QI | What Was Darwin's Problem With Brown Owls?

[@flinterdun]

This was obviously the wrong video to watch during my lunch break. Thanks Alan.

[@ablestmage]

Good for dieters, though!

[@beth12svist]

Likewise. Although I'd argue he didn't start it.

[@lhfirex]

Ah, yes. You should've watched it before your lunch break so you'd get the perfect idea for what to eat.

[@jameshill2450]

"What's the most disgusting thing you've ever eaten?" Well, I don't think I should say her name on television ...

[@LordDavid04]

Clive Anderson: Colin Mocherie!

[@blackbird5634]

I once , , , , a stripper, , , and swallowed an old bandaid. 🤮

[@grease_monkey6078]

BONK ! off to horny jail for you

[@KevlarCaviar]

Hearing those wine recommendations from Stephen, it looks like he was wearing his Madeira Pince-Nez.

[@cormacmacsuibhne2867]

The Aardman movie, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, featured Charles Darwin and in the movie there is basically this club where world leaders gather to eat the rarest of animals and Darwin was against this but in reality he would've encouraged it.

[@romulusnr]

2:25 Alan must have been the taste tester for Bertie Bott's

[@harrynelson6386]

"what's the most disgusting thing you've ever eaten?" I think it took everything Alan had not to say "your mum" on live television

[@TCA17]

He's not Richard Ayoade

[@wwgtg12]

Why are all these Victorians bloody mad?

[@kenm1167]

I think people are always bloody mad, back then there was less red tape when it came to indulging in our mundane curiosities!

[@Shyyrn]

Alex Guzelian Darwin also got to indulge his eccentricities because he had a privileged background.

[@justincronkright5025]

Well everyone here imagining that these animals are and therefore were endangered or not really having a good argument beyond that simply aren't recognising that, the act of eating these things doesn't make someone mad in the senses you guys are using them. We're all mad in our own ways, but less so (the least mad) I'd argue are logical people. And even if the Logic is sound in the short term but not the long term or vice versa then I'd be happy saying that they're still the least mad. Darwin was just a normal bloke for the time, and the for the place(s) he lived/grew up. The privilege is obviously a factor but I'd argue we have more mad people today than then, despite more general human knowledge!

[@lpsp442]

We tend to focus on the weirdest and most eccentric parts of the societies of yesteryear. The madmen of today will be subject to the same scrutiny a century from now.

[@Abazigal]

Lead poisoning?

[@Nemo7The7Pirate7]

Charls Darwin would make a fine boss type character in Toriko.

[@mawdeeps7691]

or planet zoo

[@justvin7214]

I wonder if the book Vic Reeves has mentions the dodo as 'moreish'.

[@davidwilliams6249]

Just Vin you win! In fact, winner, winner, dodo dinner...

[@mrgreen1759]

Well played sir! 👍

[@n1nj4l1nk]

In the updated version they're described as not any moreish.

[@parkeradelaide4579]

Charles Darwin was so weird.

[@AnthonyP73]

Highly overrated, and people forget that another scientist developed the theory of evolution independently of him. And the ancient peoples of Greece had a metaphysical, astrological version of the theory. All in all it's actually hard to say why Darwin is so lauded, but then our modern history is full of misconceptions and cock-ups.

[@magoskillzmagoskillz3540]

can you give more info about " Greece had a metaphysical, astrological version of the theory." I would like to learn more?

[@greezil]

A metaphysical, astrological theory of evolution sounds totally worthless!

[@klaxoncow]

