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Thumbs and the Evolution of Culture · Why We Do What We Do

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You're listening to Why we Do what we do? Welcome to Why we Do
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what we Do? I am your all thumbs host Abraham and I'm your thumbs
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up host Shane. Where I say Collogy podcast, we talk about the things
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that people do and how they do them, and why they do them and
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the digits with which they use to do them. Yes, and you know,
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at some point time we're going to talk about when they do them and
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who they do them, but like right now, we focus on why and
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what they do. So that's right, the wh some of the wh questions
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that are in the name, and maybe we'll get to the other ones too
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at some point. Thank you for being here with us, Thank you for
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listening. And let's go ahead and start by talking about the fact that this
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is if you're listening to it on the day that it publishes June twenty sixth,
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which means we're celebrating or acknowledging the Some of the holidays include Beauticians Day.
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Ah, it's a forgiveness Day, which I'll never celebrate it is are
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you holding a grudge? Yeah? I will celebrate every day every day,
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but that day as International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking Day. Huh.
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That seems we kind of just missed that with our our episodes on addiction,
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didn't we. I know it was all lead up to celebrating that day.
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I guess maybe fair sure, maybe, well, I don't know.
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It's International Day in support of Victims of Torture. Yikes, I mean support
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them for sure. We let's not have them be victims anymore. Yeah,
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let's not torture people. It's National Canoe Day. Hmm. It's National Pudding
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Day, specifically, let me say that again, National Chocolate pudding Day.
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All sure. It is National Parchment Cooking Day. Don't cook the parchment,
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No cook with the parchment. Yes, yes, es, yes. It's
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also Tropico Cocktails Day or Mocktails if you like mocktails, Like, put a
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little umbrella in your drink and you'll be fine, that's right, and Arnold
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Palmer with just iced tea and lemonade and an umbrella. Yeah, and you
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can keep it cool by putting it in your refrigerator because it is World Refrigeration
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Day. What a game changer that was. I was just gonna say.
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I was like, this actually might be worth spending some time on if we
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ever dig into like human inventions specific episodes because refrigeration like changed this world for
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humans. Yeah. Also it's actively changing the world for the worst because it
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is contributing to global warming, but it is also so important. Yeah,
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that would be so much fun to do a series on human inventions like that
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might be a new set of episodes that we do. Yeah, there's a
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lot to talk about there. Yeah. I can't wait to talk about the
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printing press as a book fan myself. Right. It is also Boys and
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curl Boys not Boys and Curls, Boys and Girls club Week. I mean
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it's Pride month. Boys and curls kind of makes sense, but you know,
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yeah, that's fair. It is a Fish are Friends not food week.
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I support this. I like that. I'm friends with fish. Huh.
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That's National Body Piercing Week as well. Huh, that's I support that.
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That's great. Got some experience there. It is a National Camping Week,
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which is nice because also National Insect Week, so campers and insects can
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celebrate together and they will totally. They will. National Lightning Safety Awareness Week.
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This one strikes a little close to home for sure. Yeah. Hu,
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my mom was nice. My mom was hit by lightning. She's alive
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and well, and we call her Boltrius because she has powers. Now,
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wow, but she was hit by lightning. She's several years ago. Glad
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she's okay. Yeah, me too. I realize it's also my turn to
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say the next thing. It's also wind Jammer Days. What does that mean?
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I don't know. I feel like I would be more stoked if it
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was wind Breaker Days and everybody was wearing like nineties wind breakers that were like
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Charlotte Hornets themed or something like that. It is Deaf Blind Awareness Week,
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so that's an important one. I like that. There's some people's birthdays I
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could acknowledge real quick. It's apparently Ariana Grande's birthday, Audrey Plaza, Nick
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Offerman, and Paul Thomas Anderson. Oh, I like most of those people.
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I love Nick Gofferman. I mean, I like all of those great.
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But you know, yeah, yeah, they're all fine. Nick Gofferman's
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great though. Yeah, not to single anyone out of just you know.
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Anyway, we are, as I said, a psychology podcast, not a
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podcast that simply recounts the various holidays that people make up and then decide to
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dedicate a day, week, or month too, or even more than that
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or less than that sometimes, but nevertheless we talk about those things because you
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know we can. This is our platform. We do what we want.
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Yeah, we're allowed to say what we want on here. I mean we
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try to say things that are reasonable, but we do say whatever we want
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on here. We try and so, at the risk of cursing us forever,
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I'm going to say, this might be a short one. I guess
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we'll see before we get started. Want to let everyone know who is listening.
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If you like what you are hearing today, if you are already enthralled
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by this weird kaka mami thing that we're doing, then you can support us
5:13
by joining us on Patreon, leave us a rating and review, pick up
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some merch like and subscribe. I don't know if I've said Patreon already do
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that thing, and we'll talk more about how you can support us at the
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end of this topic. But today we've got something important in mind or maybe
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on hand, which is our thumbs. Yes, so sometimes we forget how
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drastically the morphological layout of our bodies affects our psychology. So it's important to
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understand how our bodies impact everything around us and inside of us. Yeah,
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yeah, we take for granted every aspect of our ways of interacting with the
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world around us, when in fact these physical features directly drive our experiences,
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are learning and our development. Even if you ever think about the fact that
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when you're looking out into the world, everything that you're seeing is a construction
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of how our eyes and brains are picking up and using the light that's bouncing
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off of the things around us. Very effective, but it's just one way
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of interacting with the space that we find ourselves in, and it is one
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that has gone through at least two layers of filtering. Yes, so our
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biology is really important here. Yeah, And imagine if humans were on average
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half their current height, distances would be more difficult to cover. We would
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need a lot less food and less space in general, and we wouldn't be
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able to see as far just from walking around, and this would be a
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profound shift and how we think, plan and move around the planet and probably
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interact with other people. Yeah, very much so, and would therefore affect
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how we think about basic things just like getting from point A to point B
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and what that means and how many resources are ever needed for one single person.
