00:41,240 --> 01:00:43,320
Speaker 1: and then run back to the terry cloth mom if

1186
01:00:43,320 --> 01:00:44,880
Speaker 1: they got scared, and then they would go back out

1187
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:47,440
Speaker 1: and explore again. And the one that didn't have a

1188
01:00:47,520 --> 01:00:50,840
Speaker 1: terry cloth mom in the cage at all would just

1189
01:00:50,920 --> 01:00:53,360
Speaker 1: kind of like sit in a corner, like huddled up,

1190
01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:56,760
Speaker 1: sucking its thumb, being totally upset. And so anyway, the

1191
01:00:56,800 --> 01:01:01,120
Speaker 1: point is, there are lots of other animals that really

1192
01:01:01,160 --> 01:01:04,320
Speaker 1: need love in social connection as well, and so humans

1193
01:01:04,720 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 1: we get totally messed up without it, but so do

1194
01:01:06,720 --> 01:01:09,800
Speaker 1: other animals also, and so any animal that it seems

1195
01:01:09,800 --> 01:01:12,760
Speaker 1: like any animal that's wired to need social connection who

1196
01:01:12,800 --> 01:01:15,800
Speaker 1: misses who doesn't have it, really suffers from that.

1197
01:01:15,880 --> 01:01:19,080
Speaker 3: This reminds me also of the sort of accidental terrible

1198
01:01:19,120 --> 01:01:22,800
Speaker 3: experiment of the like Eastern European orphanages, where there were

1199
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:25,919
Speaker 3: a lot of kids that were sort of raised mechanically

1200
01:01:25,960 --> 01:01:28,080
Speaker 3: in cribs and left in their cribs like most of

1201
01:01:28,120 --> 01:01:31,120
Speaker 3: their childhood until there were seven, and then had difficulty

1202
01:01:31,160 --> 01:01:32,880
Speaker 3: forming attachments, right, So I.

1203
01:01:32,840 --> 01:01:36,960
Speaker 1: Think that was in Romania, Chowchescu outlawed birth control, and

1204
01:01:37,000 --> 01:01:38,720
Speaker 1: so you ended up with a bunch of babies all

1205
01:01:38,760 --> 01:01:41,320
Speaker 1: at once from a bunch of parents that were not

1206
01:01:41,400 --> 01:01:44,080
Speaker 1: quite ready to take care of them. And maybe it

1207
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:46,720
Speaker 1: wasn't half, but a subset of those children were then

1208
01:01:47,320 --> 01:01:50,920
Speaker 1: given to foster families, and you could compare the outcomes,

1209
01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:54,640
Speaker 1: and the kiddos who ended up in foster families did

1210
01:01:54,720 --> 01:01:58,000
Speaker 1: a lot better. And so yes, there's a lot of

1211
01:01:58,040 --> 01:02:03,760
Speaker 1: evidence that even just getting hugs makes a huge difference. Okay,

1212
01:02:03,760 --> 01:02:07,200
Speaker 1: And then the last question was what would happen if

1213
01:02:07,200 --> 01:02:10,280
Speaker 1: a human lived its whole life without ever having contact

1214
01:02:10,280 --> 01:02:14,120
Speaker 1: with another human. This is so depressing. This is where

1215
01:02:14,120 --> 01:02:17,120
Speaker 1: we hope that Kelly is not going to cry here.

1216
01:02:17,200 --> 01:02:21,800
Speaker 1: So the answer is nothing good. So for ethical reasons,

1217
01:02:21,840 --> 01:02:23,680
Speaker 1: this is of course an experiment that we can't do.

1218
01:02:24,880 --> 01:02:27,800
Speaker 1: And any experiments that have happened, you know, quote unquote

1219
01:02:27,880 --> 01:02:32,120
Speaker 1: naturally have had like abuse layered on top of them,

1220
01:02:32,200 --> 01:02:38,120
Speaker 1: so it's not like a clean experiment essentially. So let's see.

1221
01:02:38,120 --> 01:02:40,600
Speaker 1: So there have been like quote unquote feral children that

1222
01:02:40,680 --> 01:02:42,840
Speaker 1: have been like found out in the wilds, that have

1223
01:02:42,880 --> 01:02:46,720
Speaker 1: been raised by animals. And in these cases, these children

1224
01:02:47,000 --> 01:02:49,440
Speaker 1: had to have been at least for a while raised

1225
01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:53,120
Speaker 1: with adults, because you know, they had to have been

1226
01:02:53,240 --> 01:02:55,680
Speaker 1: born to adults. They had to have been raised up

1227
01:02:55,720 --> 01:02:58,960
Speaker 1: until a point where they could you know, probably walk around.

