Would you consider tackling misconceptions about recycling? Where does a bottle or metal can go when we throw it away? And how much of it gets re-used into other products?
Here's the biggest misconception about recycling (or any environmental issue for that matter)... "It's the government's job to take care of the planet." I got news for us - it's mainly our job individually.
I actually followed a recycling truck once to find it delivered its payload to the exact same dump as the regular trash. Can't extrapolate that everywhere obviously, but it seems to be a placebo of sorts in a lot of ways. I'm reminded of this Zizek thing about the commodification of individual activism which functions to recuperate a profitable systemic dissent: ruclips.net/video/hpAMbpQ8J7g/видео.html
I’ve been in the grocery business for awhile, and the people that want to save earth always request paper bags, paper bags are far more destructive to the environment than plastic(best bet is to bring your own reusable canvas bags). I tried to educate my customers but they get really angry if I tell them overall paper bags, if you take into account the production involving felling trees and the glue at the base, are worse than plastic ones.
The word "fittest" in survival of the fittest doesn't refer to being athletic. It means survival of the individual that is best fit for the situation. Like a puzzle piece fits in the Animal fits in its ecological nieche.
Suggested topics: Misconceptions about Internet Marketing, Misconceptions about Geniuses, a Miss Conception contest, a Misconception game show where DNA tests show parentage, Misconceptions about Becoming a Published Author, Misconceptions about Computer Malware.
Another misconception I see is that stress forces an organism to develop a certain feature. As I understand it, stress merely promotes the survival of beneficial features that appear through random variation.
Comment made by a biology professor I had many years ago: "If there really had been intelligent design, we'd have been designed a lot more intelligently."
@Ryan O are you dumb I never said we are monkeys. I dont believe in evolution. Ever since adam and eve were expelled from the garden their perfection was taken away which is why each generation get weaker in all ways. Especially in health
In particular?? What part he would improve? Or would he come up with better design plan? Humans evolved by random sequence of mutations and he is educated professor. Could he offer better design?
Our eyes were originally evolved for use underwater and were gradually adapted for use in air, unless I've misremembered. Makes one wonder how our vision might have worked if it evolved on land from the start. I can imagine our vision organs being a bit more rigid and hard wearing, and generally less prone to deterioration.
From what I remember, it wasn't actually intended to be misleading, but it definitely is. It seems to show that we descended in a direct line from apes (we didn't; apes and humans share a common ancestor) and also that modern man is the final form, or the pinnacle of evolution, as if we have stopped changing (we haven't). As Justin said, nothing evolves in a straight line from something else. It's complicated and there are lots of branches and even some dead ends. I hope that helps.
In my bio classes, “fit” has nothing to do with strength, or even being successful in your environment directly. “Fitness” is defined as “has many offspring.” This means you can do math with it. Very convenient for stats.
What about misconceptions about physics? E.g. quantum mechanics, QED, special & general relativity, black holes, supernovae, and so on. I know you've touched upon some of those topics in the past but it would be interesting to have them all together!
evolution is just a very thin Vail designed to blind the minds of billions of gullible people who want something to believe in This is the best the evolutionists can offer. The God who is from EVERLASTING to EVERLASTING to created the Heavens and the earth
Misconceptions about language? Things/rules like grammar, that are used to evaluate our ability to communicate, are completely made up. Words are being created all the time, so arguments about what is and is not a word are extremely frustrating. This is coming from an English instructor, too.
Not *exactly* what you're talking about, but we do get into the debates around grammar (and words like irregardless) in this vid: ruclips.net/video/vwRien4r4j8/видео.html&
If you hadn't mentioned epigenetics I would have been disappointed... nice job. It could probably be an entire episode to be honest, although hard to fit it in the "misconception" format...
@@MentalFloss I had the pleasure of being at an international scientific conference in Montreal in 2007, and one of the chief researcher gave a key lecture that was basically an "aha, we were right!" moment. I hadn't even heard of epigenetics at the time, so it was... kind of mind blowing. It is *fundamental* and we had no idea...
During a 2015 televised panel discussion, Dr. Richard Dawkins admitted, “The Origin of Life is something we don’t know anything about. And we want to know something about it. And I would love to know how life actually got started.” (Source: Real Time with Bill Maher, Overtime, October 2, 2015, HBO. Dr. Richard Dawkins is considered one of the world's leading Darwinian Evolutionary Scientists.)
Finally Someone makes sense. Fish left the ocean, became land creatures, then returned to the ocean and became whales????😢😮😂 Read a book will ya" CREATION VS evolution
Ohh boy this video is gonna be the target of so many religious pseudo counter claims. Well presented and articulated, fair thee well in the comment flame war to come.
I personally think 'transitional species" does make sense and does have meaning. But it is a relative designation, not an absolute one. Basically, a transitional species is any species between two points on the evolutionary tree. Also, I don't think "missing link" is so much a misunderstanding of evolution but a result of historical lack of data. Basically, there used to be a missing link between ape and man, but various paleological discoveries have closed that gap as much as can be expected given the relative rarity of fossilization.
There's something that's always bothered me about wisdom teeth. I hope someone can clarify. Since the driving force for evolution is all about whether or not a trait is advantageous and can be passed down to the next generation - reproduction of the fittest. How is it that wisdom teeth in humans are speculated to disappear in the future? If it was before the time when medicine could do something about it, wisdom teeth would have been a serious disadvantage and affected individuals may not have been able to eat properly and thus wouldn't be fit for reproduction. But these days, wisdom teeth aren't a problem thanks to modern medicine. So if they aren't advantageous and aren't disadvantageous either, how is it that they are becoming less common? Being born without wisdom teeth is definitely not the same as peacock feathers and your chances of dying from them are slim. So what's the big idea? Is there something else involved that I don't know about? Future thanks to anyone who grants me a response.
I believe I remember seeing a couple ideas offered in our research. 1 is that even if they're not *as* disadvantageous today, not everyone has access to high-quality oral medicine and therefore, on a long enough time scale with a big enough population, selection would still tend to remove them. Another study (and I don't recall if it was verified or on a particularly large dataset) suggested that dental care itself during childhood (specifically the application of topical anesthesia, I think?) might suppress the growth of wisdom teeth-that's obviously not really a case of natural selection, but it's an interesting possible factor helping to reduce the prevalence of wisdom teeth over time. Would be curious if anyone knows more and can chime in!
If some people get rid of their wisdom teeth then our bodies have a reason for it. Our bodies are built for efficiency, the immune system for example requires constant maintenance of itself and will only keep what is NECESSARY, nothing else.
Always love the content but maybe make sure Justin is in focus on the depth of field shooting. His hands are sharp holding out to emphasize but watching him talk the fuzziness is weird on the eyes.
I think you missed the meaning of fittest. Today we think fittest = fitness, as in who is the strongest. Back then the term fittest mean the best fit, like a puzzle piece. The species that is the best fit for the puzzle that is it's environment, not the strongest.
I would say no, unless it became evolutionarily advantageous for us to possess that trait. Our eyes work well enough for what we use them for so they probably won’t change much in the future.
I wish people could comment like you. Natura,l no big drama or wire emphasis, thank you. I love following the sciences, but some commentry is so bad, it's off putting.
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (a world renown American astrophysicist, planetary scientist, author, etc.), while referring to the Origin of Life during a panel discussion, stated, “… It’s still just organic chemistry. At the end of the day, you want to have self-replicating life. And that’s a mystery.” (Source: Real Time with Bill Maher, Overtime, October 2, 2015, HBO)
Yes, Lamarckian evolution in animals is blatantly false as far as transmission of new genes is concerned. But... it may be true for transmission of many phenotypical traits. Like behaviors and instincts, for example, for which by the way we don't even have figured out satisfying deterministic genetic mechanisms. Take homosexuality, for example: it developed and transmitted even though it doesn't enhance "reproduction of the fittest", actually it hinders it... Some kind of Lamarckian mechanism must have played out in this case.
