A friend of mine used to monitor Class 100 clean rooms for growing, slicing and patterning pure silicon wafers. He was getting lots of bad wafers in one place, and thought to check the triply-distilled water for dust etc. -- he found it was FULL of bacteria, which thrived in the perfectly pure H2O. Go figure.
On the recent PIMA podcast, Dan Gilbert talks about the End-Of-History illusion, where people feel that they've changed much in the past, but that their current version of themselves (ideas, preferences, opinions) is final and unlikely to change. While it's true that people change less as they get older, it's often much more than people think. So perhaps this is true for life in general.. there is nothing special about the current composition of species on Earth at this moment. Life will continue, with or without preservation, with or without humans.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the species that all "died out" didn't just go extinct but instead adapted slightly over time until they were considered a new species. Home erectus is an extinct species but its children are the homo sapiens and are thriving just fine!
With the computer simulation you could easily relabel the "die" criteria as "fit/not fit", effectively modelling environmental change in the simulation- over time the species becomes more or less fit based on random environmental changes. This is a case for natural selection, not against it.
Can we say that this system is really unaffected by Humans? this is not a natural system - this system exists in a barrell made of man made plastic, it is continuously being disturbed by the sample takers, it is feeling pressure and temperature changes caused by the human AC system, it is feeling vibrations from the students and faculty walking by . . So is this truly a natural system unaffected by humans?
So I have lots of thoughts about this story. The first is that they didn't talk about time in relation to evolution. Evolution is occurring quickly in that blue barrel because the organisms in it have a very short lifespan, so generations occur at a rapid rate from a human perspective. If you look at 100 years of evolution, it's going to look much different than 500 million years. 500 million years ago there were no mammals. Now we rule the earth. But if you look at human evolution in the last 100 years you'll barely notice a difference beyond being slightly bigger and longer lived. It's a HUGE hole in this conversation that they don't consider time. Second of all it's not either/or chaos or order. It's both. That same teeter totter between order and chaos is occurring everywhere in the universe but in many instances, it's happening so slowly (from our perspective) that we can barely measure it. Example: pandas are a nitch creature. They only eat one thing in one place in the world and they only have 1 cub every 10 years and are solitary animals. If anything happens, the smallest tweek can cause them to crash and go extinct. Then you have water bears that can live in the emptiness of space, or hot geysers, in the desert or the ocean or the artic. That is survival of the fittest. The strongest in a same species group will produce the most and healthiest offspring. That is order, that is survival of the fittest...even if a meteor wipes them out down the line.
I came back for the song at the end.
Darn I love how Radiolab makes me think about stuff.
I was looking for a fun science podcast and the algorithm took me here. I’m loving these episodes. Keep them going
A friend of mine used to monitor Class 100 clean rooms for growing, slicing and patterning pure silicon wafers. He was getting lots of bad wafers in one place, and thought to check the triply-distilled water for dust etc. -- he found it was FULL of bacteria, which thrived in the perfectly pure H2O. Go figure.
My insomniac ass really appreciates that y’all are on TH-cam
Hope to help the algorithm with this comment so that more people discover you and join you on this amazing journey you've been on for many years
Vine buscando cobre y encontré oro, que buen podcast
On the recent PIMA podcast, Dan Gilbert talks about the End-Of-History illusion, where people feel that they've changed much in the past, but that their current version of themselves (ideas, preferences, opinions) is final and unlikely to change.
While it's true that people change less as they get older, it's often much more than people think. So perhaps this is true for life in general.. there is nothing special about the current composition of species on Earth at this moment. Life will continue, with or without preservation, with or without humans.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the species that all "died out" didn't just go extinct but instead adapted slightly over time until they were considered a new species. Home erectus is an extinct species but its children are the homo sapiens and are thriving just fine!
With the computer simulation you could easily relabel the "die" criteria as "fit/not fit", effectively modelling environmental change in the simulation- over time the species becomes more or less fit based on random environmental changes. This is a case for natural selection, not against it.
Can we say that this system is really unaffected by Humans? this is not a natural system - this system exists in a barrell made of man made plastic, it is continuously being disturbed by the sample takers, it is feeling pressure and temperature changes caused by the human AC system, it is feeling vibrations from the students and faculty walking by . . So is this truly a natural system unaffected by humans?
So I have lots of thoughts about this story. The first is that they didn't talk about time in relation to evolution. Evolution is occurring quickly in that blue barrel because the organisms in it have a very short lifespan, so generations occur at a rapid rate from a human perspective. If you look at 100 years of evolution, it's going to look much different than 500 million years. 500 million years ago there were no mammals. Now we rule the earth. But if you look at human evolution in the last 100 years you'll barely notice a difference beyond being slightly bigger and longer lived. It's a HUGE hole in this conversation that they don't consider time. Second of all it's not either/or chaos or order. It's both. That same teeter totter between order and chaos is occurring everywhere in the universe but in many instances, it's happening so slowly (from our perspective) that we can barely measure it. Example: pandas are a nitch creature. They only eat one thing in one place in the world and they only have 1 cub every 10 years and are solitary animals. If anything happens, the smallest tweek can cause them to crash and go extinct. Then you have water bears that can live in the emptiness of space, or hot geysers, in the desert or the ocean or the artic. That is survival of the fittest. The strongest in a same species group will produce the most and healthiest offspring. That is order, that is survival of the fittest...even if a meteor wipes them out down the line.
The movie the lion king confirmed that chaos.is the norm
This is the worst edited podcast I've ever heard.