A Small History of Big Evolutionary Ideas - Robin May

The theory of evolution is often described as the biggest idea in the history of humanity. But evolutionary theory itself has evolved over time, often via landmark contributions from some very unusual characters.
This lecture investigates some of the biggest ideas about evolution, as well as some of the most ill-conceived.
We’ll meet aristocrats and criminals, clergymen and dictators and consider how evolution is as much a product of history as it is of biology.
This lecture was recorded by Robin May on 16 October 2023 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London
Robin is Gresham Professor of Physic.
He is also Chief Scientific Adviser at the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Professor of Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham.
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The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
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[@Scot-i1p]

This was a wonderful lecture to listen to. I enjoyed its interesting content as well as the very fair and engaging professor.

[@ecocentrichomestead6783]

One thing I never see addressed in evolution is that "Random mutations" doesn't mean "Rare" Most mutations in genetics are not really noticeable. Mutations maintain the spread of variation in a trait, they don't drive evolution. Natural selection acts on the variation to guide evolution. Survival of the fittest is on a species level, not the individual level Knowing that most animals that die, do not result in fossils, I believe that extinction may not be as common as seem to be thought. Rather that extinction, one species evolved into another without leaving fossils. WRT the wing of a bird, it would help a reptile jump further even when it was just a flatten limb. As it evolved, the species would be able to glide further and further until it could keep itself of the ground completely..

[@johnking5433]

Your comment doesn't make sense to me. The individuals of a species are collectively termed "a species". It is the individuals who are or aren't fit to successfully reproduce. It is the individuals who die and possibly leave a fossil. Even if a species evolves into another, the individuals still die and possibly leave fossils.

[@usergiodmsilva1983PT]

And that random mutations don't really mean random, but sporadic. There is no such thing as a mathematically random mutations.

[@ThomasKnott]

This video, and the whole series deserve more views. I'm rewatching this, looking forward to seeing the second part of the current series 👏👏

[@jellyemmins2020]

Ive hust come across this, Prof May is very good at holding the lectures. Ive spent all day today watching them. Hoping one day ill go along and watch!

[@eurtunwagens2359]

Excellent lecturer !

[@aminkeykha5546]

سخنرانی خردمندانه و تاثیرگذاری است . سپاسگزار کوشش روزانه ی شما برای فکر کردن منتقدانه هستم .

[@Hiltok]

36:11 Full siblings share 50% DNA, not 25%. For parents Dd & Mm consider a child (let's say of type DM). Now, that child compared to another child who is equally likely to be one of DM Dm dM dm: DM v DM = 100% DM v Dm = 50% DM v dM = 50% DM v dm = 0% The average overlap in DNA between full siblings is 50%.

[@Hiltok]

38:00 For the Bee example: 75% is correct. Parents are D & Mm with offspring types DM and Dm, so each individual offspring will match either 100% (DM v DM or Dm v Dm) or 50% (Dm v Dm or Dm v DM) giving an average match of 75%.

[@togaspin]

😊

[@CipiRipi-in7df]

I respectfully disagree. A child share 50% of his DNA with his father and 50% with his mother. For two siblings, each one share 50% of his DNA with his father and 50% with his mother. You may think that in this case, those kids share between them 50% of DNA. But is not. Because they don't share between the same genes. Kid A may got from his father a different set of genes than his sibling, kid B. Statistically, on average, only about 50% of the genes inherited from their father are the same for both kids. And 50% of the genes are different for each sibling. So, siblings are related 50% (percent of the genes inherited from each parent) of 50% (percent of the inherited genes from each parent that are the same for both kids). Which make 25%. The proof is that while siblings have vague similar appearance traits, they look very distinct from each other.

[@Superiorer]

​@@CipiRipi-in7dfyou are wrong. On average siblings share 50% of their genes. Can be less or more ofcourse due to the random nature in which genes are selected. Tell me how much are half brothers related? They share 50% of their dna with one parent, but from the other parent they obviously do not share genes, thus they are related by 25%. Now being full siblings doubles the relatedness.

[@clancyjames585]

​ @CipiRipi-in7df Superiorer is correct in that you are incorrect. Up to the point where you say 50% is similar between siblings from their mother, and 50% from their father - that's fine. But the total is *NOT* multiplicative - it's not 50% times 50%. Nor is it additive (which would mean 50% + 50% =100%). The correct math is: fraction if genes from mother (50%) * fraction similar between siblings (50%) + fraction if genes from father (50%) * fraction similar between siblings (50%) = 0.5*0.5 + 0.5*0.5 = 0.25+0.25 = 0.5.

