This is easily my new favourite youtube channel. You should consider being a guest on the Demystifying Science podcast which loves talking to people working on the overlooked aspects of every facet of science. Keep up the amazing work. As a future topic suggestion- I would love to hear your perspective on the work of Luther Burbank and the role of wide hybridisation in speciation (both in natural and artificial selection).
YES, thank you for mentioning that. I got it recommended via the algorithm and I am so glad I have found it. Thanks to SubAnima for this excellent content.
just discovered your channel as someone who doesnt know more about biology than what i learned in AP bio and i love the high quality videos on interesting topics. Please keep it up!
I read On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, and I learned a lot from it, but it was so nasty. I read it many years ago, and since then I've thought about it a lot and watched lectures and read other books about evolution. It seems it's the only way. Like it's a consequence of life. It may well be this way throughout the universe. A law of nature. It is sad to me though. I am a 58 YO high school dropout who got her GED and some college. I educated myself the best I could in my 40s till now. Never stop learning. I'm also working class of course.
I have heard that the criteria for life has been questioned. What if we asked ourselves, does it evolve in a way that mimics life as we know it evolving?
I feel like in modern times, with the rise of behavioral biology as a more mature field of study, a ton of people are comfortable talking about agency at the organism level, especially when talking about animals. You'll echo this in the way Damasio writes, or De Waals, or Sapolsky. And Damasio is very relevant here cause like me, he's a pretty convinced Spinozist. And I think somewhere in Spinoza there's a grammar of how you can frame agency in a completely "dead" world (or arguably, completely alive, aka. panpsychism). That being said, *because* there is this way of marrying agency and the very banal clockwork view of organisms, I don't think this is a huge shift at all. Like, it mostly phrasing, and occasionally having a retort to someone who wants to be pedant and say "oh but cells don't *want* anything". Personally I use agency-related vocabulary when talking about proteins and gene reg networks, just because it's so much more efficient, but I still get on the student's back about using finalist/teleological turns of phrases. And your example is a typical case, cause cultural learning and transmission will probably not lead to major changes let alone speciation unless you get reproductive isolation and selective pressure involved. Despite cultural transmission and epigenetics, it still remains that Lamarckism is mainly mostly wrong, and gives a false idea of what goes on through the generations.
That’s a fair take. Admittedly, attempts to develop an agency theory are still in their infancy so it will take a while to flesh some of these out and see if they really do or do not make a difference. Im on the optimistic side. Check out the sources page in the description if you’re interested in some of the latest developments. Philip’s review is a great start: www.templeton.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Biological-Agency_1_FINAL.pdf
@@JesusChrist42000 doesnt sound it to me. right now it sounds like the forming of a philosophical question. and the link to Templeton... it is explicitly a religious organization looking to: "support progress in religious and spiritual knowledge, especially at the intersection of religion and science.[3] He also sought to fund research on methods to promote and develop moral character, intelligence, and creativity in people, and to promote free markets.[4] "
Really great video! You are really talented. Keep on making videos. This will be one of the great channels one day. I'm glad to be here from the beginning. 👍😊
Many of the goal-oriented theories of biology that you have discussed on your channel have a lot of similarities to Michael Levin's experiments with bioelectricity. I would love to see you do a video on the assertions that he has made. Also, great work! I am surprised you have so few subscribers and views!
Yes, I’d like you to tie in Michael Levin’s take on goal-oriented behaviour from a cell to an organism level. I’d like to hear more about how environmental experimentation drives genetic evolution.
Hello! I'm currently a biochemistry major at MSU and was wondering if you could make a slightly more personal video sharing where you were educated, what you did in undergrad, and how you got to have the knowledge basin you have. It would just be cool to learn more about our host lol Cheers!
i was curious too, their website states: "I'm a Masters student in mathematical biology at the University of Melbourne. I did my undergraduate degree as a double major in developmental biology and pure mathematics and minored in history and philosophy of science (HPS)."
The algorithm is finally doing me right! This is the second amazing science channel I’ve found on TH-cam in the last two weeks. Thanks for putting these vids together. Brb gonna binge everything else you got lol
@@benhallo1553 For example, Sabine Hossenfelder and her "Science News", she has really great and not over-hyped news, discussing quite deepli recent potentially impactfull papers, mostly in physics but other fields including biology too. www.youtube.com/@SabineHossenfelder
@@joseph8298 For example, Sabine Hossenfelder and her "Science News", she has really great and not over-hyped news, discussing quite deepli recent potentially impactfull papers, mostly in physics but other fields including biology too. www.youtube.com/@SabineHossenfelder
Refreshing to see a channel promoting such nuanced and in depth discussion of biology. I’ve subscribed and will insist that every one of my classmates does the same!
This channel is offensively underpopular. But that is the life of more rigorous science, perhaps. Hope you're enjoying making these videos as much as I enjoy watching them.
Great video! Never thought I was going to see an easy way to interpret Waddington's ideas. Please, bring more content related to evolvability and the evolutionarily extended synthesis!
The competition for resources happens among living things but also within them. A feature that isn't harmful, but also isn't helpful, will quickly be selected against, especially in habitats with few resources- -cave fish losing their eyes is a beautiful example of this.
Great work! Love the perspective on “abstraction”… we need to say more about this generally… we need to speak more concretely about abstractions more regularly !! :) thanks for moving in this direction.
This video makes me think of microtubules and how the mechanism of them stops under anesthesia but not sleep. There’s something there but I’m not smart enough to understand it.
I think it does make sense to say a plant wants to grow towards light, water, and gravity, just that this is not a process of prediction or learned behavior. The plant doesn't try to think ahead where water is and go there. It doesn't learn that light and water are fun and darkness and drought hurt in the same way that kids learn candy is fun and electrical outlets hurt, or that older kids learn that electrical outlets are actually pretty useful and candy is dangerous if consumed excessively. There is some kind of simpler (not necessarily simple!) optimizer that does not think about higher goals or make predictions of the future. Likely something preprogrammed into the plant.
