Mechanisms of Evolution in the Context of Anthropology

We learned all about evolution over in the biology series. But now it's time to revisit this concept in the context of anthropology. What are the four primary mechanisms of evolution? What are the most important mutations in the hominid lineage that led to the emergence of genus Homo? What can we say about gene flow? Let's dig in!
Script by Erika of Gutsick Gibbon: / gutsickgibbon
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[@backalleycqc4790]

I'm waiting for... "Mr Farina! Mr Farina! You're clueless! Take the chalk GO! GO! GO!" It never gets old☺️ Thanks Professor Dave, great explanation!

[@kingarth0r]

That was truly a James Tour moment of all time. Saw it live and it was spectacular.

[@NinjaMonkeyPrime]

Gutsick Gibbon script? Awesome!

[@AlbertaGeek]

Erika FTW!

[@catboom6712]

I am fascinated by the strength of single mutations. After studying a lot about ancient hominins, I can understand how the brain size increased and more than multiplied itself in a number of million years thanks to mutations like the ARHGAP11B.

[@objective_psychology]

Yeah and it's amazing how easy it is to make a bigger brain that still works, or adding more kinds of sensory input and cognition. The brain is highly scalable as the neurons just “figure out on their own” what to do with the information

[@Nerd_15]

NOT CLUELESS

[@donchristie420]

😂

[@ordinaryrat]

Despite the high labor requirements and production costs, consumer demand for yam is high in certain subregions of Africa, making yam cultivation quite profitable to certain farmers. However its important to remember that bitter yams are not normally eaten except at times of desperation in poor countries and in times of local food scarcity.

[@Buy_YouTube_Views_a091]

Watching your videos is like a virtual escape to a happier place. Thank you for that!

[@jamiegallier2106]

How funny! I’ve often thought the same thing. *every vid drop is like a gift, more knowledge, my favorite!

[@kingarth0r]

Honestly I'm surprised fundamentalists don't defend evolution since it's actually really beautiful how such a simple principle can lead to all kinds of diverse life. You don't have to be religious to appreciate evolution but I think if you are religious you should appreciate it more.

[@Spoopy_man]

This is exactly what I needed thank you.

[@waelfadlallah8939]

That was joyfully educational 🙏

[@snowmanthegamer4983]

Good day! Thanks for the class.

[@adriani9432]

1.5 million years ago was around the time Homo erectus lived. It was the first hominid to use fire and hunt large game (rather than just scavenge like earlier species). It was also roughly the same size and shape as a modern human, albeit with a considerably smaller brain. Perhaps the C to G substitution was a huge step towards humanity's road to sapience.

[@jomaugar]

Great stuff! Thanks!

[@thomasbellerive7382]

Interesting stuff, thanks again

[@catboom6712]

A great day to upload this video. Happy darwin day .

[@MdLd6551]

Thanks for the video. Btw happy darwin day 🎉🎉

[@mrshonk3948]

Ngl its crazy how dave's flat earth vids have like 100x the views than his normal teching videos

[@jamiegallier2106]

Well, they are pretty entertaining! As primates, it’s still easier for us to gather the community to circle and hoot while an obnoxious member is finally publicly chastened- than it is to sit down and learn concepts. *I can’t remember which I watched first, debunk beatdowns or science explains, but I was hooked, and look forward to each new video.

[@Nivola1953]

Not really relevant, but I’m fascinated by the Romanesco broccoli (also known as broccolo romanesco, romanesque cauliflower, or simply romanesco). The fractal structure of this variety of cauliflower (not broccoli) is just mesmerising.

[@wakom5865]

thanks proff

[@ungulatemanalpha]

There's a concept that I saw best explained in the speculative-fiction work Serina that I often think about when it comes to the evolution of intelligence - cognition is a trait, and it's selected for and competed against in the genome just like any other. The specific set of circumstances that led an oversized, overactive brain to be a boon and not a bane to those hominids 1.5 mya could easily have never happened, or it could have happened countless times in countless species. It's a sobering thought.

[@Er.amitmishra]

Just completed your astronomy playlist ❤

[@jamiegallier2106]

Noice!

