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Bad Arguments · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we Do what we Do. Welcome
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to Why we Do what we Do. I am your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: unconvincing host Abraham and I.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Am your master debater host Shane.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about all of
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the things that people do and animals do, and sometimes
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: we talk about the poor arguments that people do about
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the things the animals do. And that's what we're doing today.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I am so excited to unpack this because I
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: feel like, as a scientist, and you've probably had this experience,
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: so many people come to you trying to make an
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: argument and they are so grossly incompetent about the task
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: at hand or like the topic they're trying to bring
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: to you, but they just convince themselves into a corner
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: and it's just a.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're so sure of themselves and it's like
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: so nonsensical. Yeah, yeah, then that's basically what will be
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: unpacking today. And if you are joining us for the
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: first time, and I'm pretty sure there's at least one
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: of you that is welcome and thank you for being here.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: If you if you enjoy this discussion and you would
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: like to support us in one way or another, then
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: you can do so by leaving us a rating and review,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: picking up some merch from our merch store, liking and subscribing,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: and of course you can join us at our club
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: team home base, which is Patreon. We will get some
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: extra content and I'll talk more about the ways that
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: you can support us at the end of this discussion.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: But before we get into that, I would like to
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: just acknowledge that it is November twentieth and so Happy
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: African and Dust Realization Day.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's also beautiful day, which is nice.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Sure is Yeah, in the middle of November. Probably in Australia,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: it's quite nice, I would imagine. So has anybody ever
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: said that though? Just kidding?
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Maybe someone as we love it Australia.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: It is also Future Teachers of America Day. Good luck everybody, Yeah,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the future ones.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I was part of the f FEA, the Florida
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Future Educators of America when I was in elementary school,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: and here I am, yeah, really not happy with the
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: current state of education and where it's going next. Today
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: is also globally organized hug A Runner Day or for short,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: go Hard.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Indeed, it is Name your PC Day, So if you
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: haven't already, I guess today's the day to name your PC.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Sure. It's also National Absurdity Day, so name your PC
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: something absurd, like Frank Grimes.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: PC. By the way, we're not talking about politically correct.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: We're talking about a personal computer.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's true.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: A lot of people use that name synonymously with Windows.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly why, because technically a personal computer
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: could be anything that's your computer. Right, but right, moving on,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: It's National Peanut butter Fudge Day, yes, please.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, into it. Today is also Transgender Day of Remembrance.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Super important day.
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  Speaker 1: Very much so, particularly given the future for trans people
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: that we're really looking at. Yes, it is Universal Children's Day.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: And it's also American Education Week, which is only four
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: days because we don't know what a week is.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Oh dear. It is International Fraud Awareness Week. Well that's good.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I wish we'd had that week maybe a few weeks ago.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. It's International Restorative Justice Week as well. Love that.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Sure, it's National Geography Awareness Week, so in case you
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: didn't know there's such a thing as geography.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and people live places. It's World Anti Microbial Awareness
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Week as well.
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  Speaker 1: Very good, very good? All right, Well, we do like
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: to mention those things. Some of you may celebrate publicly,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: some of you celebrate in private. Some of you don't
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: celebrate at all. And that's okay. We're not really a
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: podcast about dates. It's just a fun thing that we do.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: But we are here to talk about something that is
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: kind of near and dear to my heart, really, which
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: is two things, evolution and arguing some of my absolute
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: favorite topics. Yeah, and just to sort of set the
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: stage here, there are some arguments that are so bad
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: that even if they were right, they would be wrong. Yes,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: that's how bad they are.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: And there's a couple of ways this might show up
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  Speaker 1: that we can think of. One is that even if
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: their main thesis was accurate, which it might not be,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: but even if there's if their main premise was accurate,
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  Speaker 1: the argument that they make for it is so bad
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  Speaker 1: that it essentially makes their position incorrect.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Another way that this might show up is that even
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: if their points were valid, like they're making relatively sound aguments,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: their premise is so flawed that their position is incorrect.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: This is actually shows up in arguments and like logical fallacies,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: as an unstated major premise, unstated premise or unstated assumption.
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  Speaker 1: And we talked about this a little bit in our
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: episode on critical thinking, and it turns out there are
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: just a million examples of either one of these things.
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  Speaker 1: For today, we're going to take on the first argument,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: where we have a central thesis which is wrong, but
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: even if it was right, the arguments for it are
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: so poor that it makes it wrong even if it
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: was correct to begin with, but it is also wrong. Yes,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: that's what we're going to unpack in this discussion.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, so today we are going to understand and ask
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: the question of what does the deep sea Thomas Edison,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: textbooks and hurricanes, what do they have in common?
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, that is essentially the weave we are going to
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: try to do. But I also want to well, actually,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: let's go ahead and jump into it. Like I think
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: we'll set the stage as we start to unpack this argument.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Does that sound good?
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, then it sounds good to me.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, So we've talked before and previous episodes about learning styles,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: and if you haven't heard those, it was a really
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: good episode. I think I recommend checking it out, or
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: if you haven't heard that, I think we only did
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: one episode on that. But even if you don't. I'll
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: give you a quick summary. This flawed and incorrect idea
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: is that there is a way that people learn things,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: and they should only be primarily taught in that way,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: auditorially or visually or whatever. Now, there aren't such things
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: as learning styles. But even if there were such a thing,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: which there isn't, the idea that we should only cater
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: to a student's strengths is a bad argument because in general,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: we're trying to target education and remediation toward their weaknesses.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: What are the things that they struggle with? Right, So
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: emphasizing their strength means failing to address their weaknesses.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Right, It's not comprehensive.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it just fails at its job to
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: do that thing. So that's just kind of an example
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: of what we're talking about here.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Right, And so there is a difference between lying, misleading,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: or obfuscating and actually making an argument. So, for example,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: saying that crime is up in the United States due
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: to illegal immigrants is just factually incorrect. At every single level,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: crime is down. The crime that is happening is not
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: primarily perpetrated by illegal immigrants. In fact, US born citizens
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: are significantly more likely to commit crimes than immigrants. But
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: the immigrant scare tactic is just a lie, not an argument,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: and it's a lie in bad faith.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: It is. Yeah, like they don't even believe the lie
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: that they're selling. They just sell it because they can.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: So anyway, we recently came across this interesting book that
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: structurally it appears to be a textbook of some sort
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: and it's arguing against evolution, and it probably had a
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: very specific audience, and we were not audience, sure, but
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: they tried to use psychology to make their points. So
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: because of that, I was particularly personally offended and I
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: felt that it warranted us dismantling their arguments. Yes, but
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: interestingly they had several like it's as a whole book,
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  Speaker 1: but the one that I zeroed in on was about
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: the anglerfish. So let's do a little background on anglerfish.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so if you all are familiar with anglerfish, they
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: are that really ugly deep sea creature that's got the
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: light bulb on its head. And we'll talk.
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  Speaker 1: About this, right, So Thomas Addison connection. That's yep, that's
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  Speaker 1: the there we go, damn the deep sea. Actually there
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  Speaker 1: we go from a textbook.