[@seazenbones6945]

Thank you for enlightening me on the origin of eugenics. An idea that has been destructive for a century and still influential. My ability to recognise the misunderstanding of others, and to offer a simple alternative has been improved . I’m very grateful. I came to Gresham’s KZbin channel, hoping to deepen my understanding of Cosmology. I stayed, subscribed and have been treated with knowledge that is responsible, respectful, rewarding, entertaining and trustworthy. Thank you. PS. If Gresham’s KZbin channel had a Donate Button, I would occasionally donate. If Gresham had KZbin Memberships, I would probably join.

[@thomasjamison2050]

The idea of eugenics is hardly destructive. People are destructive, particularly ones who had a little knowledge without any serious depth of understanding. Eugenics today is a lot like prohibition. Most people will readily attest to it's end, but if one has every lost a driving license to getting caught driving while intoxicated, they can attest to the remaining operative effects of prohibition still in effect today.

[@jeffg4570]

@@thomasjamison2050 For an interesting connection you could Google: Margaret Sanger, Eugenics and Planned Parenthood.

[@usergiodmsilva1983PT]

We do eugenics every time we select a mate, we do a screening for disease during pregnancy. Eugenics are not the culprit for racism.

[@lkytmryan]

We are expected to believe that genes control everything about us and every living organism that has ever existed, and that despite thousands of years of breeders successfully breeding for desirable traits, that it simply isn’t possible for humans. Also we have to believe that every single trait can be bred except for intelligence, despite ample evidence that there are different intelligence in races around the globe.

[@gbickell]

Fab stuff. Thank you!

[@JJONNYREPP]

A Small History of Big Evolutionary Ideas 1209pm 23.10.23 even that sketch of a tree looks blakean.

[@vladimirp2674]

Scientifically speaking, adaptation plays a pivotal role in the process of evolution itself. I desire to pinpoint, that life originated long ago in waters, fish scales was a predecessor of human skin. Amphibia fins gradually transformed into human leg. Brain size augmented with a hand of time. Crucially, horses species improved to a modern types. Finally, fashion and garments altered. In brief, it is just a few examples. Some of the are only surmises. How fine and tremendously interesting to discover novelty about nature and living creatures.. Sheer joy!

[@idunnobouthat7092]

A lot of armchair intellectuals in this comment section who put way too much confidence in their own reasoning.

[@hoangvu220]

38:00 (ish) so you're saying that the worker bees know (how? do they understand math? statistics?) it's more advantageous to take care of their siblings instead of the queen?

[@richmondshaw1947]

With the 'evolution' of medicine and growth of hospitals the percentage of offspring surviving to adulthood has dramatically increased. Some of the diseases overcome are infective, measles etc, but some ailments are inherited and if fatal, or disabling, they probably wouldn't be passed on. The question I pose is does the system of healthcare in our society have a double edge in that some traits that would be bred out with natural evolution be more present in the future due to the amazing medical care available. Our modern societies have different needs than the preceding medieval ones, for example, where a strong lad who could plough all day or defend his community stoutly would be highly valued whereas today those characteristics are less needed than say abilities with computer programming etc. And healthcare is allowing those with physical weaknesses to survive, with perhaps continued medical help throughout their lives. How will this affect the evolution of humanity? Will populations need more medical help to survive; go to any surgery and you will see ever increasing numbers leave with carrier bags full of medications; unheard of when I was a child. A case could be made that in the past there were no treatments available for some ailments, certainly less so in the case of many cancers. It's a conundrum, with both ethical and moral implications that are not easily resolved.

[@videos_not_found]

Would you be ready to die to help evolution? If not, be part of our lot. That is also evolution: To help to survive others and survive formerly lethal illnesses with smarter ideas.

[@trebledog]

Is the same Galton of the Galton board?

[@joecalandra3169]

John Hunter described an e evolutionary theory very similar to Darwin's about 100 years prior

[@p.bckman2997]

He only offered "half" of the theory: Mutations. He never thought of natural selection, which was the cornerstone of Darwin's and Wallace's theory. When Darwin published his book, the knowledge that flora and fauna had changed through time had been common knowledge in polite circles for a generation.

[@usergiodmsilva1983PT]

The selection part is the important bit. That's why it's on the book's title.

[@ClearerThanMud]

Nice talk overall, but I have one quibble, with the statement at about @36:00 that siblings are 25% related. Siblings are 50% related. Consider a particular gene: you got one copy from your father and one from your mother. Your father had two to choose from; call them A and B. You got either A or B, and so did your brother, so you have a 50% chance of having received the same gene from your father. Same for the copy you got from your mother.