I'm very much of the opinion that "dead" mechanistic views of nature are largely a hang up from thinking of humanity in a privileged reference frame and not a part of these large systems. We are ultimately driven by much the same behaviours, just that we have reached a point where we can effectively manipulate the environment, but it's a mistake to think any other species wouldn't do the same.
Come back bro, your the only genomic and biology youtuber that actually teaches things I've never seen before and doesn't make wanna eat 600 rusty nails. Also whenever you wanna come back, dont come back if your not ready.
but if you want biology lesson this level of spectacular. I suggest to you *Fight Like An Animal*. even though it theme is synthesis of biology with political theory. it biology is as exciting as this show.
no.1. Would it make sense to say that an organism has multiple layers of agency? and there can be multiple agencies, or even competing agencies at the same layer... like if "your" leg twitched when "you" wanted to sit still, or training your dog to stay when he wanted to go, or a human's compulsive behavior... And since cells also have agency, it is also the case for autoimmunity. So we're always choosing whose agency we care about. no.2 I guess I'm a bit confused what exactly the "gene-first view" is and how it "fails" especially after you added a clarification about 8:04 environment/behavior of parents → causes gene mutation/activation → manifests traits as the offspring's ability/tendency to behave a certain way or is it birds of various gene expression → manifest various capability/tendency to behave a certain way → environment selects advantageous behavior → offspring only from those that manifest advantageous capability/tendency
Great video. I think this “genetic assimilation” is a new term for something that wasn’t entirely new but maybe under appreciated. The idea that geology and weather and predator and prey relationships are not the only thing that is part of the “nature” doing the selection. Everything from other genes in an organisms genome that coexist with the new mutations to an organism’s own behaviour shape the definition of “fitness”. Proto-humans species developed rudimentary language, fire and tool use which were such a survival advantages that they put a strong selective pressure in favour of individuals who could better exploit these behaviours. Effectively our tools and skills became the environment which shaped our evolution most profoundly. Our technology evolved us at least as much as, if not more than, we developed our technology.
The major lesson from the modern study of whole-genome polygenic inheritance of human character traits is that our brains, and the behaviors and thoughts that arise from them, are as exposed to natural selection as any other part of us - how we think has strong genetic components. So ancestral Galapagos finches already had genetic attributes which gave them brains which expressed more than normal curiosity and experimentation, which led them to open themselves to beneficial mutations for other physical changes in their new environments. How animals (including humans) think is not some magical thing, it's not a mystical supernatural thing, it's just part of how the organism functions, and it's largely hard-wired by evolution, as researchers have shown over the last few decades. And evolution can change the brain's wiring when a population's environment changes, just like it can change the shape of a jaw or a bill. The long, long Western belief in the separation of mind and body leads some people, including some evolutionary biologists, to treat belief and thought as if they were not the results of physical processes. But they are. And it's all open to mutation and selection.
are the finches evolving (as Darwin claimed that it was all about 'The Origin of Species')? Or are they merely adapting? The finches example is a good one as the beak changes have been shown to be reversible.
the confusion of terms is the point - adaptation in the finch instance is entirely reversible - it is a built-in ability to adapt, not a random variation. The reversal of the adaptation is built-in too. Nothing NEW has been produced, it was always inherent. But new species (ie, what Darwin called evolution), is the definition of evolution - of new species. Otherwise we have to say that the first unicellular life form had all life forms inherent in it, including human beings. @@موسى_7
In it's most basic sense evolution is genetic change of a POPULATION, adaptation on population level is evolution. And there is no reversal, the population level genetic trait can adapt to something like a basal trait but it isn't reversing. You obviously don't seem to understand evolution and I suspect you have ulterior motives.
your definition of evolution makes it sound trivial - but my actual example is a real case, and the beaks of the Galapagos finches can and do reverse in adaptation - and everyone has motives, so that is not an argument about anything @@whatabouttheearth
@@MyMy-tv7fd Where is your source for your assertion that the finch beaks "have been shown to be reversible"? And no genetic change reverses, and a different in physical structure over an entire population is a genetic change. Even if the genetic change turns to something like a basal form, it is not reversed, it changed based off of the change before it. Evolution is essentially a change in alleles AT THE POPULATION level, evolution happens to populations. There is absolutely no reversal of genetic change. Evolution is a modification I get the hint that you may be a Young Earth Creationist or something because you said "nothing new has been produced", because that is the bullshit type of phrasing they're fed. The adaptation on population level is evolution. A change in beak structure is the new trait. You obviously don't understand what evolution is.
Your rapidly becoming one of my favorite science TH-camrs bro. Great work ❤ Have you heard of Dr Michael Levin? Because alot of his work overlaps with alot of what you say
Your videos are so good man, i'm sharing your channel with friends. Also i've been watching Michael levins work and i'd love if You could maybe expand on subjects he mentions. Thanks for the great work man
@@gabrielcampos6890 there are a lot of other revolutionary scientists in every domain. But in cellular intelligence, we really just started, so of course it’s like that
@@beinghimself yeah i actually know quite a few of theese Titans in science, but i think Michael's work is related with so much more than just cellular inteligence, tho i agree that thats the central subject there
Michael Crichton argues pretty in depth for behavioral driven mutation in the last section of the lost world book this was in the early 90s. I think it makes quite a bit of logical sense because behavior does change our biology in very real ways every day.
