June 14, 2011 • 21 mins
Humans have spent ages evolving into the charming specimens we are today. But what if we could accelerate the pace of evolution, giving our future progeny super-human attributes? Join Julie and Robert as they discuss if evolution as we know it is over.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And
we're looking at the future again. That's weird. It's like
we're letting our futurist flag fly again. Yeah, well we
(00:26):
have to. I mean that we're talking about going to
the edge of what's possible, and the edge of what's
possible generally lines up with the edge of what has
happened and what's going to happen in the future. So
I have a question for you. Yes, are you ready
for the neo evolution? I don't know, that's a really
intimidating question. Yeah, especially when I say it like that. Huh.
I would probably yell ya if it was like, you know,
(00:46):
like a DJ yelling it, because it sounds like the
kind of thing you would hear, like, are you ready? Yeah?
Are you ready for the neo evolution? And then everybody
goes yeah, but yeah, are the Beatles? Yeah? Are you
ready for evlution? All right, so obviously we're gonna be
talking about evolution today, specifically new evolution as defined by
(01:07):
one guy. But before we get to that, let's talk
a little bit about what is evolution. Yeah, let's go
ahead and hammer this out, um. And I'm drawing from
how Stuff Works own article how Evolution Works, which is
a great read, especially if you don't understand evolution, or
if you find yourself in the familiar situation of thinking
(01:27):
you understand something that is so talked about, but but
you're not really sure on the the finer points of it.
It lays it out really nicely, like most How Stuff
Works articles handle a topic, but basically it breaks down
to three essential parts. First part is that it's possible
for the DNA of an organism to occasionally change or mutate,
And a mutation changes the DNA of an organism in
(01:49):
a way that affects its offspring, either immediately or several
generations down the line. So that's the first condition, right.
The second one, the change brought about by a mute patient,
is either beneficial, harmful, or neutral. I think I've hammered
on this before, but the whole the word de evolved
or devolved, like the idea that oh in a post
(02:11):
apocalyptic movie, people devolved in the monsters and Chud's and
they did not go backward. Right, there's evolution doesn't go backwards.
Evolution always goes forward. It's possible cases very rare. But yeah,
but but but evolution does. But no, evolution doesn't really
go backwards. It's like it'll it's it's altering, but it's
(02:31):
it's moving forward like it's well for adaptation is what
I'm talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's moving forward and adapting,
all right. So, yeah, it can be beneficial, it can
be harmful, it can be neutral. It's still evolution. If
the change is harmful, then it's unlikely that the offspring
will survive to reproduce, so the mutation dies and goes nowhere.
If the change is beneficial, then it's likely that the
(02:53):
offspring will do better than the offspring uh, then the
other offspring, and it will reproduce more and and through reproduction,
the beneficial mutation spreads and eventually becomes dominant and the
bad mutations disappear. Um all right. And the third thing
is is as mutations occur and spread over long periods
of time, they cause new species to form. So over
(03:14):
the course of millions of years, the process of mutation
and natural selection, which we cover in the first two points,
have created every single species that we have in the
world today, from the simplest bacteria to you know, elephants
and dogs and cats and reptiles. And yeah, yeah, I
mean we're talking about his variation, selection and heredity, right
and um and you think about it, even with us,
(03:36):
there are about twenty five species of hominids that came
before us, right, and we just happened to have the
ability to adapt to our environment. Um and and we
have done so pretty successfully. But there is a medical
ethicis named Harvey Fineberg. He has a talk on ted
dot com and it's called are We Ready for a
New Evolution? And he has talked about this this specific
(03:59):
conditions for us evolving as humans, not necessarily talking about
our animals or bacteria or anything else. Um. And he
wants to talk really about what our future might hold
in terms of evolution. He says that there are three
different ways we could go. Yeah, because it basically comes
down to these three key facts of evolution that we discussed,
whether or not they're still relevant in modern human culture
(04:22):
or if we've managed to sort of elbow them out
of the conversation. Yeah. So, um, Like, one basic idea
is if if we have through medicine managed to preserve
a lot of genes that would otherwise otherwise be selected out,
in other words, harmful mutations or or or just traits
that would that we would eventually improve upon and and
(04:44):
would be again elbowed out of the evolutionary conversation. Yeah,
he's talking about the possibility that we might not evolve anymore,
right because as you say, we have, we've sort of
tinkered enough that we've, um, we've sort of flatlining as
a species, right right, Um. And then he's also talking
about how we have made our environment adapt to us
rather than us adapt to it. Right. It's the idea
(05:07):
that it's like, oh, the world's getting hot, or let's
create air conditioning or let's you know, we even in
our more drastic, hilarious and tragic examples where we talk
about geoengineering or planet hacking, things like like like you know,
tinkering with the atmosphere to reverse global climate changes, right, right,
(05:27):
even with China and the Olympics, right when they were
trying to change the weather by shooting. Um was it
wasn't missiles, but it was some sort of munition up
into the air that would make it rain. So yes,
we're we're um, we're manipulating our our environment all the time, right, um.
