Wonderful Life and the Burgess Shale

The Burgess Shale, high in the Canadian Rockies, is a truly amazing place. A window into the past, a window into our own past. (Stay with me on this, we're going deep.)
0:00 - Introduction
1:05 - Prologue
3:26 - The Burgess Shale
9:30 - The Researchers
20:50 - Contingency and Us
28:47 - Credits
Part of Places Series
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All copyrighted images are protected under Fair Use for reasons of education.
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Super Secret video:
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[@HenrythePaleoGuy]

Very well made! Making such a long and in-depth video is definitely a challenge, at least for me. I definitely want to make longer videos, and my holiday special that is coming out will hopefully be at least 15 minutes long since I still haven't made anything longer than that.

[@Prehistorica]

Thanks! In the future, I’d like to keep the videos under 20 minutes unless it’s a special video. This Burgess video was a real undertaking, and I started working on the script all the way back in November.

[@mymom1462]

Look how far you have come Henry. I am so proud of your persistence and passion.

[@HenrythePaleoGuy]

@@mymom1462 Much appreciated! It's been a really incredible journey, and I've learned a ton since making this comment. People like you really help the channel out in keeping it growing, and I'm forever grateful for that. More longer videos to come! :)

[@zackp9103]

This man is giving us a 30min video, legend. Happy new year man.

[@Prehistorica]

Happy New Year!

[@anomalocaris7238]

This is one of the most underrated paleontology channels on youtube. Wonderful video!

[@coleopteraa]

Based pfp

[@johnelliott7850]

At a loose end last night, typed 'Burgess Shale' into my smart TV, and this came up. A great rendition of a subject dear to my heart (I read Gould's 'Wonderful Life' years ago).

[@miquelescribanoivars5049]

You have truelly outdone yourself with this video! Keep being amazing!

[@bustavonnutz]

Music on point, production novel & information/exposition accurate + engaging. You're making me take notes dude, seriously top notch quality.

[@misslayer999]

I love the music you chose, especially the intro. It makes me feel like a little kid again watching an old Disney special from the 40s or something. Great video 💚 EDIT: Im realizing that the music is probably the soundtrack to It's a Wonderful Life. However, I've never seen that movie so I'm sticking with old Disney lol

[@tristanhelgerson7964]

Once again you've knocked it out of the park

[@philipbirmingham1201]

Came to this video from reading Bill Bryson's description of the Burgess Shale. Magnificent. Keep up the good work.

[@shiratikkas6780]

amazing work . thank you

[@timtrainor9720]

Very well done, Ty.

[@barthofste9039]

Wonderful stuff, thank you so much for creating such interesting content!

[@wisegurugirl]

Thank you for this video, colleague! It's great ✨

[@mortified776]

Destin from EDGE sent me over and holy shit you are good! I just watched the Meg video before this and I am awed with the quality of both. As if that wasn't enough, you're the first paleotuber I've heard pronounce Yixian correctly!

[@Prehistorica]

Thanks! Keep in mind, while the meg vid should be the most up to date on KZbin, this one is not. I gotta get around to making a new Cambrian vid, some of the animals in the Chengjiang make Anomalocaris look like small fry.

[@jtktomb8598]

Awesome video, thanks a lot ! (great music too :) Over the garden wall right ?)

[@Prehistorica]

JtktΘmb mostly music from Over the Garden Wall and Wonderful Life (the movie one)

[@esmeesmeralda701]

Lovely video

[@Ivan_1791]

Man, this is a really nice video, thanks for your contribution.

[@sandrakiefler4649]

This was absolutely wonderful my dude 😊👍‼️

[@uprightape100]

That was beautiful. Thank you.

[@grahamstevens9642]

brilliant ! one of my favourite books and a well written presentation with great music.

[@EricSable]

What in interesting video and random find! Beautiful video :)) how cool to find on my recommended!

[@bruceirving7080]

Fascinating subject and great presentation and production!

[@Tymdek]

Man I remember reading the beginning of Goulds book when I was a kid. My uncle borrowed it to me but I eventually stopped reading since I didn't understand much of it at the time... Maybe I should try again :)

[@coleopteraa]

i love this video

[@ILovHelloKitty13]

You’re amazing. I loved this.

[@risunokairu]

American Lion, stay away from me. American Lion; kitty let me be. Don't come hanging around my cave door; don't want to see your shadow no more.

[@trilobite7308]

1:36 im important

[@alderarts6897]

howdy

[@trilobite7308]

howdy, fool

[@hwh1946]

Great video. Thank you

[@iskender1324]

Did you ever listen to the Palaeo After Dark podcast? I highly recommend it to you ,if you haven't. Especially episodes(33,38 and 24)

[@captur69]

What a gem of a program....even if its but me off "Auld lang syne" for life ...lol...totally worth a watch...