Richard Dawkins, already in the Extended Phenotype, said he suspected that more often than we think, behavior can come before or at the same time as selection.
excellent video, excellent channel, subbed, etc on a purely intuitive level, as a computer scientist, i find flipping the arrow of causality 180 degrees and calling it an advancement in the model suspect, compared to going "ah yknow what, just to hedge our bets let's think of it as a feedback loop that goes both ways". that seems in fact to be the implied meaning, but the phrasing seems a little extreme if so. more intuitive spitballing: i think it's probably fine to ascribe teleology in doses proportionate to the apparent degree of cognition on display. chemical cues to fruit flies with 3,000 neurons vs cues filtered through so many more layers of sensory processing to birds with orders upon orders of magnitude more neurons. the big-picture dispassionate modelling of genes following suit over time as the table tips to encourage a different local ground state probably doesn't change, but the backstory does. i guess that side is an altogether orthogonal question, but still. also i would like to draw attention to the edited-in highlights in the page-flipping footage that you can see over the host's hands. i just find the subtle signal of "cmon, i'm not actually gonna ruin this book just for a video" very charming
Ladies and gentlemen I present you what is a true teacher. This man right here teches how to think, how to not fix knowledge into analogy of mechanisms. This man teaches you the sad reality that biology is complex and unpredictable. A true teacher dismantles myths and trends based on reductionist analogies with the machine. This is thinking.
I know there was this paper on valproate syndrome in rats, as it seemed to become heritable in humans so they did this study to kinda prove that even the grandchildren, the mothers of which were not exposed to valproate developed the syndrome as well. I think they came up with some epigenetic explanation for it (valproate messes with a couple of those HDAC enzymes). Look it up :D
The behavior of "struggling" animals can't help being a predictive-power-endowed representation of what the doctrine posits as the cause of the appearance of design, the ecological niche.
Note that while humans and other intelligent organisms or entities capable of abstraction, planning, modeling reality, and learning are goal-driven, their goals do not seem to be conscious optimization of the goal of evolution. That is, humans do not go around with Machiavellian levels of tricky plans to optimize their genetic fitness. Instead a much better description of human goals might be Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, food, shelter, companionship, physical intimacy, productivity, creativity, contribution, justice, belonging and status, knowledge, etc. Things that can improve selective fitness but not selective fitness itself.
@SubAnima: I'd love to hear your thoughts on struggles in explaining macroevolution (e.g. during Cambrian Explosion) with (neo-)Darwinian theories and which theories for its explanations you'd favor ...
interesting, iirc theres even an example of this in humans in the form of people want to hunt animal > they use bow to hunt animal > human evolves to be better at using bow
I still don't understand what this perspective changes in practice (why we need it back). I get that it is a conceptual change (an important one) and that it's useful from a "philosophy of biology" point of view, but how does it impact the practice of biology? Does it advance new hypotheses, or explain previously unexplainable phenomena?
This is a great question, and yes admittedly I barely explored that part of the title in the video, leaving it more open ended. Here is a good overview of some of the larger predictions of the extended evolutionary synthesis. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.1019 And for guesses at what an agency theory would look like specifically see this one: doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198779636.003.0008 There are more things to read on the sources page in the description. At the moment, a huge amount of this research is very speculative. The desire for new theory moreso comes from seeing the failings of the gene-centric view and suggesting new ways forward based on the idea of agency. If you want a real in depth exploration of where this sort of thing can lead, check out Biological Autonomy by Moreno and Mossio.
And for an unexplained phenomena - we have plenty of teleological features in nature that have remained ignored by standard theory, and things like the flexible stem hypothesis i mentioned towards the end.
@@SubAnima Thank you! After reading the sources page and the predictions from the first link, things are a bit more clear. It would be helpful to have more examples of the failings of the gene-centric view, since it's what partly motivates this idea.
I feel like biological agency and goal directedness is somewhat of a Turning machine like behavior. I think, that's one of the route to investigate agency. I specifically want to emphasize this over the phase-like explanation/definition given in the video. Cos, by that definition a ball falls on earth cos it wants to fall towards earth - which is just an wordplay, but also undermines the detailed mechanism very badly.
@@SubAnima omg you saw lol i just wanna say that ive been watching more and its still true, especially youre video on dawkins Im studying antiquity and pre history right now and the amount of nazis who take tidbtis from those topics and the wanton disregard for that ongoing process by current scholars felt like i was getting hit over the head by a mirror hope you keep going good fortune to you
I was waiting the entire video for a mention of the Baldwin effect! But it never came 😅A learned behaviour that spreads and gives individuals an advantage can then be selected for in further generations. Offspring with mutations that make it faster to learn the new behaviour will outcompete those who don't learn as fast. This can be so optimized that individuals are born already knowing how to do it, or just requiring the tiniest amount of learning/training to get it. Have you talked about the Baldwin effect anywhere else?
When we say “ through Natural Selection “ do we mean selection to be a principle? ( i.e survival of the fittest under conditions )because it is non-physical and it doesn’t make sense to say “ through natural selection “, but if it’s a principle we should say “ because of the principle of Survivability- Natural Selection “.
That's so interesting! I wonder what's the biological mechanism behind genetic assimilation (like, how does an environmentally produced trait become part of the genome, if it wasn't there in the first place?)
First thank you very much for this video ! I have an Hypothesis that seems to make sense but I'm not sure, here it is: since we see that Behaviour come first, and genetic modification later (consequence of the behaviour), doesn't this shows exactly what epigenetic is all about ? Because epigenetic have been shown to be hereditary (just some of it because the major part is decided by our lifestyle and environment if I'm not wrong). So if epigenetic is about the expression of the genes being influenced by the behaviours, and since epigenetic have some hereditary traits, can't we say that epigenetic explain this phenomena (birds learning how to open bin) and others ? And also another thing I think is great to think about, what makes the body change and adapt our genome due to environmental causes "epigenetic" since it's not the genes themselves that decide how they express themselves I think that what makes epigenetic change the way they do is something not material since it changes in specific cases for no observable reason nor as a consequence of other material mechanisms, the fact that is has a specific logical pattern (many behaviours change epigenetic the same way) show that's it's not due to chance either.