I don't understand the "there is no missing link" part to this video, saying there isn't a clear line connecting us to our ape ancestors. I argue there is a clear line, but look at it from the other direction, from us back to ancestor. I'm trying to find the name to a thought experiment i heard of somewhere but I can only find stuff on grandmother hypothesis which is something else. But it does like this: Have a woman hold her mothers hand, and that mother holds her mothers hand, and so on and so on, for 100,000 generations. At no point can you say 2 people holding hands are different species from each other. But when you look at the start and end of the lines they are completely different. And thats the "clear line connecting us to our ape ancestors" So again I don't understand his statement about no missing link
I think he might be indicating that there are hominid fossils that have human and ape characteristics, but paleontologists can’t be certain if a particular fossil is directly related to Homo sapiens sapiens or some other branch that eventually became extinct. It renders the missing link idea moot, because we don’t know if the “links” are missing or not. Also to be honest the whole “missing link” line is nothing more than anti-evolutionary nonsense. Those people basically are demanding exactly what you indicated, a perfect line of woman holding mother’s hand all the way both to our ape ancestors. That kind of perfection is simply impossible, and with every break in the chain, they can yell “ah-ha! Missing link!”
@@DriveInFreak don't worry, i have a whole mess of pain in the ass traits to make up for it. Left handed, over 6 feet tall, crap eyesight, knee and back problems, and born without adult canine teeth as well so dental work was super painful growing up.
@@giantsquid2 I'm still an atheist, it's just not the main thing I post about anymore. I remember being part of a few rationalist forums here and there, just kinda got bored a couple of years before "elevatorgate".
How about ya do one on conspiracy theories and how to identify why one is false? The idea is to give tools to people to uncover lies rather than just saying ... that’s not true.
@@dinahmyte3749 yeah, I know. This is for solution to pass around. I haven’t done research into known conspiracies and exactly where they fall apart and the rest. People don’t even agree on the right approach to talk to flat Earthers.
@@zero11010 I mean, don't? People who believe in conspiracies are the same people to fall into cults. Eventually, they'll either die, be murdered by their leaders, or realize how stupid they were and try and warn others, but weak minded people exist. People who fall for conspiracies won't watch science videos debunking them... For yourself, google, cross reference, stick to websites with about sections that can be proven. For everyone else... that's life.
We touch on some of that in this video: ruclips.net/video/hIHEmUQFW9E/видео.html&feature=emb_title Admittedly, not as geared towards "how to ID a false theory" as you suggest, but possibly relevant to your curiosity here.
Did you choose the ladder model which placed Neanderthals as a genetic precursor to "man" (homo sapiens I assume) because this is known to be false? Though the term Neanderthal can be a bit convoluted, the most specific definition of the term refers to a species which evolved separately from homo sapiens and lived on earth at the same time until homo sapiens expanded from Africa and interbred with Neanderthals in Europe and western Eurasia, producing hybrids (once incorrectly referred to as a transitional "missing link" called "Cro-Magnon man" between Neanderthals and homo sapiens) before Neanderthals went extinct and the hybrids continued to interbreed with other homo sapiens until everyone with a traceable ancestry from outside sub-Saharan Africa became genetically part Neanderthal. This seems like a misconception worth specifically noting since many people still believe the misconception long after it's been disproven.
Well... Your environment CAN change your genes... It's just that tobaco/chemicals/UV induced genes changes causes (by magnitude decrecent order) : the changed cell to be killed, a cancer, your reproductive cell to be disfunctional, your offspring to have disfunctional genes , your offspring to have more fitted genes. And I guess I miss some steps where it can be a mess.
(Note: Please disregard the all caps. They were included in a previous YT post for emphasis. Thank you and Best wishes.) DNA code can be equated to a type of computer language. DNA code is more complex than regular computer language in that it is not binary (based on 0 and 1). It is quaternary (based on A T C G). "The discovery of the structure of DNA transformed biology profoundly, catalysing the sequencing of the human genome and engendering a new view of biology as an INFORMATION SCIENCE. Two features of DNA structure account for much of its remarkable impact on science: its DIGITAL nature and its complementarity, whereby one strand of the helix binds perfectly with its partner. DNA has two types of DIGITAL INFORMATION - the genes that ENCODE proteins, which are the MOLECULAR MACHINES of life, and the GENE REGULATORY NETWORKS that specify the behaviour of the genes." (Source: Nature Journal, Nature com) "Language: All DIGITAL communications require a formal language, which in this context consists of all the information that the sender and receiver of the digital communication must both possess, in advance, in order for the communication to be successful." (Wikipedia: Digital Data) And, as with every known language in existence, confirmed through scientific experiment and observation, is the product of only one thing ... mind/ consciousness /intelligence
Not in the detail as he already explained in the video you watched. Lamarck's specific proposition was incorrect. He was postulating that any individual could exercise itself into a more fit shape then pass that *new* characteristic such as bigger biceps or a longer neck itself along. Epigenetics is about genes which already exist being activated. If a human lacks the genes to build gills (If that is the case as I presume) then becoming really good at free-diving won't pass on to your sons some newly minted Aqua-boy genes. Giraffes are tall today because SOME proto-giraffe ancestors always had the tendency to be taller than the average in their gene pool. The entire population DID NOT all just neck-stretch their way into the modern giraffe form as Lamarck was saying. He was wrong. SOME individual elephants have always had shorter tusks (or no tusks) in the overall population. Due to ivory poaching for big tuskers, it is possible that one day this trait of having no tusks will become the standard for all surviving elephants. All due to human interference acting as an environmental stress factor but not because the global herd has been somehow trying to forcibly not-grow their tusks in he Lamarck-ian sense. He was NOT right.
Environment can and often does change your genes. Not in a lamarckian way, but also more than epigenetic. The environment constantly exposes your genes to possible mutation from things as innocuous as coffee and the sun, let alone the vast array of toxic pollutants in our environments.
@@MentalFloss lost media is such a catch all term but from my understanding, it's "films, texts, music, photographs etc...that either have been lost to time or have gone missing through other means and never recovered." I may have forgotten a few examples but personally I think there's a difference between lost media and media that is "unreleased" or "in the vault". I think that's where the misconceptions lie, and the whole concept of truly lost media gets easily muddled
@@ArtJeremiah I believe many of their vocalizations are too low-pitched for us to hear. But this is one example of their sounds ruclips.net/video/tx8XtPBOGlU/видео.html
"Survival of the fittest has become shorthand for Darwinism..." The phrase survival of the fittest is literally longer than Darwinism. Did you mean has become synonymous? First sentence in and starting strong on this one.
"Shorthand" isn't being used literally here. It's commonly used as a synonym for "synonym". If you're gonna get on him about that, you're just being anal about colloquialisms. Take a moment to realize that English is an ever-evolving language, and words adopt new meanings frequently.
Theodore N. Tahmisian, a nuclear physicist with the Atomic Energy Commission, once stated: Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact.... It is a tangled mishmash of guessing games and figure jaggling (as quoted in Jackson, 1974, p. 37).
During an interview with Ben Stein, when asked about the origin of life (OoL), Dr. Richard Dawkins admitted that "we don't know [how life on earth started]." (Source: 'Expelled' DocuFilm, Dr. Richard Dawkins, One of World’s Top Darwinian Evolutionary Scientists, 2008).
A person does Not need to have a Phd (or even an undergraduate degree) to question the validity of the Abiogenesis Hypothesis, or any hypothesis. As long as people have an understanding of basic scientific principles, common sense, and open mindedness to seek the truth, they can come to a more accurate conclusion for themselves. Basic Science 101: Wikipedia 2021, “A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the SCIENTIFIC METHOD requires that one can TEST IT … Even though the words "hypothesis" and "theory" are often used synonymously, a scientific hypothesis is NOT the same as a scientific theory.” Hypothesis is also referred to as a Hypothetical or Educated GUESS. Wikipedia 2021, "In evolutionary biology, abiogenesis, or informally the origin of life (OoL),is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. While the details of this process ARE STILL UNKNOWN, the prevailing scientific HYPOTHESIS is that the transition from non-living to living entities was not a single event [i.e. spontaneous generation]... There are several principles and HYPOTHESES for how abiogenesis COULD HAVE occurred." One of the reasons that abiogensis is merely a "hypothesis" and has not advanced to the status of being a "scientific theory", is that abiogenesis hypotheses still lack the experimental data required by the scientific method. Abiogenesis Hypothesis has passed the scientific method process zero (0) times.