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Right, Or imagine that we could see into the infrared color or the
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infrared part of the color spectrum, we'd probably would think prefer darker places because
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there'd be less overwhelming light that would be there would be able to detect things
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that were behind solid objects that we can't see just by using the lights the
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part of the light spectrum that we currently use, and we might be practically
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blinded by places where there was a lot of heat, right, like if
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it was just very hot and it looked like a haze just filling our view,
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not to obscure everything that we were trying to see, Yeah, that
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would be bad news. Furthermore, our senses and physical features determine the extent
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to which and how we interact with the world, and that shapes the behaviors
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and ultimately affect our senses in physical features. So it's all interacting. So
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like, for instance, we require nutrition from plants to survive, so we
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cultivate and grow plants we need for food, and the food we create slowly
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shapes how we evolve to handle the kinds of foods we consume. So in
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the current future of humans, our body is going to process sugar very differently,
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right because of how much we consume, how much we need it and
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stuff like that, and eventually our bodies will process millions and millions of tons
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of sugar, even more so than we do now. Right, we'll basically
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turn into honeybees. Yeah, that's it. That's all we are. We're
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just hairy honeybees. All of that to say is like all of that stuff
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shifts and changes, and that's all part of like the natural selection piece that
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we're going to get into. Yeah, maybe what we're doing with the kind
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of diets that we've cultivated is that we will become dependent on that. Like,
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right now, sugar is pretty much superfluous to a healthy diet, Like
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we don't need it. But maybe after you know, hundreds of years of
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consuming it at high volumes, will actually become physically dependent on it and will
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have to have it be a key feature of things that we eat to continue
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to survive and live a healthy life. Right, and then maybe we'll look
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at at sugar and be like, Eh, that's healthy food. I don't
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want that, right, Yeah, no, thanks, Eh salad yuck,
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it'd be sugar salad. I like it. So arguably one of the most
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significant features of our physiological form, at least one that is the most unique,
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equally human adaptations that we have as humans is our opposable thumbs. And
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just in case people are curious what it means to say that they're opposable,
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which I think is reasonable because they're not exactly completely opposite our hands. What
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it means here is that they work freely and independently of our other fingers.
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Like you can move your thumb around without having to move your other fingers,
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and it faces a different direction than the other fingers, and it can touch
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every other finger individually. And you can go ahead and touch your thumb to
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your index, middle, and ring fingers. That is not something very many
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other creatures can do. You can try this out. So go ahead and
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take a paper towel, roll or a wooden spoon, hold onto it with
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your forefingers or no thumb, and then imagine holding your body up in a
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tree, maintaining mobility while weighing a few hundred pounds with just your fingers and
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no thumbs. That's right, go ahead and do that. We'll wait.
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Yeah. Now, of course, there are many creatures, mostly primates,
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that have some version of opposable thumps, So then I think people will rightfully
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ask why does this seem like this is actually that important and particularly important for
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humans. Yeah, So, Abraham, why is it so particularly important and
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specifically important for humans? I was thinking the same thing that you just asked.
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You're setting me up. Yeah, what made us adapt to develop pumps?
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Okay, so let's skip the whole. If we evolved from apes,
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then why are there still apes? Thing, We've been there, We've done
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that. We evolved from a common ancestor They're done all right. Way back
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in the day, three million or so years ago, our primate friends started
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spending more time in trees. We started climbing things that were nearby. Yeah,
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which gave us access to a few different things. It gave us access
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to more food less competitors because there were not as many things as the trees.
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Varied foods like plants and flowers that had differential health benefits, So primates
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had access to stuff that others didn't, and there was less contact with predators
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and easier escape from predators. So basically they could just jump up into a
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tree and hide from the people that couldn't climb, or the things that couldn't
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climb. Yeah, mostly probably mostly things that then couldn't get to them,
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and again access to food, so it's like a safe, out of the
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way place that also is abundant in food. Great for a species that tends
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towards lays the way that we do. To stay up there, though,
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you've got to be able to sort of hold on to stuff and be able
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to move around, which means you need to be able to grasp those things
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that are around you, which in this case were branches. Hence, opposable
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thumbs became very useful and necessary. And those of us who are ancestors who
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had things that were more like opposable thumbs were more likely to be able to
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move about successfully, climb faster, stay up there longer, get the resources
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more successfully, therefore reproduced more. That's just how evolution works. And the
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thumbs became more and more useful as that mutation was more and more selected for
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by the circumstances of that environment. Yes, so thumbs were selected in.