Yes! This is the phenomenon known as transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. There is pretty good empirical evidence for it at the macroscopic level and some biochemical mechanisms have been proposed to explain it. However, it's significance for evolution long term is unclear. I actually spent some time researching all this in a fruit fly lab, was very fun :) Here's a review if you're interested: doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0111
@jake (or anyone) I'd love to suggest a topic on genetic lineage. If a male is XY and the woman XX we're talking about a 12.5% lower data transfer. The specific arm that's missing cannot be splice at conception, so, does that mean anything in the 12.5% is essentially locked in to the female line? If so, can it EVER change without random mutation? What is in that 12.5% that males don't have anyway?
That was very entertaining and interesting thanks. I'm actually developing a radical concept of consciousness. As being a drive of our human organism, to do something our concept of human nature and identity doesn't currently allow.
Darwin's Finches: Those different beaks always fascinated me. If the chick, who needs a seed beak as opposed to a flower beak, has to wait millions of years for their particular beak, they will never survive. They need that beak asap. Sheldrake's morphogenetics and Lipton's epigenetics, together, may induce that beak formation very quickly (evolutionary change/adaptation). Millions of years not needed ever. Thoughts?
Well, the original Darwinian theory was not that the individual finch would be need to evolve at all, but that the population already possessed small and large beak genes, and that the environment would determine which would survive. Thus, the population would evolve. Mutations give new evolutionary options, but a mutation doesn’t mean a population will evolve if the mutation isn’t passed down to offspring. That being said, I agree that adaptation and epigenetic should be included in the model.
@@thecolorjune Flagella Bacteria. Evolved, Mutated, Designed, Environment appears very pertinent beyond the biology. A small part of the synergy required to coming into existence. Akashic Record....????
I'd posit that the defining quality of life is atleast some rudimentary level it _sentience,_ with more complex multicellular organisms like humans being able to support some level of _sapience._
Nice videos! But the curiosity and capability of exploring new life style isn't also dependent on the gene? If the gene doesn't allow the impulse for exploring and learning, they wouldn't. In this sense, the gene us still a central factor, but it would show the increased environmental Dependency, as the exploration depend in the environment
Life is really just existence boiled down to 2 facts. 1. if it exists, it must have come into existence. 2. If it exists, it must have existed since it came into existence. Thus life is simply that which perpetuates its existence in a certain form favourable to continued existence. This perpetuation must have come about by pure coincidence, and maintains itself in a cycle that actually bootstraps itself.
Nonsentient things having goals, why not mathematical objects with goals? Does a system of matrices and functions have the goal of driving a car? When installed in the car's computer, it can do that.😊
You should consider incorporating a call to action in your videos (like and subscribe, etc). Although some people think its annoying on the surface, everyone does it and it does actually work.
Have you ever looked at Michael Levins research? Might be worth it. Genetics, after all, don't matter because they only determine the structure of the single cell, but not morphology.
Also, this video, even though the guy is promoting evilution, he illustrates a good point about the moral structure that exists in all of us, from the beginning. Which I think is a nod to intelligent design, but also that without God, we truly are no more than a beast. Chemistry reminds us of this as well, carbon is the basic building block for life, it has six protons, nutrons, and electrons, 666. 7 is the number of completion. That's why the evil one's number is 666, and called the beast. We need God to be complete humans and not merely beasts.
Why is it any more scientific and rational to consider the 'agency' of individual organisms than the 'agency' of entire species, ecosystems, etc? What do we think 'agency' means, especially considering the bundled nature of organisms, minds, and reality itself?
I LOVE your work. Thank you for making these fascinating and high production value videos on microbiology. This reminds me of a behavioral effect of how those who are born poor have altered neurological responses given the constant threat of scarcity, which don't disappear even if they become personally wealthy. I wonder how this neurochemical rewiring may also affect the traits expressed by chronically poor families, and what the time-scale of this induced change is.
This is easily my new favourite youtube channel. You should consider being a guest on the Demystifying Science podcast which loves talking to people working on the overlooked aspects of every facet of science. Keep up the amazing work. As a future topic suggestion- I would love to hear your perspective on the work of Luther Burbank and the role of wide hybridisation in speciation (both in natural and artificial selection).
Thank you so much!! I’ll have a look into Luther Burbank :))
YES, thank you for mentioning that. I got it recommended via the algorithm and I am so glad I have found it. Thanks to SubAnima for this excellent content.
Agree, now my top YT channel along with Moth Light Media. Great work.
@@temple1111 yeah only if this channel is not dead as it seams
Hope this channel will come back and grow. It's a remarkable project.
just discovered your channel as someone who doesnt know more about biology than what i learned in AP bio and i love the high quality videos on interesting topics. Please keep it up!
I read On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, and I learned a lot from it, but it was so nasty. I read it many years ago, and since then I've thought about it a lot and watched lectures and read other books about evolution. It seems it's the only way. Like it's a consequence of life. It may well be this way throughout the universe. A law of nature. It is sad to me though. I am a 58 YO high school dropout who got her GED and some college. I educated myself the best I could in my 40s till now. Never stop learning. I'm also working class of course.
I have heard that the criteria for life has been questioned. What if we asked ourselves, does it evolve in a way that mimics life as we know it evolving?
Without the promise of a subanima video, I am nothing.
that is a creepy para-social thing to say..... and for subanima to agree to.
I feel like in modern times, with the rise of behavioral biology as a more mature field of study, a ton of people are comfortable talking about agency at the organism level, especially when talking about animals. You'll echo this in the way Damasio writes, or De Waals, or Sapolsky. And Damasio is very relevant here cause like me, he's a pretty convinced Spinozist. And I think somewhere in Spinoza there's a grammar of how you can frame agency in a completely "dead" world (or arguably, completely alive, aka. panpsychism).
That being said, *because* there is this way of marrying agency and the very banal clockwork view of organisms, I don't think this is a huge shift at all. Like, it mostly phrasing, and occasionally having a retort to someone who wants to be pedant and say "oh but cells don't *want* anything".
