Whatever Happened to Homo erectus? - Science Talk

[@MinTubaTuba]

What a remarkably gifted and well-intentioned teacher.

[@ainesweeney9304]

Hey thanks this was great, honest and frank

[@jeremyashford2145]

“Well intentioned”? You mean he’s paving the road to Hell?

[@oldwoman2121]

I agree. He's a very good teacher. Very thorough.

[@naimulhaq9626]

The 'bes't examples of fire comes from Israel, no mention of 13 feet ash from China.

[@john-paulderosa356]

This was a great talk. I have always found this subject to be very difficult to grasp due to the huge number of sites and finds and putting them into some order seems to require a very fine mind, which this lecturer obviously has.

[@rainaldkoch9093]

Yes, it WAS a great talk, but our knowledge has doubled since, mainly though genomic sequencing of fossils and people.

[@gvbvbnbnbnnnbvb1206]

Very interesting ! Maybe an update 5 years later would be welcome ?

[@mindalacy]

Multiple species living at the same time, even closely related ones, should be something important to consider rather than assuming that variation in one species accounts for all the differences in related looking fossils founds. This competition for resources between closely related species is what creates the selective pressure for advantages like the encephalization, frontal lobe abstraction and language skill; the ones that drove our species separation. Without the competition, which could just be environmental changes that create more stress on some but less on the advantaged, not necessarily direct competition or something as dramatic as warfare, there would be little else to drive the changes.

[@rlbadger1698]

+Minda Lacy I think more likely, isolation and line breeding created a multitude of sub species. Your trying to fit a world view (modern) into a frame work of extremely low populations. Remember that at multiple points in the last million or so years the hominid populations where as low as 60k worldwide. On average maybe 500k hominids worldwide.

[@michaelatwell8724]

You guys both make very interesting points.

[@susanlegeza7562]

Minda Lacy ytc

[@dustydesert1674]

Minda Lacy I don’t accept the idea of competition within a species driving separation into new species. Adaptation is driven more by weather (ice ages, savannah, altitude) and diet - more protein creates bigger brains. Hitler believed in “struggle” within species which underlay his racism.

[@Alex-kp5pq]

+Rl it's 'homininan' now Agree with the competition point, but the other points are just so much anthropocentric bullshit.

[@TragoudistrosMPH]

Really good talk! I like his use of scientific reasoning and usage of data. I find homo erectus more fascinating than Neanderthals because they traveled so much of the world. It's strange that a world wide species could have died out, everywhere. What did happen to them?

[@swyman10]

Tragoudistros.MPH I don’t believe they died out...I believe they are in us today, that we have in a convoluted way, inherited their genes. They live in us.

[@oldwoman2121]

@@swyman10 I so agree. It's comparable to hearing about the same issue--extinction--regarding more recent groups of people; for instance, Mayans didn't "disappear" and Aztecs didn't "disappear"--they simply coalesced with other groups of people... and now they're called "Meso-Americans" or, more narrowly (for instance) "Mexicans". I agreed with the speaker, as well--there's too much "over-splitting". Hair-splitting when it comes to race and ethnicity.... if you will.

[@roberthofmann8403]

Probably the best talk I've seen on the topic.

[@abicaksiz]

Very informative, very entertaining, excellent presentation... I like the way he summarizes the major trends in paleo-antropology critically. A small contribution: At 44.15 appears "Kocabash" fossil from Turkey. He almost had the correct pronounciation except that "c" in Turkish gives the sound "j" as in English words (i.e. joy, Joshua, justice etc). The pronounciation should be koja-bash, which means "koja"=big, large, and "bash"=head in Turkish. Many thanks...

[@susanlegeza7562]

abicaksiz r

[@Dragonblaster1]

Though no great fan of Cenk Uygur on The Young Turks, I often find myself correcting people who pronounce his first name as "Chenk" rather than "Jenk".