And then uh. He also says that we're so interspersed
(05:48):
that there's very little isolation and populations now that would
allow for the conditions of evolution. It's kind of like
a Richie Rich scenario or something like the kid who
has everything and doesn't have to grow up and maybe
confusing involve and grow up arrested development as as sort
of yeah, I guess you know. It's Um, it's the
idea that, no, we don't have to adapt to the
(06:09):
world around us because the world around us doesn't touch us.
We're insulated in this bubble Umchi rich. Yeah, and it
doesn't matter. You know. It's like I'm not that smart,
but I got all this money, right, so you know,
I'm good to go, right. And then the second thing
he talks about this, the second route we could take
is just the traditional evolution. In other words, evolution is
a juggernaut. You cannot stop it in somewhere or another.
It's going to continue. And he says, particularly if we
(06:30):
colonize planets, right, yeah, we're sending people to other plant
and of course we could really go off in a
tangent here. But instead we'll just say see the episode
titled the Werewolf Principle that we did about adapting humans
for space, because yeah, there's this whole idea as we
send people out to colonize distant worlds. We certainly have
the the sci fi storybook idea of terraforming planet to
(06:53):
make it just like Earth, which is it, which is
again ties back into that hole. Let's change an environment
to fit us, But realistically there's going to be at
least a little us changing to fit that environment, whether
we want it to happen or not. Right, And he's saying, like,
you know, obviously if we tried to call anize Mars
for example, which you know, this is what we've been
proccupied with a lot in terms of um, you know,
(07:14):
science technology. Um, you know, those are the conditions. You've
got the isolation, you have this environment that is new
to us, so you know you'd have to evolve in
someone like and at the very basic level, if there
were minimum physical requirements to colonize another planet, you're automatically
selecting for those minimum requirements. Yeah, yeah, absolutely right. And
(07:35):
then the big one, which is obviously the one that
he's very interested in talking about is called new evolution, yes,
which we are going to get to right after this
quick break. This presentation is brought to you by Intel
sponsors of Tomorrow. All Right, we're back and we're ready
(07:58):
for the neo evolution. Okay, we are finally ready. Let
the evolution begin. All right? What is he talking about?
This guy? That's hard you fine, Bert. He's talking about
new evolution as being UM guided and chosen by us.
So what he's saying is that we are at a
point technologically where we can begin to tinker with our
(08:19):
own genes and select for ourselves, so we no longer
need this randomness. We we can sit there and say, okay,
self directed evolution, let's do this. Um. And he's even saying,
you can see this in very basic ways, where people
are choosing to have more females than males. Right because
we know we can do this, we can choose the
gender of a child. Um. And he's saying, like, let's
(08:42):
let's look at this in a more specific way. Let's
look at genetic changes. Let's talk about taking out diseases
like diabetes and cancer in your genes so that your
children's genes could be a better, a little bit more
fit for their environment, um they would be healthier. And
then he's talking about something called the one thousand dollar
human genome, which I think is really an interesting concept.
(09:05):
We all know about the Human Genome project. This was
like a twelve year project UM two point seven billion
dollars and they were able to um decode the human
genome and it's had huge implications all over the place.
But he's saying that today today you can have a
complete sequence of the three billion base payers of the
(09:26):
human genome for just twenty dollars in one week. I mean,
you're talking about the comparison there. And this is what
we're seeing here is that technology, just like your TV right,
becomes cheaper over the years. So what he's saying basically
is and no time at all, the costs will be
down to a thousand dollars. You can sequence your own
human genome, and then after that pretty much becomes available
(09:46):
to anyone. So I can go in sequence my human
genome and or my genome and see what might be
in my children's future or what I might even be
susceptible to and start to tinker with that. Now it's
or to treat that those diseases now, which is really interesting.
So this is what he's talking about in terms of
neo evolution, is that we are genetically driving the ship
(10:12):
here rather than nature. Right, we are taking the steering
wheel away from natural selection and all these other properties.
Not to personify evolution done in the past a little bit,
just sort of in the in the name of storytelling. Well,
you know, metaphors help us understand, right, so at least
it does for me. Um. So he's saying that technology
can make this happen. He's talking about doctors Francis Arnold
(10:34):
and Willem Stemmer and the fact that they have been
able to create desirable properties in proteins and cells. And
this again is this directed evolution, um, and which they
synthetically harness the power of natural selection to evolve proteins
or rna to again create desirable properties not found in nature.