Don't forget about our 3rd eye. Go look up pineal or parietal eye. Most of our ancestors, the pre-mammalian therapsids, had a pineal eye. It would have been right on top of ours heads. As to our 3rd eyelid, it's known as a nictitating membrane. You can see them in cats and dogs. The remnants of our nictitating membrane is the pink squidgy bit in the corner of our eye, nearest your nose.
One thing I dont understand is how complex traits appear in the first place. Such as bioluminescence. Sure I can imagine brighter animals would be selected for, but how does it begin in the first place? It's a complex chemical process that produces no benefits until it's 100% formed. So how does the first bioluminescent animal appear? Same with venomous animals and color changing animals.
Traits can be benign aka they are fine and do not do anything or vesitgal nipples. And later on evolve into something else. Things do not need to have benefits to evolve. However, maybe before you do not understand something. Maybe google it. Or were you firing magic bullet creationist arguements that are false. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioluminescence#Evolution
Falls short of explaining "Why"? It never claimed to follow that line of reasoning. Using your logic, it also fails to explain why coffee is good, why some movies suck and why dead things smell.
@@kathrynmercier4874 Thank you for your observation and Mr. Darwin, but the theory still falls flat in the face of logic. It's ineffective on the short term. say within a few generations of a species. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, obviously it does, but it still falls short of explaining WHY it happens.
@@kathrynmercier4874 that's not exactly true. The theory posits that random mutations are the force behind change and natural selection merely cements those changes into a population. The problem being that random mutations and natural selection are insufficient. Genetic drift is also not enough to make up for it either, given the problem we've been trying to discuss. Epigenetics is a mechanism which alters gene expression due to environmental stressors. There is no evolutionary path for such a mechanism to evolve. It would have to evolve due to pure dumb luck because selection has nothing to work with. How does a mechanism which offers only future benefit get selected for today? Selection works by reproductive advantage. If the only advantage applies to future generations, where is the reproductive advantage today? Without said advantage, there is no selection, without selection the supposed changes are not preserved within the population. And this doesn't even touch on the immense barriers to this complex process evolving by random processes to even be a candidate for selection.
A perfect summation of evolution. It's all in the narrative. Should have left out the part where theories are confirmed via the scientific method, that never happens in evolutionary theory. Whenever a narrative like this includes "evolved to..." there's no doubt it's not science.
@@matteomastrodomenico1231 That's what you take away? So was evolution ever a hypothesis? Were evolutionary hypotheses ever tested out via the scientific method? Without the presumption of evolution, there would be almost zero evidence for it. What evidence there is could just as easily be applied to a design hypothesis.
@@matteomastrodomenico1231 hehe exactly. Theories aren't just presumed. A theory in scientific terms is explanatory which separates it from fact. That said, no explanation is simply presumed in science, it must first by hypothesized, tested, then elevated to theory. Even then, theories can be tested. I suggest you do a little reading yourself.
You're suggesting the need for the missing link is void because species can evolve into another completely different species immediately with no transition over millions of years? Interesting.
No that isn’t what he said. He used the ladder metaphor for how people think of evolution. That there are distinct steps in the process. For example if you start with a version of a horse like creature that is 1 meter in height, with a 5 cm tail, and long shaggy hair and 200,000 year later you have a horse like creature 2 meters in height, a 30 cm tail and short hair. The missing link theory would suggest somewhere in the middle at year 100,000 there would be a horse like creature 1.5 meters a tail of around 13 cm and half as shaggy. And so on so you would see an animal gradually get taller, tail get longer and hair get shorter. But thats not how evolution works at all. Everything doesn’t take gradual steps. The environment applies pressures to a population with a variety of traits. If some of those traits make it more likely they will have offspring in relation to other traits than every trait that animal has gets passed on. Environmental pressures sometimes are not gradual and can quickly change a population. Lets look at the earlier example of our horse like creature. So imagine this animal living in a colder environment and so those creatures with the thicker longer hair survive better and have more babies and pass on genes. But within that population are kids that are born with less hair. Sucks to be them. They get cold die and don’t have kinds. Then nature throws them a loop and their environment starts to warm. The hairy ones spend more time hiding in shade to cool off and the short hair ones make more babies and more and more of these creatures have short hair. Depending on how fast the environment changes the change in the way these creatures look could be very rapid. Maybe the furry ones rarely get to mate and the gene dies out of the population fairly rapidly. Also any other genes that the less furry creatures have automatically get passed on even if they don’t provide an advantage. If the gene to be less furry was randomly found with those with a longer tail that trait also gets passed on and changes rapidly. So you see two genes rapidly dropping out of a population over a short period of time due to rapid environmental pressures. Next imagine because the warmer weather the types of plants grow better and change so that they grow leaves higher. This could also be fairly rapid. So then you see the pressure favor taller creatures who can eat more leaves, have more energy and make more babies passing on those genes. So what you wanted to see was in a total change over two hundred thousand year that there was a link between at 100,000 that showed all of the traits half way in between. But that isn’t how it works. Environmental pressures changes things. When pressures are drastic some genes will drop out quickly while others won’t change until a new and different environmental pressure happens. You just aren’t going to find specimens half way changed between one species and another.
@@j.j.herrick6871 I can follow and understand adaptations and they can happen pretty fast, look at dog breeds. But they're all still dogs since they can inter breed. For a mammal species to evolve into two, five going on thousands surely there would be transitions from one species to more species? How does that happen if different species can't inter breed? I feel like evolutionary theory doesn't have all the answers and relies on a lot of speculation..
rudejude87 I am not sure I understand. At some point groups from a single species will be separated long enough, say by geography, and have had enough changes that if they were to breed they wouldn’t have a viable offspring. In the above example we had a group of furry horses that due to environmental pressures the ones with short hair breed more and the population took on those characteristics. Say in addition to that group, some of the furry horses migrated to a colder climate where they remained furry. This would be a divergent point. Eventually enough changes would take place over generations and generations that if these two groups met again they wouldn’t be able to interbreed.
Once upon a time a spider had sticky stuff somehow excrete from its butt, so since this uncomfortable situation arose he decided to make an eloquent web after of cource the millions of years it took to develope the ability to walk on his web. the fact that things would fly into his web was just a added benefit from the totally random sets of happenstance. and so evoulutionist lived happily ever after.
@@Adaginy thank you for personal insult it’s very telling, do have an actual explanation how a spider web evolved are do you usually just tell people who don’t agree with you to look it up.