[@kourtnachazel5024]

BBC

[@kourtnachazel5024]

@@susanlegeza7562 k

[@dwightehowell6062]

Great talk. problems: The very earliest tool makers there were moving good rock at least 10 miles when the local rock was crap so five miles isn't likely to be the limit for He. The trouble with bifaced/acheulean tools is that many of them have deliberately dulled edges which knappers do to be able to control fracture better. The conclusion by one knipper is that most bifaces was pretty much being used as a core from which the maximum amount of sharp chips were removed. At Boxgroove England they thought hand axes were being made by design but they were also commonly being broken up to get more edge. Edges were studies on very early stone tools show they were used to cut plants such as tubers, wood, and process animals. He, Homo erectus, surely did at least that much. Did buy the book from Amazon but got the second handed one to save a lot of money.

[@dwightehowell6062]

My "second handed" book turned out to be new and still in the plastic wrap.

[@kelamuni]

+Dwight E Howell Oh good. you read one book.

[@dwightehowell6062]

I bought and read his book. Of course I've got a nasty feeling I've bought, read, and given away more books than you've ever read or ever will. Could be wrong but hard to prove that.

[@twistedtrail8414]

love it when i learn somthing new from talks like this. ive never heard of squatting facets before

[@lindakautzman7388]

EXCELLENT PRESENTATION...LOVED THE PACE AND THE FRANK AND CLEAR LANGUAGE...REAL EASY TO LISTEN TO AND UNDERSTAND FOR SOMEONE LIKE MYSELF WHO IS JUST LEARNING ABOUT EVOLTION AND NO SCIENCE BACKGROUND...THANK YOU!

[@KipIngram]

This is a GREAT presentation. I've been watching a *lot* of videos recently on the recent discoveries made using deep genetic analysis, but this talk was given in 2014, and that stuff just really wasn't quite on the table yet. Given that fact, I think this is a remarkably cogent and sensible presentation of the what was then the "state of the art." Just bear in mind, if you've watched it, that an awful lot of undeniable genetic evidence has been added to our platter in the seven years since this hit the net.

[@wendydomino]

I feel like we need more fossils between habilis and erectus. There seems to be this very big leap between the ape-like habilis and rudolfensis type hominids that are not that far removed from Australopithecines to the very human-like erectus. Seems like there's got to be more in-between that.

[@vicioussyd6870]

I think you are correct we are discovering homo ancesters all the time I know of at least one sample that has not been published that fits into that space

[@petermiesler9452]

25:00 Map v Territory problem. (a key point to remember and take into consideration - Environment Forms The Organism) (I hear that currently raccoons are speciating between city savvy and traditional country raccoon.) Good talk.

[@forestdweller5581]

Wow, Gilbert covers so much in this excellent presentation. Thanks for the video share too.

[@pseudopetrus]

Love the open minded approach here!

[@mrloop1530]

Well, it wouldn't be science if it was close minded.

[@BaronVonQuiply]

I think Al Bundy did rather well on this talk. I'd watch it again.

[@henrygilbert1623]

+Baron von Quiply Thanks, man. Things have definitely been going a lot better since I had a kind of "American Beauty" moment, went to night school, and got the heck out of that dead-end career as a shoe salesman. Peg got caught for shoplifting and did 10 years because it was her 3rd strike, so I thought, what the heck? Why not grad school? The rest of the family is well... Kelly got a job as an anchorwoman at a regional news station and Bud is working for the Trump campaign. So, thanks for watching!

[@BaronVonQuiply]

Henry Gilbert Glad to hear things are looking up for you, Al.

[@devildocnowciv9272]

Henry, A mistake by the Prof, who I agree gave a good overall talk. He says brain size and IQ don't relate. Lots of articles and sites agree with the Prof that brain size and IQ don't relate. That's the PC view of IQ. That view of IQ is heavily skewed by PC, which is like a wet blanket on University thought. That's why I offer this evidence that the interesting speech is wrong on brain size and IQ. From: www.news-medical.net/news/2005/06/19/11121.aspx - here's the title and a few para's: People with bigger brains are smarter than their smaller-brained counterparts, according to a study conducted by a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher published in the journal "Intelligence." The study could settle a long-standing scientific debate about the relationship between brain size and intelligence. Ever since German anatomist and physiologist Frederick Tiedmann wrote in 1836 that there exists "an indisputable connection between the size of the brain and the mental energy displayed by the individual man," scientists have been searching for biological evidence to prove his claim. "For all age and sex groups, it is now very clear that brain volume and intelligence are related," said lead researcher Michael A. McDaniel, Ph.D., an industrial and organizational psychologist who specializes in the study of intelligence and other predictors of job performance. The study is the most comprehensive of its kind, drawing conclusions from 26 previous - mostly recent - international studies involving brain volume and intelligence. It was only five years ago, with the increased use of MRI-based brain assessments, that more data relating to brain volume and intelligence became available.