Personally I use agency-related vocabulary when talking about proteins and gene reg networks, just because it's so much more efficient, but I still get on the student's back about using finalist/teleological turns of phrases. And your example is a typical case, cause cultural learning and transmission will probably not lead to major changes let alone speciation unless you get reproductive isolation and selective pressure involved. Despite cultural transmission and epigenetics, it still remains that Lamarckism is mainly mostly wrong, and gives a false idea of what goes on through the generations.
That’s a fair take. Admittedly, attempts to develop an agency theory are still in their infancy so it will take a while to flesh some of these out and see if they really do or do not make a difference. Im on the optimistic side. Check out the sources page in the description if you’re interested in some of the latest developments. Philip’s review is a great start: www.templeton.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Biological-Agency_1_FINAL.pdf
@@SubAnimaSo it's not scientific theory?
@@JesusChrist42000
doesnt sound it to me. right now it sounds like the forming of a philosophical question.
and the link to Templeton... it is explicitly a religious organization looking to:
"support progress in religious and spiritual knowledge, especially at the intersection of religion and science.[3] He also sought to fund research on methods to promote and develop moral character, intelligence, and creativity in people, and to promote free markets.[4] "
You have to come back these videos are amazing
Yesterday you were around 3k subs, you will explode shortly. I watched all of your videos in two days after discovering your truly amazing channel.
Really great video! You are really talented. Keep on making videos. This will be one of the great channels one day. I'm glad to be here from the beginning. 👍😊
This Channel is underrated! Thankyou for the free knowledge
Many of the goal-oriented theories of biology that you have discussed on your channel have a lot of similarities to Michael Levin's experiments with bioelectricity. I would love to see you do a video on the assertions that he has made.
Also, great work! I am surprised you have so few subscribers and views!
Seconding this! Levin’s work is incredible!
Yes, please! Cover Michael Levin's work!
Yes, I’d like you to tie in Michael Levin’s take on goal-oriented behaviour from a cell to an organism level. I’d like to hear more about how environmental experimentation drives genetic evolution.
Hello! I'm currently a biochemistry major at MSU and was wondering if you could make a slightly more personal video sharing where you were educated, what you did in undergrad, and how you got to have the knowledge basin you have. It would just be cool to learn more about our host lol
Cheers!
i was curious too, their website states:
"I'm a Masters student in mathematical biology at the University of Melbourne. I did my undergraduate degree as a double major in developmental biology and pure mathematics and minored in history and philosophy of science (HPS)."
The algorithm is finally doing me right! This is the second amazing science channel I’ve found on TH-cam in the last two weeks. Thanks for putting these vids together. Brb gonna binge everything else you got lol
What other channel do you recommend?
@@benhallo1553 I've really been enjoying @ThreeTwentysix for chemistry stuff.
www.youtube.com/@ThreeTwentysix
Yeah what’s the other one @AnalogueMarty
@@benhallo1553 For example, Sabine Hossenfelder and her "Science News", she has really great and not over-hyped news, discussing quite deepli recent potentially impactfull papers, mostly in physics but other fields including biology too. www.youtube.com/@SabineHossenfelder
@@joseph8298 For example, Sabine Hossenfelder and her "Science News", she has really great and not over-hyped news, discussing quite deepli recent potentially impactfull papers, mostly in physics but other fields including biology too. www.youtube.com/@SabineHossenfelder
How come I've only found this channel today?!?! It's so good!!!
Refreshing to see a channel promoting such nuanced and in depth discussion of biology. I’ve subscribed and will insist that every one of my classmates does the same!
I got mind blown every time 😊
More videos please! I've seen them all, wonderful!
It's crazy that you're still under 10k subs, the quality of your content is amazing
This channel is offensively underpopular. But that is the life of more rigorous science, perhaps. Hope you're enjoying making these videos as much as I enjoy watching them.
your content is amazing, i love listening to it in the morning before heading to class
Thanks!!
Excellent video as always
Thanks again!!
My new favourite TH-camr and its not even close🤯
Great video! Never thought I was going to see an easy way to interpret Waddington's ideas. Please, bring more content related to evolvability and the evolutionarily extended synthesis!
These videos are great!! Thank you!!
Amazing video! I watche one of your video and immediately subscribed. Love from a fellow biologist.
The competition for resources happens among living things but also within them.
A feature that isn't harmful, but also isn't helpful, will quickly be selected against, especially in habitats with few resources-
-cave fish losing their eyes is a beautiful example of this.
That was an amazing discussion on an area that interests me a lot and I spend time following. Give us more!
Great work! Love the perspective on “abstraction”… we need to say more about this generally… we need to speak more concretely about abstractions more regularly !! :)
thanks for moving in this direction.
this view is shattering my previous understanding of the theory of evolution. Good job 👍
8:08 So genetic mutations can be inherited from parents with those same mutations?
This video makes me think of microtubules and how the mechanism of them stops under anesthesia but not sleep. There’s something there but I’m not smart enough to understand it.
Why did you stop? Please continue your channel is great 👍
I am so pleased you’re bringing attention to this. I’ve been saying this is a missing piece in our understanding of evolution
You’re on track for the Nobel man !
good to see this channel growing
I think it does make sense to say a plant wants to grow towards light, water, and gravity, just that this is not a process of prediction or learned behavior. The plant doesn't try to think ahead where water is and go there. It doesn't learn that light and water are fun and darkness and drought hurt in the same way that kids learn candy is fun and electrical outlets hurt, or that older kids learn that electrical outlets are actually pretty useful and candy is dangerous if consumed excessively. There is some kind of simpler (not necessarily simple!) optimizer that does not think about higher goals or make predictions of the future. Likely something preprogrammed into the plant.
I'm very much of the opinion that "dead" mechanistic views of nature are largely a hang up from thinking of humanity in a privileged reference frame and not a part of these large systems.
We are ultimately driven by much the same behaviours, just that we have reached a point where we can effectively manipulate the environment, but it's a mistake to think any other species wouldn't do the same.
This video was absolutely organismic!
Not having a brain like a vertebrate does not preclude having a mind in some other way.