[@Er.amitmishra]

@@jamiegallier2106 ☺️

[@maxdoubt5219]

You should have mentioned the gulop gene & scurvy. 😄

[@pramodsingh7569]

Thanks

[@jamiegallier2106]

That was great! Awesome collaboration. Would love to see you two stream together again. Erika has been hosting SkepTalk on The Line and I think you’d be a brilliant co-host. Members would be throwing superchats like panties at an Elvis concert. ❤

[@secularidiot9052]

Dave’s already co-hosted with Aron Ra I believe.

[@jamiegallier2106]

@@secularidiot9052 I watched that one, too! Aron hosts over there, and would make for an entertaining show with Dave.

[@lavp365]

love your vids! but i hate how upset it makes to know that we have all this knowledge, yet people want to hang on to antiquated beliefs and deny the evidence we do have. keep it up, though, and thank you

[@jamiegallier2106]

Same. 💙

[@Nxck2440]

some people will never change. we can only make sure that with each passing generation, less people fall for the lies by educating them. for that, i think we’re winning.

[@Nxck2440]

Creationists, pay attention, SCIENCE!

[@adryanclay]

"UNLIMITED SCIENCE!"

[@uncleanunicorn4571]

but... but... mah buleefs!?!?!?

[@RyanGhezawi]

But…… but… I have a book (that’s wrong about absolutely everything😢)

[@Chikn2532]

​@RyanGhezawi not gonna speak for the new testament but the old testament is about law and philosophy not science and history so it would be wrong to interpret it that way (that hasnt stopped some particularly ignorant people)

[@adryanclay]

@@Chikn2532 We dont care. If young earth creationists or just creationists in general use the Bible (not a peer-reviewed scientific book) to try to claim that things like abiogenesis or evolution are wrong, is just braindead stupid.

[@glennpearson9348]

Excellent presentation, Professor Dave. How long until the Creationists and YECers show up to begin their science-denying mumbo jumbo? Someone start the timer.

[@universeusa]

Huh 🤔 Interesting! 🧐 Thanks!

[@yansakovich]

I am wondering, is the video fragment with Russian shovenistic celebration of the Victory day intentionally put at the end of the video or is it just a coincidence?

[@analternatemultiverse2063]

will you eventually do a series on music theory?

[@ProfessorDaveExplains]

yep

[@CesarClouds]

1:37 Macroevolution observed.

[@carlosangui7490]

"homo neanderthalensis" or "homo sapiens neanderthalensis"? ("maybe homo sapiens antecesor"? so blurry, am i right?)

[@Magst3r1]

We are homo sapiens, homo neanderthalensis are a different spieces within the homo genus

[@carlosangui7490]

@@Magst3r1 i'm talking about subspecies

[@catboom6712]

It's a controversy whether to include the beanderthals as a subspecies of homo sapiens or as a different species. Since we could interbreed with them, many consider them as a subspecies - H. S. Neanderthalensis. Personally, I feel it's too arbitrary to humans' decision, and I don't know any good reason to include them as our subspecies and not vice versa.

[@carlosangui7490]

@@catboom6712 that's what i meant, where's the limit when a species start and the former ends? i think there's no limit, it's a gradient, unique for each population in the species

[@catboom6712]

There is a limit .. I think it goes in accordance with the accepted definition of a species. Species today is a group of organisms that can reproduce together and have fertile offspring. When one species evolves to a point in which it can not interbreed with its ancestor, that's a new species. It can be more easily defined when one ancestor population splits to two or more genetically distinct offspring populations. It really doesn't work in the case of Neanderthals and H. sapiens. We could interbreed with them and produce fertile offspring. We did it a lot. I cannot find any objective reason to include them as our subspecies.@@carlosangui7490

[@pawegorka8589]

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Give a man a fishing rod and you will feed him for life Unfortunately, this proverb does not explain what to do with people who, when they see a fishing rod, shout that it is a conspiracy 😅

[@khushisansar]

Sir we are cetisfing your video ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@lyndafjellman3315]

I'm sorry, but *cetisfing*? Typo?

[@drsatan9617]

That's not even a word and I agree with you

[@ThomasMuirAudionaut]

the 'science stuff' is sweet.