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  Speaker 2: Haha. All right, so you've likely encountered some depiction of
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: anglerfish because they are very unique looking and they're an
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  Speaker 2: iconic looking fish that has been used in many movies
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  Speaker 2: in imagery in a variety of ways. But we'll describe
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  Speaker 2: it to you so that you are clear about what
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  Speaker 2: we are talking about, because a lot of the way
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  Speaker 2: it looks is some of the arguments of this textbook
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  Speaker 2: makes against Yes.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: So anglerfish are very deep sea predators, or you could
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  Speaker 1: maybe think of them as hunters, but they're they're predators. Okay.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: There are over two hundred species of anglerfish that can
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  Speaker 1: live in shallow tropical waters to depths of over a mile.
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  Speaker 1: They span a wide range of the different sort of
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  Speaker 1: levels of the ocean, but they can go as deep
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  Speaker 1: as a mile. And when you're down that deep that
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  Speaker 1: it is basically pitch black, so little light if any
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  Speaker 1: reaches this depth, that is like the light's basically undetectable
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  Speaker 1: once you get that far down. Furthermore, when we're talking
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: about the pressure of the water, it gets pretty intense
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: pretty quickly, and of you who have done any diving
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  Speaker 1: will know this very well. For every the atmospheric pressure
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  Speaker 1: increases one atmosphere every ten meters below the surface, which
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  Speaker 1: means that at a depth of a mile, the pressure
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  Speaker 1: is four hundred and eighty at spheres or four hundred
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  Speaker 1: and eighty times more pressure than at the surface. And
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: for some back of the envelope calculating this would be
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  Speaker 1: like being pressed Like if you were just suddenly appeared
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: at a mile below the surface of the water, it
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: would be like you were being pushed on all sides
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: of your body by seven thousand and eight pounds. If
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: you were not in a pressurized suit in this environment,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: your body would be crushed pretty much instantly. You would
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: just be poof gone like that fast. You would be
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: very dead, very quickly.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you would be nothing but missed under the sea. Yes,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: but these creatures evolved in this kind of pressure, so
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: they tolerated just fine. And that being said, the carnivorous
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: nature of the biosphere at this depth and scarcity of
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: creatures that can survive it means that food can be
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: difficult to come by anyway.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Anglerfish are iconic because they look very unique. They have
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: this giant mouth full of long, slender, needle like tea
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: that seem to make up like a Their mouth seems
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: to make up like most of their body like it
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: just is so big, right, But that's not even the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: part that most people focus on. Anglerfish have an appendage
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: that grows out of the top of their head, either
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: as like a straight pole in some species or more
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  Speaker 1: like a sort of curved almost fishing rod shape in
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: other species. And at the end of that pole or rod,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: whatever this appendages that's growing essentially out of their forehead,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: they have bioluminescent bacteria that glow. And again it's pitch
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: dark down here, so any kind of light really stands
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: out right.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: And there are all sorts of predation strategies scavenging, territorial predation,
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  Speaker 2: catch and kill, trap, poison, an ambush. The illuminated bulb
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  Speaker 2: that they grow means that they can attract other fish
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  Speaker 2: who might be looking to eat some other bioluminescent creatures
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  Speaker 2: of the depths. This is called ambush predation. Essentially, they
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: wait until prey is near and then they pounce. It's
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: fairly in the animal kingdom. It happens a lot a
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: lot of lures and a lot of like let hey
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: come here, come check this out, and then they go
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: ahead and you just, oh, sorry about you now your food.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: That's what they do so.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Camouflage can work in a multitude of ways, and one
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  Speaker 1: of them is for ambush predation. Sometimes it's a defensive
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: like camouflage means that they hide from predators, but sometimes
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: it means that they lie unsuspecting to attack. Snakes use
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: some camouflage for ambush predation, but many insects will use
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: camouflage for avoiding predators. So there's anyway ambush predation is
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: a thing that definitely occurs. That's probably enough background on
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: the angler fish for this argument. So we'll go ahead
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: and dive into the meat of the actual text to
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: start dismantling this argument or dismantling their arguments after we
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: dismantle the flow of this podcast with an ad.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: All right, so we are back and let's start talking
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: about this nonsensical argument that this book is making. So
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: the first paragraph, this is where we start. First, they
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: do some basic description of the anglerfish. Then they get
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: into the meat of their argument and they state, quote,
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: the question is how could this luminescent lore and the
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: behavior pattern coupled with it develop gradually? The theory of
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: evolution states that the anglerfish must have evolved from normal fish,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: i e. From one that lacked any strange headdress, and
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: like ordinary fish, got its daily meal by chasing smaller fish.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: But just how did this evolution occur? End quote.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, Okay, so that by itself has a lot of
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: content that we need to unpack. Yes, let's just go
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: ahead and dig in. We'll hold off on the first
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: question that they ask, which is how could this develop? Gradually?
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: We'll come back around to that, but we'll address the
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: other parts of the argument. So one of the things
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: they say here is, quote, the theory of evolution states
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: that the angler fish must have evolved from normal fish
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: end quote. Quick counterpoint, No, it fin doesn't. Evolution does
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: not state that they must have evolved from normal fish
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: at all Anywhere. Evolution states that a creature's biology adjusts
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: to the prevailing circumstances of its environment through generations of
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: natural selection and mutations. That's what evolution says.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, and I think it's also important to note that
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: generations refer to generations of the species and in specific
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: to that species, not generations of humans and time as
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: humans relate to it. So, yes, multiple generations of a
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: species may occur more rapidly because their life spans are
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: shorter and their reproductive cycles are much more frequently than humans.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think that's an important caveat as we
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: start talking about generations of this.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Too, very very good point.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: So the second thing is what is a normal fish?