(10:55):
And then he points to another person named Shinya Yamanaka,
who in two thousand and seven discover how to tinker
with human skin cells so that they behave like embryonic
stem cells. This is huge because that could potentially morph
into things like heart and nerve cells. You could repel
repair yourself on a number of levels just with these
human cells and this and this, and instantly flows into
(11:17):
a number of ideas we've discussed before, such as the
idea of defeating death or at least putting it off
for nine centuries. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And the podcast
nine Birthday Candles, we talk about this guy named Aubrey
De Gray who is a biogenerontologist, and in a very
similar way, he's saying that it's very possible for us
to extend our lives. We can very now, very it's
(11:39):
very possible for a fifty year old man now to
be able to extend his life significantly, maybe even five
hundred years, if we are able to use these therapies
that are available to us. UM, So all be de Gray, Um,
Harvey Feinberg, they're talking the same thing, really, but just
different ways. Harvey Feinberg is just bringing a bigger question
into the picture, which is evolution, which is, you know,
(12:01):
are we going to get to the point where we
can so well manipulate our environment and ourselves that it
becomes we become the evolution, but we become the catalyst
for it, which is an interesting question, it is. And
and also just like what is the end picture, because
when when I think of us changing ourselves to meet
our own ends, I instantly think of of like people
(12:23):
have had tremendous amounts of plastic surgery, you know, and
and granted hopefully you would have more of an ethical
guidance system when it comes to choosing our genetic destinies
and the genetic destiny of the of the species. Well
we're talking about here is like a utopian version or
a dystopian version, right, or just a really mismanaged version
(12:46):
where you know, where people make sort of you know,
surface level choices that have severe ramifications. Well, I mean
the question is for me, I thought, well, okay, you
can you can probably uh steer the ship so to speak,
for a certain amount of time. But evolution, particularly in
um bacteria viruses, those are gonna going to continue to mutate.
(13:10):
This is what I think at least. But then I
saw that there's an article UM that was talking about
professor Floyd Romesburg and he looked at superbugs resistance to
antibotics like E. Coli, and he actually found that you
can you can stop evolution in certain strains, which is
really interesting. He was, I mean, in order to evolve,
(13:32):
organisms have to mutate, right, uh So they turn on
the mutation process when they're threatened with extension. We see this,
that we see this. This is why cancer cells are
so aggressive sometimes, right, because they're they're turning on this
sort of ancient pattern and trying to vanquished the disease um,
they're actually ending up splitting more and more self. Uh So,
(13:53):
Romesburg reason that since mutations can be turned on full force,
perhaps they could be shut off as well, and doing so,
he says, would put a halt to evolution. Wow, an
interesting prospect. Because mutation is responsible for evolution, are the
underlying causes of cancer and aging. So he says, evolution
is not an unstoppable force. There is a biochemistry underlying,
and it is subject to intervention. So I mean, can
(14:17):
we be all The question is could we be all
over evolution all the time in order to control every
single variation um instance out there. So I don't think
that you you could, as a species control evolution. This
is my take on it. Yeah. I mean it just
also sound like anytime we talk about controlling of evolution,
I mean we're still talking about either keeping it, keeping
(14:39):
things as they are, or we're basically tweaking things as
they are to become an idealized version of what they are,
like a best guest, best case scenario for for the
species as it is today, instead of allowing the continued
evolution of the species like that, you know that I
don't think we should necessarily look at ourselves as a
finished species. Well, I don't think that. Harvey Feinberg, the
(15:02):
guy he's talking about new evolution, is really talking about
us as as a finished species. In fact, what he's
saying is that, I mean, his his real argument is
that you could take this one hundred thousand year process
of evolution that you see in humans and boil it
down to one hundred years, and so you begin to
select for traits like you could have the fast twitch
muscle if you wanted to, and your child which would
(15:23):
allow you to run faster and longer. Um that there
are certain things that we can twinker tinker with, But
the problem for me becomes the question of like are
we talking about trans humanism or are we talking about eugenics?