[@fionapaterson-wiebe3108]

Baron von Quiply thanks so much, I can't unsee that comparison now 🤣

[@BaronVonQuiply]

On the bright side, Al never looked so dignified as he did during this talk.

[@jmosur]

Great talk. Bummer about the mic cutting out. A wired mic is always better then a wireless one.

[@jdreese6501]

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[@jdreese6501]

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[@jdreese6501]

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[@jdreese6501]

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[@jdreese6501]

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[@GoitomWTekle]

That is really great talk Dr Gilbert. Nice! I like it.

[@Harshharsh111]

Underrated lecture. Great work.

[@chasr1843]

I'm no expert,but it seems to me like controlling fire was about the biggest leap humans ever leaped

[@sallyreno6296]

Except that the control of fire was a pre-human hominid technology.

[@annmarieboucher3766]

@@sallyreno6296 Oh yes, i remember it now, the pre human hominid i thin his name was pre human right? And you knew the guy, right?

[@sallyreno6296]

@Black KXNG I said hominids, not primates. Hominids are a subset of primates of which only humans are around today.

[@jonathanturek5846]

One small campfire for my tribe.. One giant leapfire for mankind. Lol .. I butchered that joke

[@jacquesorr7566]

You may want to consider that..., but I would suggest that you think about "Communication"- " Language"-"Speech". .would be the biggest leap for Human Kind! You could eat raw meat and keep warm in cave's and wear fur clothing's, but once you can communicate and strategize - you swing forward by a leap year.

[@tyrander1652]

I met Ernst Mayr when I was in grad school. He was in his late 80's and sharp as a tack.

[@RileyRampant]

you were so lucky. I bought his book 'what evolution is' in the early 00s and discovered he was, amazingly, still alive & working at that time.

[@bethbartlett5692]

It is truly odd how *Science allows itself to "Marry a THEORY and go full speed trying to prove the THEORY all while teaching the THEORY as if it were Fact, and CLOSING IT'S COLLECTIVE MIND to any other viable possibilities, in spite of finds, data, artifacts, and fossils.* "Keep trying to put Cinderella's Shoe on Drucella's Foot"

[@sugarnads]

Ahhh another who doesnt understand what 'theory' means in science. Keep flogging your incorrect use of 'theory' while not doing any reseach (half an hour on a creationist website is not research. Its just half an hour reading idiots for idiots).

[@marcverhaegen7943]

This the old interpretation of how Homo erectus lived (running-hunting etc.), the information is excellent, but the interpretation is unfortunately biologically outdated. For an update, based on comparative biology, google e.g. "Coastal Dispersal of Pleistocene Homo 2018 biology vs anthropocentrism".

[@zliu4208]

Philip Thomas Some recent genome study has found that the genome of several modern Western African populations have traces of archaic hominin, namely “ghost populations”, genomes, ranging from 2-19%. These “ghost populations” would have played a similar role to the modern subsaharan African population as Neanderthals and Denisovans would have played to modern populations outside of Africa in terms of genetic contributions. However, I wouldn’t use the term “broader” as the range wasn’t established with the genome of any archaic hominin fossil specimen as the reference. No specimen of such “ghost populations” has been identified because the warmer climate of Western Africa isn’t ideal for fossil formation. In addition, as the originating continent of the Genus Homo, prehistoric Africa would presumably have a higher degree of diversities in terms of speciations within the Genus Homo. Therefore, we might never be able to positively identify a hominin fossil specimen as that of the said “ghost populations”. The link to one of these study is attached below: advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/7/eaax5097 We are all different “hybrids” between predominantly ancient Homo Sapiens, originating in African continent, and other archaic species among the Genus Homo depending on the geographical locations. It is disheartening to see a small number of African Americans taking up such an Eugenic way of approaching anthropology as it had been used to denigrate them in 19th and early 20th century. We as a society, should always be cautious of any political rhetoric that attempts to claim to be the “ultimate truth based on science” as its justification.