[@keegan6388]

You forgot about the part where an omniscient, all powerful deity made a bunch of organisms he didn't like, and then spent a couple billion years making what he actually wanted. I guess it takes him a few tries to get the hang of the process.

[@paulhaynes8045]

I was a little surprised to hear the word 'fitness' used (about 4:00), as 'fit' is such a problematic concept for anti-evolutionists (as in the common phrase 'survival of the fittest'). Although this may be a culturally specific problem for English speakers, or even just British English speakers. The word 'fittest' (at least in that culture) is frequently misunderstood to mean that physical fitness (strength, speed, height, etc) is key to evolution. Therefore, members of the population who are physically 'fitter' are more evolutionary 'advanced' (eg the Nazi belief in the tall, blonde stereotype). At least in British culture, this has led to Darwin being appropriated by the political right as 'justification' for their assumptions about people who don't look/act/think like them. Quite simply, they (the 'unfit') aren't worth bothering about because they are not evolutionary 'correct' and they will be weeded out by 'the survival of the fittest'. It is very common in our culture, when arguing about Darwin or evolution to have to correct the other person's misunderstanding of the concept of 'fitness' in evolutionary terms. For instance, by pointing out that an extreme change in our environment (eg global warming) might very well favour the shorter, hairier people - perhaps even those with darker skin! It would have saved a lot of time and aggravation, if Darwin , or his followers, had used a different word!

[@Nxck2440]

Dave/Gutsick Gibbon is probably not concerned with what anti-evolutionists will think. This is an educational series and they probably aren't watching this (or if they are, they're coming in ready to attack it and not listen). Of course the word fitness here refers to suitability to environment, which can be modelled as some moving point on a fitness landscape, with natural selection acting to move the point towards peaks (maximum points) at all times, sort of like stochastic gradient ascent.

[@nasonguy]

Hold up… You’re telling me we have actually uplifted mice?!? I’m actually pretty conflicted by that.

[@Ihsaan1c]

Professor Dave reading a script from gutsick gibbon, excellent

[@adryanclay]

So? Gutsick and Dave are both grear and educated teachers.

[@Ihsaan1c]

@@adryanclay I never said they weren’t. What’s your point?

[@adryanclay]

@@Ihsaan1c i thought you were making fun of Dave, sorry.

[@Ihsaan1c]

@@adryanclay 👍

[@glennpearson9348]

You can probably find a more detailed presentation on just about anything Professor Dave's posts somewhere on KZbin. That's not really the point. When you consider the breadth and depth of Professor Dave's library, this single episode is one of many, many pieces of the puzzle. It's just that, this time, he happens to be discussing something Gutsick Gibbon focuses almost all of her time on.

[@ThomasMuirAudionaut]

simian got wise without even noticing... to this day.

[@nishigimasato3992]

New answers in genisis vid. Go clown on em'

[@Magst3r1]

ARHGAP11B... -13910*T... Scientist sure don't want the names to be easy to remember lol

[@AlbertaGeek]

What do you mean? It's pronounced exactly how it's spelled.

[@juzhang6665]

All I hear is another slap in the face to creationists😂

[@MyXAHOB]

6:50 mother russia россиюшка

[@theLowestPointInMyLife]

how does this explain adam and eve tho

[@paulhaynes8045]

Adam and Eve are difficult to explain, even for Christians! (At least those who have actually read the Bible.) As there are two contradictory creation stories in Genesis - one of which doesn't have a first man and woman (God just creates people). There's also the problem of them only having two children, both male. And the Bible telling us that one of these sons marries a woman from a nearby town (where did those people come from?!).

[@dhavzr23]

Adam and Eve weren't real

[@adryanclay]

It doesn't. Adam and Eve are basically te main characters of the Bible, and the Bible is a fictional story made to create an religion. So Adam and Eve didn't exist in real life, only in the Bible.

[@adryanclay]

​@@paulhaynes8045Still, Adam and Eve didn't exist in real life.

[@adryanclay]

​@@paulhaynes8045Also because of the hundreds of translations that altered the original story.

[@tomcollins3972]

complete nonsense.

[@ProfessorDaveExplains]

No, science isn’t “nonsense” just because it hurts your feelings, sweetie. Grow up.