Yes! This is exactly the view of enactivism: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enactivism
Come back bro, your the only genomic and biology youtuber that actually teaches things I've never seen before and doesn't make wanna eat 600 rusty nails. Also whenever you wanna come back, dont come back if your not ready.
I've seen in community that Subanima is busy with Paper right now. but it years ago so Idk what now.
but if you want biology lesson this level of spectacular. I suggest to you *Fight Like An Animal*. even though it theme is synthesis of biology with political theory. it biology is as exciting as this show.
Thank you for your insightful and conversational way of conveying these evolutions of understanding. :)
Keep making videos please!
no.1. Would it make sense to say that an organism has multiple layers of agency? and there can be multiple agencies, or even competing agencies at the same layer... like if "your" leg twitched when "you" wanted to sit still, or training your dog to stay when he wanted to go, or a human's compulsive behavior... And since cells also have agency, it is also the case for autoimmunity. So we're always choosing whose agency we care about.
no.2 I guess I'm a bit confused what exactly the "gene-first view" is and how it "fails" especially after you added a clarification about 8:04
environment/behavior of parents → causes gene mutation/activation → manifests traits as the offspring's ability/tendency to behave a certain way
or is it
birds of various gene expression → manifest various capability/tendency to behave a certain way → environment selects advantageous behavior → offspring only from those that manifest advantageous capability/tendency
Then what's about Weismann experiment? Please reply
Great video. I think this “genetic assimilation” is a new term for something that wasn’t entirely new but maybe under appreciated. The idea that geology and weather and predator and prey relationships are not the only thing that is part of the “nature” doing the selection. Everything from other genes in an organisms genome that coexist with the new mutations to an organism’s own behaviour shape the definition of “fitness”.
Proto-humans species developed rudimentary language, fire and tool use which were such a survival advantages that they put a strong selective pressure in favour of individuals who could better exploit these behaviours. Effectively our tools and skills became the environment which shaped our evolution most profoundly. Our technology evolved us at least as much as, if not more than, we developed our technology.
Thank you for such a wonderful content!
The major lesson from the modern study of whole-genome polygenic inheritance of human character traits is that our brains, and the behaviors and thoughts that arise from them, are as exposed to natural selection as any other part of us - how we think has strong genetic components. So ancestral Galapagos finches already had genetic attributes which gave them brains which expressed more than normal curiosity and experimentation, which led them to open themselves to beneficial mutations for other physical changes in their new environments.
How animals (including humans) think is not some magical thing, it's not a mystical supernatural thing, it's just part of how the organism functions, and it's largely hard-wired by evolution, as researchers have shown over the last few decades. And evolution can change the brain's wiring when a population's environment changes, just like it can change the shape of a jaw or a bill. The long, long Western belief in the separation of mind and body leads some people, including some evolutionary biologists, to treat belief and thought as if they were not the results of physical processes. But they are. And it's all open to mutation and selection.
are the finches evolving (as Darwin claimed that it was all about 'The Origin of Species')? Or are they merely adapting? The finches example is a good one as the beak changes have been shown to be reversible.
Evolution and adaptation are the same thing, aren't they? Speciation is slightly different.
the confusion of terms is the point - adaptation in the finch instance is entirely reversible - it is a built-in ability to adapt, not a random variation. The reversal of the adaptation is built-in too. Nothing NEW has been produced, it was always inherent. But new species (ie, what Darwin called evolution), is the definition of evolution - of new species. Otherwise we have to say that the first unicellular life form had all life forms inherent in it, including human beings. @@موسى_7
In it's most basic sense evolution is genetic change of a POPULATION, adaptation on population level is evolution.
And there is no reversal, the population level genetic trait can adapt to something like a basal trait but it isn't reversing.
You obviously don't seem to understand evolution and I suspect you have ulterior motives.
your definition of evolution makes it sound trivial - but my actual example is a real case, and the beaks of the Galapagos finches can and do reverse in adaptation - and everyone has motives, so that is not an argument about anything @@whatabouttheearth
@@MyMy-tv7fd
Where is your source for your assertion that the finch beaks "have been shown to be reversible"?
And no genetic change reverses, and a different in physical structure over an entire population is a genetic change. Even if the genetic change turns to something like a basal form, it is not reversed, it changed based off of the change before it. Evolution is essentially a change in alleles AT THE POPULATION level, evolution happens to populations. There is absolutely no reversal of genetic change. Evolution is a modification
I get the hint that you may be a Young Earth Creationist or something because you said "nothing new has been produced", because that is the bullshit type of phrasing they're fed. The adaptation on population level is evolution. A change in beak structure is the new trait.
You obviously don't understand what evolution is.
Amazing video. Thank you for changing my mind
Your rapidly becoming one of my favorite science TH-camrs bro. Great work ❤
Have you heard of Dr Michael Levin? Because alot of his work overlaps with alot of what you say
Great video!
Cheers!
Your videos are so good man, i'm sharing your channel with friends. Also i've been watching Michael levins work and i'd love if You could maybe expand on subjects he mentions. Thanks for the great work man
Bro why did everyone start watching michael levin in the same time 😅
@@beinghimself idk bro but i really think his work is not mentioned enough, its so revolutionary that i dont understand
@@gabrielcampos6890 there are a lot of other revolutionary scientists in every domain. But in cellular intelligence, we really just started, so of course it’s like that
@@beinghimself yeah i actually know quite a few of theese Titans in science, but i think Michael's work is related with so much more than just cellular inteligence, tho i agree that thats the central subject there
This is the first channel that actualy uses the corrections feature wich is about 1YO
Michael Crichton argues pretty in depth for behavioral driven mutation in the last section of the lost world book this was in the early 90s. I think it makes quite a bit of logical sense because behavior does change our biology in very real ways every day.