Um it can get a little dark, indeed, And I
mean also it's like, I like I think of things
like like what if the next phase of actual evolution
(15:45):
would be the the consciousness, uh, the illusion of consciousness
fades away. Then you know, then what are we doing
by preventing that? Maybe that we would be better off
if that was allowed to take place. But of course
we've talked about I mean, if you're saying the illusion
of conscious this is what has driven us quite a
bit species, right, because we always need a story, um,
and there's this the mystery, right right. So yeah, so
(16:07):
maybe it's preventing us from from just turning into smoke. Yes,
from on a semantic level anyway, Um, yeah, I mean,
and I mean a lot of the utopian and dystopian
ideas pretty much speak for themselves, like the idea of
us becoming uh, you know, twisted monsters, or or are
we becoming this perfect you know race of of idealized
(16:31):
twenty one century humans, right, we'll become just um, taller
and nicer. Yeah, it's a possibility. I instantly think to
the work works of both Richard K. Morgan and Ian
and Banks. They both have sci fi stores in which
they have individuals who, through science have virtually don't have
to worry about disease anymore. But they get bored so
(16:53):
it's like among the sort of uh risk taking set,
they'll they'll intentionally um get the flu just so they
can experience it. Almost like we're a recreational drug. Well
exactly recreational drug. It's kind of like the last high
left to them is to well, I'm going to contract
this flu and and to see what it's like flu
(17:14):
for fun. That's fascinating. Yeah. So, I mean there is
the the idea that that humans need, you know, we
need strife. We need strife to to feel compassion and
to and to to make us, you know, do the
things that make us great. And I'm pretty sure that
viruses are always going to be there to help us.
Without the viruses are not going to stop evolving. No,
(17:34):
So there's that there's that factor to consider as well.
That's right. Well, there you go. We've got some new evolution.
Are you ready for it? And are you ready for
some listener email? Yes? Well I do have some listener email.
Actually these are not emails. These are from our Facebook
page where more and more people tend to comment there,
and both methods are valid, but here're a few. Rachel
(17:57):
writes and says, hey, guys, I'm halfway through your podcast
you're so ain earth links so she had to stop
halfway through the contact. And I like that. And one
of you brought up the theory that we may be
living in a matrix type type world. Isn't it the
case that if at every point of our lives we
are dreaming, then the word dream becomes synonymous with reality
and we are simply playing a semantic game. For a
(18:18):
dream to be a dream, we have to eventually become
aware that it is a synthetic reality. So if we
live inside a giant illusion, say the matrix that we
never wake up from, isn't the matrix just plain old reality?
The question is the red one or the blue one?
Which one do you want? I forget which one he took,
but now these are these are valid questions. It's really interesting, um,
(18:42):
And I like the idea that someone would yeah, because
part of what we do with these episodes, I feel
like is we're stirring the imagination through science, through ponderings
about trying well. I think we're doing it, stir in
my mind and stirring these listeners mine. Um. We also
heard from Thomas. Thomas writes in to say I just
listened to the Day of the Dolphin podcast, not one
(19:05):
mention of Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
not one exclamation point at captain by the way, I
love the podcast and it is awesome on fifteen and
I live in Texas and I listen all the time. Sweet.
Yeah that we did. Yeah, we kind of missed the
missed the boat. I'm making a Hitchhiker's Guide reference. I
love that we have younger listeners too, and they always
(19:25):
have really interesting insights and good critiques. Yea that my
main experience with fifteen year olds just uh through the
ones that are our listeners, and it makes me think
that all fifteen year olds are pretty smart and pretty cool. Yeah.
We also heard from Edmundo, and Edmundo writes and to
say just listen to the Math Invention or Discovery podcast,
and I was sort of surprised you didn't cover what
(19:46):
Dan Everett had to say about the Paraha and the
apparent difficulty in teaching them how to do basic mathematical equations.
Their language only has two numbers, one and two, but
even that is in dispute, as there is a strong
argument that they just indicate a quote small amount versus
a quote bigger amount. Is this indicative of mathematics being
(20:09):
a human construct or that the Paraha language socialization restricts
innate mathematical capabilities to such a degree that reacquiring such
a capable capabilities is extremely difficult. That's an interesting question,
particularly since we're looking at it through the lens of
our language, in our system of calculations. So you have
(20:29):
to wonder for for that culture, is it a problem
at all? Do you know what I'm saying? If that,
if that's their reference material, Um, yeah, I don't know.
There's there's something there that we need to scratch out.
I think it's an interesting way of looking at the
world around you though, that everything is perhaps either a
small amount or a bigger amount. It's kind of like
only viewing films as Coen Brothers films and other films.