@@AnthonyP73 Alfred Russel Wallace. Just to supply the name of that "another scientist" you mention. And, in fairness, the Royal Society follows the standard scientific rule that independent co-discovery gets equal billing, as they award "the Wallace Darwin Prize" in their joint honour. Darwin did get there first. But then he decided to sit on it for 20 years. During which time, Wallace was on his own voyage - this time to the East, rather than Darwin's West, as he was travelling around the Straits of Malacca and that general area - and actually corresponded with Darwin about his discoveries. Leading to the irony that when Wallace formulated his own version of evolutionary theory by natural selection, he sent it to Darwin for him to present his findings to the Royal Society (as he couldn't do so himself, as he was halfway around the world). This correspondence with Wallace - and realising that if he didn't get his own arse into gear, then Wallace would get there first and usurp Darwin as "the discoverer" - finally prompted Darwin to publish his own findings too to the Royal Society. Thus, from the Royal Society's perspective, both were jointly presented, by Charles Darwin, to them at the same time. Ergo, for the Royal Society, both men get equal billing as the co-discoverers of natural selection. But, well, Darwin had been sitting on the theory for 20 years. He might not have published, but he'd carried on thinking about it, so his version of the theory was easily the more thought-out and mature, when he finally published "On the Origin of Species". (I've got a copy and Darwin's approach to explaining it seems so good to me that I'm confused as to why this isn't the standard approach to teaching the subject. Basically, he starts with artificial selection - dog breeding, pigeon fancying, human domestication of animals and plants, etc. - as that's perfectly uncontroversial. Indeed, Darwin himself got into a bit of pigeon fancying himself in the meantime, as a means to more directly comprehend how selection worked. It's perfectly simple that everyone understands. A baby looks like its mother and its father - "He has his mother's eyes" or "she's got her father's nose". So if a human "breeder" steps in and selects who the mother and father are - let's select the pigeons with the white plumage - then you can somewhat control what their offspring will look like - the baby will also have white plumage, like both of its parents. And, in this way, you can select for what you do want and de-select for traits that you don't want, gradually "sculpting" a new pigeon or dog breed. Then Darwin simply goes one step further. Well, what if we remove the human breeder at this point? Ah, well, then the dogs and pigeons would be selecting their own mates. And they'd be going by their own sexual preferences for what they find attractive in another dog - sexual selection - and, of course, their available choices of co-parent here would be limited to other dogs of the opposite sex that are fertile and aren't dead. So, Darwin starts with selection - dog breeding, pigeon fancying and the like - then simply removes the human "breeder" from the equation, noting that, if the human isn't there to choose the breeding pairs, then those breeding pairs will naturally choose themselves. Hence, this would be a natural form of selection. Or "natural selection". The selection that naturally happens anyway, as animals pick out their prospective co-parent mates for themselves (from the available choices, per sexual selection of what they find sexually attractive and just basic survival, as an animal that's already dead ain't mothering / fathering anything). It's really quite an elegant approach to introducing the subject, I feel. He'd thought this over for 20 years, after all, tossing the idea around in his head. As I say, I really don't know why this isn't the standard approach to introducing the subject in schools and such. Because artificial selection is perfectly uncontroversial and everyone knows that a baby looks like its parents - not least because you can directly see the similarity for yourself, when you observe any parent and child standing next to each other (looks a bit like mum and a bit like dad - has his mother's eyes and his father's nose) - and, from there, he brings you to evolution by natural selection. Spot on. Why must schools always insist on the more obscure and overly-complicated approaches? As I'd also charge that this is the reason why so many people hate mathematics, as it's taught in such an irrelevant and dry manner to children, when it's easily the most important "transferable skill" of them all to - if you'll pardon the Pythagorean poetry - learn how to read and write in the language of the universe itself. I've encountered that situation myself. A young lady was giving me a lift somewhere in her car, and the conversation somehow got to mathematics and she uttered the famous lament: "Why do they teach Pythagoras' Theorem? What use is that to anyone?". And, well, I'm a programmer and I've done a lot of graphics programming. I actually use Pythagoras' Theorem and a lot of Ancient Greek geometry all the time. 3D graphics is basically entirely about that. So, actually, young lady, it's of a lot of use to many people. All those video games that make billions of dollars - far more than Hollywood movies typically make - have Pythagoras within them (in fact, in more than one place, his triangles make up the visuals and his theories about musical harmonies reside in the accompanying music and sound effects). Not to lecture anyone, but just to point out that this stuff really is useful and "quite interesting" - you've just been let down by a shit educational system that fails miserably to convey any of this to you. Hence, long live QI, for attempting to do the job properly in their stead.)

[@SNIperofDARKness02]

@@UncommonSense-wm5fdMay I direct you to the Atheists that believe in Astrology and Ghosts? So logical and critical thinking. Truth is most atheists became atheist as a way to rebel against their parents and simply stuck with it, not even most Christians actually follow Christian beliefs so why would the Atheists be any better or superior. Simply put it, atheism just means you don't believe in a God, it doesn't exclude you from believing in all kinds of fantasy shit like Unicorns or Witchcraft which many Atheists believe in. Google it yourself you absolute troglodyte of a human, stop believing atheism is some new revolutionary ideology everyone should follow, guess what, that's what people thought of Christianity too!