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thous
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: of species of fish, and which one are they claiming
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: is the quote normal fish. It's not like there is
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: one archetype of fish and some rogue mutants spawned off
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: of that fish to go start their own cool fish club,
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: although I would like to join a fish club. Fish
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: have evolved in several different evolutionary clades with several different
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: survival strategies and food accrual strategies. So there are so
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you just talk about the difference between
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: a flounder and a barracuda, the differences are astounding.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the variety is pretty incredible. So what happened
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: is they evolved from some multicellular organism and eventually that
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: became some carnivorous organism some sort, and those most well
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: suited to their environments carried their genetic information onto subsequent
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: generations in subsequent environments. So that's essentially like how the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: evolution there would work.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Right, So key point number one, there's no arche type
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: of a fish in every evolution or every species from
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: has come from that singular fish. It's not how it works.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'll actually just go through the whole the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: first thing. Again, they state the theory of evolution states
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: that the angular fish must have evolved from normal fish.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Noah didn't, and there's no such thing as normal fish.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Let's go on.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, so they say about ordinary fish that they get
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: their daily meal by chasing smaller fish. That is kind
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: of the standard fare. Now again, ordinary means nothing in
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: a sea of wildly variable genotypes and survival strategies.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, but also again, they get their meals a lot
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: of different ways. Scavenging hunting, pack hunting. There are pack
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: hunting fish. There is this fish called a blue goat fish,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: and because they are pack hunters, they can actually take
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: down fish larger than they are. Because they can attack
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: their prey as a large group, they essentially overwhelm them
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: with numbers, and so even though there might be a
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: fish that's much larger than an individual blue goat fish,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: the pack of bluegoat fish can take down a very
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: large piece of prey and then they eat that, so
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: they don't actually chase smaller fish, which is the argument
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: that they were making. And again it's a different strategy.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: This pack hunting strategy is a specific type of strategy
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: that they developed.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Right, and also as part of this too, there are
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: a lot of ambush predator fish. There are, and some
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: of the best names for fish that you're gonna see.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: There is the stonefish, there's the wardy i stargazer. There's
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: the devil scorpion fish, which sounds scary. There's the brown rockfish,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: the southern flounder, and the wobblegong shark.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Those are very good names, so good.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Perhaps anglerfish evolve from similar fish as those ambush predators,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: or perhaps ambush predation just evolved naturally several times among
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: several different lineages as a means to successfully obtain food.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, okay, and even beyond that. I found this twenty
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: twenty paper in the Journal of experiment Until Marine Biology
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: and Ecology by Pederson or Peterson at all as a
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: d in there. And what they were looking at is
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the predation of the sculpin. There's a type of fish
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: called a sculpin, and the predation of sculpin on Atlantic cod.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: And there are sort of species of sculpin that do
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: what they call cruise hunting and species of sculpin they
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: that are ambush predators. And they actually found that the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: ambush predators were much more successful at obtaining prey than
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: those cruise predators. So perhaps and I was just trying
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: to look for like ambush predation and the relative like
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: success of that, And it seems like ambush predation does
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: have some really specific advantages that makes it a likely
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: strategy that is going to evolve multiple times if it
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: means that they have an easier time procuring food, right, and.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: So relatedly, anglerfish are very slow swimmers, so they would
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: have a really difficult time surviving on a strategy of
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: cruising for food and chasing down prey. And if you
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: are willing to counter that with yeah, but they could
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: have evolved to be poorer swimmers because they didn't need
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: to be fast with their ambush predation, then you're correct,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: And that means you just admitted that they evolved exactly.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Now, they also state that they evolved from this quote
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: unquote normal fish that lacked any strange headdress. Now we've
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: already talked about normal fish as not a thing. But
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: let's dig into this. I kind of get from this.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I think that they think that evolution happens pretty quickly,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: meaning that like across like three generations, you go from
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: not having a headdress to having one, and it just
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: kind of like shows up that way, right, And this
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: is just not how it works. First of all, it
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: almost certainly evolved from a species that would be considered
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: a separate species that did have a headdress, because that's
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: how evolution works and iterative steps. So like at some
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: point there was a species that preceded the curve version
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: of it, that did have some version of this bioluminescent
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: headdress thing, right, And this kind of starts to get
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: to the author's first question. How could this luminescent lure
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and the behavior pattern coupled with it develop gradually?
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Right, So, perhaps many previous ancestors had a bioluminescent headdress
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: but lost it over time as they as it was
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: not always necessary. Maybe the evolution of a head dress
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: started when some ancestor of the anglerfish had a small
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: patch of dim bioleescent bacteria and it was better at
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: catching prey and was able to more successfully survive and breed.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: So as a result of that passed down in that
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: genetic trait of having a spot on its head that
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: could lure prey. Right, and as time went on, the
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: bioluminescent patch became a protuberance, which is a good word.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Or perhaps they always had weird spiny things poking out
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: of their head and at some point they started to
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: bioluminess and that helped them obtain prey. Or perhaps they
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: had lots of bioluminescence spines but having fewer gave them
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: a better advantage. It could have been a combination of
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: any of those things, depending on what worked, what didn't work,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: what was selected in, what was selected out over multiple generations,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: not three generations, Like three generations would be the example
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: of like you yourself do not have a tail, but your
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: grandchildren do. Like that's how rapidly that would have to happen.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: That doesn't make any sense.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: That would be alarmingly quick. Yeah, so anyway, Yeah, Like,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of different paths by which something
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: like this could have evolved. And if ambush predation and
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: matter of fact it cruising predation and ambush predation and
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: pack hunting like versions of that can exist on a spectrum,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Like it's not even like it's definitely one thing or another. Right,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: you could have a predator who is sometimes opportunistically ambushing
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: its prey and sometimes is actually hunting and cruising for prey,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and so it's like it's possible that it started that way. Like,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of different ways that the strategy for
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: hunting and the strategy for using its physiology to capture
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: its prey developed side by side with one another because
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: of the different advantages that it granted. Right, And if
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: like let's say it was a cruise predator and it
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: also had some bioluminescence which tended to attract prey in
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the first place, and then it would it would go
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: for them, it might have evolved to essentially be more
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and more of an ambush ambush predator over time because
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: it was less energy expenditure to just wait for your
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: prey to come, and so the the bioluminescence became more
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: prominent and more focused as the ambush strategy became more
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: focused and directed and just ambush, you know what I mean?
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, exactly exactly, all right.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: So again, let's just go through the whole statement and
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: make sure that we've unpacked it thoroughly. How could the
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: luminescent lure and behavior pattern coupled with it developed gradually
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of different ways, an infinite number of ways.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: The theory of evolution states that anglerfish must have evolved
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: from normal fish. No, it doesn't. One that lacked in
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: a strange headdress, not necessarily like ordinary fish. That's not
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a thing got its meal by chasing after smaller fish. No,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: just no, Like there's a lot of different ways to
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: obtain prey. It could like ambush is one of them.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: And just how did this evolution occur? Again, a million
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: different ways? So that's that paragraph that we've now tackled.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: But there's so many more. So let's move on to
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: paragraph too.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're already off to a strong start, aren't they.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: The next part of their argument states that quote, new
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: species evolve from established species slowly, step by step, over
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: many many generations. End quote first, we have already established.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: But it is worth reiterating that there is no such
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: thing as an established species from which another spontaneously branches
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: off into some immediately different species. You're not going to
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: have a tree frog all of a sudden give birth
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: to toads. That's not how that works. Sometimes they remain
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: relatively stable for a long time. Sometimes they change fairly
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: rapidly or un go many variations across several generations.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, so it just it happens a lot of different ways.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: But major events can also force rapid evolution. And this
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: is I'm gonna now describe an example to you that
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: we're going to come back to multiple times because it's