[@turkeygod6665]

@@zliu4208 Bravo, well said

[@benstanfield9818]

Excellent presentation. Very scholarly and yet very understandable. Thank you

[@KipIngram]

27:00 - While I don't personally have any approval whatsoever for the Piltdown perpetrator's actions, I think the gentleman makes a fair point. At least he's "identifying a positive aspect of the outcome," so it becomes a rational question to ask. Dr. Gilbert made some great points in his reply too. Ultimately I think that if someone wants to hold the opinion that there were some positive aspects of Piltdown, I can respect their position. I don't share that position - I just attach too much value to integrity in science. But I think the question is fair. Piltdown shouldn't have been done. But if every single effect it had wasn't bad? Well, GOOD. That's better than them all having been bad.

[@redventrue1]

And we're just about 12,000 years too late to meet one. It's a shame, really. They survived longer than Neanderthalis, and Denisovans.

[@MAXIMUMCOLLABO]

intro song is horrible

[@zahko4034]

I thought it was so bad it was good

[@ashbirk4681]

It was nauseating. It’s not Tommy Wiseau, it’s Neil Breen

[@wendydomino]

For example you might invite a Homo erectus to dinner and he'd look fairly normal in a suit but Homo habilis would be more like having a chimp at the table you know? I feel like there's got to be something in between that we still need to find

[@kvarnerinfoTV]

Great video, great approach, great everything. Homo erectus is my favorite homo species because it existed for so long, gave birth to us and neanderthals and still survived until "recently".

[@ploepiescoop5369]

But why did the homo erectus(and his underspecies) not survive after 50 thousand years ago since it wasn’t the Toba Eruption(75 thousand years ago) and they could not have interbred like the neanderthalensis because they were just to different? They survived about 2 million years, survived a massive vulcano eruption and then suddenly... extinct, were it the sapiens who killed them? Or what was it? I know we will never know it for sure but what do you think?

[@21972012145525]

Yes! I can’t figure out why this lecture is named “what happened...” without providing any theories on what actually happened.

[@250txc]

I like the way Mr. Gilbert points out the fact that lots of these bones can be related in some manner, including pointing out the differences in everyone in the crowd here. These are actually a small amount bones to try to explain. I think over time, IFF more bones are found, many of thee bones will get tied together, probably depending on the area when the fossils are found. -- Make sure you consider the length of time here. Even in our time, we are only 2,021 yrs A.D. today. Compare 2021 to 1.5MIL yrs if you have the cognitive ability.

[@jonathanturek5846]

Thank you very much.. I love a good mystery. I have been enjoying learning the puzzle pieces of data of our origins. The more you learn the better it gets. 1.Ancient lost civilizations and their built environment aka Pyramids & polygonal stone walls and megalithic remnants. 2. The cosmos ... Dark matter/energy singularities voids exoplanets great attractor big bang etc 3. Big History 4. Early hominids In that order I have dedicated a ton of my time to these topics. Early man research did not start til a few months ago. A good book I can't put down. Awesome I apreciate your lecture ... Aloha

[@zachm705]

Oh and within the last year, Erectus crania from Java found in the early 1900s were dated to 108kya!

[@MWGrossmann]

~55min: the Nova episode was about raising an obelisk, not pyramid. It involved a simple framework, a pit, and some sand which was allowed to flow out from its position supporting the horizontal obelisk and pushed back in and around as the initial vertical support.

[@garychynne1377]

NICE BROW DOC. THANK YOU. VERY ENJOYABLE AND SENSIBLE. TAKE CARE GARE

[@realscientistflanders1688]

This went a BIT limp towards the END

[@romant142]

Very good talk

[@bravesirrobin704]

A most excellent presentation! If there's one thing I find almost as ridiculous as a multilevel selectionist, that's a paleoanthropological splitter.