[@welshpete12]

"what's the most disgusting thing you've ever eaten?" School dinners !

[@jefferyrockey5353]

Zoologists: We're going to eat as many different species as possible. *Coronavirus has entered the chat*

[@Mythraen]

Oh, neat. You know where the Coronavirus originated? Scientists are still trying to find out. You should lend them a hand by telling them what you know.

[@user-rz8hp4ur6y]

Mythraen it’s

[@user-rz8hp4ur6y]

Mythraen a

[@user-rz8hp4ur6y]

Mythraen joke

[@Mythraen]

@@user-rz8hp4ur6y A joke that implies something that a lot of idiots believe. Sorry, I'm not spacing out that many words over multiple comments. You'll just have to read it in one.

[@Scarletraven87]

Don't try what Alan tried. It's true. A speck of it can ruin your whole tongue.

[@General_Nothing]

I really wish I hadn’t watched this while eating.

[@brettjohnson536]

2:10 You could tell how hard he was trying not to make the obvious joke... 😂😂😂

[@Tmanaz480]

"Phylum" sounds like the name of a trendy restaurant.

[@heliotropezzz333]

Or an order to a filing clerk.

[@Nullifidian]

Where you can have your meal served in the depression of a mold left by a trilobite fossil.

[@jonahs92]

Only if you're a biologically-illiterate troglodyte...

[@Scott-J]

I find it off the audience wretched harder at the earwax sandwich than the vivisection of a snake to consume its still beating heart... perhaps Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom had a more significant impact on me when I was a child.

[@lpsp442]

Well, it's a bit unfriendly killing something like that, but it's a snake and it's still capital-F Food. Not earwax, which is "unfood".

[@zetetick395]

Umm Namm Shivaaay! @_@

[@balaramkrishnahanumanthu5869]

Vietnam. i had to look it up to believe it

[@nicholasreilly3218]

anyone know what book he's referring to at 1:27

[@Nilguiri]

Yes.

[@skullsaintdead]

It bothers me that there's no 'the' in front of brown owl. Is this deliberate? Stephen said it without the 'the' too. Curious.

[@jentombs218]

It's a red herring, to trick people into thinking the answer is something to do with 'Brown Owl' - the title given to the leader of a branch of the Guides (UK version of Girl Scouts)

[@jeffc5974]

That's actually the clue - when talking about a food item, you don't say the plural form. You eat chicken, you don't eat "the chicken".

[@bingola45]

@@jeffc5974 'The chicken' is not the plural of 'chicken'.

[@jeffc5974]

@@bingola45 exactly.

[@bingola45]

@@jeffc5974 Also, I eat carrots, (plural), not 'the carrot'.

[@DeterminedExpression]

"What's the most disgusting thing you've ever eaten, Alan?" Horseshoe bats.

[@geoffgeoff143]

They kept him awake at night.

[@kaemincha]

I don't believe the snake heart thing is Chinese... I believe it is Vietnamese. I haven't heard of a practice like that in China.

[@gothnerd887]

1:48 I'd only eat that if someone read The Telltale Heart to me during the meal.

[@jacc2211]

“couldn't spell and was terrible at arithmetics" but still went to Cambridge

[@budd2nd]

Jack Hui Yeah money talked even more back then.

[@_Mentat]

Not money, class. He was landed gentry.

[@AquaFan1998]

"what was Darwin's problem with brown owls?" I guess theyve never played kings quest 5 😂

[@MKV1996]

What exactly is the name of the feast and where is it held?

[@zetetick395]

And do they do bookings for children's birthdays?

[@chella1cm]

Phylum Feast

[@shellsbignumber2]

Yeah earwax is horrible tasting, but my cat loves it.

[@robertnewell5057]

yup, ours too!

[@PtolemyJones]

Was that the guy from the carry on movies on the far left?

[@lpsp442]

Lol he does have a look of Sid James, and a sound of him too, but that guy died decades before this was filmed. He died on stage, in fact.

[@zetetick395]

His laugh is pretty Jamesian as well XD

[@jphamspam]

Anyone else here because they kept seeing this at the start of new videos

[@jamietrev]

Sunny Albion would be a far happier country if Mr Smith was PM

[@sukindiamuzik]

How could Darwin not spell and he STILL got into Cambridge??!!