@@byronbirdsong7040 Sure. Didn't look at your dismissive post and assume you cared to hear one. First off, spider web doesn't come from a spider's butt -- the end of its abdomen, sure, but not its poop chute, so no risk of getting its butt stuck shut. Having some kind of gland that excretes something weird from that end isn't unusual -- look at stinkbugs, bombardier beetles, or scorpions (the tail venom), or to a lesser extent look at lightning bugs where they have weird muscles that control chemical interactions inside them. So while I can't say "This is how spinnerets evolved" I can say "that's not unusual". As for web itself, earlier spiders would have been like trap door/funnel web spiders -- non-sticky webbing used to make a home (again, not weird, think of spittle bugs, moth cocoons, those birds that make nests from spit), minimally sticky webbing used to make a sticky spot instead of a fancy web. As for the transition from patches to webs, presumably several small mutations and adaptations, like losing the tarantula-fur (tarantulas use it defensively, but it would be a problem with stickiness), stickier webbing (being able to catch more food with less web, obviously useful adaptation), thinner/lighter bodies. Lighter bodies and stickier silk makes them less bound to the ground, so at some point they start making their sticky patches on sides of trees, on leaves, whatever. Insects started flying, they gotta get up there if they want to eat them. "pretty" webs presumably aren't first, but cobwebs, messes of stickiness, dropped from one leaf to another without direction. Some spiders might stick with that forever -- there's a spider that puts out a line and fishes for moths. Some for whatever reason might hop from one leaf to another and leave a trail behind them. Not deliberately trying to make a "web", just trying to spread out the sticky for best results, or to make sure they can find all their sticky patches. . But if that works, that gene sticks around. Maybe the gene gets duplicated and the little instinct-trigger that says "spread the lines out" now says "spread more lines out". Again, again. These spiders get more food, can spread more genes. At some point the "standard" spider web will dominate just because it works the best for that particular niche, though there's plenty of spiders that weave different nets or don't weave at all. I'm not saying that's THE way spiders evolved. Could be, might not be. But the point is that spider evolution didn't have to be laughable. (When I was in school, an anti-evolution argument was mice/bats, because what sort of useless creature would the in-between thing be? Well, leaving aside that those creatures aren't that closely related, if it grew the skin before it had long fingers to support wings, it's a flying squirrel. If it grew long fingers before it grew the skin between them, it's an aye-aye. There are countless weird and wonderful creatures on earth, past and present! Just because you can't imagine the use of having sticky silk before webs, or of being hairless before having sticky silk, or being an egg-laying creature but hatching your eggs inside you, or sweating sunblock, or puking up food to re-eat it, or having no hard parts except a beak, or moving to bipedal motion, or having a giant strainer instead of teeth, or whatever, doesn't mean nature hasn't imagined a use for it! And even if it isn't useful *now*, as long as it isn't harmful there's no reason for it to disappear, and maybe it develops a use later. Like there's a gene variant that protects against HIV -- how long has that been there doing nothing noticeable?) www.scientificamerican.com/article/sticky-science-the-evolution-of-spider-webs/ and www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081231130944.htm are good reading if you're curious.
@@Adaginy your argument presumption is that mutations are advantageous whereas they really tend to corrupt more than help. And adaptations or unusual extremes within breeding also corrupt when carried to extremes. Ask a shar pei. Besides the fact that it would mathematically be impossible for the changes you describe to take place in the 14 billion years the universe has existed. No I am afraid evolutionist absurd rationale does not stand up to true science let alone the lack of evidence for their assertions in the fossil record.
@@byronbirdsong7040 Yeah, I remember being taught that "all mutations are harmful or at best neutral" -- but, again, being able to digest lactose, being able to dodge HIV, those are mutations. There's a guy who was on ripley's believe it or not for how long he could hold his breath, turns out a mutation made his lungs bigger measurably bigger. The flu mutates to dodge our immune system constantly, that's why you need a shot every year. There are certainly bad mutations, and they're certainly the majority, but that doesn't mean that useful ones don't happen and that they don't spread. When we say evolution is random, that's acknowledging the bad mutations. Those ones die, though, without having an effect on future generations. As for shar peis, and with a lot of weird dog breeds, at one time that had an advantage (and then humans made it ridiculous). That loose skin was for fighting, but then humans kept breeding that until it was worse. Weiner dogs were bred to be able to get into badger holes, but then people kept breeding it for worse. A giraffe with a 14-foot neck can reach treetops. If humans decided to domesticate giraffes and breed them until they had 28-foot necks that required them to wear supports, that's not evolution's fault. Evolution isn't going to extremes. Sher-peis, dachsunds, and hypothetical 28-ft-neck giraffes would absolutely die in the wild. Like I said, I didn't expect that you were actually interested in an answer.
You just had to trot out Dawkins, didn't you? That guy is an embarrassment to the scientific community, and to other atheists. His thinking is simplistic and he clearly touts things as proven just because he wants them to be. Please please PLEASE, internet, stop holding Dawkins up as a reputable model of anything whatsoever.
Let's add a correction here shall we? Darwin did NOT say nor did he embrace the term "The fittest" He distinctly said the opposite. To paraphrase, It's not the strongest but the most ADAPTABLE that survive. You're welcome.
Would you consider tackling misconceptions about recycling? Where does a bottle or metal can go when we throw it away? And how much of it gets re-used into other products?
Here's the biggest misconception about recycling (or any environmental issue for that matter)...
"It's the government's job to take care of the planet." I got news for us - it's mainly our job individually.
I actually followed a recycling truck once to find it delivered its payload to the exact same dump as the regular trash. Can't extrapolate that everywhere obviously, but it seems to be a placebo of sorts in a lot of ways. I'm reminded of this Zizek thing about the commodification of individual activism which functions to recuperate a profitable systemic dissent:
ruclips.net/video/hpAMbpQ8J7g/видео.html
good question
Penn and Tellers “Bullshit” did a great episode on recycling... you may not like the ending tho
I’ve been in the grocery business for awhile, and the people that want to save earth always request paper bags, paper bags are far more destructive to the environment than plastic(best bet is to bring your own reusable canvas bags). I tried to educate my customers but they get really angry if I tell them overall paper bags, if you take into account the production involving felling trees and the glue at the base, are worse than plastic ones.
The word "fittest" in survival of the fittest doesn't refer to being athletic. It means survival of the individual that is best fit for the situation. Like a puzzle piece fits in the Animal fits in its ecological nieche.
Exactly!!!
So what's your "fitness" then? It's all bullshit, don't you see?
I don't know if you've done this before, but could you guys come up with a misconceptions video about Vikings or Scandinavia? :)
JESUS ❤
@@clarkhouston6781Jesus was a Viking?
As I once heard, it's not the survival of the fittest, it's the survival of the most adaptable.
That… would actually be more accurate, but then again those who survive adapt… so both sorta work hand in hand if you get me
JESUS CHRIST IS TRUTH
evolution is a lie.. unproven and deceptive
Didn’t you watch the video ? Evolution is about reproduction not survival. You can survive all you want but if you don’t reproduce, you don’t evolve.
Justin’s boss, please let Justin make a video on misconceptions about Keanu Reeves. I would love to watch that
I would love a complete series on scientific studies that delve into the one we now call Keanu
Suggested topics: Misconceptions about Internet Marketing, Misconceptions about Geniuses, a Miss Conception contest, a Misconception game show where DNA tests show parentage, Misconceptions about Becoming a Published Author, Misconceptions about Computer Malware.
I have no idea what a Miss Conception contest would entail, and yet I'm totally on board.
Another misconception I see is that stress forces an organism to develop a certain feature. As I understand it, stress merely promotes the survival of beneficial features that appear through random variation.
Comment made by a biology professor I had many years ago: "If there really had been intelligent design, we'd have been designed a lot more intelligently."
@Ryan O are you dumb I never said we are monkeys. I dont believe in evolution. Ever since adam and eve were expelled from the garden their perfection was taken away which is why each generation get weaker in all ways. Especially in health
In particular?? What part he would improve? Or would he come up with better design plan? Humans evolved by random sequence of mutations and he is educated professor. Could he offer better design?
misconceptions about forms of government (monarchy, democracy, etc.)
and economic systems i guess? capitalism vs socialism and everything in between, preferrably with unbiased real-world examples.
Pokemon also evolve.
Hope this helps!
Checks out.
2:16 I literally just saw this stock photo about 3 hours ago in my corporate ethics training!
I don't know what you're talking about. That's the Mental Floss staff, just happy to be Part of The Team™.
Our eyes were originally evolved for use underwater and were gradually adapted for use in air, unless I've misremembered. Makes one wonder how our vision might have worked if it evolved on land from the start. I can imagine our vision organs being a bit more rigid and hard wearing, and generally less prone to deterioration.
Wait now I’m curious about the intended meaning of the March of Progress illustration
From what I remember, it wasn't actually intended to be misleading, but it definitely is. It seems to show that we descended in a direct line from apes (we didn't; apes and humans share a common ancestor) and also that modern man is the final form, or the pinnacle of evolution, as if we have stopped changing (we haven't). As Justin said, nothing evolves in a straight line from something else. It's complicated and there are lots of branches and even some dead ends. I hope that helps.