Richard Dawkins, already in the Extended Phenotype, said he suspected that more often than we think, behavior can come before or at the same time as selection.
excellent video, excellent channel, subbed, etc
on a purely intuitive level, as a computer scientist, i find flipping the arrow of causality 180 degrees and calling it an advancement in the model suspect, compared to going "ah yknow what, just to hedge our bets let's think of it as a feedback loop that goes both ways". that seems in fact to be the implied meaning, but the phrasing seems a little extreme if so.
more intuitive spitballing: i think it's probably fine to ascribe teleology in doses proportionate to the apparent degree of cognition on display. chemical cues to fruit flies with 3,000 neurons vs cues filtered through so many more layers of sensory processing to birds with orders upon orders of magnitude more neurons. the big-picture dispassionate modelling of genes following suit over time as the table tips to encourage a different local ground state probably doesn't change, but the backstory does. i guess that side is an altogether orthogonal question, but still.
also i would like to draw attention to the edited-in highlights in the page-flipping footage that you can see over the host's hands. i just find the subtle signal of "cmon, i'm not actually gonna ruin this book just for a video" very charming
Ladies and gentlemen I present you what is a true teacher. This man right here teches how to think, how to not fix knowledge into analogy of mechanisms. This man teaches you the sad reality that biology is complex and unpredictable.
A true teacher dismantles myths and trends based on reductionist analogies with the machine. This is thinking.
I know there was this paper on valproate syndrome in rats, as it seemed to become heritable in humans so they did this study to kinda prove that even the grandchildren, the mothers of which were not exposed to valproate developed the syndrome as well. I think they came up with some epigenetic explanation for it (valproate messes with a couple of those HDAC enzymes). Look it up :D
Love your videos! What's your academic background? Any book recommendations for stuff like this?
The behavior of "struggling" animals can't help being a predictive-power-endowed representation of what the doctrine posits as the cause of the appearance of design, the ecological niche.
One of the big biological drives nobody mentions is CURIOSITY!
I loved your ideas!
Agency is more plastic and rapid than genetics. This has been the driver to human levels of intelligence.
That’s exactly the idea :)
Note that while humans and other intelligent organisms or entities capable of abstraction, planning, modeling reality, and learning are goal-driven, their goals do not seem to be conscious optimization of the goal of evolution. That is, humans do not go around with Machiavellian levels of tricky plans to optimize their genetic fitness. Instead a much better description of human goals might be Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, food, shelter, companionship, physical intimacy, productivity, creativity, contribution, justice, belonging and status, knowledge, etc. Things that can improve selective fitness but not selective fitness itself.
@SubAnima: I'd love to hear your thoughts on struggles in explaining macroevolution (e.g. during Cambrian Explosion) with (neo-)Darwinian theories and which theories for its explanations you'd favor ...
What do you say about Denis noble and his work??
interesting, iirc theres even an example of this in humans in the form of people want to hunt animal > they use bow to hunt animal > human evolves to be better at using bow
I still don't understand what this perspective changes in practice (why we need it back). I get that it is a conceptual change (an important one) and that it's useful from a "philosophy of biology" point of view, but how does it impact the practice of biology? Does it advance new hypotheses, or explain previously unexplainable phenomena?
This is a great question, and yes admittedly I barely explored that part of the title in the video, leaving it more open ended. Here is a good overview of some of the larger predictions of the extended evolutionary synthesis. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.1019
And for guesses at what an agency theory would look like specifically see this one: doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198779636.003.0008
There are more things to read on the sources page in the description. At the moment, a huge amount of this research is very speculative. The desire for new theory moreso comes from seeing the failings of the gene-centric view and suggesting new ways forward based on the idea of agency.
If you want a real in depth exploration of where this sort of thing can lead, check out Biological Autonomy by Moreno and Mossio.
And for an unexplained phenomena - we have plenty of teleological features in nature that have remained ignored by standard theory, and things like the flexible stem hypothesis i mentioned towards the end.
@@SubAnima Thank you! After reading the sources page and the predictions from the first link, things are a bit more clear. It would be helpful to have more examples of the failings of the gene-centric view, since it's what partly motivates this idea.
@@yamrzouThanks for the feedback, maybe a good idea for a video perhaps showing where the gene’s eye view falls short.
I feel like biological agency and goal directedness is somewhat of a Turning machine like behavior. I think, that's one of the route to investigate agency. I specifically want to emphasize this over the phase-like explanation/definition given in the video. Cos, by that definition a ball falls on earth cos it wants to fall towards earth - which is just an wordplay, but also undermines the detailed mechanism very badly.
You just randomly popped up in my recommended but i already know ill spend way too much time watching your videos just 5 minutes in lol
Naww that’s so good to hear, thank you!
@@SubAnima omg you saw lol i just wanna say that ive been watching more and its still true, especially youre video on dawkins
Im studying antiquity and pre history right now and the amount of nazis who take tidbtis from those topics and the wanton disregard for that ongoing process by current scholars felt like i was getting hit over the head by a mirror
hope you keep going good fortune to you
@@toottoot7316 Thanks for the kind words again, glad to have a historian watching the channel. Have you read much of David Graeber’s stuff?
@@SubAnimaNo i havent yet but i was planning to get around to it when i find the time!
Come back buddy!!!
I was waiting the entire video for a mention of the Baldwin effect! But it never came 😅A learned behaviour that spreads and gives individuals an advantage can then be selected for in further generations. Offspring with mutations that make it faster to learn the new behaviour will outcompete those who don't learn as fast. This can be so optimized that individuals are born already knowing how to do it, or just requiring the tiniest amount of learning/training to get it. Have you talked about the Baldwin effect anywhere else?
The videos referred to during the video don't appear as links. Are they intended for the future?
When we say “ through Natural Selection “ do we mean selection to be a principle? ( i.e survival of the fittest under conditions )because it is non-physical and it doesn’t make sense to say “ through natural selection “, but if it’s a principle we should say “ because of the principle of Survivability- Natural Selection “.
That's so interesting! I wonder what's the biological mechanism behind genetic assimilation (like, how does an environmentally produced trait become part of the genome, if it wasn't there in the first place?)