[@aim-to-misbehave5674]

Princess Onania Money. Less so now, but if your family donated a library or something you were automatically in no matter how ridiculous you were.

[@sukindiamuzik]

aim-to-misbehave tyranny of the rich elite 😑😑😑

[@aim-to-misbehave5674]

Like I said, not really a thing anymore. I know someone through a teacher whose parents sent him to a private boarding school in China from the age of 5-18 with the aim of getting him into Oxford/Cambridge/Harvard etc, and he didn't get into any of them no matter how rich his parents were.

[@sukindiamuzik]

aim-to-misbehave woww that's a shame

[@harrychen5886]

wasn't the spelling of English back then not as important nor concrete? Shakespeare made and even spelled the same words in numerous different ways in his plays. (no source, sorry)

[@shotforshot5983]

I don't think eating varied things is odd at all. it's just not today's convention. What if the mere taste of koala gave you a total mouth-gasm? We'd be farming them.

[@shotforshot5983]

Creeping in the Corner. OK, I'm a glutton for punishment, could you send me some packed in dry ice.

[@ruukusanla]

Mouth-gasm AND clamidya. They are riddled with it..lol

[@slipknot95maggot]

So you're not a farmer Like how you just assume that anything we like we're capable of "farming". Do you know much about Koalas......? Do you know much about animal agriculture......? Do you know what farming enough koalas for even a couple countries to eat even occasionally would take...............? Do you know that even with all of our modern tech and knowledge, there are still *plants and fungi* that we haven't figure out how to cultivate, never mind an entire farm of - friggin koalas, animals which eat one plant almost exclusively (a plant which isn't super easy to farm in itself), sleep for 20 hours a day, spend the first year of their lives COMLETELY dependent on their mother (making it difficult to do the things we like to do in animal agriculture like separating newborns from their mothers), koala populations are rife with Chlamydiaceae and Koala retrovirus (KoRV has been shown to be shared by gibbons - you know, primates, those things we are, making it likely it could mutate to jump to us) literally being in danger of the potential of being completely wiped out as a species due to their impeded immune systems, koalas don't clean their pouches, _"As the young koala approaches six months, the mother begins to prepare it for its eucalyptus diet by predigesting the leaves, producing a faecal pap that the joey eats from her cloaca. The pap is quite different in composition from regular faeces, resembling instead the contents of the caecum, which has a high concentration of bacteria. Eaten for about a month, the pap provides a supplementary source of protein at a transition time from a milk to a leaf diet."_ (you sure you wanna eat that...?), koalas are small enough to be pray items for bird of prey which would make a koala farm VERY hard to maintain (birds have a much harder time stealing young cows or pigs than a baby koala, perhaps you can imagine - you ever heard a farmer bitch and moan about wolves attacking their livestock....? Well imagine if birds could fly out of the sky and carry away your livestock at any moment), AND I COULD GO ON about the various ways in which they would make terrible livestock but I'll just conclude with the fact that they're already in danger of extinction, and they don't reproduce quickly. Sooooooooo, no, hun, it wouldn't be practical for us to expect to be able to start "farming koalas" (XDD) any time soon, at least not for more than a couple of families, tops XDDD Also, perhaps I could remind you about that part where eating animals closer to us genetically increases the risk of disease or viral transmission............? Increasing the variety of mammals you consume increases your risk of exposure

[@mathewfullerton8577]

@@slipknot95maggot Really? You took an off-hand joke to that extreme? You're beyond a wet-blanket.

[@Taricus]

@@mathewfullerton8577 TL;DR Slipknot once got an infection from a koala and is still bitter over the breakup....

[@BambooAcrobatVerte]

They were TOO delicious.

[@rodneyquinn2528]

Slips in the "went to cambridge" whilst referring to Darwin as dim, just cos he went to oxford, which I may add takes on all the private students who's fathers bring promise of funding??

[@ClarinoI]

Who are you talking about? None of the panel went to Oxford, and Darwin went to Cambridge just like Fry and Anderson.

[@robertnewell5057]

@@ClarinoI Oops, eh? Well caught.

[@f1since08]

Isn't a block of ear wax called pease pudding?