To quote Harvey Danger..."only stupid people are breading" the passing on of traits doesn't mean they are the best traits
Mmmmm bread!
God MADE man.❤
Man MADE UP evolution
In my bio classes, “fit” has nothing to do with strength, or even being successful in your environment directly. “Fitness” is defined as “has many offspring.” This means you can do math with it. Very convenient for stats.
Can you forecast your "fitness"? No? Then bullshit it is.
JESUS IS LORD
I found out how messed up our eyes can get when my vision went wonky over a year ago. Now I go have a shot in my eye once a month. Good times. 😜🖖💕
I won't complain about my glasses ever again.
Oof sorry to hear that. On the bright side: you know at least one really cute pup?
@@Gaia_Gaistar Get lutein or Areds. To take care of them. Wish I had. 🙂🖖💕
OUCH
The sweater.
Most excellent.
✅😊
The glasses! I love them!
Anyone else just looking at the board games on the shelf? I see Ticket to Ride, X-COM, Pandemic Legacy, Firefly, and Catan to name a few.
I love this host! I had stopped watching when the girl started hosting, but now I have some videos to catch up on!
What about misconceptions about physics? E.g. quantum mechanics, QED, special & general relativity, black holes, supernovae, and so on. I know you've touched upon some of those topics in the past but it would be interesting to have them all together!
evolution is just a very thin Vail designed to blind the minds of billions of gullible people who want something to believe in
This is the best the evolutionists can offer.
The God who is from EVERLASTING to EVERLASTING to created the Heavens and the earth
Misconceptions about thermodynamics like how refrigerators don't generate cold air but pull the heat from the air in the box? Maybe it's too simple
Misconceptions about language? Things/rules like grammar, that are used to evaluate our ability to communicate, are completely made up. Words are being created all the time, so arguments about what is and is not a word are extremely frustrating. This is coming from an English instructor, too.
Not *exactly* what you're talking about, but we do get into the debates around grammar (and words like irregardless) in this vid: ruclips.net/video/vwRien4r4j8/видео.html&
Have you done misconceptions about astrology? Tarot? Psychics
If you hadn't mentioned epigenetics I would have been disappointed... nice job. It could probably be an entire episode to be honest, although hard to fit it in the "misconception" format...
Thanks! And yeah, it's such an interesting area of study, I'd love to find a way to shoehorn it into something in the future.
@@MentalFloss I had the pleasure of being at an international scientific conference in Montreal in 2007, and one of the chief researcher gave a key lecture that was basically an "aha, we were right!" moment. I hadn't even heard of epigenetics at the time, so it was... kind of mind blowing. It is *fundamental* and we had no idea...
During a 2015 televised panel discussion, Dr. Richard Dawkins admitted, “The Origin of Life is something we don’t know anything about. And we want to know something about it. And I would love to know how life actually got started.” (Source: Real Time with Bill Maher, Overtime, October 2, 2015, HBO. Dr. Richard Dawkins is considered one of the world's leading Darwinian Evolutionary Scientists.)
tripe
Finally Someone makes sense.
Fish left the ocean, became land creatures, then returned to the ocean and became whales????😢😮😂
Read a book will ya"
CREATION VS evolution
What is the music behind the video? I was seriously jamming.
Ohh boy this video is gonna be the target of so many religious pseudo counter claims.
Well presented and articulated, fair thee well in the comment flame war to come.
Misconceptions about Black History, expiration dates on food, Patrick's Day or elearning
thank you for sharing the video, I really appreciate it, watched all of it .
Thanks for watching, and for the kind words!
For possible mental floss video, maybe the misconceptions of fictional weapon origins.
I personally think 'transitional species" does make sense and does have meaning. But it is a relative designation, not an absolute one. Basically, a transitional species is any species between two points on the evolutionary tree.
Also, I don't think "missing link" is so much a misunderstanding of evolution but a result of historical lack of data. Basically, there used to be a missing link between ape and man, but various paleological discoveries have closed that gap as much as can be expected given the relative rarity of fossilization.
keanu reeves misconceptions
There's something that's always bothered me about wisdom teeth. I hope someone can clarify.
Since the driving force for evolution is all about whether or not a trait is advantageous and can be passed down to the next generation - reproduction of the fittest.
How is it that wisdom teeth in humans are speculated to disappear in the future?
If it was before the time when medicine could do something about it, wisdom teeth would have been a serious disadvantage and affected individuals may not have been able to eat properly and thus wouldn't be fit for reproduction.
But these days, wisdom teeth aren't a problem thanks to modern medicine.
So if they aren't advantageous and aren't disadvantageous either, how is it that they are becoming less common?
Being born without wisdom teeth is definitely not the same as peacock feathers and your chances of dying from them are slim.
So what's the big idea? Is there something else involved that I don't know about?
Future thanks to anyone who grants me a response.
I believe I remember seeing a couple ideas offered in our research. 1 is that even if they're not *as* disadvantageous today, not everyone has access to high-quality oral medicine and therefore, on a long enough time scale with a big enough population, selection would still tend to remove them. Another study (and I don't recall if it was verified or on a particularly large dataset) suggested that dental care itself during childhood (specifically the application of topical anesthesia, I think?) might suppress the growth of wisdom teeth-that's obviously not really a case of natural selection, but it's an interesting possible factor helping to reduce the prevalence of wisdom teeth over time. Would be curious if anyone knows more and can chime in!
@@MentalFloss Thanks for explaining, I guess I've got some digging up to do.
If some people get rid of their wisdom teeth then our bodies have a reason for it. Our bodies are built for efficiency, the immune system for example requires constant maintenance of itself and will only keep what is NECESSARY, nothing else.
Misconceptions about health foods :)
This one is on our schedule!
I found this video on accident but I'm glad I did
Yay! Welcome to Mental Floss. You've got roughly 100 hours of content to catch up on.
Always love the content but maybe make sure Justin is in focus on the depth of field shooting. His hands are sharp holding out to emphasize but watching him talk the fuzziness is weird on the eyes.
I think you missed the meaning of fittest. Today we think fittest = fitness, as in who is the strongest. Back then the term fittest mean the best fit, like a puzzle piece. The species that is the best fit for the puzzle that is it's environment, not the strongest.
I needed this!
We used to be fish
Is it possible in a future our eyes evolve to expand the expectrum of visible light? Like infrared or radio frecuency
I would say no, unless it became evolutionarily advantageous for us to possess that trait. Our eyes work well enough for what we use them for so they probably won’t change much in the future.
I thought the most correct analysis was "Survival of the Most Adaptable".
Are Justin Dodd and Tim Dodd (The Everyday Astronaut) Related?
Yes, they actually are! Funny you mention it, I'm related to both of them! And also to you! (Welcome to genetics).
survival of the zaddy-est 😎
well done
Survival of the fittest, should be Survival of the good enough.
Wow Luka Doncic is very knowledgeable about evolution!
Biological fitness is just the ability to survive and pass on genes. Survival of the fittest means survival of the genes that survive.
Survival of the sexy times.
I wish people could comment like you. Natura,l no big drama or wire emphasis, thank you. I love following the sciences, but some commentry is so bad, it's off putting.
You talked about the evolution of genes, now do memes (like memetic theory)
Wanna make a popular video? Try "Misconceptions about games".
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (a world renown American astrophysicist, planetary scientist, author, etc.), while referring to the Origin of Life during a panel discussion, stated, “… It’s still just organic chemistry. At the end of the day, you want to have self-replicating life. And that’s a mystery.” (Source: Real Time with Bill Maher, Overtime, October 2, 2015, HBO)
tripe
Survival of ‘what’s works’
Only one man and that’s Lamarck, speaks for the people here below. In other words, the people want stretchy giraffes, give us stretchy giraffes.
Do one about Yoko Ono! 😂😉
Yes, Lamarckian evolution in animals is blatantly false as far as transmission of new genes is concerned.
But... it may be true for transmission of many phenotypical traits.
Like behaviors and instincts, for example, for which by the way we don't even have figured out satisfying deterministic genetic mechanisms.