(20:55):
It makes things a little simple, and we know that
makes happiness when things are simple, right, and we that's
one of the reports out there. I don't know. Yeah, well,
let me make it simple to our listeners. If you
want to uh touch base with us about virtually any
topic that we've covered UH or might cover in the future,
or just some cool science that happens to be popping
around your your your headspace. Then drop in at Facebook
(21:18):
or Twitter. We are blow the Mind on both of those,
and you can always drop us an email at blow
the Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be sure
to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And
we're looking at the future again. That's weird. It's like
we're letting our futurist flag fly again. Yeah, well we
(00:26):
have to. I mean that we're talking about going to
the edge of what's possible, and the edge of what's
possible generally lines up with the edge of what has
happened and what's going to happen in the future. So
I have a question for you. Yes, are you ready
for the neo evolution? I don't know, that's a really
intimidating question. Yeah, especially when I say it like that. Huh.
I would probably yell ya if it was like, you know,
(00:46):
like a DJ yelling it, because it sounds like the
kind of thing you would hear, like, are you ready? Yeah?
Are you ready for the neo evolution? And then everybody
goes yeah, but yeah, are the Beatles? Yeah? Are you
ready for evlution? All right, so obviously we're gonna be
talking about evolution today, specifically new evolution as defined by
(01:07):
one guy. But before we get to that, let's talk
a little bit about what is evolution. Yeah, let's go
ahead and hammer this out, um. And I'm drawing from
how Stuff Works own article how Evolution Works, which is
a great read, especially if you don't understand evolution, or
if you find yourself in the familiar situation of thinking
(01:27):
you understand something that is so talked about, but but
you're not really sure on the the finer points of it.
It lays it out really nicely, like most How Stuff
Works articles handle a topic, but basically it breaks down
to three essential parts. First part is that it's possible
for the DNA of an organism to occasionally change or mutate,
And a mutation changes the DNA of an organism in
(01:49):
a way that affects its offspring, either immediately or several
generations down the line. So that's the first condition, right.
The second one, the change brought about by a mute patient,
is either beneficial, harmful, or neutral. I think I've hammered
on this before, but the whole the word de evolved
or devolved, like the idea that oh in a post
(02:11):
apocalyptic movie, people devolved in the monsters and Chud's and
they did not go backward. Right, there's evolution doesn't go backwards.
Evolution always goes forward. It's possible cases very rare. But yeah,
but but but evolution does. But no, evolution doesn't really
go backwards. It's like it'll it's it's altering, but it's
(02:31):
it's moving forward like it's well for adaptation is what
I'm talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's moving forward and adapting,
all right. So, yeah, it can be beneficial, it can
be harmful, it can be neutral. It's still evolution. If
the change is harmful, then it's unlikely that the offspring
will survive to reproduce, so the mutation dies and goes nowhere.
If the change is beneficial, then it's likely that the
(02:53):
offspring will do better than the offspring uh, then the
other offspring, and it will reproduce more and and through reproduction,
the beneficial mutation spreads and eventually becomes dominant and the
bad mutations disappear. Um all right. And the third thing
is is as mutations occur and spread over long periods
of time, they cause new species to form. So over
(03:14):
the course of millions of years, the process of mutation
and natural selection, which we cover in the first two points,
have created every single species that we have in the
world today, from the simplest bacteria to you know, elephants
and dogs and cats and reptiles. And yeah, yeah, I
mean we're talking about his variation, selection and heredity, right
and um and you think about it, even with us,
(03:36):
there are about twenty five species of hominids that came
before us, right, and we just happened to have the
ability to adapt to our environment. Um and and we
have done so pretty successfully. But there is a medical
ethicis named Harvey Fineberg. He has a talk on ted
dot com and it's called are We Ready for a
New Evolution? And he has talked about this this specific
(03:59):
conditions for us evolving as humans, not necessarily talking about
our animals or bacteria or anything else. Um. And he
wants to talk really about what our future might hold
in terms of evolution. He says that there are three
different ways we could go. Yeah, because it basically comes
down to these three key facts of evolution that we discussed,
whether or not they're still relevant in modern human culture
(04:22):
or if we've managed to sort of elbow them out
of the conversation. Yeah. So, um, Like, one basic idea
is if if we have through medicine managed to preserve
a lot of genes that would otherwise otherwise be selected out,
in other words, harmful mutations or or or just traits
that would that we would eventually improve upon and and
(04:44):
would be again elbowed out of the evolutionary conversation. Yeah,
he's talking about the possibility that we might not evolve anymore,
right because as you say, we have, we've sort of
tinkered enough that we've, um, we've sort of flatlining as
a species, right right, Um. And then he's also talking
about how we have made our environment adapt to us
rather than us adapt to it. Right. It's the idea
(05:07):
that it's like, oh, the world's getting hot, or let's
create air conditioning or let's you know, we even in
our more drastic, hilarious and tragic examples where we talk
about geoengineering or planet hacking, things like like like you know,
tinkering with the atmosphere to reverse global climate changes, right, right,
(05:27):
even with China and the Olympics, right when they were
trying to change the weather by shooting. Um was it
wasn't missiles, but it was some sort of munition up
into the air that would make it rain. So yes,
we're we're um, we're manipulating our our environment all the time, right, um.