1228
01:02:59,400 --> 01:03:01,040
Speaker 3: Wolves can't nurse an infant, for.

1229
01:03:01,000 --> 01:03:03,080
Speaker 1: Example, They're probably not going to nurse an infant, right

1230
01:03:03,360 --> 01:03:05,400
Speaker 1: and so one, there's a lot of evidence that some

1231
01:03:05,480 --> 01:03:08,920
Speaker 1: of these stories are actually just stories and didn't actually happen.

1232
01:03:09,640 --> 01:03:13,200
Speaker 1: There's also some evidence that some of these are cases

1233
01:03:13,240 --> 01:03:17,760
Speaker 1: of kids that hit age six or seven, their parents

1234
01:03:17,880 --> 01:03:21,000
Speaker 1: identified that the kiddo had a disability, and they decided

1235
01:03:21,080 --> 01:03:23,880
Speaker 1: they were just going to abandon the kid in the woods.

1236
01:03:24,680 --> 01:03:27,880
Speaker 1: And then the kid was found, you know, months or

1237
01:03:28,000 --> 01:03:33,080
Speaker 1: years later, and the kiddo had difficulty communicating, and it

1238
01:03:33,120 --> 01:03:36,720
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily clear if that was the disability or if

1239
01:03:36,720 --> 01:03:40,439
Speaker 1: that was the time alone in the woods. And so

1240
01:03:40,840 --> 01:03:44,960
Speaker 1: humans are horrible is really what I conclude from the

1241
01:03:45,000 --> 01:03:49,040
Speaker 1: feral children examples. But in general, if there is a

1242
01:03:49,120 --> 01:03:53,360
Speaker 1: lesson from the federal children's stories, it appears to be

1243
01:03:53,440 --> 01:03:57,840
Speaker 1: that language is impacted. If there are any cases where

1244
01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:03,120
Speaker 1: children who could have developed language normally were released out

1245
01:04:03,160 --> 01:04:05,040
Speaker 1: into the wild, it seems that their language is impacted

1246
01:04:05,080 --> 01:04:08,280
Speaker 1: and some of their ability to exhibit social behaviors that

1247
01:04:08,280 --> 01:04:11,000
Speaker 1: we've come to expect from kids in society, things like

1248
01:04:11,360 --> 01:04:14,360
Speaker 1: eating with a fork and knowing which behaviors are acceptable

1249
01:04:14,360 --> 01:04:16,920
Speaker 1: when you're in private and which behaviors are acceptable when

1250
01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:18,280
Speaker 1: you are in public, like.

1251
01:04:18,280 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 3: Can you bring up poop at the dinner table? Only

1252
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:22,200
Speaker 3: if they're biologists.

1253
01:04:21,600 --> 01:04:28,360
Speaker 1: There ex was Katrina Ferrell.

1254
01:04:32,840 --> 01:04:35,880
Speaker 3: I'm just saying behavior is surprisingly context.

1255
01:04:35,480 --> 01:04:39,120
Speaker 1: Depending it is it is okay. And then there are

1256
01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:41,640
Speaker 1: a handful of kids that you'd maybe call cases of

1257
01:04:41,680 --> 01:04:46,360
Speaker 1: isolation where they were kept in houses where they weren't

1258
01:04:46,400 --> 01:04:50,000
Speaker 1: really interacting with people. But again this is isolation layered

1259
01:04:50,040 --> 01:04:54,000
Speaker 1: with abuse, so it's not just isolation. So for example,

1260
01:04:54,000 --> 01:04:56,640
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, there was a kid named Genie

1261
01:04:56,800 --> 01:04:59,800
Speaker 1: who for years was locked in a room by herself,

1262
01:05:00,200 --> 01:05:04,240
Speaker 1: was tied to a toilet, and was abused by her father,

1263
01:05:04,400 --> 01:05:08,600
Speaker 1: and eventually she was found and she had very few words.

1264
01:05:08,600 --> 01:05:11,320
Speaker 1: She was able to develop some words with a little

1265
01:05:11,320 --> 01:05:13,160
Speaker 1: bit of extra help, but she never was really able

1266
01:05:13,200 --> 01:05:16,800
Speaker 1: to develop grammar. And so grammar seems to be maybe

1267
01:05:16,880 --> 01:05:18,959
Speaker 1: something that we need to develop early if we're going

1268
01:05:19,000 --> 01:05:21,400
Speaker 1: to develop it at all, or it needs to be

1269
01:05:21,400 --> 01:05:23,720
Speaker 1: something that we hear a little bit when we're younger.