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: just such a prime way of like debunking some of
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the pieces of the argument here. So, during a recent
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: hurricane and the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos, this
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: was not twenty twenty four, this was like six or
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: more years ago. There was this hurricane in the Caribbean
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: in Turks and Caicos, and there are a bunch of
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: lizards that live on these islands, and lizards mostly are
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: okay during hurricanes, but this was a particularly rough hurricane.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And during that hurricane, some lizards happened to have larger
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: topads and stickier feet and when the hurricane was blowing,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: and these like they tend to live on trees, and
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: they're also really bad at weather forecasting. These lizards, uh so,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: like they didn't really plan for surprise evacuation, and the
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: hurricane is just all sudden windows blowing them and they're
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: like on these trees. And so the ones that had
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: these larger, stickier toppads were able to retain their grip
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: on branches and leaves. But the lizards that were similar
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: matter of fact to the same species, really they just
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: had slightly less sticky feet and slightly smaller topads. They
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: were blown to their deaths. They were blown out to sea.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: They were just blown so far that they were smashed
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: against something via gravity or wind, et cetera. And so
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: it basically left only the species that had the larger
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: stickier toppads left, and the results were documented in a
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen study. The authors commented that, quote this is
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: a striking case of rapid evolution, which, as we can
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: see here, can proceed exceedingly fast, even within a generation
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: end quote Because essentially what was left on this island
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: were just the lizards with larger stickier toppads, and that
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: just simple mutation meant that they were now the only
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: and dont version of that species of lizard on the islands.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Now there's going to be plenty of other species as well,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: but for the ones that were like similar to those
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: lizards but just didn't have that mutation, that adaptation, they
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: were gone, and the ones that are left that are
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: going to have babies are very likely to have that
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: same mutation moving forward, because that's pretty much what's left
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: in the gene pool, right.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: So you may have even seen scientific experiments about this
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: in which a lizard is clinging to something while being
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: blown by a powerful fan. And anyway, lizards with the
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: genetic trait of particularly sticky feet were now mostly the
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: only ones to survive and therefore reproduced with larger, stickier toepads.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: So this is essentially saying every member of the species
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: that was reproducing at this time had this genetic trait,
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: so as a result, when they reproduced, they passed down
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: this genetic trait, and this genetic trait was useful for
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: their environment. So going forward, when a hurricane comes through,
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: they will be able to hold onto trees better as
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: an entire species because that useful trait as a result
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: of being in their environment is something that helped them
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: survive over time.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Perfect. So yeah, usually evolution is a slow, step by
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: step process, but it just is whatever you're adapted to
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: in the prevailing circumstances that you're in, and circumstances can
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: force very rapid change even within a single generation. Let's
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: just pretend, for example, hostile aliens landed on Earth and
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, people with a very dark complexion were
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: like nearly impossible for them to see, and so they
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: wiped out everybody with light skin complexions, and the only
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: ones that were left were people who had darker skin complexions.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: And then the aliens, you know, did whatever they came
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: here to do get the resources, then left, and then
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: essentially what is left to breed would be people with
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: a darker skin complexion, right, And like that would be
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: an event that then selected for That's essentially what's left,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Like those particular genetic traits will be the ones that
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: on because the other genetic traits were functionally wiped out, right, right,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: And that's such a good point that we're going to
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: end on that point and play an ad. We're back
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: after congratulating ourselves on our own arguments. Good job us, Yay,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: we did it. Let's continue.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, So this book continues. They say, quote, if a
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: new trait gives the organism some advantage over its peers,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: it will more likely survive and reproduce. End quote. Now
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: here's the thing. This doesn't really These traits don't really
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: need to give the organism an advantage over their peers.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: It just needs to be the most advantageous trait for
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: its given environment, for that particular species, Like, they may
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: not even be competing with peers directly. If a trait
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: makes it more likely that they'll be able to secure
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: food and survive and reproduce, then that trait will likely
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: be the one that leads to greater continuation of that species,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: which means more of that trait. So basically that trait exists,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: it works for them, they reproduce, and then their children
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: and their children's children and their children's children's children have
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: that same trait that will help the species perpetuate.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not necessarily like, they don't have to be
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: competing with their peers. It's just what they need. I'm
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: also really not even sure what they mean by peers,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Like do they mean other anglerfish or fish that pray
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: in the same species as anglerfish. I'll go ahead and
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: just say that, like I'm gonna dismiss the first one
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: charitably and assume that they don't mean other angler fish,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and mostly because most species are not directly competing with
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: themselves most of the time. Even the sort of lone
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: wolf species will still need each other at least for reproduction.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: So even if they aren't very social, they tend to
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: not directly compete with one another. Some species do. It's
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: not like completely absent definitely a human thing, but for
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the most part, most species are like kind of if
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: they're lone wolves, they kind of just stay out out
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: of each but they like will still meet to reproduce.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: But otherwise they they often work very socially where they
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: like support each other.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Right, So as for the latter, ambush predators tend to
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: be pretty opportunistic, so there isn't like a species that
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: they prey on exclusively that would make them in direct
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: competition with other predators. Even so, with a limited food supply,
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: they already are in direct competition with other predators. But
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: as we've said, ambush predators may have a survival advantage
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: because when you think about it, a lot of ambush
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: predators are expending the least response effort to get the
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: most reward they can in that situation, Like they're hiding
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: and they're waiting for an opportunity and it's going to
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: produce some type of suscedence for.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Them, right.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: And further, the competition with other predators doesn't mean that
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: they don't get any food or that they get all
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: of it, just as long as they get their piece
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: of the available food in that specific ecosystem.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if they had essentially they out competed
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: all other predators and there was like an abundance of food,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: there would just be a billion anglerfish right right. And
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: if there was insufficient food because they were in competition,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: like they were in such direct competition with their other predators,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: then there wouldn't be any anglerfish. So like they're essentially
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: fitting into the niche that's available to them, surviving on
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: what they can. And yeah, some of them probably do
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: starve to death. That is a thing that happens. But yeah,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I mean it's just like that's just they don't have
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: to be out competing with their peers. They just have
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: to be successful in their circumstance, right, So that argument
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: also is just is just.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Wrong, right exactly, oh man. And could you imagine like
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: a million anglerfish like living in the same space, they
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: couldn't trick each other they'd be like, I know what
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: that is. Oh you.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Fun fact about anglerfish. I forgot to mention in our
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: description of them, but all anglerfish that we see are female.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is kind of a morbid fact that goes
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: along with that. A lot of species of anglerfish, the
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: males will attach themselves to the fee and then like
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: attach themselves and die and get incorporated into the female's
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: like body. Ye, And the female, whenever they want to
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: release fertilized eggs, will just take sperm from the attached
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: appendage that is the former male anglerfish and just use
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: that whenever they want. And sometimes they'll have two or
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: three males attached to them and just be like, I'll
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: just use this guy today. Gary's going to participate.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly right. It's some of the most extreme sexual
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: dimorphism in the animal kingdom because I think that the
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: male fish maybe are even born without a mouth, Like
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: they basically are like keep seeking sperm missiles. And once
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: they yeah, when they're born there like only goal is
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: to find a female, and then as you said, they
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: just attach themselves and like get basically absorbed into the female.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: And then as you said, like they're just like they
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: take the sperm when they need them or want them.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Maybe that's why we haven't voted for a female president yet.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: We're so afraid of women, afraid that they're fish, that
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: they're we're just going to turn into eat seeking sper missiles.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: As you said.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Maybe all right, let's get into so just to recap
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: the central of the argument, they say, here is a