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Tails were selected out for humans, right, like if you really think about
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it, I mean, like we have a tail bone. I was born
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with a tail, but you know, for the most part humans don't need
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them anymore. But you were also born with horns, so I was also
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born with horns. And the doctor's the vets, I should say, the
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veterinarians that burned me screamed and screamed and screamed at the advarition that I was
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the monster man that I was on the day that I was born. Well,
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with all of that, this is probably a perfect time to let people
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go think on that for a minute and we'll do the ads. Oh man,
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this ad sticks out like a sore thumb. Okay, let's get back
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on track. I'm done talking about Shane's terrifying birth and talk about animals.
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My poor mother. So, for one, most other animals with a postable
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thumbs do not have the same proportions or muscular control that we have. So
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apes, possums, lemurs, pandas, chameleons, and some tree frogs have
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opposable thumbs, but only kind of. I imagine that everybody here while you're
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listening this is probably thinking a whole lot about your thumbs and how your thumbs
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move and how they operate. And you should because it is very unique in
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the animal kingdom. Yes, so there are lots of creatures that have fairly
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dexterous like finger clawed digit things on the ends of their arms, right like
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octopus has the ability to like it's very very flexible, but also lives in
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an environment that it doesn't have access to things that require dexterity. They don't
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live very long anyway. Point being right, Posle thumbs good. Not very
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many animals have them. We just listed the ones that do. So.
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Some people might be thinking what about pandas, So most bears they have,
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well, actually, many creatures that are four legged have these do claw things.
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Pandas are kind of unique. They have this thing that looks very much
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like a thumb. As a matter of fact, it's often called a pseudo
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thumb. They have a bone that extends from their wrist. It's not actually
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a digit. It's a bone that extends off the wrist. But it because
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it's a bone and it's not it doesn't have the sort of carpols in.
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It doesn't have the joints that move. It doesn't move on its own.
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Instead, what a panda has to do is move its fingers toward the thumb,
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and this means that the thumb cannot help grip anything. It's just the
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other strength of the it's the strength of the other digits that allows it to
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manipulate objects. So It basically pushes those against an immovable thumb. It's like
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an anchor, kind of like an anvil, and so it can close things
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around that, but the thumb can't actually do anything that is dextrous or would
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enable fine motor movements. You know. I think when people argue about evolution
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and they say, if we came from apes, why are there's still apes?
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I think that that's the worst argument against evolution. I think the argument
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against like natural selection and evolution is the panda bear. Like, this thing
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should not exist. It does not makes sense. And we are keeping this
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thing alive for decades because it's actively trying to select itself out. It's a
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charismatic megafauna, and so we have decided to protect it in lieu of protecting
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many other keystone species that are critically important to their environments. Pandas are cute
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or not advocating that we get rid of If anything, I would say,
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I'd advocate for just more support of all the other animals that also need protection
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from us. But I think that's where they get their probably less supportive critics.
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Yeah, I have seen so many pandas fall out of trees clumsily,
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like in the recent weeks, and I'm just like, what's going on.
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Maybe one day we'll do we'll do an episode on conservation, That's what we'll
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do, and we'll continue to save the pandas so, this thing with the
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thumbs that we're talking about, with this like kind of pseudo thumb thing,
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this is the case with other animals as well. They have the thumbs,
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but they can't use them very much. And even if they could, would
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their brain allow for the development of tool use, well, possibly it is
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very possible that that could happen. Yeah, I think a lot of people
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will immediately have been thinking about the fact that one of the things our opposable
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thumbs gave us was that we could then manipulate tools. We can manipulate objects
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that would allow us to more easily manipulate other objects. The very basic lever
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right, or using a stick to manipulate things is not actually totally unique to
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humans. There are many creatures who do use some form of tools, but
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we could like custom make our tools very specific for very particular tasks. Right,
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Let's put this experiment to the test. Let's give a monkey some tools,
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teach them how to use it. Right, And so people have actually
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done this. Apes have been trained to use tools, and they were able
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to use those tools successfully to a point. Right. The issue is,
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as we've been talking about, the thumbs are too short and they're too weak
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relative to the rest of their hand. They've got these long fingers that are
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very strong, and their palms are also very long, and this actually prevents
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apes from being able to sort of close their fingers and their thumb together around
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something very fine, like the tools that we might use, and they therefore
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lack the precise dexterity that is very It's so easy for us, we literally
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don't have to think about it. It's very natural. Our hands are just
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perfectly shaped to grip things in such a way that we can manufacture and hold
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tools against our thumb, where a thumb is a critical point of how we
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manipulate fine motor movements, and even other apes who have very similar hand structures
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is not proportionate enough, and the muscles aren't set up in a way that
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they can get the same utility of out of trying to use similar tools.
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Right, And so the necessity to outsmart our predators and our prey due to
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lack of pretty much all other defensives and defensive biology forced humans to be creative.
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So we're like a soft bunch, Like we're soft, meaty, tasty
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thing for predators. Like, we're slow, our senses are dull, Like
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it makes sense that, like predators would find us and seek us out,
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so we had to be smart about things. Also, we can't hunt very
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well with just what we've got because as you said, we're slow, we
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don't have any sharp parts on our bodies. We don't have a lot of
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protection. So the thing fights back, it's probably gonna win. Like we,
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as you said, we are marshmallows with very easily breakable skin and very
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little defense and very little offense. Yeah, we're the peeps of the animal
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world. Like it's absurd, so I like it. Maybe we should call
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this episode the Peeps of the animal World. That's for the episode on why
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our rib cages doesn't extend over our stomachs, Like yeah, that makes sense.