[@markmayonnaise1163]

Stick some between a slab of mediocre chocolate and coconutty gunk and you've got what my people call a Nanaimo Bar

[@budd2nd]

I just googled Pease pudding, it’s one of the things I’ve always heard of, but never actually known what it was, so Google says -- it’s also known as peas porridge, is a savoury pudding dish made of boiled legumes, typically split yellow peas, with salt, water and spices, and often cooked with a bacon or ham joint.

[@craigroaring]

A block of earwax would look like american cheese.

[@manjulanilsson6011]

Social Darwinists definitely had a problem with brown

[@TallSilentGuy]

A homeless man's ear!

[@Scarletraven87]

They're sitting in order of attire...

[@Uatu-the-Watcher]

Mr. Darwin: “You’re an idiot Chuck. You should go into religion. They’ll take you.”

[@frenchy16785]

No you're not

[@GordonHugenay]

Alas, earwax.

[@professornuke7562]

This makes me think of Sam Harris, and "Why don't we eat owls? I mean, they seem perfectly good." kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6DJZ5tsgLmCqZI

[@vilstef6988]

On internet forums, there are anonymous people who brag about eating things like spiny anteaters and Fairy Penguins.

[@kilroy987]

Darwin presented a fine example of a way of thinking, but we should never think it's the whole picture.

[@Wearywillie-x5t]

D

[@griff5713]

What eat fox? and ruin your appetite by time the roast pangolin is served.

[@cormacmacsuibhne2867]

100th comment.

[@johnmc3862]

Maith thú!

[@justanaussie2822]

Koalas are disgusting to eat

[@tamielizabethallaway2413]

Charles Darwin.... Jeffrey Dahmer.... Very similar early years! Funny how things pan out!

[@judechauhan6715]

Was 'dim' in school, couldn't spell, believed that intelligence could be determined by the shape of ones head and yet now is considered a genius and believed to be right on a few of his theories? sure whatever I don't care anymore.

[@AllahDoesNotExist]

Lot of ADD and hyperintelligent kids are considered dim.

[@MichaelKingsfordGray]

Darwin studied medicine, not divinity!

[@torbgen]

The root of all evil

[@zetetick395]

They might not be delicious, but I don't think Brown owls are THAT bad!

[@n1nj4l1nk]

@@zetetick395 I believe they were referring to their profile picture.

[@bretleversha]

Can we get that society banned please!

[@samuellawrencesbookclub8250]

Why? If people want to eat weird stuff let them. It isn't like they're eating any endangered animals these days, there are too many protection laws to get around, even for the fabulously wealthy students at Cambridge.

[@raigervasi2070]

Well i think thats a pretty immoral hobby. Ooo i wonder what a baby tastes like, lets try!!!

[@JoRiver11]

To be honest, I'm totally disgusted by the people who do that.

[@ShizuruNakatsu]

Fortunately, I've never eaten anything disgusting. I'm so cautious with food that I won't attempt to eat anything if I believe there's a chance I won't like it.

[@robertnewell5057]

Logically, you died long before you wrote this. Since our tastes change, there is always a chance you won't like something you used to like :->

[@ShizuruNakatsu]

@@robertnewell5057 Nah, not really. There's very few foods I like, so I have to stick with them. I may get tired of something sometimes, but then I just go for one of the other few things I eat, and I'll always go back to something eventually.

[@petercallaghan9851]

One of the greatest scientists of any age?????? I think not, Stephen. Guy was a fool.

[@andydunnock8114]

Shouldn't you be reading your one book, instead of expanding your knowledge?

[@petercallaghan9851]

Shouldn't you be refraining from assumption, if you are so intelligent? I am supposing you mean the Bible, which I do not read, believe in or adhere to. I have just bothered myself to actually read what little Charles was on about and found it lacking. As would any serious person. Assumptions..... you are in good company.

[@petercallaghan9851]

It's 2017. If you are not conversant with the ongoing problems associated with Darwin I can see no good reason why I should bother to enlighten you. Theory of natural selection, eh? (Do your own reading; I have no time for informing the uninformed.)

[@PaulCahoon1478]

+Peter Callaghan You must be fun at parties

[@petercallaghan9851]

Sorry....I was in the middle of a threesome.......what was that you said?

[@larsdols3157]

Darwin was a dim student... Yeah. that much is obvious.

[@shotforshot5983]

I don't think eating varied things is odd at all. it's just not today's convention. What if the mere taste of koala gave you a total mouth-gasm? We'd be farming them...

[@zetetick395]

Battery farming them in Koala Cubes.