1270
01:05:24,560 --> 01:05:28,080
Speaker 1: And she also had some trouble with understanding what was

1271
01:05:28,120 --> 01:05:32,120
Speaker 1: societally acceptable, you know, again, like what is okay to

1272
01:05:32,120 --> 01:05:34,480
Speaker 1: do in public? What is not okay to do in public?

1273
01:05:35,440 --> 01:05:38,080
Speaker 1: You know, how close is it acceptable to be when

1274
01:05:38,120 --> 01:05:41,200
Speaker 1: you're interacting with someone, stuff like that In general, like

1275
01:05:41,400 --> 01:05:44,800
Speaker 1: I read through a couple cases before I felt like

1276
01:05:45,560 --> 01:05:48,160
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to be able to not cry. And

1277
01:05:48,200 --> 01:05:52,360
Speaker 1: it seemed like in general, language and meeting societal expectations

1278
01:05:52,400 --> 01:05:56,640
Speaker 1: were the things that tended to get impacted most strongly

1279
01:05:56,880 --> 01:05:59,160
Speaker 1: by these isolation things. But again, in all of these

1280
01:05:59,200 --> 01:06:03,680
Speaker 1: cases you also have like abuse layered in, so it's complicated.

1281
01:06:03,800 --> 01:06:06,400
Speaker 3: Isn't it amazing that you need like a license to

1282
01:06:06,480 --> 01:06:08,360
Speaker 3: drive a car but not to become a parent.

1283
01:06:08,600 --> 01:06:10,840
Speaker 1: Sometimes I do feel like it is amazing.

1284
01:06:10,960 --> 01:06:14,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, So bottom line it for us, Kelly,

1285
01:06:14,080 --> 01:06:16,880
Speaker 3: what is the overall answer to Karen's question.

1286
01:06:17,440 --> 01:06:19,360
Speaker 1: My brain is so mired right now and all of

1287
01:06:19,400 --> 01:06:22,880
Speaker 1: the depressing stuff that we just talked about, I'm gonna

1288
01:06:22,880 --> 01:06:25,240
Speaker 1: try to lift it up a little bit. So our

1289
01:06:25,600 --> 01:06:30,560
Speaker 1: species does some absolutely amazing things socially, you know, so,

1290
01:06:30,640 --> 01:06:34,680
Speaker 1: like we share information with each other that has resulted

1291
01:06:34,880 --> 01:06:38,520
Speaker 1: in our ability to do things like create vaccines. Everybody

1292
01:06:38,520 --> 01:06:41,280
Speaker 1: knows how excited I am about vaccines that like save

1293
01:06:41,400 --> 01:06:44,840
Speaker 1: the lives of our children. We are able to share

1294
01:06:44,880 --> 01:06:47,280
Speaker 1: technologies that heat our homes and make it so we

1295
01:06:47,320 --> 01:06:52,320
Speaker 1: can live even in Virginia and love Virginia.

1296
01:06:51,600 --> 01:06:54,720
Speaker 3: And on that point, make jokes which can like bring

1297
01:06:54,840 --> 01:06:57,640
Speaker 3: light to the darkness and make people feel happy and

1298
01:06:57,680 --> 01:06:59,560
Speaker 3: together even if they're something Yeah exactly.

1299
01:06:59,560 --> 01:07:01,680
Speaker 1: And you know, these these horrible stories of isolation that

1300
01:07:01,720 --> 01:07:04,000
Speaker 1: I read about part of why they're so horrible is

1301
01:07:04,000 --> 01:07:08,480
Speaker 1: because they are really rare. And for example, I live

1302
01:07:08,480 --> 01:07:12,600
Speaker 1: in a place where there's incredible support for you know,

1303
01:07:12,720 --> 01:07:15,960
Speaker 1: for kiddos with disabilities, and there's just you know, incredible

1304
01:07:16,000 --> 01:07:19,920
Speaker 1: school system, and there's just incredible support in general. And

1305
01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:22,440
Speaker 1: so we are a species that in a lot of

1306
01:07:22,480 --> 01:07:25,200
Speaker 1: cases takes care of each other. I would love to

1307
01:07:25,240 --> 01:07:28,640
Speaker 1: see us make more progress there, but in general, you know,

1308
01:07:28,680 --> 01:07:30,560
Speaker 1: there's a lot to be excited about it.