[@CipiRipi-in7df]

That's the point. Each kid (A and B) get 50% of his genes from the father and 50% from is mother. So each kid is 50% related to each of his parents. But how much of the genes each kid inherit from his father are the same genes? Kid A may get from his father a different set of genes than kid B. Same from their mother. On average, only 50% of each sets of genes kids inherit from their father is identical for both kids, while the other 50% inherited from their father is different for kid A and kid B. So, between them, kids are related 50% (relation to their parents) of 50% (average proportion of the same genes shared by the siblings). Which make 25%.

[@ClearerThanMud]

​@@CipiRipi-in7df That was probably the speaker's thinking, but it is not correct. For each gene, you have a 50% chance of having the same one as your sibling; the fact that you got some of them from your mother and others from your father is irrelevant. Ask Google how related siblings are.if you still don't agree.

[@CipiRipi-in7df]

@@ClearerThanMud ... that's the point. You have a 50% chance of having the same one as your sibling. So, if you relate 50% to EACH of your parents separately, there is 25% chances that your sibling have the same gene as you. (0.5 of genes x 0.5 chance to be the same gene from each parent). It is as simple as that. I don't need that lawyer called Google.

[@ClearerThanMud]

@@CipiRipi-in7df The following might make the flaw in that logic clearer. You have 23 pairs of chromosomes -- 46 chromosomes. The genes on the first chromosome are 50% likely to be the same as your sibling's. Same with your second chromosome, so (by that logic) the chances that there is a 25% chance that they are the same across two chromosomes. So given the you have 46 chromosomes, your relatedness to your sibling is (by that logic) 1 / ( 2 ^ 46 ), which is a very tiny number. But in reality, it is an error to consider the genes from each chromosome separately and multiply their relatednesses, just as it is an error to consider the genes from your mother and the genes from your father separately and multiply their relatednesses.

[@CipiRipi-in7df]

@@ClearerThanMud .. I agree with first part of your logic. Yes, the chances that there is a 25% chance that they are the same across a pair of chromosomes. And this work for each pair of those 23 pairs of chromosomes. But this doesn't drop the relatedness to your sibling at 1 / (2 ^ 46). Each pair of chromosome have 25% similarities with your sibling, so overall, similarity is still 25%. Because, no matter which genes are passed from parent to son/daughter, there will still be 25% similarities. It's matter of combinatorial math. :)

[@Trichambaram]

The talk would've been better had the speaker spoken a little slowly. The organizers who had definitely planned to upload the video on the Web should've advised him to do so. He also should've known in the Web he was addressing not just the people of his native country, but of the whole world. I think he should listen to Prof David Crystal before giving his next talk that's meant to uploaded on to the Internet. I want to listen more of his lectures as they are interesting.

[@brucebaker810]

Slower is within your control. And everyone's. (Settings > Playback Speed > 0.5) They didn't necessarily plan to post it online when originally recorded. Preferred wpm is subjective.

[@Trichambaram]

​@@brucebaker810By slowing down through 'settings', the talk becomes a bit odd. Yet I tried. At 0.75x I felt it better. Thanks.

[@brucebaker810]

@@Trichambaram I agree. .5 is bad. But you seemed to want it lots slower. Glad it helped.

[@尼安德鲁-n6j]

Whether we as human should intervene to preserve endangered species, I don't think the answer really matters in terms of we are part of natural selection, since no matter what we do, it's part of natural selection, nature does not care about our decision or actions.

[@TheGbelcher]

Anyone who believes dinosaurs are extinct haven’t seen an Emu.

[@rickr530]

Forget the Emu, have a look at a Shoebill...

[@no_more_spamplease5121]

Every bird is technically an avian dinosaur. All non-avian dinosaurs were already extinct 65 million years ago, though.

[@sarrabeth2052]

Roadrunners look a lot like velociraptors (I imagine) when they are chasing something... Small, but deadly to lizards, small rodents and bugs. Definitely not your cartoon character!

[@rdklkje13]

Or a Clint’s Reptiles YT video 😂

[@trebledog]

I'll bet all that fidgeting of the hands are an evolutionary construct to help the speaker keep from boggling down in nervousness.

[@brucebaker810]

Or survival as a professor. Keeping students' attention with constant "hey...look over here!" gestures.

[@monikagrosch9632]

Not far into the lecture yet: what about Gregor Mendel?😊

[@TazPessle]

@28:20 ish. This guy. P values. Did he lay the foundation for sigma? Degrees of significance. If so, he's the most underrated G out there. And @31:30 ....and so goes Dawkins. Wrt Trans No-one is perfect

[@machintelligence]

Heroes without feet of clay are few and far between. Dalton, however, seems to have poisoned everything he worked on except for statistics.