[@keenanweind1780]

I would be interested in learning Professor Gilbert's take on the fact that our brains have been shrinking over the last 20-40 thousand years...

[@keenanweind1780]

@Blaz _ I do not think that that is how brain size works. Rhinoceroses are powerful, as were the dinosaurs, but neither have(/had) large brains...

[@cimmerian_savage9736]

It's strange that we have so many dino bones but not humans

[@KipIngram]

8:00 - I think during any time of a "new theory" there will be people who want to question it. In this case there was the added overtones from religion and so on, but I'm talking here about *scientists* who are earnestly trying to "be scientific," not people with an agenda to push. For one thing, what's better for you as a scientist? To climb on board someone else's theory? Or to advance a theory of your own that proves to be correct? Obviously, it's the latter. So there's always a tendency to want to promote an "alternate idea." Sometimes theories get to be so well accepted that it's actually dangerous to oppose it, and I think that's the *current* state of natural selection - it's just really hard to justify any doubt, so you don't see much opposition to it among serious scientists. But when a theory is new, the "risk" of questioning it is a lot lower, so I think you almost always see people doing just that. I think this is *healthy* - it's good to have varied ideas on the table getting taken seriously by competent scientists. Because once in a rare while, one of these alternate ideas is *right*, and after a while we figure that out and it displaces the other idea. Dogmatism is as bad in science as it is anywhere else. There are a lot of scientific thinkers in the world, so we can afford to have a few going on wild goose chases. Once in a while we benefit from it. Being "too quick to dogmatize" is a very dangerous thing. A great example, in my opinion, is Lamarck. He proposed radically different ideas from Darwin. After a while, he was basically branded a heretic. But look at us now - now we're talking about epigenetics, and in some cases the effects of epigenetics look an awful lot like what Lamarck was talking about. It's not, or not exactly, at least - he was, in fact, wrong. But at the same time there was "something there" that was worth discovering, and I think one of the reasons it took us so long to find it was because Lamarck's ideas were "cast out." It became positively dangerous to be anywhere near those ideas, and so it took us a hundred years to really recognize epigenetics. Don't get me wrong - I'm not endorsing "just any crackpot idea." I have as little use for flat earthers as anyone else. Sometimes the ideas people push forward are *so far* out of bounds that they just can't be taken seriously. But I do think we are sometimes too quick to reject ideas. Honestly, as long as a scientist is actually trying to "be scientific" in their thinking and their methods, I'm fairly content to let them. Most of the time they'll just ultimately prove themselves wrong. But it's not wrong to look at possibilities.

[@ShalomYal]

Thanks so much! I got several answers to questions that I have not been able to find

[@ulfnowotny01]

I really enjoyed this talk! Thank you!

[@DeerheartStudioArts]

intro music seems weirdly inappropriate for the topic of the lecture.

[@toserveman9317]

There didn't have to be a time when the early sapiens survived the late erectines through some great cull. Small changes happened slowly, every combat event between very similar males winning the females. There is the culling: one small 'war' at a time, spreading genes in ever increasing radii. Think a male grey-ferel cat variant spreading to only one new neighborhood (of striped tabby) and winning there; then his chip-off-block variant spreads to one new neighborhood from there and is victorious; and so on and so on with slow changing of the population's morphology. When we look at BIG PICTURE changes in the geologic record we are seeing, along with the process above, a grand selection through intense NEW selection pressures (enviros can change like straws on a camel's back). That situation allowed only one odd variation of each clade to survive; i.e one otherwise "weird" outlier species-variant of a genus, family, order, etc was the lone survivor. That survivor then became the "basal form" of the next diversification (genus, family, order, etc) into that new geo /enviro Era or Period. Imagine a scenario where enviro changed and all mammal metabolisms couldn't survive it except for sloths (with the thick slow blood). Sloths would now be the basal STEM strain that diversified into that new environment Era or Period. Then the processes above continue.

[@craigkdillon]

what was the name of the cave man wrestler???? ans: Sumo Wrecked Us.

[@dreddykrugernew]

Erectus interbred with Denisovans who mated with homo sapiens auustraloids have the genetics

[@lsporter88]

I think he's right. He makes sense. Great presentation.

