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evolutionary biology

Natural selection as an explanation, including the problem of how cooperation survives it.

FilterEveryone, all time64 from 29 people
Group All Technologists 3Scientists 8Politicians 2Artists & entertainers 1Writers & journalists 7Philosophers 1
Who Everyone NLNick Lane 9 CDCharles Darwin 8 PKPeter Kropotkin 8 DRDavid Reich 7 DHDave Hone 4 MNMartin Nowak 3 ISIlya Sutskever 2 SFSigmund Freud 2 APAda Palmer 1 AIAlex Imas 1 BRBertrand Russell 1 DKDaniel Kahneman 1 EMElon Musk 1 JCJL Collins 1 JHJon Haidt 1 KNKen Norton 1 LSLyman Stone 1 PCPaul Christiano 1 RKRaph Koster 1 RGRobert Greene 1 RSRory Sutherland 1 SWSara Walker 1 SCSean Carroll 1 SHStephen Hawking 1 SWStephen Wolfram 1 SNSteven Novella 1 SYSun Yat-sen 1 TUTim Urban 1 YHYuval Noah Harari 1
When All time Past 1 yearPast 3 yearsPast 5 years
  1. SN

    Steven Novella quoted

    Academic clinical neurologist at Yale School of Medicine

    Our readingEvolutionary biology cannot be explained by physics alone.

    physics

    Their wordsBut I think it should be obvious that you cannot explain evolutionary biology with physics alone.

    ↗About The Author – Steven Novella, MDtheness.com 3rd of 3 in this piece

  2. 3 months earlier
  3. SW

    Stephen Wolfram quoted

    Founder and CEO of Wolfram Research

    Our readingAdaptive evolution tends to achieve even a simple, fixed objective through complicated behavior.

    Their wordsIn other words, adaptive evolution will tend to make even a simple, fixed objective be achieved in a complicated way.

    ↗Games between Programs: The Ruliology of Competitionwritings.stephenwolfram.com 1st of 2 in this piece

  5. AI

    Alex Imas quoted

    Behavioural economist at Chicago Booth

    Our readingNatural selection will strengthen the human preference for other humans rather than erode it, because the people who resist outsourcing their social life are the ones who find mates.

    Their wordsWhich of those two people are going to reproduce, find a mate, all of these sorts of things? I think the answer is kind of clear, right? It's the second one that has the preference for other people.

    ↗The better AI gets, the smaller its share of the economy might get – Alex Imas and Phil Trammellyoutube.com 19th of 33 in this recording

  6. 4 weeks earlier
  7. DR

    David Reich quoted

    Geneticist at Harvard Medical School

    Our readingPeriods of migration are the worst moments to look for natural selection, not the best, because they drown the signal in huge frequency swings.

    Their wordsAnd really from a statistical point of view, what happens at these times of migration is there's just huge fluctuations in frequencies, and these are extremely uninformative times for looking and detecting natural selection.

    ↗David Reich – Bronze Age shock, the Neanderthal puzzle, & the sudden spread of farmingyoutube.com 3rd of 26 in this recording

  9. DR

    David Reich quoted

    Our readingNatural selection in humans has not been quiescent: it is tugging almost every position in the genome in one direction or another, everywhere.

    Their wordsIn fact, multiple analyses we do suggest that the genome is vibrating with natural selection, and uh there's all sorts of weaker effects that are there that would be picked up in larger studies even than we've done. Uh and that uh in fact, almost every position in the DNA is uh correlated to a position that in being dragged in one way or the other uh by natural selection. Instead of being quiescent, natural selection is everywhere.

    ↗David Reich – Bronze Age shock, the Neanderthal puzzle, & the sudden spread of farmingyoutube.com 4th of 26 in this recording

  11. DR

    David Reich quoted

    Our readingFinding no selection in African-Americans over 300 years is not evidence against selection: five generations is simply too short a time to compound.

    America

    Their wordsAnd so one possible explanation for that is just that there's only a handful of generations maybe five over which the natural selection would operate. And so maybe if the selection was 2% a generation you would still only see maybe a 10% compounded effect and there's just not enough time to detect it. But the Bronze Age is not 300 years, it's 3,000 years. It's the power of compound interest and you have enough time to begin to see a strong effect.