[@rickr530]

@@machintelligence Do you mean Galton? Also OP was talking about Fisher, not Fancis Galton. Who are you talking about and please be specific about what was poisoned.

[@michaelconley2793]

So honey bees. A queen mates with multiple drones, not one. So the relationship equation is not accurate.

[@michaelconley2793]

Of course I did. His point would be correct if a queen only matters with one drone. But since there are typically more than 20 fathers, those workers are not studying themselves for their "sisters". They do not share 75% of their DNA with most workers in that hive, because they only have the queens DNA in common. Which part aren't you understanding?

[@Mark-IamNum1]

There are a few factual errors in this talk. I have looked into this at some depth. The consensus is that intelligence - and one needs to define that - is assumed to be predominantly heredity based with some societal/environmental influences. One hears such numbers as 70%:30%, but these are just guidelines. But it is true that eugenics did lead to some terrible consequences.

[@JourneyOfStrength]

23:15 I'm a holocaust denier

[@ozachar]

The decline of number of children is thereby predictable to lead to a decline in parental care.

[@JavierBonillaC]

I'm so glad that evolutionary theory turned out to be liberal. One day though it might be possible to exercise the influence of one specific gene at a time.

[@ahmedbaradwan6619]

We can’t have evolution for human who can act in deverant aspects to a machine which can’t be existed without human..isn’t it?

[@ahmedbaradwan6619]

We can instade of cant

[@ahmedbaradwan6619]

Instance of cant

[@JourneyOfStrength]

22:51 How was he wrong on a scientific basis if that's what the data presented. And then the narrative of this silly tale is that, well its not genetics at all. So which is it?

[@doctorarden5741]

Because his concept of what was “right” was based on opinion. All he showed was that you could reproduce the same traits if you consistently bred with others that shared them, he did not prove that being white was superior. His concept of the superiority was an assumption he made because he was white. It was a bias.

[@JourneyOfStrength]

@@doctorarden5741 no. The iq data

[@rickr530]

As if any one of us, if we were raised in the 1800s, would have believed differently and stood on a soapbox to talk about it. Look at the progress we've made. We don't need to waste time shaming people who died a century ago. Yeah, he was wrong, but guess what: Some sincerely-held belief you have now is going to be regarded just as stupidly wrong 100 years from now.

[@thomasjamison2050]

It's true. If the time comes to ask family members to donate a kidney, there are some families in which no one comes forward.

[@thomasdonovan3580]

I offered my mother a Kidney if she needs it, her father, my GF, died of Kidney Failure.

[@thomasjamison2050]

@@thomasdonovan3580 I offered a kidney to my wife. When she asked her family, they all refused. When we interviewed at the hospital, all the other families there were offering kidneys to their affected family member and my wife was reduced to tears seeing that.

[@jeanneknight4791]

Those are pheasants , not peacocks, but I am sure the Fisher's Runaway point applies.

[@CamMci]

He said pheasants?

[@Robert-i2d4u]

General uninformative speaks well.

[@Mark-IamNum1]

You say that people were ready for Darwin’s theory (as espoused in The Origin of Species), but is this really true? His great friend Huxley supported him, but his theory was roundly ridiculed - and that includes by other scientists. He held back publication of the book due to the fact it was so.radical and the religious intolerance of the day..

[@JourneyOfStrength]

20:40 Guy proves that everything goes back to the mean, and people still believe in the silly notion of evolution

[@machintelligence]

But the mean shifts over time, which is evolution: the change in gene frequency in a population over time.

[@JourneyOfStrength]

@@machintelligence that's silly. 💯. Like change equals a change in genetics.. simply not true

[@budd2nd]

If any religion had a shred of provable facts/evidence, apologetics and FAITH wouldn’t be necessary. Researchers are no longer looking for data to prove evolution, for the same reason we are no longer looking for evidence that the world is round(ish) or that fire produces heat. We already proved it to the complete satisfaction of everyone except a handful of religious fanatics, over the past hundred years or so. Now researchers are just examining the fine details that explain the theory.

[@rickr530]

That's actually not what he discovered in his data. He says "towards" the mean (he called it mediocrity), not completely back to it. This means that if both parents are random outliers in the set then their offspring tends to inherit a less extreme version of that trait -- it's like negative feedback or a method of self-regulation in inheritance. And it's for some traits, not all. Without it, however, variations would accumulate too quickly and the process of inheritance would be unstable. You can consider this concept completely outside the context of evolution -- it's just a rate-limiting feature for some inherited trains which he observed and modeled. It is not at all incompatible with the theory of evolution.