[@marilyngandhi4213]

The Piltdown incident did lead to no one believing that the Platypus was a real animal when it arrived in UK.

[@sugarnads]

Err no. Piltdown was 150 years after platypus was first described. Had NOTHING to do with scientific hesitance.

[@julianshepherd2038]

Things were hard for H. erectus.

[@stephengent9974]

His answer on what a species is was not satisfactory. then it is still a hot topic today. Personally I think we still have too little direct evidence to say anything for sure. We will find out more. the key thing for me is keeping an open mind.

[@paulmicks7097]

What happened to Homo Erectus ? Dunno , he changed man, haven't seen him in 115,000 years or so, way before the first Bruce Springsteen concert. Excellent lecture, we are very lucky students

[@davidroberts1689]

Darwin said that he would look in Africa for the human precursors. Somebody was ready for those discoveries.

[@skyjuiceification]

It didn't take a Darwin to see this. all u would have had to do was apply common sense and unbiased minds.

[@Lisolomzi_Makabane]

@@skyjuiceification like a pink monkey

[@urmorph]

Russian for Dennis is Denis, pronounced Den-EES. As a last name it's Den-EEsov The recently popular hominids are Den-EE-sovans. Proficiency in science does not mean you can play fast and easy with language.

[@pinchnloaf]

Great lecture

[@richardblankenship5481]

Erectus walks amongst us.

[@rubenjames7345]

Is nobody else getting breaks in the audio?

[@SuperSlik50]

He Walks Among Us

[@edwardd.484]

Why havent they sequenced homo erectus genome? There are 19 different neanderthal specimens sequences and zero homo erectus. Why is this?

[@OblateSpheroid]

My guess is that they’re older and less well-preserved, but maybe there’s a desire to avoid confirming the West African ghost population finding.

[@1984potionlover]

What was the book that he gave away?

[@gundisaluusmenendiz]

Finally someone critiques the way many fossils are classified, I always said and will always say, what they're finding is not new species but diversity within the same species.

[@Simonjose7258]

I never saw this episode of 'Married with Children'.?.

[@nialcc]

@25.30 All that word salad meaning "I have no idea what the definition of species is." Which also means I don't believe a thing he is making up.

[@carryall69]

cool stuff..

[@bobwhite8440]

I didn't know Al Bundy was an anthropologist.

[@charliesimar7541]

with my rudimentary understanding of human evolution, this all makes a great deal of sense. However, I am left with a burning question. When did we lose our hair/fur??? Was homo erectus balding?

[@tyrander1652]

+Charlie Simar Search for NY Times--Why Humans and Their Fur Parted Ways.

[@aly7955]

im pretty sure we lost our hair as the ice age came to an end, when we didn't need it as much for warmth. so no, homo erectus was not balding. :)

[@charliesimar7541]

I find idea that we lost our hair at the end of the ice age unconvincing. After all, other primates retained their hair. According the NY Times article, there is genetic evident that we lost our fur well over a million years ago while the last ice age continued to about 10K years ago. The NY Times article offers some fascinating theories, though. One that strikes me as probable has to do with reducing the effect of parasites, particularly as we moved out of Africa and into other ecological zones. The idea that we may have gone through an aquatic phase may have merit but there doesn't seem to be any convincing evidence for it. Thanks for the responses.

[@Sunflower_Cats]

lost our fur in response to our functional bipedalism, sweat glands cool more efficiently as opposed to fur protecting from sun rays

[@chefbkeyes]

+Charlie Simar I only heard about the aquatic theory recently, in this lecture he mentions very many fossils in Indonesia as well as describing the very thing that may lead to aquatic adaptation, that is receding and advancing water levels. .... things that make ya go .....hmm. we do travel well along a coast.

[@BeatlesFanSonia]

This really held my attention!

[@CV_CA]

Sound keep on cutting off

[@nunzioification]

Wait, that’s not Greg Graffin! I’m not the only one that thought it was for just a split second before my eyes adjusted.

[@Simonjose7258]

When I heard what happened to homo erectus, I was like "whatever!"