[@chissstardestroyer]

Life and business operate by largely the same rules: everything in life is location, location, location... that alone aids massively in explaining why some survive and others perish... also, an animal's niche is to be thought of as its "job" or its "business", its "employment"; that too aids massively in clarifying why the Cambrian Explosion happened: the job opportunities had opened up, and where there's an opportunity someone will exploit it.

[@mackjohnson7302]

I'm currently re-reading Wonderful Life (I first read it for my paleontology course in college), and there's a question that's been burning in my mind: does the re-classification of the Burgess fauna since the book's publication (organisms thought to belong to their own unique phylum are now considered to be stem members of modern phyla) undermine Gould's argument of contingency shaping the evolutionary history of life?

[@Prehistorica]

Currently working on a video about that very topic : )

[@mackjohnson7302]

@@Prehistorica I'll keep my eye out for it! Also, you wouldn't happen to have read Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution by Jonathan B. Losos, have you?

[@mariashelly6392]

This was great!

[@jackbyrley6441]

Great video!

[@Prehistorica]

Thanks! I try my best :)

[@leonardogerbassi8030]

What's the song during the act transitions?

[@Prehistorica]

It’s the intro segment to the song Auld Lang Syne, part of the original “Its a Wonderful Life” soundtrack

[@leonardogerbassi8030]

@@Prehistorica Thanks.

[@DinoMan99000]

a very interesting video. I loved learning about the whole anomilacrus thing. The contingency thing was also interesting to bring up. While i personally do not feel that the survivors in evolution is fully random, there is defiantly a random aspect to it. While the kpg mass extinction defiantly favored the small creatures, therefore the survivors picked not being fully random, there we certainly some lineages that made it through or didn't just because on got lucky and the other didn't. I do feel that this needs to be aplyed to our understand of the history of life. That many of the sussecful groups of animals we not destined to rule and sometimes were no better then other lineages, at least in there ancestral state, but why they won in the end is just simply because of random chance.

[@Prehistorica]

Gould said that he himself did not believe it was truly random. The different rules model simply shook things up so that a group of animals that happened to have a certain traits survived, even if those traits were negative before the change

[@YuGiBrohhh]

Please come back 🥺

[@henriklarsen9616]

I really love your presentation but I hate the music and weird movie inset. It is very well done and quite easy to understand.

[@deanellis3468]

Opabinia rules.

[@dragonfox2.058]

I KNEW there was a woman behind this!

[@Prehistorica]

still don’t know what this comment means tbh

[@geekyprojects1353]

Teeth were durable untill the invention of chocolate.

[@LoveFor298Yen]

Music used at 3:40?

[@70snostalgia]

Vocal track needs more bass and get a pop filter for your mic. Very good otherwise.

[@whatabouttheearth]

Needs lower highs and higher mid mids. And maybe a little bit of lows but not too much.

[@kobeans6686]

anomalocaris!!!

[@scottzema3103]

Speculative convergent evolution on alien worlds with similar makeup and chemistry as earth, and not too cold or too hot to support life probably contain at least simple forms of life such as stromatolites or bacteria, and evolution moving forward towards more complex forms would exhibit general convergence with earth life forms. But as to the probably of more convergent and complex life forms such as us evolving to occupy earthlike planets, that would seem to vanish to near zero given the chances or mischances of evolution through time as this film seems to emphasize. So the most basic primitive life may abound in the universe. But meeting our direct human relations must be close to vanishingly small, even if still possible and even probable given the size of the cosmos. We might be meeting predatory squid or giant arthropods on terrestrial worlds as likely as we would be meeting advanced primates, or not encounter advanced species at all. Still, there are those pesky rumors of UFOs and governments aware of extra terrestrial visitors. Hard to explain but maybe evolution is more reliable in producing .complex creatures than seems likely, and life once established evolves naturally into more complex forms.

[@tristanhelgerson7964]

Am I the only one here so far?

[@HenrythePaleoGuy]

Nope.

[@zackp9103]

not for long

[@markdemell6087]

The Creator made all of this ,Halleluyah!

[@justdeeznuts]

You're joking, right?

[@whatabouttheearth]

Well, I'm assuming you're not a YEC, at least that's better than nothing I guess.

[@gja111075]

terrible

[@Prehistorica]

thanks

[@markwarren3535]

What an outstanding piece of work !! This is what I thought KZbin would become, rather than " Drunk Karens Getting Their Due ". Unfortunately our significantly dumbed down latest generations want things like " Trans activist has second thoughts while smoking poop from coyotes who ate peyote ". Anyway, just a super job on this vid. Really just super !!