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Yeah. Now, with evolutionary pressure to survive, those of us with
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strong proportioned hands would start manipulating objects for intentional use, and that is we
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would start making tools. Yes, so we can actually look back at the
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evolutionary history that we do have for fossil records in humans, and one of
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the more recent research that's come out looking at our ancestor Austrolopithecus apensis, which
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is many people may have heard of Lucy. This was like a primate that
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they found that was sort of early in the chain of evolution toward what would
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later become humans. This was a pretty ape like version of a human ancestor
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lived about two to three point eight million years ago. And this creature that
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was again an ancestor to humans, also had opposable thumbs. However, the
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thumbs were thin and short and were likely not very strong, like we've got
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big fat muscles and bones in our thumbs that make them very strong, versus
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this previous ancestor where they were kind of thin and weak, right, And
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it was probably not until Homo habilis about two point five million or Hittelis habitlis,
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habitlists. I think it's Hibilis. I think you had it right the
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first time I see those were and I go so either way about two point
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five million years ago, and it was that group that the hands evolved to
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have the skeletal and muscular arrangement that makes them good for fine motor dexterity a
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specifically tool making, and just as a quick side note, homo habilis means
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handman, So that's where that comes from, which is fun. That's a
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fun little nugget of information. Right, Yeah, that's what we do.
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Yeah, fun little nuggets of information. Yeah. So you better win trivia,
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is all I'm saying, folks, or at least get some of those
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questions, right, yeah, get at least that one usually a hodgepodge.
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Okay, let's talk about some of these tools. One of the probably first
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things that people made were offensive or defensive tools, which were knives, and
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early knives were likely made by striking one rock against another until it formed a
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sharp point. Now, an important point that anthropologists have been investigating and experimenting
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with this is that there's basically no way to do this without being able to
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powerfully grip and manipulate both objects. To get those precise strikes, you have
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to be able to hold one rock steady, and you need to be able
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to grip the other rock in a strong grip that will allow you to strike
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a specific target on the rock that you're hitting, so that you can sort
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of shave off chunks of it to start whittling it down into a sharp point.
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And so that was something that was uniquely available by virtue of those opposable
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thumbs and proportioned skeletal muscular structures that allowed for strong gripping and precise movements.
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This whole episode started making me think about otters and how otters will use rocks
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to break open clams and oysters and whatnot. And you kind of think the
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same thing, right, Like you're like, oh, well, like you
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could take a rock and bang another rock, and that doesn't really require precision.
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Sure, if you're just banging rocks together, or like cracking open a
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coconut, that doesn't require as much dexterity. But if you are trying to
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make something and require that precision, is the piece that they're getting at is
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it's not about exactmshing rocks. The precision piece that I think that we need
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to focus on here, You know, a small fine target that you're striking
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right exactly. So, human hands have long thumbs that are extremely strong,
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like way way stronger than anyone else with thumbs. Also, we have a
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staggering amount of small fine muscles throughout our hands, so our hands are actually
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pretty strong, powerful tools as part of our biology. Yeah, and all
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those fine muscles really enable like a very precise, coordinated movement. So we
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have these long swoll thumbs that are opposite our fingers move independently, and then
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in a combination we have these massive brains and we suck at everything else else.
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Yeah, that's pretty much what we've got. To be fair, we
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actually have remarkably good vision for the creature like ourselves. Okay, but not
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the best vision of all the animal kingdom, but like it's god damn good,
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No, it's it's pretty good. And so thus we needed to mechanically
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upgrade our other survival features because we've got, like I said, all we've
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got is these thumbs and our brains and pretty good eyes. That's pretty much
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it. So the ability to mechanically upgrade our defenses and offenses meant that we
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could have better shelter, better hunting, better defense, a better network of
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cooperation probably the most important thing. And to do this we needed tools and
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language, right. So, recent research out of Germany has investigated the evolutionary
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trajectory of the shape of our hands and the onset of tool use in humans,
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and so it's fascinating stuff. When it comes to an evolutionary standpoint.
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Yeah, So as our hands became more capable of creating and manipulating tools,
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we also were developing language and culture at the same time. And we because
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we had this, we could teach one another to make tools, and in
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doing so we got better at making and using tools, and in doing so
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we evolved our language culture in our brains. So likely those of us with
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the best adapted physical features also continued to exploit the use of those features and
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got closer and closer to modern humans. Because what was right about diversifying the
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content of skill that someone had in making something meant that you started to get
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different inputs, orientations, and ideas that refined those processes a thousand times faster.
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Like if it was just going to be passed on within a single family,
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or as like that one trait randomly mutated, sometimes it was never going
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to evolve at a rate that would enable a full scale culture to develop.
