Most people don’t fully understand evolution. Sponsored by Hostinger – visit https://ve42.co/hostingern8n and use the code VERITASIUM to get an extra discount on top of the sale prices.
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0:00 Why does poop smell bad?
2:51 The Beginning Life
7:15 What is gene mutation?
8:01 Simulating Evolution
13:25 How natural selection works
16:39 What do we pass on?
19:40 Kin Selection
22:04 The Selfish Gene
25:35 It’s all a simulation
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A big thanks to Dr. Jack Szostak at the University of Chicago, Dr. John Sutherland at Cambridge University, Dr. Joanna Masel at the University of Arizona & Dr. Gerald Joyce at the Salk Institute for their expertise and help with the video.
And a huge thank you to Joe Hanson from @besmart for his help!
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Check out Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene here – https://ve42.co/SGRD
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References: https://ve42.co/SelfishGeneRefs
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Writers: Gregor Čavlović, Casper Mebius, Daniel Leonard & Derek Muller
Producer & Director: Gregor Čavlović
Editor: Peter Nelson
Camera Operator: Andrew Abballe
Animators: Fabio Albertelli, Andrew Neet, Emma Wright & Peter Nelson
Illustrator: Jakub Misiek
Simulations: Callum Cuttle
Researchers: Aakash Singh Bagga & Callum Cuttle
Thumbnail Designers: Abdallah Rabah, Ren Hurley & Ben Powell
Production Team: Josh Pitt, Matthew Cavanagh, Anna Milkovic & Zoe Heron
Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius
Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Storyblocks
Music from Epidemic Sound








Try teaching evolution to Phoebe Buffay
“ There is no way to use adaptation as the central principle of evolution without recourse to a predetermination of the states of nature to which this adaptation occurs, yet there seems no way to choose these states of nature except by reference to already existing organisms .[…]
Hidden in adaptive analyses are a number of assumptions that go back to theistic views of nature […]
The problematic [of finding the adaptation] is an inheritance from the concept of the world as having been designed by a rational creator so that all aspects of it have a function and can be rationalized.”
[…]
“By allowing the theorist to postulate various combinations of problems to which manifest traits are optimal solutions, the adaptationist program makes of adaptation a metaphysical postulate that not only cannot be refuted but is necessarily confirmed by every observation . This is the caricature that was immanent in Darwin's insight that evolution is the product of natural selection.[…]
Without this design analysis Darwinian theory would simply state that the more fit individuals leave more offspring in future generations and would then determine relative fitness from the number of offspring left by different individuals. Since, in a finite world of contingent events, some individuals will, even by chance, leave more offspring than others, there will be a posteriori tautological differences in fitness among individuals. From that, one can only say that evolution occurs because evolution occurs. The design analysis, however, makes it possible to determine fitness a priori , and therefore one can judge the relative adaptation of two forms in the absence of any prior knowledge of their reproductive performances.”
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Quoted from Richard Levins, Richard Charles Lewontin,
“The Dialectical Biologist”, Harvard University Press, 1985, chapter 2: Adaptation, pp. 71-78
Survival of the fittest is a lie, if it was true i wouldnt have depression and ADHD, there is no way those are the best genes out there
Good jeans.
7:22 Where can I purchase a plush replicator? He’s so cute!
16:00 Love the bass drop there, perfect moment.
what about inbred? why does genes not work despite having the same ancestor?
That’s the dumbest shyt I’ve ever heard 😂
I reached the same conclusion learning about evolution, and with the same logic, I wonder, if prions can then be considered another type of living organism?
Next time you think you're exercising free will by buying those cool looking pants, remember that you are being controlled by selfish jeans.