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: new species evolve from established species. There's no such thing
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: as established species, so no, and really they don't like
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: a new species doesn't like evolve from a species. They
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: just kind of evolve and eventually they would be separate
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: from what would have been considered a separate seat species
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: step by step over many many generations. It can be
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: that way. It's not really step wise. It just happens
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: as it happens. Sometimes those are more significant, sometimes they're smaller,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: but they can be really rapid, as with the example
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: of the lizards. And then they say, if a new
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: trade gives the organisms some advantage over its peers, they
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: don't have to have an advantage over their peers. They
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: just need to be successful in their context. And like,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what they mean by peers. It
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: will be more likely to survive and reproduce. And yeah,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: that parts I guess more or less accurate.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Right, right, So let's go into the next argument, because
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: their next argument, I think is one of the most
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: ridiculous ones. So they boldly claim that quote no one
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: has ever observed any mutation, which, by the way, you
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: should be skeptical if anybody says no one has ever
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: observed any of this thing. Well, yeah, that's such an
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: absolute that it's probably unlikely true. But this is what
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: they said, quote, no one has ever observed any mutation
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: that caused a new organ to appear or enhance the
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: functions of an existing one. Abraham take it away.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so that's the quote. Actually, yes, we have
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: observed that, and setting aside the fact that that happened
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: for every living species currently as they all have evolved
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: and develops new organs from the single cell organisms that
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: they started as, we were actually able to observe this,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: specifically in the rove beetle, and this beetle evolved a
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: new gland which was functionally a new organ that allowed
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: it to spray toxic chemicals at enemies, particularly predators. It's
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: a very small beetle smaller than an ant, and it
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: essentially curls up its rear like a almost like a
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: scorpion it looks like, and it sprays this toxic chemical
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: from this gland organ that it evolved, and researchers were
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: actually able to map the exact evolutionary development of that organ,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and because of that, they could even use that to
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: help understand organ development more broadly across evolution. So, yes,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: we have observed that.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, And also important, we have observed that and been
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: able to observe that since we've started having an understanding
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: of evolution, because insects have very short life spans and
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: so we can see multiple generations rapidly develop, which is
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: really cool. I want to go back to that piece,
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: multiple generations over time. It would be a slow process
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: for us as humans to develop an organ where we
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: spray toxics out of our ass. But at the very
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: least they can do this, and they do this really
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: rapidly because there.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Are so generations, Yes, very much so.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: And another thing, as they're playing fast and loose with
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: a term organ, we can too, and point again to
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: the toepads of the lizards in the Turks and Kekos example,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: and they now have an enhanced quote unquote functionality of
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: their topads. Also, enhanced is not really an accurate way
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: of describing it. It's just different. Whether or not that
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: means improved or enhanced implies that it was trending in
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: a better direction in a way, it is, but only
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: because it has survival benefits. But there are plenty of
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: traits that evolved that are actually counterproductive to that organism
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: and that doesn't give them an advantage, such such as
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: like sickle cells. Sickle sickle cell is an evolution that
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: has happened in humans that is not at all useful
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: for survival well, and.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: It is in the sense that sickle cell, if I'm
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: remembering exactly how this developed, sickle cells do not facilitate
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: malaria virus right, And so essentially what happened was that
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: that there was even though this is a painful rough disease,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: evolution selected it because people with sickle cells would not
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: die of malaria, and so they were able to go
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: on and have more kids because they were not a
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: suspect to malaria. So then it became really prominent as
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: a trait among people from that lineage of people who
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: essentially evolved in a place where malaria was rampant, and
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: that allowed them to survive malaria. So it's like it's
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: an advantage in a way, but like it's also sucks,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: you know, like right, very painful, very difficult, but it
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: did help them survive in that context. And another one
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: is you can imagine it is like, let's pretend for
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: those stickier topads that like, right, now, that's helpful in
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: the context of surviving hurricanes, but what if it made
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: them slower at getting away from predators. Then like, then
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: in that case it might actually be a disadvantage for them.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: And so then the ones like let's just say there
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: are no more hurricanes somehow and or at least not
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: in that area, and there's a lot of predation that's happening.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: And again I'm not saying it actually makes them slower.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but let's just pretend it does, so
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: they have a more difficult time getting away from predators.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: For the few that then have the less sticky toepads
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: that are smaller, they then actually might be selected for
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: back to that trait if the ones with the stickier
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: toepads are being more easily preyed upon by other predator species,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean?
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: So all that is to say, like a particularly evolutionary
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: trait isn't good or whatever, Like it just is what
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: allowed this to benefit in this given circumstance, right, Like
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: it might even have some significant drawbacks. It might, like
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know how often it's the case, but like
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: there are probably gonna be instances where a particular trait
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: has some drawbacks. Like we as a species have a
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: really big advantage in that we have like these really
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: big complex brains, and we have opposable thumbs, and in
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: a way we walk up right has some advantages too,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: but we also are susceptible to cancer. Our language allowed
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: us to disseminate misinformation and lies more rapidly and more
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: efficiently than like truth. We are very bad at seeing
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: like one another as members of the same species, and
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: so we can be very very violent toward one another.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: So like we have plenty of disadvantages that came with
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: our big brains and opposable thumbs. Like our posable thumbs
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: also allowed us to wield significant weapons of damage toward
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: one another. Sure, So like advantages and disadvantages, it's just
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: those also did help us survive and proliferate.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Right, absolutely, So they go on and they say quote
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: in fact, mutations often prove fatal at best, a mutation
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: turns out to be neutral, i e. It doesn't cause
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: the organism any trouble during its life, but also doesn't
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: help it end.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Quote before we do that, le second at break, I
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: just needed to step away from that for a second. Like,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: their arguments get worse as they go on. Okay, yeah,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: ignoring their non parenthetical use of IE multiple times and
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: the lack of necessary commas. Grammatically, let's go ahead and
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: unpack this very first thing they say, mutations often prove fatal.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I don't know what they're talking about here.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: They don't cite any examples or give any examples. Mutations
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: happen constantly, even during a lifetime. There was a study
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: that found that mice might undergo as many as eight
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: hundred mutations in a lifetime, and shorter lifespan species do
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: tend to have these. So I just don't even know
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: what they're talking about. Mutations often prove fatal? What mutations
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: often prove fatal? What are you talking about? Right? They
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: don't even give any example of mutations that prove fatal.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Right exactly, and to the argument that most of them
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: are neutral at best. There's an example in human beings
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: where a mutation, a genetic mutation among a group of
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: people has been actually quite helpful for them. So another
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: example of this is found in the Baju or Bajo people.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: They are Southeast Asian indigenous peoples, okay, and there is
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: actually some genetic evidence of this group of They've been
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: labeled romantically as sea nomads.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Pirates is what I'm hearing.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pirates. Yeah, they're pi their pirates, they're diving pirates.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: They have evolved to have slower heart rates and larger
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: spleens by up to fifty percent that aid in diving
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: to depths to be able to like do some fishing
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: and like spearfishing and hunting for food and stuff like that.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: So like shellfish, Yeah, like shellfish and stuff like that.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: So they were observed to be able to dive down
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: to seven meters or about two hundred and thirty feet
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: without diving belts, without weights, without equipment, and scientists have
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: noted unique genetic markers among the seafaring indigenous folks that
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: show that this has been There is a direct evolutionary
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: path of these folks. These mutations have occurred across generations
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: where they were able to see that these organs have
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: developed and allows them to process and make their use
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: of oxygen more efficient, so they can dive longer, dive deeper,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: and be able to maintain a source of food for them.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Just for fun, I decided to look up two hundred
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: and eighty feet as it relates to building. The largest
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: wood building in the world is in Norway, is two
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: hundred and eighty feet. That's wild, Not that gives a