[@JourneyOfStrength]

@@rickr530 you're not smart

[@grahammewburn]

Once upon a time There was nothing Along came nothing And made everything!

[@pauls6530]

Woke woke woke zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[@ahmedbaradwan6619]

Why evaluation happened to human being and not to others.?

[@mark314158]

All living things evolve.

[@rickr530]

If you want to enter the conversation then at least do your research and understand theory first...

[@brucebaker810]

Video shows finches. Speaks of evolution in general. But you didn't bother to watch the video, did you? Just blind commenting on vids on topics that irk you.

[@cymatti]

Can you slow the fak down!!

[@purnurschneider1254]

You can slow down the video in the settings. You’re welcome!

[@JJONNYREPP]

A Small History of Big Evolutionary Ideas 1205pm 23.10.23 scopes monkey trials aside... his nibs, bill bailey (who i have no problem with), will have something to say about this lecture. maybe bill should add his two penneth to the overall discussion re: evolution, who decided they'd succumbed to such a revelation, and who silenced this notion prior to our mate, darwin, stating evolution as an inherent fact....?

[@rickr530]

I think we could do without the virtue signaling of calling Galton "disturbing". He was a product of his time and if he was so objectively awful then why were his worst ideas so enduring and popular? The history of science is filled with missteps and excursions down dead-end paths. It's pointless to judge a person of the 1800's by the morals of modern Western society, as well as to blame him for what the people after him did with his ideas. It is sufficient to point out where he wrong in his thinking on eugenics and move on without the holier-than-thou ad-hominem.

[@downenout8705]

You clearly have no clue what an ad hominem is. It is the ideas that are being called "disturbing" not the person. People are wrong all the time, an argument ad populum tells you nothing about the truth of a proposition. I suggest that you put the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on your reading list, it is a great resource for understanding fallacious reasoning.

[@allendracabal0819]

​@@downenout8705I suggest that you put Dealing with Others Tactfully on your reading list.

[@downenout8705]

@@allendracabal0819 Thanks for the example of a non sequitur.

[@allendracabal0819]

​@@downenout8705 I can only imagine what immense joy you must bring to the people fortunate enough to be in your orbit. Now get cracking on that book reading!

[@downenout8705]

@@allendracabal0819 Well all I can say is that I am glad not to be in the "orbit" of someone who believes that they have the psychic ability of being able to discern the emotional state of others. Take the last word if you wish but I am done with this playground silliness. Goodbye

[@ahmedbaradwan6619]

With all respect for what u had done, is totally far way from the idea of DNA. THAT DEFFINATLY HAS A LOT OF DEFINITIONS.

[@GoogleUserOne]

Definitely don’t listen to anyone that doesn’t know how to use the word literally. Literally.

[@JJONNYREPP]

A Small History of Big Evolutionary Ideas 1223pm 23.10.23 literally speaking: that monkish chap looked akin to a young Nietzsche... kindda.... well, not really. he literally didn't look akin to Nietzsche - at all!!!

[@tcuisix]

It can be used with hyperbole and not literally mean literally depending on the context

[@JJONNYREPP]

@@tcuisixA Small History of Big Evolutionary Ideas. 30.10.23. you mean as in a rhetorical context? quite telling that the word literally has come to mean hypothetically speaking....

[@rogerbergez]

And how is the misuse of one word correlated to accurate information being provided?

[@annesaffer629]

Ok, so we can’t take his advice on grammar. Oh wait, this is a lecture on Evolution…

[@markthomas6703]

We also see examples of devolution around us. Formerly healthy societies now celebrate transgenderism, feminism and racial suicide by endless immigration of incompatible people. Gresham has also devolved downwards as well. In recent years the talks focus on the predictable fetishes of race and gender.

[@VelvetMetrolink]

Mark, this has absolutely nothing at all to do with the video. You're obsessed with people different to you because you've been tricked into a culture war. You might want to have a think about who would benefit from that before pestering academic folks with your frothing.

[@dongeonmaster8547]

Devolution is a word that expresses an idea that doesn't occur in nature. Evolution doesn't have goals. You are not more evolved than a chimpanzee for example humans are just evolved differently. If it were more evolutionarily beneficial for humans to become dumber and quadrupedal than those populations among us that were able to make that adaptation would evolve that way to fit the new selection pressures. That would be evolution not devolution. The cultural things you're talking about don't have any relevance here.

[@rickr530]

When you say "racial suicide by endless immigration of incompatible people" do you mean culturally incompatible or racially incompatible? It sounds like you're saying racially incompatible for which I don't think there is such a thing.