1309
01:07:30,680 --> 01:07:32,680
Speaker 3: And so thanks to everybody out there who has a

1310
01:07:32,800 --> 01:07:34,960
Speaker 3: job where you're taking care of people you're not directly

1311
01:07:35,000 --> 01:07:39,160
Speaker 3: related to. Teachers and soldiers and firefighters and everybody out

1312
01:07:39,160 --> 01:07:41,080
Speaker 3: there who's helping make the world a little bit of

1313
01:07:41,120 --> 01:07:42,040
Speaker 3: a better place. Thank you all.

1314
01:07:42,160 --> 01:07:42,320
Speaker 8: Yeah.

1315
01:07:42,440 --> 01:07:44,120
Speaker 1: And one of the amazing things about our species is

1316
01:07:44,160 --> 01:07:46,200
Speaker 1: I think that maybe we are the only species where

1317
01:07:46,240 --> 01:07:49,080
Speaker 1: you really see altruism, where you'll see people make a

1318
01:07:49,200 --> 01:07:53,440
Speaker 1: huge donation or something too an organization anonymously, where they

1319
01:07:53,560 --> 01:07:56,480
Speaker 1: really don't expect to get anything in return. And so

1320
01:07:57,120 --> 01:08:01,240
Speaker 1: way to go humans. We're not perfect, but a lot

1321
01:08:01,280 --> 01:08:02,560
Speaker 1: of us do some good stuff.

1322
01:08:04,640 --> 01:08:07,760
Speaker 3: And for all of these examples of terrible parenting, there

1323
01:08:07,760 --> 01:08:10,800
Speaker 3: are millions and millions of people out there who just

1324
01:08:10,960 --> 01:08:13,440
Speaker 3: love their kiddos to smithereens right.

1325
01:08:13,400 --> 01:08:16,360
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yes, amen, all right.

1326
01:08:16,600 --> 01:08:19,160
Speaker 3: And we love all of you, and we love all

1327
01:08:19,200 --> 01:08:22,040
Speaker 3: of your questions and your curiosity and your desire to

1328
01:08:22,200 --> 01:08:25,360
Speaker 3: know everything we do and don't know about this amazing,

1329
01:08:25,479 --> 01:08:27,320
Speaker 3: beautiful and crazy universe.

1330
01:08:27,600 --> 01:08:30,559
Speaker 1: And thank you to Karin for sharing your question with us.

1331
01:08:30,760 --> 01:08:32,720
Speaker 1: I'm sorry it got so dark at the end there.

1332
01:08:33,080 --> 01:08:35,400
Speaker 1: We look forward to hearing what you thought of the answer.

1333
01:08:35,720 --> 01:08:38,559
Speaker 2: Hi, guys, thanks so much for answer my question. I

1334
01:08:38,680 --> 01:08:41,519
Speaker 2: don't mind the long winded answer, and I thought it

1335
01:08:41,560 --> 01:08:45,120
Speaker 2: was really interesting to take a tour of altruism throughout

1336
01:08:45,160 --> 01:08:48,800
Speaker 2: the animal kingdom. I also thought it was interesting that

1337
01:08:49,280 --> 01:08:53,479
Speaker 2: some animals will be promoting their genes by helping others

1338
01:08:53,520 --> 01:09:00,800
Speaker 2: who are closely related to that. Thanks so much. Bye.

1339
01:09:03,840 --> 01:09:07,680
Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We

1340
01:09:07,720 --> 01:09:10,280
Speaker 1: would love to hear from you, We really would.

1341
01:09:10,439 --> 01:09:13,200
Speaker 3: We want to know what questions you have about this

1342
01:09:13,400 --> 01:09:15,040
Speaker 3: Extraordinary Universe.

1343
01:09:15,120 --> 01:09:18,080
Speaker 1: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions

1344
01:09:18,080 --> 01:09:21,080
Speaker 1: for future shows. If you contact us, we will get

1345
01:09:21,120 --> 01:09:21,519
Speaker 1: back to you.

1346
01:09:21,800 --> 01:09:25,320
Speaker 3: We really mean it. We answer every message email us

1347
01:09:25,360 --> 01:09:28,479
Speaker 3: at questions at Danielandkelly.

1348
01:09:27,640 --> 01:09:29,679
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1349
01:09:29,800 --> 01:09:33,640
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Speaker 1: and Kuniverse.

1352
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