[@alittleofeverything4190]

That introduction of speaker...wow

[@impossiblevisits]

It's "What Ever Happened," not "Whatever Happened."

[@billludlow3317]

Sheesh, whatever....

[@Simonjose7258]

Impossible Visits 🤣😂😅😉

[@michaelsladnick5482]

@@billludlow3317 learn English

[@billludlow3317]

www.google.com/search?q=Dictionary#dobs=whatever

[@georgeelmerdenbrough6906]

Look at all of the other posters here who aren't cunts .

[@oldwoman2121]

I so agree with you on Piltdown--it did a lot of harm. Crooks always do a lot of harm, as does racism.

[@TheGreatTimSheridan]

the only way to do this research is to look at the proportions and age and location in a computor graph.. this has not been possible because of the large number of skulls.. but lots of samples is what you would need.

[@johnellerman1]

It seems to me that this field of science could learn from the microbiologists when it comes to naming things. Among bacteria, for example, there are thousands of intermediate species and we constantly turn up bacteria that don't fit cleanly into one species or another. If one performs an API test, which measures the ability of a particular organism to utilise particular substrates, then looks up the API data base to see where a particular bacterium fits, it says things like 65% chance that it is an E. coli and 30% chance that it is a Citrobacter freundii, etc. In humans, all the intermediates have died out but in microbiology we deal with them all the time because they still exist. Maybe these scientists need to adopt a similar approach because hominin species have varied constantly and flowed into new types. Bacteria pass genes between them just as branches of the human tree have, so why not classify specimens as 65% chance of being Homo erectus etc., based on measurable parameters.

[@christianeaster2776]

Human paleontology has been a life long interest of mine. I say this to preface what I'm about say. My definition of a species includes a one can't interbreed with another and produce fertile offspring. Considering this, I think Neanderthals, Denosovians, the as yet to be discovered species all are the same species. This makes them subspecies within Homo sapiens not separate ones.

[@toserveman9317]

There didn't have to be a time when the early sapiens survived the late erectines through some great cull. Small changes happened slowly, every combat event between very similar males winning the females. There is the culling: one small 'war' at a time, spreading genes in ever increasing radii. Think a male grey-ferel cat variant spreading to only one new neighborhood (of striped tabby) and winning there; then his chip-off-block variant spreads to one new neighborhood from there and is victorious; and so on and so on with slow changing of the population's morphology. When we look at BIG PICTURE changes in the geologic record we are seeing, along with the process above, a grand selection through intense NEW selection pressures (enviros can change like straws on a camel's back). That situation allowed only one odd variation of each clade to survive; i.e one otherwise "weird" outlier species-variant of a genus, family, order, etc was the lone survivor. That survivor then became the "basal form" of the next diversification (genus, family, order, etc) into that new geo /enviro Era or Period. Imagine a scenario where enviro changed and all mammal metabolisms couldn't survive it except for sloths (with the thick slow blood). Sloths would now be the basal STEM strain that diversified into that new environment Era or Period. Then the processes above continue.

[@OblateSpheroid]

Are polar bears a different species than grizzly bears? Dogs different than wolves? I’ll give you as much time as you need to think through this.

[@elynocente]

He lives in San Francisco now

[@tbird6405]

Where can I find that song that is playing in the beginning and the end?

[@WonderfestScience]

It's called The Wonder Song, written and performed by Jack Conte.

[@jackholebourne]

Misleading thumbnail. I thought Ed O'Neil was going to talk about Homo Erectus

[@andyaim4764]

And they didn't have a spare mic.... 🎤

[@amber.4660]

Great lecture!

[@hunorendrevizi1483]

An erect welcome.. really?:))) i spat my drink lol

[@Kilogya]

The world has way more than a hundred questions.

[@NatalieDao]

Thanks for great information.

[@markbricklin3096]

Great presentation!

[@nhabib114]

Simply brilliant!

[@Rico-Suave_]

Watched all of it

[@sarojinichelliah5500]

The lady who brought up the Neanderthals and Denisovans was closer to the truth than they knew at that time .