    ↗David Reich – Bronze Age shock, the Neanderthal puzzle, & the sudden spread of farmingyoutube.com 7th of 26 in this recording

  13. DR

    David Reich quoted

    Our readingSelection on the genetic predictors of cognitive performance peaked in the Bronze Age and has left no trace at all in the last 2,000 years.

    Their wordsAnd what you see when you look at intelligence is you see that this maxes out in the Bronze Age between 5,000, 4,000, 3,000, 2,000 years ago. And the impact in the last 2,000 years is almost nothing. There's no evidence of natural selection at all.

    ↗David Reich – Bronze Age shock, the Neanderthal puzzle, & the sudden spread of farmingyoutube.com 8th of 26 in this recording

  15. DR

    David Reich quoted

    Our readingThe selection signal on the genetics of schooling is not a European artefact: the same variants predict years of school in China, a population disconnected from Europe for the whole period.

    EuropeChinaeducation

    Their wordsSo we just could not see a way this could happen by chance and once we saw that we really felt quite convinced that this was a real signal and that really somehow there has been natural selection to increase the genetic changes that today manifest themselves as more years of school at predicting more years of schooling.

    ↗David Reich – Bronze Age shock, the Neanderthal puzzle, & the sudden spread of farmingyoutube.com 10th of 26 in this recording

  17. DR

    David Reich quoted

    Our readingThere is more room at the top for every human trait: push selection harder in any direction and the mean would move, at some cost elsewhere.

    Their wordsBut I think it's highly likely that if natural selection was pushed pushed any of these traits in more in one direction than it is, the mean would move.

    ↗David Reich – Bronze Age shock, the Neanderthal puzzle, & the sudden spread of farmingyoutube.com 15th of 26 in this recording

  19. DR

    David Reich quoted

    Our readingA selection signal can be validated without a significance threshold, by measuring how far it is enriched for mutations an entirely independent study says affect a trait.

    Their wordsOur interpretation of this result is that once you slide the statistic above five, essentially all the signals of natural selection are real.

    ↗David Reich – Bronze Age shock, the Neanderthal puzzle, & the sudden spread of farmingyoutube.com 26th of 26 in this recording

  20. 3 months earlier
  21. JC

    JL Collins quoted

    Author of The Simple Path to Wealth…

    Our readingThe desire to work rather than be idle may be an evolved human trait.

    Their wordsI think most people do. I think it may well be hardwired into us through evolution.

    ↗Some Thoughts on Spendingjlcollinsnh.com 3rd of 3 in this piece

  22. 8 weeks earlier
  23. RS

    Rory Sutherland quoted

    Rory Sutherland is vice chairman of Ogilvy UK

    Our readingPeople judge an organisation by the humans they deal with, because judging other people is the task evolution equipped them for.

    Their wordsWe don't really have much evolved experience in evaluating postal efficiency, do we? Okay, we have quart of a million half a million years of evolved experience in deciding who to like and trust because for most of our evolutionary, you know, existence, that was one of the most fi five most important questions to get right.

    ↗Marketing Expert: The Playbook Behind Every Great Campaign | Rory Sutherlandyoutube.com 5th of 16 in this recording

  24. 8 days earlier
  25. JH

    Jon Haidt quoted

    Social psychologist at NYU Stern

    Our readingSpirituality is a real part of human nature and central to flourishing, whether or not God exists.

    Their wordsI approach spirituality as a social scientist who believes that whether or not God exists, spirituality is a deep part of human nature, shaped by natural selection and cultural evolution, and central to human flourishing and self-transcendence.

    ↗The Devil's Plan to Ruin the Next Generationafterbabel.com 1st of 3 in this piece

  26. 6 days earlier
  27. IS

    Ilya Sutskever quoted

    Co-founder and chief scientist of Safe Superintelligence Inc.

    Our readingOur built-in emotions were tuned for a world that no longer exists, and hunger is one that now fails to guide us correctly.

    Their wordsI think for example our intuitive feeling of hunger is not succeeding in guiding us correctly in this world with an abundance of food.

    ↗Ilya Sutskever – We're moving from the age of scaling to the age of researchyoutube.com 4th of 28 in this recording

  29. IS

    Ilya Sutskever quoted

    Our readingThat people are good at maths and coding, which evolution never selected for, shows human learning is not a complicated evolutionary prior but something more fundamental.

