4. Dr. Sean B. Carroll — The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Natural Sciences, Science

4.3 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2016

⏱️ 95 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How does life work? How does nature produce the right numbers of zebras and lions on the African savanna, or fish in the ocean? How do our bodies produce the right numbers of cells in our organs and bloodstream? In The Serengeti Rules, award-winning biologist and author Sean Carroll tells the stories of the pioneering scientists who sought the answers to such simple yet profoundly important questions, and shows how their discoveries matter for our health and the health of the planet we depend upon.

One of the most important revelations about the natural world is that everything is regulated—there are rules that regulate the amount of every molecule in our bodies and rules that govern the numbers of every animal and plant in the wild. And the most surprising revelation about the rules that regulate life at such different scales is that they are remarkably similar—there is a common underlying logic of life. Carroll recounts how our deep knowledge of the rules and logic of the human body has spurred the advent of revolutionary life-saving medicines, and makes the compelling case that it is now time to use the Serengeti Rules to heal our ailing planet.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is your host, Michael Sherman, and you're listening to Science Salon, a series of conversations
0:10.4	with leading scientists, scholars, and thinkers about the most important issues of our time.
0:17.0	Well I think so I was been an evolutionary biologist for my professional career, and of course there was a lot of interest in both discoveries in evolution and a lot of discussion about the teaching and understanding of evolution.
0:32.0	And the more I became involved in those discussions and got involved in writing books or
0:37.2	participating in documentaries or things like that.
0:39.2	It was clear that there was there were sort of bigger megaphones to use than just scientific journals and things like that.
0:46.7	So more and more over the years I got to know a lot more filmmakers, got to know a lot more broadcasters, and understood a little bit of what some of the
0:55.0	obstacles were towards getting good stories about science out there into the culture.
1:01.1	And when Hughes asked me to consider being the head of science education, I realized that would be an opportunity to use Hughes's resources and a big collaborative network of scientists that we have to tell stories about science and scientists on a large scale.
1:15.0	So it's a sort of a combination of the prepared mind
1:19.0	and the opportunity presenting itself.
1:21.0	Does it work?
1:22.0	How do we know that our efforts at population of science work?
1:26.9	We don't know a whole heck of a lot.
1:28.4	We know a lot about what we do in the classroom.
1:31.4	We know a lot about what works in education and in fact
1:34.9	narrative storytelling is a very powerful educational tool even if it's underutilized.
1:41.2	And so you know we also know that minds are in a little more open at ages 14, 16, 18 than they are at 30, 40, and 50.
1:50.0	Hopefully.
1:51.0	And so, yeah, they are. And so that's why naturally I was I gravitatory
1:55.6	towards the possibility of of reaching out to students people who are you know
2:00.3	learning about the world and and not coming at it yet with a lifetime full of biases.
	...

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