What Evolution Reveals About Human Behavior

[@kaybanhart1821]

The amazing Stephen Pinker - he talks off the cuff in complete understandable sentences with no hesitation or repetition. It is as if he were reading something he has written. Yes, there is no autocue.

[@thrylos32]

To be fair he's analysing top level difficulty issues + he's an expert on language anyways 😂 But indeed he's fantastic 😊

[@jonahansen]

Look at the big brain on Steven!

[@mitchkahle314]

Ha, ha , ha. Pulp Fiction reference?

[@jonahansen]

@@mitchkahle314 Yeah - just came to mind. Thought it was funny - but true!

[@abc_13579]

8:30 "it's kind of rare to find animals that are not related, cooperating." I'm not sure about other animals, but I know that bats cooperate with their "friends" (or what can be called their "roommates"). Search KZbin with the terms "bats" and "reciprocal altruism" for a great video on it.

[@redien4785]

Of course. All social species have friends and engage in reciprocal altruism. That is not exclusive to a few species like bats, but you can measure the degree of kinship in these friends and the higher the degree of kinship the higher the probability to engage in such activities of reciprocal altruism. There are also close kinship exclusive interactions.

[@renedescartes-ajouer8959]

Thanks for the video. A suggestion: adjust the sound balance so that Steven Pinker's voice is not mostly heard on the right speaker next time.

[@hopelessnerd6677]

I love listening to Steven. No ranting or filler. Too bad our insane politicians don't have a little of that. Nice hair.

[@ChuckSwiger]

Music - has to be mating rituals, dance music; it certainly is for mockingbirds and rock stars, an auditory 'peacocking', socially hypnotic transporting rhythms, sense of community, setting poetry language to song makes it memorable for intergenerational cultural transmission. etc :)

[@hopelessnerd6677]

We seem to have a propensity for language of all kinds. Mathematics, spoken language and music are similar that way. It's interesting that people tend to like a certain kind of music. Why would massively distorted guitar be pleasurable to listen to? I tend to oscillate back and forth between Bach and Rammstein, but I don't have any explanation for it. Then you throw dancing in there...

[@ChuckSwiger]

@@hopelessnerd6677 'Dancing mania' is a bizarre social mass psychogenic illness.

[@Margaret-of8sm]

I just really like Steven Pinker’s mind. And I really like his hair too.

[@scottmears7490]

The Beat of the Heart 70 BPM ?

[@NicholasWilliams-uk9xu]

Exactly, it's all about the motion flow evolution of the system.

[@brianbutton6346]

Dr. Pinker, thank you. Brad Sillasen said it succinctly elsewhere in these comments. A very good dancer has an advantage in procreation, I am sure of that. (Note the number of religious groups that ban dancing as evidence.) So that's rhythm, balance, timing and coordination. Our ability to compose, sing or play wonderful complex passages is a mystery. I cannot do that but I can remember the contents of 500 code files. I can close my eyes and follow the connections, often going straight to where a bug lives. It seems like an utterly unnecessary latent capability in our early species. Hofstadter linked advanced music to advanced math in Gödel, Escher, Bach. I guess, now that I think of it both of them seem unnecessary until relatively recently.

[@bradsillasen1972]

At about 5:40 Dr. Pinker says "neither of them would end up with nothing" ...an exceedingly rare, if not first, goof ;-)

[@bradsillasen1972]

Music evolved because guys who can shred a guitar get more chicks.

[@gregoryrollins59]

Only when the drummer isn't very good. 😅 Peace and Ahev

[@bradsillasen1972]

@@gregoryrollins59 Good point ;-)

[@brianbutton6346]

Well said.

[@dixonpinfold2582]

An eminently sensible proposition as far as composing and playing music is concerned, but as far as I can see it doesn't explain the pleasure of merely listening to it. On that count I'm content to call the pleasure an evolutionary luxury or frill - as, if I understand Pinker correctly, Chomsky (thickheadedly) regards language.🙄

[@brianbutton6346]

@@dixonpinfold2582 Such attributes grow in concert with appreciation of the attribute. A peacock has a beautiful (and inconvenient) tail because peahens prefer them. If they didn't, peacocks would not have trended large tails. You aren't gonna get music creation abilities absent music appreciation.

[@AndreyBogoslowsky-sk9kf]

There are many videos when I elaborate about movie Dune, pretending to be sophisticated film critic, and making a relationship between American pop culture and this movie Dune and I am making sarcastic impersonations of the characters in the movie when I’m watching the movie Dune and many others I am actually redoing the script in my own way in three different languages doing it very sarcastically and in my opinion it’s hilariousI speak for those people and of course it comes upside down and the substance of interpretation is fucking hilarious and surrealistic

[@petery8629]

15 seconds of intro animation and music is unnecessary, especially when you have two completely different melodies which are very loud and gratuitous boom sound effect.

[@klausthorn1209]

Thanks! But showing spiders without warning is rude and shocking for people with Arachnophobia.

[@brianbutton6346]

Loved your example of texting and driving; I went to town on it. What if children had an innate aversion to walking on flat black surfaces, like paved roads, instead of say, a centipede? That would be great! We would gradually have to train them out of it by age four or five or something. What if the sight of a handgun terrified them like a snake does? Obviously, the fear of clowns is well-placed and is a smart advance move on the part of evolution.

[@dixonpinfold2582]

This shows why, just as non-singers should not go onstage and sing, average people should not attempt to think.

[@NicholasWilliams-uk9xu]

Evolutionary psychology shows that humans need social connection (where social media was supposed to be a function of that expression). Of course, the game is set up for you to (look up to influencer, with no external choices). When does social media become a social media?

[@StupidusMaximusTheFirst]

Because you would die like a fool if you didn't.

[@diariodeumleigo4303]

Nice, to reduce Bach, Mozart, Beethoven to the function of a cheesecake. That's what they call wisdom these days...

[@DonikaJorgo-l7e]

The animals planets are dangerous. Thx

[@AAA9549-w7w]

Dear Steven, I watched your video and I want to express my disagreement with your analysis with regards to Darwin, Newton, and Chomsky. I believe that evolution does not exist, I can prove it. I also disagree with the idea that language is inherently evil. As I know the origin of language in which has two sources only. In regards to music, it does not have a biological source; it is something more profound. © Dr. Andrew X Metaphysician Classical Musician Poet Fine Art Painter Engineer & Philosopher

[@Margaret-of8sm]

You sound like an interesting guy but your dead wrong

[@AAA9549-w7w]

​@@Margaret-of8sm"I am alive and I am who I am".

[@albinlado3919]

Why does his voice sound bitter?

[@renedescartes-ajouer8959]

I think it's your ears