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: lot of context, but yeah.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I get nervous diving in a ten foot pool,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: so I couldn't imagine diving two hundred and eighty feet.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: That's pretty amazing. Honestly, that is really impressive that they
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: can do that, and it makes a lot of sense
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: given their lifestyle.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and to that point, I would like to ask
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: the authors, how is that neutral.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Right, even if you only consider major mutation. So we
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: talked about like there are these small mutations that might
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: take place, but let's just pretend like you're only even
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: considering major mutations that structurally alter the morphology of a creature.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: It seems like a stretch to say that they often
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: prove fatal often fatal, Like, so they're presuming that if
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: a mutation happens, it just kills the creature. Outright, I'm
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: gonna need at least an example, if not a very
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: robust example, to consider that there might be many fatalities
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: due to mutations, right right, Like, there are so many
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: small mutations that occur, like there's the color of the
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: stripe on a tail, an extra eyelash, a point zho
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: one percent increase in skin thickness or whatever. It doesn't matter,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: but often seems like a gross overestimation. Even if they
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: did often prove fatal often doesn't mean always, which concedes
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: that sometimes. I mean, they're making the case that when
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: it's not fatal, it's just neutral. But I think that
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: you're saying often that means that sometimes that's not fatal,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: and I would definitely argue that sometimes it is beneficial,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: as we've already talked about.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Right, So, at best a mutation turns out to be neutral.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: That's a direct quote from them, And at best I
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: don't think that that's even that. I feel like they
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: don't understand words. I think at best, a mutation turns
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: out to have a substantial advantage. Let's do we have
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: to remind you about topads on lizards. We don't have
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: to agree that mutations are all good or all bad,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: but to simply say that you can't. You can't say
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: that the best case scenario is that there is no
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: advantage or no net benefit from having some change to
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: your genetics that will allow you like that can maybe
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: maybe aid you in surviving.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I think they don't understand what the word
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: best means.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: I think they also don't understand what a mutation is.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: I think that they're probably arguing maybe birth defects, probably
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: maybe looking at high rates of birth defects and like
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: maybe mutations among reptiles that happens a lot with like
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: some reptiles, but like those mutations are pretty significant, and
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: they're usually because of some inefficient splitting of cells during
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: the embryonic phases and all that. It's not because they
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: just decided to like, oh, yeah, the snake wasn't going
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: I think I want kids with two heads, and then
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: the two headed snakes are born and they go didn't work, Like,
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: That's not how mutations work.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So again I'll just recap this part of
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: the paragraph where I'm dismantling, no one has ever observed
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: any mutation that caused a new organ to appear or
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: enhance the functions of existing one. Yes, they have enhanced.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Doesn't mean anything, all right, Yes, they go on to say,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: in fact, mutations often prove fatal. No, no they don't.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what that means. And you don't
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: give any examples. Like, I think you're right. They probably
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: are thinking of birth defects, but like, no, that's wrong,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: the opposite of correct, and does it? And they I
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: don't even know what they're talking about. At best, a
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: mutation turns out to be neutral. No, at best, and
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: a mutation turns out to be advantageous, and that is
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: to say, it doesn't cause an organism any trouble during
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: its life, but also doesn't help it. I understand that
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: that's what you mean, but you're wrong.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, h so frustrating, all right, thanks paragraph? Yeah,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: so soldiering on because you may be feeling the frustration
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: that we are also feeling when we read these types
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: of arguments. In an anti science world. We have to
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: be the beacon of light and hope that brings science
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: to the masses. So in paragraph four they say, quote,
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: the theory of gradual development fails to explain many existing
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: features in organisms because these features are adventagious only in
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: their present finished form. The intermediate stages in a hypethical
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: development chain would have been useless or often harmful. End quote.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, Okay, this is likely the last If
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: you listener are with us on this and like also
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: just sighn and frustration at the stupid things that they say.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: This will probably be the last argument we dismantled. There
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: was a lot more in this, and I have it, like,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: I took pictures of those books so that I could
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: refer to this. But it really doesn't improve. As a
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: matter of fact, given the trend of deterioration you've already seen,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: I think I could safely make the case and you
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: would believe me that their arguments just get worse, Yeah,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: or at least do not get better. Yes, Okay, so
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: they said that very stupid thing. Let's just take the
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: piece of let's just take the first piece of the sentence,
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: all right. So what they said was quote in their
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: present finished form. Stop. There there is no such thing
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: as a finished form and evolution. You don't finish evolve, right,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is just a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: All of the species on earth, all of them. I
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: don't mean some of them, I mean all of them.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: They are currently and will always be in a state
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: of evolving forms, all of them, always throughout all of time.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Just right.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Make sure you're clear on that understanding. This saying that
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: the features are only advantageous in their current form becomes
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: obviously nonsensical because we are all in a transitional form
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: right now and we always will be. Right, those traits
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: are always advantageous the whole time, at every step along
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: the evolutionary trajectory of that animal. Sometimes they're more advantageous
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: and sometimes less. There are some creatures that their relative
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: morphology has been so successful at maintaining their survival that
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: their evolution has changed very little in a long period
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: of time. Alligator almost imperceptibly. Alligators certain sharks look very
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: similar now to when they did millions of years ago.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: But that's not to say that they couldn't evolve. They
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: just have had very little pressure to force them to
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: continue to change their morphology in a different way. But
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: we are all constantly, always in a state of continued
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: evolution throughout all of time, So there is no finished
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: form here at all. Right, So like the advantages that
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: we see in those fish, the angular fish, the lizards,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: us any other creature, those are the advantages they have
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: right now, and they might not be advantaged as advantageous
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: in the future. They might evolve some other trait or
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: organ or other aspect of their behavior that looks very
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: different from it does now, and that will be advantageous
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: and their future circumstance. But in the past circumstances, we
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: have all of the evolutionary advantages that we need at
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: the time, and pressures moved those traits in a different
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: direction as needed. They haven't really moved. There haven't been
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: those kind of pressures on certain sharks at least not
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: very much. But some other creatures they get those pressures
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: constantly and they evolve pretty quick. They've gone through many
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: iterations really fast. Like it just depends on the circumstance
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: and the animal.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it's really important that when
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: we talk about evolution, the thing that's important to understand
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: is that traits are adventatious until they're not right they are,
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: and if they're adventatious, they will continue to get selected in.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: If they are not, they will eventually get selected out,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: but that takes time. The case in point of.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Pen, probably your your pen, yes, right.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Like we probably need it at some point, but we
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: don't need it now, and it's fine, okay.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Anyway, that's a great example.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: We see it in our own bodies.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: It's just it's wild to me, so like our wisdom
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: teeth that all the time we don't even know, all right.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: So consider the blue whale, which used to be a
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: land mammal. They likely spent more and more time in
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: the water, and as they did, the mutations that gave
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: rise to the ability to spend long periods of time
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: fully submerged in water would have been advantageous and increase
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: increasingly so as they moved into water permanently. You see,
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: they have fingerbones in their flippers.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they've got you know, they've got their sort
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: of blowhole on the top of their heads. So it's
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: very likely that what happened is those that had a
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: nose snout that was closer to the top of their
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: head could spend more time in the water because they
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: could have their nose just the top of their nose
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: poking out, and the more the mutations moved that further
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: back along their head, the easier it was for them
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: to remain fully submerged. And like the evolution that their
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: heart rates beat very slowly so that they don't spend
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of their blood or oxygen mean that
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: they can spend more and more time underwater. They've got
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: this great lung capacity, they're very good at regulating their metabolism,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: and all of those are things that they eventually developed
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: because it was advantageous for them to do that more