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But what did happen instead is that like having a variety of those skills meant
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like language was critically important, but also been able to do this sort of
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fine motor dexterity was critically important as well, and so those two things worked
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together and built off one another to sort of form the trajectory of culture and
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humanity. Right. So there, here's this really great quote. It is
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likely a crucial element underlining the development of complex culture over the last two million
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years, shaping our biocultural evolution. And that that quote comes from Katerine Havardi
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of Everhard Carl's University of Tubingen in Germany. So that's a very long name
25:07
for a school. Yes, she was I think the lead investigator on this
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recent paper looking at the evolution of sort of human hands as they relate to
25:17
culture and human evolution. As I was just saying, now, we've already
25:22
sort of said this, but as virtually every website has recommended in understanding and
25:26
appreciating the role that our thumbs play, and we sort of mentioned this earlier,
25:30
is try depriving yourself of your thumbs for a bit, and just as
25:33
we mentioned with like the paper towel role, tape them down, or wear
25:37
gloves or just try to avoid using them, and you'll pretty quickly, I
25:40
think, begin to appreciate how much we've grown to depend on these weird,
25:42
stubby little appendages that hang off the side of our hands. They're very important,
25:48
So think about that. Give it a try. Yeah, just do
25:52
yourself a favor. Grab a cup that is near you and try to drink
25:56
out of it without your thumb, Like, just do that for a second.
25:59
It is I just try to do it, and it is uncomfortable,
26:03
Like I'm going to definitely spill my water on me. At the very least,
26:07
you need to like fat little muscle where your thumb is to be able
26:10
to grasp against it. And that's part of it. So like if you
26:12
can even avoid doing that, that would be the other way to try and
26:15
do it. And while you test that out, you can ignore these ads.
26:26
All right, let us know how that experiment went. You can email
26:30
us or post it on social media or put write a review about us for
26:33
some reason where you decided that if you're review does not say five thumbs up,
26:40
I'm gonna lose it. Great. I love it. So Lucy and
26:45
the Ostrol Epithes scenes, which may be the first heavy metal band showed up
26:51
and started using basic stone tools. So it was maybe not metal but maybe
26:56
hard rock. Yeah, I think this would be like we probably call this
26:59
classic rock now. Yeah, classic rock is feels good I like that.
27:03
I actually like that more than anything else, So I'm not even gonna bother
27:06
trying to come up with something else because that works better than anything else.
27:10
And why we call it rock is because they used rocks. Yeah, thanks
27:15
Lucy and the ostric who it is. But the interesting thing here, actually
27:18
yes, except that the strength wasn't there. The interesting thing is that there's
27:22
a heavy focus on the thumb as part of the hand. But only recently
27:26
did we develop tools to assess musculature and not just the fossil itself, So
27:32
it's only fairly recently that we understand how the muscles in the hand work to
27:37
make it so the thumb is actually useful. Yeah, I mean, obviously,
27:41
as this was evolving, we wouldn't have been able to hold a pen,
27:45
but we could manipulate a lot of basic tools sticks, rocks, something
27:49
like a knife or hammer type thing, et cetera. And those still required
27:53
a lot of precise precision in those movements. But we weren't going to be
27:57
at something as Dextra says, like painting or developing print text yet, right,
28:03
So maybe that's why the band didn't like didn't work out, like why
28:07
they really only maybe had one record and it's only a demo and you can
28:11
never really hear it or find it anywhere. It's really rare. Yeah,
28:14
they couldn't. They couldn't sign swag for their fans, so yeah, there's
28:18
yeah, there's no autographs. And then people were like, I hate them,
28:21
don't you? Oh man, could you imagine how sad that would be
28:23
to be the first band, like the first rock band and just get booed
28:27
off of a boot out of cave. That's probably how it went about,
28:32
right, Yeah, I would imagine. So, so now we know we
28:33
have thumbs, and we know why we have thumbs, but what if we
28:37
didn't have thumbs? And we're not talking about like Jamie Jossa from Hate Breed
28:41
how he only has one thumb. We're not talking about that. We're saying,
28:44
like, what if humans evolved with no thumbs. Some of this is
28:47
purely hypothetical, some based in science and medicine, including birth defects, trauma,
28:52
et cetera. But the loss of thumb rates as a forty loss of
28:56
hand. Any other finger, Losing any other finger on your hand is all
29:00
only a twenty percent loss, except your middle finger. That's like a loss.
29:03
That's Yeah, that's that. That communicates so much, at least in
29:07
the Saints. Yeah, important symbolism there. Yes, So we actually started
29:11
writing these notes quite a long time ago, and at the time Patrick was
29:15
writing with us, so big thanks and shout out to Patrick for his help
29:18
and putting together some of these notes. At the time, Patrick tried this
29:21
typing test, which was really fun. So he typed this sentence. And
29:25
now a new study combines the ancient evidence of fossil fingers and thumbs with cutting
29:29
edge computer muscle modeling to conclude that South African hominins boasted flexible, capable thumbs
29:34
much like ours as far back as two million years ago. So Patrick timed
29:38
himself and typing with thumbs that took him eight point three minutes, and he
29:42
made three errors. Without thumbs that took twelve point three minutes and five errors,
29:49
so it was a fifty percent longer thereabouts. That feels like that sentence
29:55
would take me about ten seconds to type. Maybe that's maybe that's what he
30:00
was saying, because let me see, I'm gonna try this real quick.
30:03
So yeah, all right, real time experiment, go, Shane go.