First thank you very much for this video !
I have an Hypothesis that seems to make sense but I'm not sure, here it is:
since we see that Behaviour come first, and genetic modification later (consequence of the behaviour), doesn't this shows exactly what epigenetic is all about ? Because epigenetic have been shown to be hereditary (just some of it because the major part is decided by our lifestyle and environment if I'm not wrong). So if epigenetic is about the expression of the genes being influenced by the behaviours, and since epigenetic have some hereditary traits, can't we say that epigenetic explain this phenomena (birds learning how to open bin) and others ?
And also another thing I think is great to think about, what makes the body change and adapt our genome due to environmental causes "epigenetic" since it's not the genes themselves that decide how they express themselves I think that what makes epigenetic change the way they do is something not material since it changes in specific cases for no observable reason nor as a consequence of other material mechanisms, the fact that is has a specific logical pattern (many behaviours change epigenetic the same way) show that's it's not due to chance either.
Yes! This is the phenomenon known as transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. There is pretty good empirical evidence for it at the macroscopic level and some biochemical mechanisms have been proposed to explain it. However, it's significance for evolution long term is unclear. I actually spent some time researching all this in a fruit fly lab, was very fun :) Here's a review if you're interested: doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0111
@@SubAnima Thank you ! I'm gonna have a look at it 👍
I always was under the impression that this was already how evolution was widely understood
As very much a non-expert, this sounds surprisingly like Lamarkian evolution, at least as I understand it. Is that an appropriate comparison?
@jake (or anyone) I'd love to suggest a topic on genetic lineage. If a male is XY and the woman XX we're talking about a 12.5% lower data transfer. The specific arm that's missing cannot be splice at conception, so, does that mean anything in the 12.5% is essentially locked in to the female line? If so, can it EVER change without random mutation? What is in that 12.5% that males don't have anyway?
Now I want to know everything about genetic assimilation and how it works. How can behaviors become genetic like that?
Enagement comment! You blow my mind amigo!
So, that video somehow remembers me of Lamark and his theory of use and disuse.
subbed
Awesome thanks!
Brilliant - life has teleology at whatever level you study it - except perhaps the atomic
Good stuff
That was very entertaining and interesting thanks.
I'm actually developing a radical concept of consciousness. As being a drive of our human organism, to do something our concept of human nature and identity doesn't currently allow.
Darwin's Finches: Those different beaks always fascinated me. If the chick, who needs a seed beak as opposed to a flower beak, has to wait millions of years for their particular beak, they will never survive. They need that beak asap. Sheldrake's morphogenetics and Lipton's epigenetics, together, may induce that beak formation very quickly (evolutionary change/adaptation). Millions of years not needed ever. Thoughts?
Well, the original Darwinian theory was not that the individual finch would be need to evolve at all, but that the population already possessed small and large beak genes, and that the environment would determine which would survive. Thus, the population would evolve. Mutations give new evolutionary options, but a mutation doesn’t mean a population will evolve if the mutation isn’t passed down to offspring. That being said, I agree that adaptation and epigenetic should be included in the model.
@@thecolorjune Flagella Bacteria. Evolved, Mutated, Designed, Environment appears very pertinent beyond the biology. A small part of the synergy required to coming into existence. Akashic Record....????
@@quinktapI’m sorry, I can’t quite tell what you’re saying. It feels like you’re just listing things at me.
Interesting posts. Please add your background and goals under ABOUT !! thanks
You failed to mention the important role that spiritual essence plays in evolution.
I'd posit that the defining quality of life is atleast some rudimentary level it _sentience,_ with more complex multicellular organisms like humans being able to support some level of _sapience._
Is behavior adaptability/variety, not a genetic trait in the first place?
Nice videos!
But the curiosity and capability of exploring new life style isn't also dependent on the gene? If the gene doesn't allow the impulse for exploring and learning, they wouldn't.
In this sense, the gene us still a central factor, but it would show the increased environmental Dependency, as the exploration depend in the environment
Life is really just existence boiled down to 2 facts.
1. if it exists, it must have come into existence.
2. If it exists, it must have existed since it came into existence.
Thus life is simply that which perpetuates its existence in a certain form favourable to continued existence. This perpetuation must have come about by pure coincidence, and maintains itself in a cycle that actually bootstraps itself.
Nonsentient things having goals, why not mathematical objects with goals?
Does a system of matrices and functions have the goal of driving a car?
When installed in the car's computer, it can do that.😊
You should consider incorporating a call to action in your videos (like and subscribe, etc). Although some people think its annoying on the surface, everyone does it and it does actually work.
Please do not encourage this bad behaviour. There are a lot of things that "work", does not make them good habits.
Have you ever looked at Michael Levins research? Might be worth it. Genetics, after all, don't matter because they only determine the structure of the single cell, but not morphology.
Also, this video, even though the guy is promoting evilution, he illustrates a good point about the moral structure that exists in all of us, from the beginning. Which I think is a nod to intelligent design, but also that without God, we truly are no more than a beast. Chemistry reminds us of this as well, carbon is the basic building block for life, it has six protons, nutrons, and electrons, 666. 7 is the number of completion. That's why the evil one's number is 666, and called the beast. We need God to be complete humans and not merely beasts.
it looks like you just discovered the existence of brains and learning in animals
You think about the problems almost no one thinks exist yet
Why is it any more scientific and rational to consider the 'agency' of individual organisms than the 'agency' of entire species, ecosystems, etc? What do we think 'agency' means, especially considering the bundled nature of organisms, minds, and reality itself?
I LOVE your work. Thank you for making these fascinating and high production value videos on microbiology.
This reminds me of a behavioral effect of how those who are born poor have altered neurological responses given the constant threat of scarcity, which don't disappear even if they become personally wealthy. I wonder how this neurochemical rewiring may also affect the traits expressed by chronically poor families, and what the time-scale of this induced change is.