Week 2
Our Evolution Over 20 Million Years
We lost our tails about 20 million years ago. We lost our small brains a few million years ago. Humans are unique, just like every other species. The idea that chimps are our cousins NOT our ancestors is emphasized again and again – maybe someday someone will understand this.
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04:25
1.1 Timelines: Direction? Linear? Logarithmic?
Using timelines (linear and logarithmic) to organize the story of how we got here. Logarithmic timelines have no zero. -
07:21
2.1.2 Timelines: Tails, Thumbs, Agriculture and Cities
How are we humans different from other species and how are we the same? Should we expect these differences to have evolved elsewhere? When did we lose our tails? Superman, Dr Who and Yoda are apes since they don't have tails. When did we get thumbs? When did we start farming and living in cities? -
18:10
2.2.1 Neolithic Revolution
The transition from hunting and gathering to cities and agriculture is called the Neolithic Revolution. It first happened between about 10,000 BC and 3,000 BC. Like humans, ants invented farming, cities and domestication of other species, but ants did it about 50 million years before we did. Does this independent evolution mean that we should expect neolithic revolutions elsewhere in the universe? -
10:48
2.2.2 Human Migration & Tribalism
Human Migration and Tribalism. Guns Germ and Steel by Jared Diamond. Will aliens have an in-group/out-group psychology? The United Nations production of John Lennon's Song "Imagine". It imagines that there is no human out-group. -
11:47
2.2.3 Different Kinds of Humans
Sub-species of chimps, orangutans and humans. How many different kinds of humans are there? Can the science of human DNA differences cure racism? -
10:59
2.2.4 Once We Were Not Alone
Once we were not alone. A soliloquy with Andy the Neanderthal. What do we know about other human species? Our interbreeding with Neanderthals, Denisovans (and Homo sapiens erectus?) shows that we are the same species. They are in us. Therefore they are not extinct. -
11:34
2.2.5 Human Uniqueness
What is a human? How do we compare to chimps and Neanderthals. A list of human uniquenesses. -
17:28
2.2.6 Big Brains
Big brains. The many ways of measuring brains. Our olfactory lobes stink. Why did our brains increase in size by a factor of 3 in 3 million years? Was it fire and cooking? Language? Whatever it was, should we expect it elsewhere? -
10:07
2.2.7 Chimps, Cousins & Ancestors
Chimps are our cousins, not our ancestors. Humans didn't evolve from chimps. Chimps didn't evolve from humans. -
10:23
2.3.1 Science and Racism
Charley argues that the science of human DNA differences could cure racism. Jochen disagrees and argues that those differences would just be weaponized to justify racism -- as they have been in the past. -
06:18
2.4.1 Colin Groves: mammalogist/primatologist
Colin Groves (mammalogist and primatologist) discusses chimp uniqueness, gorillas, orangutans and how to save our closest relatives in the universe. -
05:45
2.4.2 Varsha Pilbrow: physical anthropologist
Varsha Pilbrow (physical anthropologist and expert in ape dentition) explains the importance of human chins. -
05:24
2.4.3 Irene Romero Galago: human geneticist
Irene Romero Galago (human evolutionary geneticist) expects alien life to have "animal equivalents". DNA evidence supports the out-of-Africa model. X-files was her life. Dana Scully was a massive inspiration. If the universe does not have anything else sophisticated in it, that's a big waste of space. -
07:15
2.4.4 David Christian: big historian/Russian historian
David Christian (Big historian, Russian historian). Big history starts with the big bang and its narrative storyline hangs on a sequence of thresholds of increasing complexity. The story of increasing complexity is interesting to my complex human audience, not to cockroaches or protons. -
06:36
2.4.5 Marnie Hughes-Warrington: philosopher/historian
Marnie Hughes-Warrington (philosopher and historiographer). We humans have extended our minds with language and books. We want to extend our ethics beyond human-human interactions and try to include the environment and 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution and try to prepare for an alien encounter. -
28:27
2.5.1 Student Discussion
Bec, Riley and Murray ask questions: Do volcanoes or the development of cities cause science? What are the rules that define species and sub-species? If we could rerun human history would science evolve again? Murray muses on whether humans are "special" "unique" or "exceptional"? What lessons can we draw from the Neolithic revolution? All 3 doubt that science can cure racism. -
02:24
2.5.2 Guns Germs Steel by Jared Diamond
Jared Diamond's "Guns Germs and Steel" is one of his many books that tries to understand human cultural differences. -
03:08
2.5.3 Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Yuval Harari's "Sapiens" and the myths we need to survive. One of those myths seems to be human exceptionalism. If we were able to interbreed with Neanderthals and Denisovans (and maybe even Homo Erectus?) doesn't that mean we are the same species?
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03:17
OFFICIAL VERSION: Sing IMAGINE with your favourite stars & John Lennon | UNICEF
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54:35
Guns Germs And Steel part 1
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17:09
Why humans run the world | Yuval Noah Harari
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04:23
Yuval Noah Harari on Nationalism
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01:06:19
Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past
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06:23
Seven Million Years of Human Evolution
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01:23:13
Whatever Happened to Homo erectus? - Science Talk
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16:26
The evolving story of human evolution | Melanie Chang | TEDxVictoria
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11:24
What’s in the 4% of our DNA that makes us different from chimps?
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03:43
Chimp vs Human! | Memory Test | BBC Earth
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02:22
ABC News, Chimps vs Humans
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02:44
Two Monkeys Were Paid Unequally: Excerpt from Frans de Waal's TED Talk
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection and The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex
by Charles Darwin 1859 and 1871, republished as Darwin 49 Britannica Great Books, University of Chicago, Chicago
Guns, Germs and Steel: the fates of human societies
by Jared Diamond, 1997, Jonathan Cape, London
Sapiens: a brief history of humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari, 2015, Harpur Collins, New York
Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the new science of the human past
by David Reich, 2018, Pantheon, New York