Take homosexuality, for example: it developed and transmitted even though it doesn't enhance "reproduction of the fittest", actually it hinders it...
Some kind of Lamarckian mechanism must have played out in this case.
Misconceptions about evolution...
1. It occurs.
2. It occurs.
3. It occurs.
......
I don't understand the "there is no missing link" part to this video, saying there isn't a clear line connecting us to our ape ancestors. I argue there is a clear line, but look at it from the other direction, from us back to ancestor. I'm trying to find the name to a thought experiment i heard of somewhere but I can only find stuff on grandmother hypothesis which is something else. But it does like this: Have a woman hold her mothers hand, and that mother holds her mothers hand, and so on and so on, for 100,000 generations. At no point can you say 2 people holding hands are different species from each other. But when you look at the start and end of the lines they are completely different. And thats the "clear line connecting us to our ape ancestors" So again I don't understand his statement about no missing link
I think he might be indicating that there are hominid fossils that have human and ape characteristics, but paleontologists can’t be certain if a particular fossil is directly related to Homo sapiens sapiens or some other branch that eventually became extinct. It renders the missing link idea moot, because we don’t know if the “links” are missing or not.
Also to be honest the whole “missing link” line is nothing more than anti-evolutionary nonsense. Those people basically are demanding exactly what you indicated, a perfect line of woman holding mother’s hand all the way both to our ape ancestors. That kind of perfection is simply impossible, and with every break in the chain, they can yell “ah-ha! Missing link!”
Hi, im in the 35% of people without wisdom teeth.
You are very fortunate.
@@DriveInFreak don't worry, i have a whole mess of pain in the ass traits to make up for it. Left handed, over 6 feet tall, crap eyesight, knee and back problems, and born without adult canine teeth as well so dental work was super painful growing up.
SciShow host says evolution throws stuff at the wall and keeps what sticks.
This takes me back to being an angry atheist in the Bush era
Why did you stop there? lol You can still be an angry atheist. :)
@@giantsquid2 I'm still an atheist, it's just not the main thing I post about anymore. I remember being part of a few rationalist forums here and there, just kinda got bored a couple of years before "elevatorgate".
@@stuartp2006 I totally get that.
How about ya do one on conspiracy theories and how to identify why one is false? The idea is to give tools to people to uncover lies rather than just saying ... that’s not true.
Google it and know: the bigger the conspiracy, the faster its leaked to the public.
@@dinahmyte3749 yeah, I know. This is for solution to pass around. I haven’t done research into known conspiracies and exactly where they fall apart and the rest. People don’t even agree on the right approach to talk to flat Earthers.
@@zero11010 I mean, don't? People who believe in conspiracies are the same people to fall into cults. Eventually, they'll either die, be murdered by their leaders, or realize how stupid they were and try and warn others, but weak minded people exist. People who fall for conspiracies won't watch science videos debunking them... For yourself, google, cross reference, stick to websites with about sections that can be proven. For everyone else... that's life.
@@dinahmyte3749 I guess I’m just one of those people with empathy.
We touch on some of that in this video: ruclips.net/video/hIHEmUQFW9E/видео.html&feature=emb_title Admittedly, not as geared towards "how to ID a false theory" as you suggest, but possibly relevant to your curiosity here.
Did you choose the ladder model which placed Neanderthals as a genetic precursor to "man" (homo sapiens I assume) because this is known to be false? Though the term Neanderthal can be a bit convoluted, the most specific definition of the term refers to a species which evolved separately from homo sapiens and lived on earth at the same time until homo sapiens expanded from Africa and interbred with Neanderthals in Europe and western Eurasia, producing hybrids (once incorrectly referred to as a transitional "missing link" called "Cro-Magnon man" between Neanderthals and homo sapiens) before Neanderthals went extinct and the hybrids continued to interbreed with other homo sapiens until everyone with a traceable ancestry from outside sub-Saharan Africa became genetically part Neanderthal. This seems like a misconception worth specifically noting since many people still believe the misconception long after it's been disproven.
Well... Your environment CAN change your genes... It's just that tobaco/chemicals/UV induced genes changes causes (by magnitude decrecent order) : the changed cell to be killed, a cancer, your reproductive cell to be disfunctional, your offspring to have disfunctional genes , your offspring to have more fitted genes.
And I guess I miss some steps where it can be a mess.
(Note: Please disregard the all caps. They were included in a previous YT post for emphasis. Thank you and Best wishes.)
DNA code can be equated to a type of computer language. DNA code is more complex than regular computer language in that it is not binary (based on 0 and 1). It is quaternary (based on A T C G).
"The discovery of the structure of DNA transformed biology profoundly, catalysing the sequencing of the human genome and engendering a new view of biology as an INFORMATION SCIENCE. Two features of DNA structure account for much of its remarkable impact on science: its DIGITAL nature and its complementarity, whereby one strand of the helix binds perfectly with its partner. DNA has two types of DIGITAL INFORMATION - the genes that ENCODE proteins, which are the MOLECULAR MACHINES of life, and the GENE REGULATORY NETWORKS that specify the behaviour of the genes." (Source: Nature Journal, Nature com)
"Language: All DIGITAL communications require a formal language, which in this context consists of all the information that the sender and receiver of the digital communication must both possess, in advance, in order for the communication to be successful." (Wikipedia: Digital Data)
And, as with every known language in existence, confirmed through scientific experiment and observation, is the product of only one thing ... mind/ consciousness /intelligence
Nope
You're putting the cart before the horse.
tripe
Wisdom teeth 35%'ers represent! 🙋♂️
Yes, I had to have all 4 removed surgically. They were all growing into my jaw bones. Very painful 😖
Isn’t la mark kinda right, with epigenetics
Not in the detail as he already explained in the video you watched. Lamarck's specific proposition was incorrect. He was postulating that any individual could exercise itself into a more fit shape then pass that *new* characteristic such as bigger biceps or a longer neck itself along. Epigenetics is about genes which already exist being activated. If a human lacks the genes to build gills (If that is the case as I presume) then becoming really good at free-diving won't pass on to your sons some newly minted Aqua-boy genes.
Giraffes are tall today because SOME proto-giraffe ancestors always had the tendency to be taller than the average in their gene pool. The entire population DID NOT all just neck-stretch their way into the modern giraffe form as Lamarck was saying. He was wrong.
SOME individual elephants have always had shorter tusks (or no tusks) in the overall population. Due to ivory poaching for big tuskers, it is possible that one day this trait of having no tusks will become the standard for all surviving elephants. All due to human interference acting as an environmental stress factor but not because the global herd has been somehow trying to forcibly not-grow their tusks in he Lamarck-ian sense. He was NOT right.
Environment can and often does change your genes. Not in a lamarckian way, but also more than epigenetic. The environment constantly exposes your genes to possible mutation from things as innocuous as coffee and the sun, let alone the vast array of toxic pollutants in our environments.
I'll watch any list show about Keanu Reeves. lol
Misconceptions about lost media!!!
What do you mean by lost media (and forgive me if this is a common term, a quick Google didn't make it totally clear)?
@@MentalFloss lost media is such a catch all term but from my understanding, it's "films, texts, music, photographs etc...that either have been lost to time or have gone missing through other means and never recovered." I may have forgotten a few examples but personally I think there's a difference between lost media and media that is "unreleased" or "in the vault". I think that's where the misconceptions lie, and the whole concept of truly lost media gets easily muddled
Misconceptions about Texas! Wooo!
What sound does a giraffe make? 🤔
They make low-pitched hums as well as grunts
@@Laruto722 I need to hear this
@@ArtJeremiah I believe many of their vocalizations are too low-pitched for us to hear. But this is one example of their sounds ruclips.net/video/tx8XtPBOGlU/видео.html
@@Laruto722 oh cool, thanks
a shrill squawk, unless nesting then it's a purr :D
Wow, so many close-ups of eyes.. A little uncomfortable > ->
I love epigenetics :)
Misconceptions about Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and why it wasn't as bogus as youd think.