And then uh. He also says that we're so interspersed
(05:48):
that there's very little isolation and populations now that would
allow for the conditions of evolution. It's kind of like
a Richie Rich scenario or something like the kid who
has everything and doesn't have to grow up and maybe
confusing involve and grow up arrested development as as sort
of yeah, I guess you know. It's Um, it's the
idea that, no, we don't have to adapt to the
(06:09):
world around us because the world around us doesn't touch us.
We're insulated in this bubble Umchi rich. Yeah, and it
doesn't matter. You know. It's like I'm not that smart,
but I got all this money, right, so you know,
I'm good to go, right. And then the second thing
he talks about this, the second route we could take
is just the traditional evolution. In other words, evolution is
a juggernaut. You cannot stop it in somewhere or another.
It's going to continue. And he says, particularly if we
(06:30):
colonize planets, right, yeah, we're sending people to other plant
and of course we could really go off in a
tangent here. But instead we'll just say see the episode
titled the Werewolf Principle that we did about adapting humans
for space, because yeah, there's this whole idea as we
send people out to colonize distant worlds. We certainly have
the the sci fi storybook idea of terraforming planet to
(06:53):
make it just like Earth, which is it, which is
again ties back into that hole. Let's change an environment
to fit us, But realistically there's going to be at
least a little us changing to fit that environment, whether
we want it to happen or not. Right, And he's saying, like,
you know, obviously if we tried to call anize Mars
for example, which you know, this is what we've been
proccupied with a lot in terms of um, you know,
(07:14):
science technology. Um, you know, those are the conditions. You've
got the isolation, you have this environment that is new
to us, so you know you'd have to evolve in
someone like and at the very basic level, if there
were minimum physical requirements to colonize another planet, you're automatically
selecting for those minimum requirements. Yeah, yeah, absolutely right. And
(07:35):
then the big one, which is obviously the one that
he's very interested in talking about is called new evolution, yes,
which we are going to get to right after this
quick break. This presentation is brought to you by Intel
sponsors of Tomorrow. All Right, we're back and we're ready
(07:58):
for the neo evolution. Okay, we are finally ready. Let
the evolution begin. All right? What is he talking about?
This guy? That's hard you fine, Bert. He's talking about
new evolution as being UM guided and chosen by us.
So what he's saying is that we are at a
point technologically where we can begin to tinker with our
(08:19):
own genes and select for ourselves, so we no longer
need this randomness. We we can sit there and say, okay,
self directed evolution, let's do this. Um. And he's even saying,
you can see this in very basic ways, where people
are choosing to have more females than males. Right because
we know we can do this, we can choose the
gender of a child. Um. And he's saying, like, let's
(08:42):
let's look at this in a more specific way. Let's
look at genetic changes. Let's talk about taking out diseases
like diabetes and cancer in your genes so that your
children's genes could be a better, a little bit more
fit for their environment, um they would be healthier. And
then he's talking about something called the one thousand dollar
human genome, which I think is really an interesting concept.
(09:05):
We all know about the Human Genome project. This was
like a twelve year project UM two point seven billion
dollars and they were able to um decode the human
genome and it's had huge implications all over the place.
But he's saying that today today you can have a
complete sequence of the three billion base payers of the
(09:26):
human genome for just twenty dollars in one week. I mean,
you're talking about the comparison there. And this is what
we're seeing here is that technology, just like your TV right,
becomes cheaper over the years. So what he's saying basically
is and no time at all, the costs will be
down to a thousand dollars. You can sequence your own
human genome, and then after that pretty much becomes available
(09:46):
to anyone. So I can go in sequence my human
genome and or my genome and see what might be
in my children's future or what I might even be
susceptible to and start to tinker with that. Now it's
or to treat that those diseases now, which is really interesting.
So this is what he's talking about in terms of
neo evolution, is that we are genetically driving the ship
(10:12):
here rather than nature. Right, we are taking the steering
wheel away from natural selection and all these other properties.
Not to personify evolution done in the past a little bit,
just sort of in the in the name of storytelling. Well,
you know, metaphors help us understand, right, so at least
it does for me. Um. So he's saying that technology
can make this happen. He's talking about doctors Francis Arnold
(10:34):
and Willem Stemmer and the fact that they have been
able to create desirable properties in proteins and cells. And
this again is this directed evolution, um, and which they
synthetically harness the power of natural selection to evolve proteins
or rna to again create desirable properties not found in nature.