    Their wordsWhat I meant to say is that language math and coding and especially math and coding suggests that whatever it is that makes people good at learning is probably not so much a complicated prior but something more some fundamental thing.

    ↗Ilya Sutskever – We're moving from the age of scaling to the age of researchyoutube.com 10th of 28 in this recording

  30. 3 months earlier
  31. DH

    Dave Hone quoted

    Palaeontologist and reader in zoology at Queen Mary University of London

    Our readingBeing big pays off every day and is punished in extinctions, which is why body size keeps getting reset rather than climbing forever.

    Their wordsYou're dominant in contests, particularly with conspecifics. If you're trying to win a territory or win mating rights, bigger things usually beat up smaller things. So there's going to be selection favoring them. But then big things don't usually do well in extinction events, so that tends to reset the clock by killing off the big stuff, and then smaller stuff does better again.

    ↗Dave Hone: T-Rex, Dinosaurs, Extinction, Evolution, and Jurassic Park | Lex Fridman Podcast #480youtube.com 8th of 24 in this recording

  33. DH

    Dave Hone quoted

    Our readingWhether an animal hunts in groups cannot be read off its close relatives, so pack-hunting Velociraptor does not follow even if Deinonychus hunted in packs.

    Their wordsThere are various canids that all hunt in groups, but then you've got things like maned wolves, which are effectively solitary. The hyenas. Spotted hyenas are, yeah, these super social animals, but the brown hyena, the striped hyena, and the aardwolf are solitary. So you just can't do group versus solitary off close relatives or anything like that.

    ↗Dave Hone: T-Rex, Dinosaurs, Extinction, Evolution, and Jurassic Park | Lex Fridman Podcast #480youtube.com 13th of 24 in this recording

  35. DH

    Dave Hone quoted

    Our readingEvolution does not perfect anything; organisms are bodge jobs, which is why the human eye has a blind spot and a squid's does not.

    Their wordsI think people think evolution is, like, perfecting things in some way. And they're not. They're bodge jobs, you know? That's why we have a blind spot in our eye, but things like squid don't.

    ↗Dave Hone: T-Rex, Dinosaurs, Extinction, Evolution, and Jurassic Park | Lex Fridman Podcast #480youtube.com 22nd of 24 in this recording

  37. DH

    Dave Hone quoted

    Our readingBirds did not rise from the dinosaurs' ashes: they lived alongside the dinosaurs for a hundred million years before the extinction.

    Their wordsSo birds did not appear as a result of the dinosaurs going extinct. Birds lived alongside the dinosaurs for 100 million years. The birds were not new on the scene, and it's not like, "Oh, the dinosaurs died, and from the ashes rose the birds." No, they've been knocking around forever.

    ↗Dave Hone: T-Rex, Dinosaurs, Extinction, Evolution, and Jurassic Park | Lex Fridman Podcast #480youtube.com 23rd of 24 in this recording

  38. 7 weeks earlier
  39. LS

    Lyman Stone quoted

    Demographer

    Our readingEvolution gave humans no target number of births, because what mattered historically was keeping children alive rather than producing them.

    Their wordsAs a result, natural selection is very unlikely to have produced in humans any predisposition or preference for a certain number of births.

    ↗There Is No Long Decline in Fertilitylymanstone.substack.com 2nd of 5 in this piece

  40. 3 months earlier
  41. KN

    Ken Norton quoted

    Executive coach for product leaders

    Our readingLoneliness is an evolved biological signal that triggers a threat response rather than just an emotional state.

    Their wordsLoneliness is an inherited biological adaptation signal that puts us into a state of threat.

    ↗Product Leadership is Lonelybringthedonuts.com 2nd of 2 in this piece

  42. 10 months earlier
  43. SW

    Sara Walker quoted

    Astrobiologist and theoretical physicist at Arizona State University

    Our readingComputation sits at the top of reality, not at its base: it is something our biosphere built after billions of years of evolution.

    Their wordsThere’s this assumption that computation is at the base of reality, and I see it at the top of reality, not at the base, because I think computation was built by our biosphere. It’s something that happened after many billion years of evolution. It doesn’t happen in every physical object.