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: and more. They'll probably keep developing that, Like it might
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: be that like it is more advantageous for them to
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: stay submerged at larger depths for longer as we do whaling.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: And so what very well may happen is that whales
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: will start to spend more and more time at lower
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: depths because it's better for like the ones that do
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: tend to survive more. Right, because we've hunted them so much,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: and I think that they're not really clear on exactly
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: how this is working. But there are these elephants in
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: I want to say Africa, it could be India that
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: have been poached a lot and what has happened is
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: they've actually started to be born without tusks because they
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: were being poached for their tusks. And I think likely
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: what happened is that some elephants that didn't have tusks
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: were not poached, and so they went on to have
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: more babies. And so they're starting to see more and
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: more elephants born without tusks because that trait was essentially
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: selected out by poachers.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: Right exactly, we're watching it happen.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: So all of this makes the second part of their
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: sentence that they had the intermediate stages in a hypothetical
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: development chain would have been useless or even harmful, completely nonsensical,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: right Like, No, because the intermittent stages were helpful and
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: successful at those times, but different pressures selected for different
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: changes in their morphology, and so they would not have
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: been harmful, and they definitely were advantageous.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Right right exactly. So this goes back, and this is
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: just one example of how arguments can be so wrong
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: that it'd be wrong even if it were right, right,
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Like the idea that like even inside of their arguments,
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: not just the fact that what they're arguing is patently incorrect,
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: but the fact that what they're arguing and the way
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: they're arguing it is completely wrong. They're using misunderstanding of words,
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: they're using a misunderstanding of the specific concept they're arguing against.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: They are using absolutes, they're doing all these things. These
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: arguments are so bad that they make the central thesis
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: at least seem incorrect, if not actually be incorrect. And
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: as an example, if even if creationism was accurate, which
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: is not, these arguments do not support that hypothesis of
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: creationism being the thing that's happened, and do such a
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: fantastically poor job of it that you could reasonably walk
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: away believing the hypothesis to be falsified.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly right. And I do want to go ahead
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: and take go back to that last sentence of theirs
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: and just make sure we do our sort of one
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: at a time. Note. Yeah, they said the theory of
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: gradual development fails to explain many existing features and organisms.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: No it doesn't. It does a great job of that.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Because these features are advantageous only in their present finished form.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: That is a nonsensical statement. There is no finished form.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: They are always advantageous at every step the intermediate stages
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: in a hypothetical development chain would have been useless or
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: often harmful, know and know right, they would have been advantageous,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: and they were, and when they were harmful, they were
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: selected out. Okay, Right, So, as you said, even if
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: their central tenet here that is like evolution is wrong
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: or that creation is right, their arguments are just they're
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: so weak that like you walk away from it feeling like, well,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: that can't be right, right, because you did such a
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: bad job. It's kind of ironic to me, because I'm like,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: if you wanted to be persuasive and convince someone of
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: your argument, you may as well at least use relatively
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: logically sound arguments, because then even if you're wrong, you've
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: at least persuaded your audience. And it's like, this is
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: a book you had all the time to like, and
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: you didn't even have the like pressure of peer review
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: right to have someone like go in and unpack this
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: for you. You could have done this, so anyway, there's sort
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: of an example I think of where I can sort
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: of paint the picture of like how you could have
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: essentially an argument that's right, but have the argument be
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: so wrong that that makes your over argument wrong, which
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: is advertisements. Just kidding. That wasn't my actual example. I
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: have a real example.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's see that. So, so the argument that we
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: would say, or the example we would use, is it
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: would be like if we had tried to convince you
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: that mushrooms are the best food by giving you tons
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: of reasons that mushrooms are not the best food, or
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: by trying to convince you that mushrooms are the best
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: food by telling you a bunch of lies about mushrooms
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: that are also logically incoherent.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's let's pretend that I'm trying to convince
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: you that mushrooms are the best food. Probably a lot
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: of you are excited about that, and some of you
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: are disgusted. Right, but here's my argument for why mushrooms
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: are the best food. Mushrooms allow you to select the
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: exact height that you'd like to be.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, I like that. Now are you convinced you got
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: me on the first first point? But tell me more.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Nutrition, Say that getting at least half of your calories
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: from mushrooms will slow down or even halt aging.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: Even better, So I get to pick out tall I am,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: and I get to slow aging.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: Yep, and mushrooms contain every vitamin you'll ever need in
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: the exact proportions that you need them.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's even better. I love that. That's
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: so definitive.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: I feel like you could reasonably believe that not only
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: do mushrooms not do those things, because that's ridiculous, but
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: you might even think that mushrooms are bad for you
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: because I couldn't even come up with a real reason
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: to support your choice of eating mushrooms, right, Like, I
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: didn't even give you an actual reason. And it's like,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: if there was a reason, why wouldn't I have given
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: you that instead of a bunch of nonsense that you
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: know isn't right. And so that's what I mean here.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: It's sort of these bad arguments.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's just and it's again, these are
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: arguments with You'll find that these arguments have a particular bias,
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: and and you know that is one thing to always
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: look out for. But I think whenever you whenever you're
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: arguing with somebody, it's important to determine whether or not
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: they even have an understanding of the concept to begin
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: with to argue against it. And I think sometimes that
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: happens where you have got this situation where people want
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: to be experts on something and they are grossly incompetent
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: in that subject. This being one of those examples. They
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: are grossly incompetent on the subject of natural selection and
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: how it works, and environmental factors that impact genetics and
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: how species will evolve based on environmental pressures, and how
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: any of that. They are grossly incompetent on every point
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: that comes up in that space.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: The whole reason that I got really interested in this
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: is because they were specifically trying to say the behaviors
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: coupled with their morphology could not have co evolved. And
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, they could have. And I mean me,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: just saying that is already a better argument than any
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: of the arguments that they made, right, because I'm like,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: it just doesn't make any sense. I'm like yes, because
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: the thing is like behavior is essentially an organism's interaction
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: with its environmental circumstances. Like I'd be willing to bet
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: that you could train an and angular fish. Matter of fact,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna bet. I know with pretty high
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: level of certainty that you could train an angler fish
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: to do relatively complex behaviors that it would not have
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: done if you hadn't trained it to do those things.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: Part and parcel is the example of this is that
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: we trained dogs to do a lot of things that
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: dogs would not have otherwise done. I saw a presentation
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: recently where they were training wild wolves to receive anal
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: swabs to check for worms, and wolves, if you don't
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: know already, do not like being poked in the butt. Nope,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: So like it took a lot of training, but they
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: got them there. And these are not domesticated animals, but
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: like they got used to humans. The humans got very
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: good at training the wolves, and the humans also got
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: very good at like not pushing the wolves to a
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: point where they were going to get themselves injured, and
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: they got to the point where they would allow these
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: very basic medical procedures to ensure the safety and health
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: and well being of those animals. And the animals don't
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: know that, but we shape that behavior up. And it's
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: because behavior just it is shaped by and it occurs
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: in the context of its environmental circumstances, and that can
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: change wildly in the space of a single lifetime, let
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: alone many many generations of that creature, particularly when they're
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: very fast and they don't even have to be smart.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: We have trained cockroaches and they don't even have a
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: central brain, right, Like that's how that's how effective this
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: technology is. So like you're going to try and use
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: psychology to prove the evolution doesn't work, and I am
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: going to take you down.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and here we are. We did a whole
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: episode on it.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: We did a whole episode, and there's so much more.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: As we were discussing this, we were sort of realizing,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: like we could do many episodes on this topic and