30:07
Then I was Nate down done, all right, I had you write about
30:10
thirty seconds. Okay, so thirty seconds. There are one, two,
30:14
three, four errors that I would count. Well, I would count three
30:17
errors because I just didn't capitalize some stuff. But so we were creating the
30:22
without thumbs part two. No, I don't want to do that. That's
30:26
a lot of experience. This seems like a well so you think about it,
30:33
though, like the standard standard typing on a Quardy keyboard requires you to
30:36
use your thumb as a space, like to press the space bar right,
30:38
and so you know every word in there, there's there's several spaces that would
30:44
absolutely delay how long it took you to write that. Yeah, maybe it
30:47
was supposed to point three seconds, but anyway, it's no way that Patrick
30:52
wrote that in a three point three seconds. I know, Patrick, there's
30:55
no way. So you think the eight point three minutes is more realistic.
30:59
I don't know what it is. I think that either. I think all
31:00
of those measures are wrong. That's like, that seems like an absurdly long
31:04
time. I mean, eight point three seconds is like stupidly fast, but
31:07
like a p three minutes is a ridiculous can write so many pages of text
31:12
with that? Yeah? Maybe maybe Patrick doesn't know how to type. Maybe
31:17
that's the thing. Maybe Patrick doesn't know how to type. Maybe he didn't
31:19
have a web design class like we did in high school. Maybe it was
31:22
trying to do it from memory. So there's also a recall component. Anyway,
31:26
let's let's get back contract here. Thumb's absent at birth. That is
31:32
the thing that does happen. So interestingly, thumb opposition actually develops around six
31:34
to eight months of age. And if one hand develops this, the other
31:38
may develop movements or grasp that can be difficult to rehabilitate later in life,
31:44
meaning that if like one hand does, the other one doesn't. So just
31:48
an interesting thing about the development of this early on. Yeah, and there's
31:52
also floating thumb, which is interesting. Floating thumb is the base of your
31:55
thumb is weekly attached or unstable, limiting musculature control and stability when opposing another
32:02
finger. So if you think about like kind of the way that your hand
32:05
is structured, like every one of your fingers is like what it's called a
32:07
hinge joint right a little bit where it's like it bends at that space.
32:10
It doesn't really bend in a circle or anything, like, not your knuckles
32:14
in your hand, but like your your finger knuckles. Yeah, and your
32:16
thumb is a saddle joint, which basically means that like the base of your
32:20
thumb kind of slides over the bone in your hand, similar to like a
32:24
saddle is shaped. That's how the bone in your hand is shaped, and
32:27
it slides over like that like you would put your legs over a floating thumb
32:30
would be absent some of that joint or the muscles or intendons around that,
32:35
so it would not like keep your thumb close to that bone and would not
32:38
allow it to slide across that bone that way. Interesting. Yeah, that
32:43
probably helps to yeah, part of the opposable nature of it, I guess.
32:49
Yeah. We have some sort of interesting tidbits here. One is that
32:52
some believe that our ability to hold things in our hands freed up our mouths
32:55
to do like things like verbal vocal verbal community and talking. So because if
33:02
you'll notice, most other creatures when they're carrying things will carry them in their
33:06
mouths, but we can carry them with our hands instead, So that meant
33:08
that we could annoy each other with podcasts. Yeah, you can thank thumbs
33:14
for us being here doing this right now, Like if it will get them
33:16
thumb. Yeah, thanks thumbs for why we do what we do. Yeah,
33:21
why we do what we do? Brought to you by thumbs. That's
33:24
our newest sponsor. So if you lose a thumb, the big and second
33:29
toes can sub in. Like you can actually kind of do similar things with
33:32
your big toe and your second toe on your foot that you can do with
33:36
your thumb. Now you have to have the flexibility to bring whatever you're doing
33:40
up to your face if you're like using it to drink or something like that.
33:43
But like there is that other kind of barrier per se, but like
33:46
you can do it has similar features. Yeah, you and the motivation you'll
33:51
need that too. This reminds me of there's a skin on the office where
33:54
Dwight decides he wants to learn how to use his toes as opposable thumbs.
34:00
One of the cold opens and then it spills coffee all though for himself,
34:02
and then high fives with his foot. It's very good. Yeah, it's
34:06
so great. If you are experiencing thumb pain, it might be the case
34:09
that, depending on the nature of that pain, an electric toothbrush might actually
34:14
help the gripping of the toothbrush. People might be hurting their thumbs that way,
34:17
and so an electric toothbrush might make that a little easier, depending on
34:21
the nature you're dealing with. If it's because your thumb has been crushed by
34:23
something unlikely to be helpful, but if it's because of how you're gripping your
34:27
toothbrush, then maybe consider an electric one. Yeah. I think the part
34:31
that you that everybody comes here for is all the correlational research. So yeah,
34:36
right, this is gonna be so fun. So finger length might predict
34:38
behavior, but it probably doesn't, which is a lot of fun. So
34:43
it could or it could not. Finger length is a weird thing, but
34:45
also yeah, shorter index fingers can mean that the person will engage in increased
34:51
verbal aggression. Shorter index fingers might also mean that the person has improved athletic
34:55
skills. Yeah, this is definitely one of those. Like, I think
34:59
the way to orient to this is none of this is true. Other variables
35:02
more correctly account for why this would be the case. And we're gonna say
35:07
it anyway because it's funny. Shorter index fingers and men more likely to pick
35:12
fights and women more likely to react aggressively when provoked. If you have a
35:16
shorter index finger than your ring finger. Then you have healthier knees and a
35:22
longer ring finger in men means you take more risks. So that's some nonsense.