Justin is my Missing Kink 😍
"Survival of the fittest has become shorthand for Darwinism..." The phrase survival of the fittest is literally longer than Darwinism. Did you mean has become synonymous? First sentence in and starting strong on this one.
If you're referring to Herbert Spencer then you might want to get your timeline sorted, lol.
"Shorthand" isn't being used literally here. It's commonly used as a synonym for "synonym". If you're gonna get on him about that, you're just being anal about colloquialisms. Take a moment to realize that English is an ever-evolving language, and words adopt new meanings frequently.
shorthand for the entire theory perhaps
Theodore N. Tahmisian, a nuclear physicist with the Atomic Energy Commission, once stated:
Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact.... It is a tangled mishmash of guessing games and figure jaggling (as quoted in Jackson, 1974, p. 37).
Think the human eye is perfect? As an optometrist.
No reasonable person thinks that.
@@kevinOneil6742 _"creationists do"_
As I said: no *_reasonable_* person does.
During an interview with Ben Stein, when asked about the origin of life (OoL), Dr. Richard Dawkins admitted that "we don't know [how life on earth started]." (Source: 'Expelled' DocuFilm, Dr. Richard Dawkins, One of World’s Top Darwinian Evolutionary Scientists, 2008).
Yes. Scientists don't know everything. We have some ideas about how life started, but that's why we keep studying and observing and testing.
tripe
do u know what the earth would be like if the oceans were freshwater? U can see on my channel
dude you are soo hilarious
i wish i could high five you regardless if you put your hand up
A person does Not need to have a Phd (or even an undergraduate degree) to question the validity of the Abiogenesis Hypothesis, or any hypothesis. As long as people have an understanding of basic scientific principles, common sense, and open mindedness to seek the truth, they can come to a more accurate conclusion for themselves.
Basic Science 101:
Wikipedia 2021, “A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the SCIENTIFIC METHOD requires that one can TEST IT … Even though the words "hypothesis" and "theory" are often used synonymously, a scientific hypothesis is NOT the same as a scientific theory.” Hypothesis is also referred to as a Hypothetical or Educated GUESS.
Wikipedia 2021, "In evolutionary biology, abiogenesis, or informally the origin of life (OoL),is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. While the details of this process ARE STILL UNKNOWN, the prevailing scientific HYPOTHESIS is that the transition from non-living to living entities was not a single event [i.e. spontaneous generation]... There are several principles and HYPOTHESES for how abiogenesis COULD HAVE occurred."
One of the reasons that abiogensis is merely a "hypothesis" and has not advanced to the status of being a "scientific theory", is that abiogenesis hypotheses still lack the experimental data required by the scientific method. Abiogenesis Hypothesis has passed the scientific method process zero (0) times.
Yeah, no.
You can't dismantle anything if don't have any knowledge on the matter.
tripe
Misconceptions?
Misconceptions.
#MR_REAL_1000K_CAMPAIGN
.
.
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Come and decide by yourself 🔥🖕🖕
Obesity can mutate genetics and then passed on
watch this at 1.25 speed
2x or bust
This bloke is does my head in 😐
That's just your theory
thx for telling us that you dont understand what a scientific theory is
*#1 Misconception about evolution :*
The shart didn't evolve from the fart, according to researchers at the Mayo Clinic the shart actually evolved from 3 spicy bean burritos and a Tallboy of Colt 45. 🤔... 🌯🌯🌯 + 🍺 = 😖💨💩... 😳🤧
*The More You Know🌈🌟©*
*"NUFF SAID"™*
Wait... third eyelid? That seems to imply that we ones had three eyes. Or several eyelids per eye? Now I really want to know more.
Three eyelids per eye.
We have a top lid and a bottom lid on each eye, and the remnant of a third in the corner.
Don't forget about our 3rd eye. Go look up pineal or parietal eye. Most of our ancestors, the pre-mammalian therapsids, had a pineal eye. It would have been right on top of ours heads.
As to our 3rd eyelid, it's known as a nictitating membrane. You can see them in cats and dogs. The remnants of our nictitating membrane is the pink squidgy bit in the corner of our eye, nearest your nose.
Thank you!
Take that, religion!
One thing I dont understand is how complex traits appear in the first place. Such as bioluminescence. Sure I can imagine brighter animals would be selected for, but how does it begin in the first place? It's a complex chemical process that produces no benefits until it's 100% formed. So how does the first bioluminescent animal appear? Same with venomous animals and color changing animals.
Traits can be benign aka they are fine and do not do anything or vesitgal nipples. And later on evolve into something else. Things do not need to have benefits to evolve. However, maybe before you do not understand something. Maybe google it. Or were you firing magic bullet creationist arguements that are false.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioluminescence#Evolution
@@NathanWubs
I guess wakka chaka means the trait may waste energy.
Evolution may explain how... still falls short of explaining why.
Falls short of explaining "Why"? It never claimed to follow that line of reasoning. Using your logic, it also fails to explain why coffee is good, why some movies suck and why dead things smell.
Funny how teleology is instinctive to us.
The “why” of evolution is natural selection. Why do living things evolve? Because natural selection drives speciation.
@@kathrynmercier4874 Thank you for your observation and Mr. Darwin, but the theory still falls flat in the face of logic. It's ineffective on the short term. say within a few generations of a species. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, obviously it does, but it still falls short of explaining WHY it happens.
@@kathrynmercier4874 that's not exactly true. The theory posits that random mutations are the force behind change and natural selection merely cements those changes into a population.
The problem being that random mutations and natural selection are insufficient. Genetic drift is also not enough to make up for it either, given the problem we've been trying to discuss.
Epigenetics is a mechanism which alters gene expression due to environmental stressors. There is no evolutionary path for such a mechanism to evolve. It would have to evolve due to pure dumb luck because selection has nothing to work with. How does a mechanism which offers only future benefit get selected for today?
Selection works by reproductive advantage. If the only advantage applies to future generations, where is the reproductive advantage today? Without said advantage, there is no selection, without selection the supposed changes are not preserved within the population.
And this doesn't even touch on the immense barriers to this complex process evolving by random processes to even be a candidate for selection.
A perfect summation of evolution. It's all in the narrative. Should have left out the part where theories are confirmed via the scientific method, that never happens in evolutionary theory.
Whenever a narrative like this includes "evolved to..." there's no doubt it's not science.
The scientific method is used on hypothesis, not theories.
@@matteomastrodomenico1231 That's what you take away? So was evolution ever a hypothesis? Were evolutionary hypotheses ever tested out via the scientific method?
Without the presumption of evolution, there would be almost zero evidence for it. What evidence there is could just as easily be applied to a design hypothesis.
@@jon__doe No, it was never an hypothesis, it was always a theory.
I suggest you look up the definition of theory.
@@matteomastrodomenico1231 hehe exactly. Theories aren't just presumed. A theory in scientific terms is explanatory which separates it from fact. That said, no explanation is simply presumed in science, it must first by hypothesized, tested, then elevated to theory.
Even then, theories can be tested.
I suggest you do a little reading yourself.
@@jon__doe I did read. Theories are not supposed to be tested, they're based on tested phenomena.
You're suggesting the need for the missing link is void because species can evolve into another completely different species immediately with no transition over millions of years? Interesting.
No that isn’t what he said. He used the ladder metaphor for how people think of evolution. That there are distinct steps in the process.
For example if you start with a version of a horse like creature that is 1 meter in height, with a 5 cm tail, and long shaggy hair and 200,000 year later you have a horse like creature 2 meters in height, a 30 cm tail and short hair.
The missing link theory would suggest somewhere in the middle at year 100,000 there would be a horse like creature 1.5 meters a tail of around 13 cm and half as shaggy.
And so on so you would see an animal gradually get taller, tail get longer and hair get shorter. But thats not how evolution works at all. Everything doesn’t take gradual steps.
The environment applies pressures to a population with a variety of traits. If some of those traits make it more likely they will have offspring in relation to other traits than every trait that animal has gets passed on.
Environmental pressures sometimes are not gradual and can quickly change a population.