(10:55):
And then he points to another person named Shinya Yamanaka,
who in two thousand and seven discover how to tinker
with human skin cells so that they behave like embryonic
stem cells. This is huge because that could potentially morph
into things like heart and nerve cells. You could repel
repair yourself on a number of levels just with these
human cells and this and this, and instantly flows into
(11:17):
a number of ideas we've discussed before, such as the
idea of defeating death or at least putting it off
for nine centuries. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And the podcast
nine Birthday Candles, we talk about this guy named Aubrey
De Gray who is a biogenerontologist, and in a very
similar way, he's saying that it's very possible for us
to extend our lives. We can very now, very it's
(11:39):
very possible for a fifty year old man now to
be able to extend his life significantly, maybe even five
hundred years, if we are able to use these therapies
that are available to us. UM, So all be de Gray, Um,
Harvey Feinberg, they're talking the same thing, really, but just
different ways. Harvey Feinberg is just bringing a bigger question
into the picture, which is evolution, which is, you know,
(12:01):
are we going to get to the point where we
can so well manipulate our environment and ourselves that it
becomes we become the evolution, but we become the catalyst
for it, which is an interesting question, it is. And
and also just like what is the end picture, because
when when I think of us changing ourselves to meet
our own ends, I instantly think of of like people
(12:23):
have had tremendous amounts of plastic surgery, you know, and
and granted hopefully you would have more of an ethical
guidance system when it comes to choosing our genetic destinies
and the genetic destiny of the of the species. Well
we're talking about here is like a utopian version or
a dystopian version, right, or just a really mismanaged version
(12:46):
where you know, where people make sort of you know,
surface level choices that have severe ramifications. Well, I mean
the question is for me, I thought, well, okay, you
can you can probably uh steer the ship so to speak,
for a certain amount of time. But evolution, particularly in
um bacteria viruses, those are gonna going to continue to mutate.
(13:10):
This is what I think at least. But then I
saw that there's an article UM that was talking about
professor Floyd Romesburg and he looked at superbugs resistance to
antibotics like E. Coli, and he actually found that you
can you can stop evolution in certain strains, which is
really interesting. He was, I mean, in order to evolve,
(13:32):
organisms have to mutate, right, uh So they turn on
the mutation process when they're threatened with extension. We see this,
that we see this. This is why cancer cells are
so aggressive sometimes, right, because they're they're turning on this
sort of ancient pattern and trying to vanquished the disease um,
they're actually ending up splitting more and more self. Uh So,
(13:53):
Romesburg reason that since mutations can be turned on full force,
perhaps they could be shut off as well, and doing so,
he says, would put a halt to evolution. Wow, an
interesting prospect. Because mutation is responsible for evolution, are the
underlying causes of cancer and aging. So he says, evolution
is not an unstoppable force. There is a biochemistry underlying,
and it is subject to intervention. So I mean, can
(14:17):
we be all The question is could we be all
over evolution all the time in order to control every
single variation um instance out there. So I don't think
that you you could, as a species control evolution. This
is my take on it. Yeah. I mean it just
also sound like anytime we talk about controlling of evolution,
I mean we're still talking about either keeping it, keeping
(14:39):
things as they are, or we're basically tweaking things as
they are to become an idealized version of what they are,
like a best guest, best case scenario for for the
species as it is today, instead of allowing the continued
evolution of the species like that, you know that I
don't think we should necessarily look at ourselves as a
finished species. Well, I don't think that. Harvey Feinberg, the
(15:02):
guy he's talking about new evolution, is really talking about
us as as a finished species. In fact, what he's
saying is that, I mean, his his real argument is
that you could take this one hundred thousand year process
of evolution that you see in humans and boil it
down to one hundred years, and so you begin to
select for traits like you could have the fast twitch
muscle if you wanted to, and your child which would
(15:23):
allow you to run faster and longer. Um that there
are certain things that we can twinker tinker with, But
the problem for me becomes the question of like are
we talking about trans humanism or are we talking about eugenics?