35:28
All of that is so much nonsense. It's so much nonsense. But
35:30
I can guarantee that everybody's looking at your hands now, So isn't that the
35:35
true gift of psychology is not necessarily and us so much. Yeah, it's
35:40
not so much the finger length. It's that we on a podcast distant in
35:45
the future, that you have listened to this for maybe the first time,
35:47
We've got you to look at your hands. That's really that's the real joy
35:51
of psychology and just appreciate them, just find the love, you know.
35:53
So, according to that, that means I'm supposed to have healthier knees and
35:57
I'm taking more risks. That could not be more opposite. You don't like
36:00
to take risks and my knees suck. Yeah, I definitely have looking at
36:04
this quite healthy knees, but in verbally aggressive, which I think would that
36:09
lines up that tracks Yeah, Jess kidding, just kidding, all right.
36:15
And the last thing here Nintendo thumb. Not to pick on Nintendo. It's
36:21
more like video game thumb, but repetitive strain injury caused by repeated thumb movements.
36:24
Some people sort of think of this as a Nintendo thumb, the sort
36:28
of hours and hours and hours of just you know, manipulating buttons and knobs
36:32
on a control over some sort. Yeah, so just a thing that people
36:37
talk about. Yeah, I mean, you know, repetitive strain injury.
36:39
Like I was taught about that at Starbucks. Like, that's something that they
36:44
train their breathes on because you do the same thing over and over when you're
36:46
making coffee. Makes sense that they're like, hey, don't do that,
36:50
because you'll hurt yourself if you do it too much. So it's just a
36:52
thing that happens when you do the same thing over and over and over again
36:54
too much. Yeah, which is likely true of virtually anything. Yeah,
37:00
including ads. Hey, I think maybe mission accomplished. That was kind of
37:09
a shorter one, because that is basically what we have to say about thumbs.
37:13
Think about the fact that this weird part of our body has enabled a
37:15
huge amount, if not all, of our culture to develop. Granted,
37:20
we needed language and the media goo between our ears to help, but all
37:23
of that was a part of the stew that became humans and what humans do.
37:30
So I think that's what I have to say about thumbs. Anything you
37:32
like to add or anything that I forgot before we start transitioning to our credits
37:37
and recommendations. I think my favorite thumb related thing that I can think of
37:43
as probably The Gladiator. Like I think that that that's like the most like
37:45
prominent thumb related media that I can think of. It is like when they
37:50
give the thumbs up and thumbs down, and it's like that's how the Emperor
37:53
decided. Like I thought that was so like that stuck with me for so
37:57
many years, and that's like really the only thumb related media that I can
38:00
think of. I don't know why I came to me just now. The
38:01
movie Yeah, Glad you're the movie with Joaquin Phoenix and Russell Crowe. Yeah,
38:06
I mean I know there's other thumbs up thumbs down things that happen,
38:08
Yeah, but like that was one thing I think of a lot when it
38:10
comes to thumbs. There's like the thumbs up emoji that's like the icon for
38:15
Facebook or metaw or whatever. Oh yeah, that's weird. And you know,
38:21
I think MySpace kind of started with a very similar thing of you know,
38:23
liking people's photos and whatnot or something of that nature. I don't know.
38:28
Yeah, forgetting now, so keep up with it. Yeah, I
38:32
just stopped caring so many years ago. Yeah, yeah, I like it.
38:37
Well, if you're joining us for the first time, one of the
38:38
things that we do is we like to share some recommendations that are usually,
38:44
if not always, I mean not always, but usually unrelated to the topic
38:46
at hand. So we're going to share those things that we find fun in
38:50
it and enjoyable and that you might find fun and enjoyable too. But in
38:53
the meantime, I need to tell you some things that are important, which
38:57
is that if you'd like to support the show, as I said, you
38:59
can leave us a rating review. It's very helpful helps the algorithm find more
39:02
people you can like and subscribe. That way, you never miss an episode,
39:06
which you definitely don't want to do. You can pick up some merch
39:07
from our merch store, and you can go join us on Patreon, and
39:12
if you do that then you will have many benefits. One of those is
39:15
that I'm going to read your name because I just appreciate the fact that you
39:19
have made the leap to come help us financially, and that is Mike,
39:22
m Megan, Mike T, Justin, Kim, Joshua, Brad, Stephanie,
39:25
Olivia, Brian, Ashley, Kiara, and Michelle. Thank you all
39:30
very much for your generous contributions and keeping us going. Yes, we love
39:35
you so much. Thank you so much to my team writing in fact checking
39:38
from Shane and myself with some extra help, and a special shout out to
39:42
Patrick for his work on this episode. Our sound editing and engineering and making
39:46
goodness comes from Justin, and our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson. Now
39:52
let's get to some recommendations. Recommendations. My recommendation is a weird one.