Lets look at the earlier example of our horse like creature. So imagine this animal living in a colder environment and so those creatures with the thicker longer hair survive better and have more babies and pass on genes.
But within that population are kids that are born with less hair. Sucks to be them. They get cold die and don’t have kinds.
Then nature throws them a loop and their environment starts to warm. The hairy ones spend more time hiding in shade to cool off and the short hair ones make more babies and more and more of these creatures have short hair.
Depending on how fast the environment changes the change in the way these creatures look could be very rapid. Maybe the furry ones rarely get to mate and the gene dies out of the population fairly rapidly.
Also any other genes that the less furry creatures have automatically get passed on even if they don’t provide an advantage.
If the gene to be less furry was randomly found with those with a longer tail that trait also gets passed on and changes rapidly.
So you see two genes rapidly dropping out of a population over a short period of time due to rapid environmental pressures.
Next imagine because the warmer weather the types of plants grow better and change so that they grow leaves higher. This could also be fairly rapid.
So then you see the pressure favor taller creatures who can eat more leaves, have more energy and make more babies passing on those genes.
So what you wanted to see was in a total change over two hundred thousand year that there was a link between at 100,000 that showed all of the traits half way in between. But that isn’t how it works.
Environmental pressures changes things. When pressures are drastic some genes will drop out quickly while others won’t change until a new and different environmental pressure happens.
You just aren’t going to find specimens half way changed between one species and another.
@@j.j.herrick6871 I can follow and understand adaptations and they can happen pretty fast, look at dog breeds. But they're all still dogs since they can inter breed. For a mammal species to evolve into two, five going on thousands surely there would be transitions from one species to more species? How does that happen if different species can't inter breed? I feel like evolutionary theory doesn't have all the answers and relies on a lot of speculation..
rudejude87 I am not sure I understand.
At some point groups from a single species will be separated long enough, say by geography, and have had enough changes that if they were to breed they wouldn’t have a viable offspring.
In the above example we had a group of furry horses that due to environmental pressures the ones with short hair breed more and the population took on those characteristics.
Say in addition to that group, some of the furry horses migrated to a colder climate where they remained furry. This would be a divergent point.
Eventually enough changes would take place over generations and generations that if these two groups met again they wouldn’t be able to interbreed.
So basically nothing new, and no actual misconceptions.
Once upon a time a spider had sticky stuff somehow excrete from its butt, so since this uncomfortable situation arose he decided to make an eloquent web after of cource the millions of years it took to develope the ability to walk on his web. the fact that things would fly into his web was just a added benefit from the totally random sets of happenstance. and so evoulutionist lived happily ever after.
You could just look up spider evolution (or anatomy), if you wanted to not look ridiculous.
@@Adaginy thank you for personal insult it’s very telling, do have an actual explanation how a spider web evolved are do you usually just tell people who don’t agree with you to look it up.
@@byronbirdsong7040 Sure. Didn't look at your dismissive post and assume you cared to hear one.
First off, spider web doesn't come from a spider's butt -- the end of its abdomen, sure, but not its poop chute, so no risk of getting its butt stuck shut.
Having some kind of gland that excretes something weird from that end isn't unusual -- look at stinkbugs, bombardier beetles, or scorpions (the tail venom), or to a lesser extent look at lightning bugs where they have weird muscles that control chemical interactions inside them. So while I can't say "This is how spinnerets evolved" I can say "that's not unusual".
As for web itself, earlier spiders would have been like trap door/funnel web spiders -- non-sticky webbing used to make a home (again, not weird, think of spittle bugs, moth cocoons, those birds that make nests from spit), minimally sticky webbing used to make a sticky spot instead of a fancy web. As for the transition from patches to webs, presumably several small mutations and adaptations, like losing the tarantula-fur (tarantulas use it defensively, but it would be a problem with stickiness), stickier webbing (being able to catch more food with less web, obviously useful adaptation), thinner/lighter bodies. Lighter bodies and stickier silk makes them less bound to the ground, so at some point they start making their sticky patches on sides of trees, on leaves, whatever. Insects started flying, they gotta get up there if they want to eat them. "pretty" webs presumably aren't first, but cobwebs, messes of stickiness, dropped from one leaf to another without direction. Some spiders might stick with that forever -- there's a spider that puts out a line and fishes for moths. Some for whatever reason might hop from one leaf to another and leave a trail behind them. Not deliberately trying to make a "web", just trying to spread out the sticky for best results, or to make sure they can find all their sticky patches. . But if that works, that gene sticks around. Maybe the gene gets duplicated and the little instinct-trigger that says "spread the lines out" now says "spread more lines out". Again, again. These spiders get more food, can spread more genes. At some point the "standard" spider web will dominate just because it works the best for that particular niche, though there's plenty of spiders that weave different nets or don't weave at all.
I'm not saying that's THE way spiders evolved. Could be, might not be. But the point is that spider evolution didn't have to be laughable.
(When I was in school, an anti-evolution argument was mice/bats, because what sort of useless creature would the in-between thing be? Well, leaving aside that those creatures aren't that closely related, if it grew the skin before it had long fingers to support wings, it's a flying squirrel. If it grew long fingers before it grew the skin between them, it's an aye-aye. There are countless weird and wonderful creatures on earth, past and present! Just because you can't imagine the use of having sticky silk before webs, or of being hairless before having sticky silk, or being an egg-laying creature but hatching your eggs inside you, or sweating sunblock, or puking up food to re-eat it, or having no hard parts except a beak, or moving to bipedal motion, or having a giant strainer instead of teeth, or whatever, doesn't mean nature hasn't imagined a use for it! And even if it isn't useful *now*, as long as it isn't harmful there's no reason for it to disappear, and maybe it develops a use later. Like there's a gene variant that protects against HIV -- how long has that been there doing nothing noticeable?)
www.scientificamerican.com/article/sticky-science-the-evolution-of-spider-webs/ and
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081231130944.htm are good reading if you're curious.
@@Adaginy your argument presumption is that mutations are advantageous whereas they really tend to corrupt more than help. And adaptations or unusual extremes within breeding also corrupt when carried to extremes. Ask a shar pei. Besides the fact that it would mathematically be impossible for the changes you describe to take place in the 14 billion years the universe has existed. No I am afraid evolutionist absurd rationale does not stand up to true science let alone the lack of evidence for their assertions in the fossil record.
@@byronbirdsong7040 Yeah, I remember being taught that "all mutations are harmful or at best neutral" -- but, again, being able to digest lactose, being able to dodge HIV, those are mutations. There's a guy who was on ripley's believe it or not for how long he could hold his breath, turns out a mutation made his lungs bigger measurably bigger. The flu mutates to dodge our immune system constantly, that's why you need a shot every year. There are certainly bad mutations, and they're certainly the majority, but that doesn't mean that useful ones don't happen and that they don't spread. When we say evolution is random, that's acknowledging the bad mutations. Those ones die, though, without having an effect on future generations.
As for shar peis, and with a lot of weird dog breeds, at one time that had an advantage (and then humans made it ridiculous). That loose skin was for fighting, but then humans kept breeding that until it was worse. Weiner dogs were bred to be able to get into badger holes, but then people kept breeding it for worse. A giraffe with a 14-foot neck can reach treetops. If humans decided to domesticate giraffes and breed them until they had 28-foot necks that required them to wear supports, that's not evolution's fault. Evolution isn't going to extremes. Sher-peis, dachsunds, and hypothetical 28-ft-neck giraffes would absolutely die in the wild.
Like I said, I didn't expect that you were actually interested in an answer.
You just had to trot out Dawkins, didn't you? That guy is an embarrassment to the scientific community, and to other atheists. His thinking is simplistic and he clearly touts things as proven just because he wants them to be. Please please PLEASE, internet, stop holding Dawkins up as a reputable model of anything whatsoever.
tripe
Let's add a correction here shall we? Darwin did NOT say nor did he embrace the term "The fittest" He distinctly said the opposite. To paraphrase, It's not the strongest but the most ADAPTABLE that survive. You're welcome.