Um it can get a little dark, indeed, And I
mean also it's like, I like I think of things
like like what if the next phase of actual evolution
(15:45):
would be the the consciousness, uh, the illusion of consciousness
fades away. Then you know, then what are we doing
by preventing that? Maybe that we would be better off
if that was allowed to take place. But of course
we've talked about I mean, if you're saying the illusion
of conscious this is what has driven us quite a
bit species, right, because we always need a story, um,
and there's this the mystery, right right. So yeah, so
(16:07):
maybe it's preventing us from from just turning into smoke. Yes,
from on a semantic level anyway, Um, yeah, I mean,
and I mean a lot of the utopian and dystopian
ideas pretty much speak for themselves, like the idea of
us becoming uh, you know, twisted monsters, or or are
we becoming this perfect you know race of of idealized
(16:31):
twenty one century humans, right, we'll become just um, taller
and nicer. Yeah, it's a possibility. I instantly think to
the work works of both Richard K. Morgan and Ian
and Banks. They both have sci fi stores in which
they have individuals who, through science have virtually don't have
to worry about disease anymore. But they get bored so
(16:53):
it's like among the sort of uh risk taking set,
they'll they'll intentionally um get the flu just so they
can experience it. Almost like we're a recreational drug. Well
exactly recreational drug. It's kind of like the last high
left to them is to well, I'm going to contract
this flu and and to see what it's like flu
(17:14):
for fun. That's fascinating. Yeah. So, I mean there is
the the idea that that humans need, you know, we
need strife. We need strife to to feel compassion and
to and to to make us, you know, do the
things that make us great. And I'm pretty sure that
viruses are always going to be there to help us.
Without the viruses are not going to stop evolving. No,
(17:34):
So there's that there's that factor to consider as well.
That's right. Well, there you go. We've got some new evolution.
Are you ready for it? And are you ready for
some listener email? Yes? Well I do have some listener email.
Actually these are not emails. These are from our Facebook
page where more and more people tend to comment there,
and both methods are valid, but here're a few. Rachel
(17:57):
writes and says, hey, guys, I'm halfway through your podcast
you're so ain earth links so she had to stop
halfway through the contact. And I like that. And one
of you brought up the theory that we may be
living in a matrix type type world. Isn't it the
case that if at every point of our lives we
are dreaming, then the word dream becomes synonymous with reality
and we are simply playing a semantic game. For a
(18:18):
dream to be a dream, we have to eventually become
aware that it is a synthetic reality. So if we
live inside a giant illusion, say the matrix that we
never wake up from, isn't the matrix just plain old reality?
The question is the red one or the blue one?
Which one do you want? I forget which one he took,
but now these are these are valid questions. It's really interesting, um,
(18:42):
And I like the idea that someone would yeah, because
part of what we do with these episodes, I feel
like is we're stirring the imagination through science, through ponderings
about trying well. I think we're doing it, stir in
my mind and stirring these listeners mine. Um. We also
heard from Thomas. Thomas writes in to say I just
listened to the Day of the Dolphin podcast, not one
(19:05):
mention of Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
not one exclamation point at captain by the way, I
love the podcast and it is awesome on fifteen and
I live in Texas and I listen all the time. Sweet.
Yeah that we did. Yeah, we kind of missed the
missed the boat. I'm making a Hitchhiker's Guide reference. I
love that we have younger listeners too, and they always
(19:25):
have really interesting insights and good critiques. Yea that my
main experience with fifteen year olds just uh through the
ones that are our listeners, and it makes me think
that all fifteen year olds are pretty smart and pretty cool. Yeah.
We also heard from Edmundo, and Edmundo writes and to
say just listen to the Math Invention or Discovery podcast,
and I was sort of surprised you didn't cover what
(19:46):
Dan Everett had to say about the Paraha and the
apparent difficulty in teaching them how to do basic mathematical equations.
Their language only has two numbers, one and two, but
even that is in dispute, as there is a strong
argument that they just indicate a quote small amount versus
a quote bigger amount. Is this indicative of mathematics being
(20:09):
a human construct or that the Paraha language socialization restricts
innate mathematical capabilities to such a degree that reacquiring such
a capable capabilities is extremely difficult. That's an interesting question,
particularly since we're looking at it through the lens of
our language, in our system of calculations. So you have
(20:29):
to wonder for for that culture, is it a problem
at all? Do you know what I'm saying? If that,
if that's their reference material, Um, yeah, I don't know.
There's there's something there that we need to scratch out.
I think it's an interesting way of looking at the
world around you though, that everything is perhaps either a
small amount or a bigger amount. It's kind of like
only viewing films as Coen Brothers films and other films.
(20:55):
It makes things a little simple, and we know that
makes happiness when things are simple, right, and we that's
one of the reports out there. I don't know. Yeah, well,
let me make it simple to our listeners. If you
want to uh touch base with us about virtually any
topic that we've covered UH or might cover in the future,
or just some cool science that happens to be popping
around your your your headspace. Then drop in at Facebook
(21:18):
or Twitter. We are blow the Mind on both of those,
and you can always drop us an email at blow
the Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be sure
to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com