    ↗Sara Walker: Physics of Life, Time, Complexity, and Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #433youtube.com 15th of 22 in this recording

  44. 7 weeks earlier
  45. SC

    Sean Carroll quoted

    Theoretical physicist at Johns Hopkins University

    Our readingA language model's apparent mind is mostly our own bias: it predicts text, and leverages our evolved habit of attributing intentionality to anything that acts human.

    LLMs

    Their wordsWhat a large language model is trying to do is to predict text. That’s what it does. And it is leveraging the fact that we human beings for very good evolutionary biology reasons, attribute intentionality and intelligence and agency to things that act like human beings.

    ↗Sean Carroll: General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Black Holes & Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #428youtube.com 13th of 20 in this recording

  46. 5 months earlier
  47. EM

    Elon Musk quoted

    Founded SpaceX in 2002

    Our readingHuman violence is not a human peculiarity: nature is not a peaceful thing, and every living thing in it is trying to kill something else.

    Their wordsPeople think of nature as perhaps some sort of peaceful thing, but in fact it is not. There’s some quite funny Werner Herzog thing where he is in the jungle saying that it’s basically just murder and death in every direction. The plants and animals in the jungle are constantly trying to kill each other every single day, every minute. So it’s not like we’re unusual in that respect.

    ↗Elon Musk: War, AI, Aliens, Politics, Physics, Video Games, and Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #400youtube.com 1st of 23 in this recording

  48. 6 months earlier
  49. TU

    Tim Urban quoted

    Writer and illustrator behind Wait But Why

    Our readingEvolution made human babies effectively premature, since bipedalism shrank pelvises while brains grew larger, forcing late fetal development outside the womb.

    Their wordsThe problem is, when humans went bipedal, our pelvises got smaller, and as humans got smarter, our heads got bigger. So evolution had to get creative. Its solution: all human babies would be premies, born when they were still small enough to pass through a human pelvis.

    ↗10 Thoughts from the Fourth Trimesterwaitbutwhy.com 1st of 3 in this piece

  50. 8 months earlier
  51. NL

    Nick Lane quoted

    Biochemist at University College London

    Our readingOxygen in the atmosphere makes a fresh origin of life impossible, which is why life cannot be starting over in hydrothermal vents today.

    Their wordsIt’s possible it started multiple occasions. There’s two provisos to that. One of them is oxygen makes it impossible really for life to start. So, as soon as we’ve got oxygen in the atmosphere, then life isn’t going to keep starting over.

    ↗Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318youtube.com 1st of 22 in this recording

  53. NL

    Nick Lane quoted

    Our readingThere is no necessary trajectory from simple life to complexity: without photosynthesis or eukaryotes, the planet could have stayed bacteria and nothing else.

    Their wordsSo, there is no necessary trajectory towards great complexity in human beings at the end of it. It’s very easy to imagine that without photosynthesis arising or without eukaryotes arising, that the planet could be full of bacteria and nothing else.

    ↗Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318youtube.com 4th of 22 in this recording

  55. NL

    Nick Lane quoted

    Our readingRe-run Earth a million times and at least a few hundred thousand of those runs give you bacteria again.

    Their wordsI think at the level of bacteria, not much variety. I think we would get how many times you say you want to run it a million times? I would say at least a few hundred thousand will get bacteria again.

    ↗Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318youtube.com 6th of 22 in this recording

  57. NL

    Nick Lane quoted

    Our readingLife on Mars could share a genetic code close to ours with no transfer between the planets, because the beginnings of life are close to inevitable.

    Their wordsSo, it wouldn’t surprise me any longer if we found life on Mars and it had a genetic code that was not very different to the genetic code that we have here without it just being transferred across, there’s some inevitability about the whole of the beginnings of life, in my view.

    ↗Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318youtube.com 7th of 22 in this recording

  59. NL

    Nick Lane quoted

    Our readingOxygenic photosynthesis was the single greatest pollution event in the whole history of the Earth.

    Their wordsSo you’re using the power of the sun to split water, take out the hydrogen, stick it onto CO2, and the oxygen is a waste product and you just throw it out, throw it away. So it’s the single greatest planetary pollution event in the whole history of the earth.

    ↗Nick Lane: Origin of Life, Evolution, Aliens, Biology, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #318youtube.com 8th of 22 in this recording