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: just take terrible arguments and dismantle them step by step.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as we are wont to do with any topic.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: We're like, oh yeah, here's one topic. No, just kidding,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: there's ten episodes from it.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, now I will. I'm going to because I think
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: someone will have heard this and maybe be stuck on it.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: I'm going to push back on something that you said
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Chane a little bit earlier, which is and the claim
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: they said no one has ever observed et cetera, and
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: you sort of flagged that as a red flag. On
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: one point, You're exactly right that like superlatives like that
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: are often not particularly useful, but we can actually use
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: them in instances where we're talking about things that are like,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: well outside the realm of possibility. Sure, no one has
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: ever observed an actual alien life form. No one has
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: ever observed homeopathy to work, right, no one has ever
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: observed an actual luckness monster, no one has ever observed
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: a ghost like. There are examples that you should point
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: to if like pseudoscience things, and demonstrate the fact that,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: like the lack of observation is some evidence again that
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: thing happening. Yeah, but I also think when you're talking
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: about no one has ever observed X, and it is
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: like a thing that someone could have definitely observed, then
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: that superlative has definitely lost you that argument. And I
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: think generally speaking, most times superlatives are not particularly helpful.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's fair, that's reasonable.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, we went long, which is fun. At
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: least I had fun. I hope you all had fun.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: Fun. I had fun.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Great. We are going to recommend some things, But first,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: many of you, if you have been listening regularly, you
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: might have noticed that there's starting to be some ads
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: showing up where we did not want them to be.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: And for some reason, the site that we use to
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: distribute our podcast has been inserting these ads because it
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: says that we don't have enough of them, and I
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: don't know why, but to try and get around at
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: inserting ads where they are unwelcomed in the middle of
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: our conversation, I'm going to go ahead and provide the
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: algorithm with one more ad break now, and then when
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to talk about our recommendations.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: Live.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: It's pivot completely and give some credits, and then after
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: that we're going to share our recommendations. So, as I said,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening all of you. You
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: are a major reason that we keep doing this podcast.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: We like talking to all of you. Even though we
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: don't get to talk to you directly. We enjoy that
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: you show up, so thank you for being here. Really
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: appreciate it.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, we love you so much.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: But some people like what we do so much that
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: they decide that they're going to help us in a
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: really big way. One way that you can do that
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: without helping us financially is you can leave us a
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: rating and review, you can subscribe, and definitely go tell
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: a friend. Word of mouth is an awesome way to
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: spread news about podcasts that you like and that you
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: want to support. But if you do want to support
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: us financially. It really does help tremendously. We do need it.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: And you can do that by going to well you
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: can pick up some merch from us with some mugs
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: and beanies and sweaters or something like that, I think.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: But you can also go to our Patreon page and
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: join the club and there you'll get access to add
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: for your behind the scenes content kind of stuff, all
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And maybe even the best part
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: of that is that I will read your name because
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: I am very just grateful for the support that you provide.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: So here's a list of people who have done that thing.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Mike m Megan, Mike T, Justin, Kim, Joshua, Brad, Stephanie, Olivia, Brian, Ashley,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: Kiara and Michelle. If you like hearing your name on
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: podcast episodes, join over there and I will read your
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: name too.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: I love it. Thank you all so much. Our hearts
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: are with you.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, very much. So we are a team of people,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: and so I must thank my team very much for
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: the help that they provide. Writing and fact checking from Shane,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Katie and myself. Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: and our audio engineer and producer is Justin Greenhouse, who
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: is just so good at what he does that we
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: could not do this without him. Thank you all so much.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, you are the best.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: And of course, as I mentioned before, thank all of
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: you listeners for being with us today. Let's recommend some things.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: Yay recommendations.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: So I'm gonna recommend a book. I think it's related
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: to this particular topic, not arguments, but genetics and evolution,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: which is really fun. And that is a book called
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: Upgrade by Blake Crouch.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: So you mentioned him before.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: I have a read Recursion by him, which is a
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: really wild sci fi story. I remember you saying that, Yeah,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: and it was so good. So he does this really
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: interesting thing with sci fi where he makes it feel
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: like hard sci fi and not like fantastical kinds of
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: weird things.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: Love that.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so much fun. If you like Andy Weir,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: then you'll like this, this type of storytelling of Andy
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: wear Yeah. So Upgrade is about a US agent. He
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: works for an agency that is designed to take down
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: illegal genetic modification labs because there was a historical there's
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: some major event that ended up killing two hundred million
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: people because of basically like a genetic alteration in rice,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: like a rice genome, and so they create an international
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: agency that is designed to take down these illegal labs.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: And then he gets infected with a virus that and
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: this is like the first like ten pages, so this
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: is not a spoiler. He's infected with a virus that
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: alters his genome and creates all these mutations that effectively
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: make him superhuman. Like his brain works faster, his bone
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: density is like is greater, He's stronger, his like his
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: conditioning is better. And it's this whole espionage spy thriller
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: that has to do with that exact experience of going
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: through that and then finding the culprit who infected him. Wow,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: and it is so good. It is so good I
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: could not put it down. So it is one of
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: the best books I've read in a long time.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's fantastic. Yeah, all right, love that.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: I think you would really dig it because it's easy
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: to and it's just a lot of fun.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: Oh that sounds that sounds very in my wheelhouse. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: I think I'll add that to my list.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: Yea.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: Is that part of like a series, like a trilogy
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: or something, or is it just its own thing.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: For that one. It's its own thing.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, cool, all right, I'm recommending a movie. I think
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: you may have even recommended this, but I saw it
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: recently and I was pretty blown away. This is a
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: recent Disney movie called Inside Out Too. So this is
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: the sequel to the whatever Your inside Out Came Out,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: but inside Out, like, the basic premise of this if
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: you have seen none of them, is it is about
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: the emotions in our minds. And they sort of have
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: this control switchboard, and so you sort of see a
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: change between when they're they're doing manipulating the switchboard and
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: then the little girl's behavior. And Inside Out Too is
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: she's going through puberty, which comes with it many things,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: including new emotions that get entered into the sort of
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: control room setting and of really funny gag where the
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: emotions go to touch the switchboard and they like barely
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: touch anything and her and she like freaks out and
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: like emotions are extreme. I think if you want to
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: understand how behavior works, this movie is not it. That
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: is absolutely not how right right it works. But the
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: metaphors for like thinking about our emotions and our values
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: and our personality are so beautiful. And the writing on
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: this show is just on another level. It is so
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: the writing was so incredible, the jokes were so good,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: the plot was fantastic. I mean it was just so
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: well constructed and well thought out and beautifully executed, so
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: like it's not a like factual depiction of like how
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: psychology works, but it was a beautiful metaphor for how
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: psychology works.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: Right, it makes sense, right, Yeah, absolutely, I loved it.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: It's it's incredible and it's just beautifully shot too, like
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: it's beautifully designed.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, the animation was incredible, the the everything
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: like it was just it was really really really like
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: well done, high caliber movie. So strong recommend from me
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: and Shane.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, yep, stamp of approval.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: All right, well that's what we have to say about
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: movies and books and what we have to say right
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: now about these bad arguments, although as I said, it's
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: very possible we will try and tackle these in the future.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us today. Is there
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: anything that you would like to add or that I
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: forgot before we wrap up here?
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: No, I mean that's it, all right.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: This is Abraham and this is Shane. We're out.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: So yeah, you've been listening to why we do what
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: we do. You can learn more about this and other
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: episodes by going to WWD WWD podcast dot com. Thanks
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.