[@arronjerden915]

The main problem with defining a species is the controversy with micro evolution and macro evolution. At what point do the small changes of micro add up to a big defining change resulting in macro evolution and a new species? Take wolves, coyotes, and dogs. Wolves and dogs are still considered the same species even though the common ancestors of all dogs were separated from significant influences from wild wolves long before coyotes split off from wolves in North America. Nobody looking at a tibetan mastiff and a beagle and a chihuahua would assume that they were all the same species, yet wolves and coyotes look similar enough to confuse with each other. It gets even foggier when you look at red wolves of the mid south and south east and the coywolves in the north and northeast. Both are "hybrid species" of wolves and coyotes, proven by genetic test. Yet red wolves look like coyotes with wolfish features while coywolves look like wolves with minor coyote features but have the so called "hybrid vigor" with many being larger and more aggressive than native wolves out breeding the few native wolves and the pure coyote population. All three can interbreed and produce viable fertile offspring and all the hybrids can interbreed and produce viable fertile offspring. So it makes more since to consider them all one species.

[@tsopmocful1958]

In my opinion, the 'point' lies between whether they 'can' interbreed and whether they actually 'do' interbreed on a regular basis. When we are dealing with such closely related populations like dogs, coyotes and wolves, it just really comes down to what is actually happening a lot on the ground and where, so any real speciation can only really be seen after it happens but looks a lot more fuzzy when we are observing it up closer to it in time. That's why when I use the definition of species as members of a population that readily interbreed to produce fertile offspring, the word 'readily' becomes very important because it denotes opportunity happening on a regular basis over time, and not just occasional, possible or opportunistic pairings.

[@tonkatoytruck]

Amazing how outdated this is only 6 years later.

[@21972012145525]

What lectures do you recommend I watch for the new theories?

[@Moronvideos1940]

Homo Erectus was the first animal to Stand up for Human rights ....

[@marcverhaegen7943]

What happened really to Homo erectus? Google e.g. "coastal dispersal of Pleistocene Homo 2019 biology vs anthropocentrism".

[@cinemaipswich4636]

There was once a concept of "The Missing Link". The governments and churches derided this concept, along with ridiculing Darwin's theses. Now there are at least 30 missing links that are not missing at all.

[@mrloop1530]

1:12:49 Time traveller from 2020/21 passing by

[@thedrunkentroll]

As dna test get better I remember a Danish company finding Neanderthal dna in homo sapiens and found what they thought may have been homo erectis dna in Denisovans...but today what do we have as far as dna for homo erectis?

[@sugarnads]

Theres nothing to compare it to. We dont have any HE dna.

[@apoena-allnitemusic7203]

Ótimo conteúdo.

[@KipIngram]

28:18 - Why was there resistance to the idea we're from Africa? I have little doubt that it was latent racism. You're talking about an era where even "good people" (and there were good people and bad people, just like in any other era) weren't fully fair in their thinking on that front. It just made people "uncomfortable," the same way Copernicus made them uncomfortable by moving Earth away from the center of the universe. When you've been raised to think you're "special," it can be a hard thing to let go of, and doing so in spite of your training is a great accomplishment of rational thinking. Honestly, I think it's HILARIOUS that it turns out we're all from Africa. I also think it's hilarious that modern Africans are the ones who "stayed home and kept themselves more pure," while all the rest of us went out into the rest of the world and diddled around with our more primitive genetic cousins. It's easy to make the case that Africans are more "pure homo sapiens" than any of the rest of us are. Modern genetic evidence makes that absolutely beyond doubt. I'm quite happy to watch with amusement while the ignorant and prejudiced members of my race put that in their pipe and smoke it.

[@christinestill5002]

This is good but was BEFORE Lee Burger discovered Rising Star Cave in So. Africa & 1000's of Hominid bones recovered : two have been named: Homo naledi & Homo Sediba.

[@happytrees4734]

“You walk around on both legs, Homo Erectus!”

[@lawneymalbrough4309]

I've seen modern human wiath a rather pronounce brow ridge like that.

[@philsurtees]

Yeah ... those magic looky-looky things are called mirrors.

[@wandaalexander1972]

Me to, especially people from Eastern Europe