40:05
I'm going to preface this by saying I don't like the way it's written,
40:07
but I think the premise is fun. Okay. And that is a book
40:10
called The Cipher by Cath Koja. Okay. It's a pretty gratuitous horror book.
40:16
Like it's like it kicks off right away that it's a horror book.
40:20
The idea is that a hole has opened up in a storage room in this
40:24
couple's apartment building. It's a black hole that seems to go nowhere, and
40:30
they don't know what it is, and they kind of experiment to figure out
40:34
what's going on, what's happening with what it might be about. It's like
40:37
very like body Horror, so like there's just like weird, gross out things
40:42
that happen in it. I think the thing I don't like about it.
40:44
It's kind of written a little bit like Stream of Consciousness. But the premise
40:46
is cool because it's kind of like it never explains where the hole came from,
40:51
what it is, why it does what it does, what it does
40:54
what it does, but it is pretty freaky, and I think it's it's
40:58
a fun read. It's not a long read, doesn't take very long at
41:00
all, but it is like an interesting read around like the idea that like
41:04
what happens with obsession, Like you find this thing and you are obsessed with
41:07
it, and how obsession can destroy you or strengthen you or do any of
41:12
these things. So there's like a really cool theme to it. But yeah,
41:15
I thought it was pretty interesting and it was something I had just seen
41:17
as like a recommendation on book talk, yeah you know, and they were
41:21
like, hey, try this, and I was like, oh, I'll
41:22
check this out. And it was it was pretty good. It was a
41:23
decent read. Okay, he hell, is this book out of curiosity?
41:27
It's very very new twenty twenty two. Oh okay, So there was there
41:30
was a horror movie that came out a few years ago that had a sort
41:34
of similar premise, and I want to say it was called Holes, okay,
41:37
and it was like and just open up this person's apartment or something,
41:40
and it was terrible and I don't recommend it. I was like, I
41:45
wonder if the film was inspired by the book, but it sounds like that
41:49
was not the case. I mean, I don't know. It very well
41:52
could have been. Maybe it was like a premise that was shared or something
41:54
like that, or maybe it's just parallel thinking. But yeah, I don't
41:58
know either way. This one was pretty interesting. I thought it was pretty
42:00
good. Cool, all right, So this is the Cipher, Yes,
42:04
the Cipher Okay, and that's Kath Koja was the author. Uh huh yeah,
42:08
Kathy Koja Okay, gotcha? All right, I'm recommending a movie called
42:14
No Hard Feelings. This is like a coming of age comedy sort of movie.
42:20
Interesting cast in here, so we've got I think largely the lead in
42:22
here that most people will recognize as Jennifer Lawrence. Opposite her is an actor
42:27
who I don't think I've seen before named Andrew Barth Feldman, and then some
42:30
other notable ones Natalie Morales, Matthew Broadrick, Scott MacArthur, Kyle Mooney is
42:36
in it, Hassan Minaj, the comedian, So there's like a pretty decent
42:40
smattering of recognizable names in here. It's just I guess I can give away
42:46
the promise because it's pretty much dated right up front. The ideas these people
42:51
want to hire someone to date their son, to get him out of a
42:53
shell because he's very introverted and closed off, and hilarity ensues. Will put
42:59
it that way. It doesn't have a great rating on IMDb, but I
43:01
actually thought it was extremely funny. I will warn people there's this is on
43:07
the raunchier side of comedies. If that's a thing that you don't like,
43:10
then you probably won't enjoy this. But I thought it was very funny and
43:15
enjoyed it a lot. So and it's just a quick, you know,
43:16
a little easy comedy to go consume. So if you're interested, go check
43:20
out No Hard Feelings. I think at the time at the time that we're
43:23
recording this. It's on Netflix, but it's out there, it's around,
43:27
you can get it. Yeah. I've heard it's pretty funny. I've heard
43:29
it's pretty pretty entertaining. I enjoyed it. Yeah, I think that's what
43:31
we have to say about romantic comedies and horror books, if you would like
43:36
to tell us about those things or not really, I mean it's kind of
43:38
rom comments mostly just a comedy, But if you would like to tell us
43:42
about those things, or about thumbs or evolution or apes or anything like that,
43:45
then we would look forward to hearing from you. If you're going to
43:47
write us about evolution, then it will land on deaf ears or i mean
43:51
creation evolution. We want to hear creation creationism, it will land on the
43:53
tears. You can write us all you want, but I'm going to ignore
43:57
you. Anyway, you can reach us directly info at w das, wudwwdpodcast
44:00
dot com. Of course, you can reach us on the social media platforms
44:04
and interact with us there if you again. I'm just I'm looking for a
44:07
creative or not creative, but like constructive criticism and comments, and of course
44:13
heaping amounts of praise are always welcome so those things you can do those things
44:15
there. Yeah, and then as I said, all the other support things.
44:20
Is there anything that I'm missing or anything you'd like to add before we
44:22
wrap this up? Shane, I got nothing on my end, okay,
44:24
And we can wrap this up because we can use wrapping paper because we have
44:29
thumbs, so we're going to do that thing. But anyway, that's all
44:30
I have to say. This is Abraham, mister Shane. We're out.
44:35
See yup. You've been listening to Why We Do what we do. You
44:38
can learn more about this and other episodes by going to WWD WWD podcast dot
44:45
com. Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day