Come discover the wisdom of Frankenstein, hear about one of the worst mistakes in the history of our species, and learn everything there is to know about the heavyweight champion of invasive animals.
Summary
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You shouldn't play God. People use this nebulous phrase to object to a wide variety of modern |
| 0:08.2 | attempts to improve the world, both real and hypothetical. We shouldn't genetically modify our food. |
| 0:15.6 | We shouldn't give people fertility treatments. We shouldn't create artificial intelligence, and we shouldn't try to stop |
| 0:22.6 | hurricanes. We shouldn't do anything that would mess with the natural state of things too |
| 0:29.1 | dramatically. And why shouldn't we do these things? Well, because it would be quote-unquote |
| 0:35.0 | playing God. |
| 0:45.9 | The critics who use this phrase don't usually identify specific reasons why an action will cause harm. |
| 0:52.6 | They just drop this platitude into the conversation and hope it stops it. |
| 0:58.0 | Sounds like an old phrase, doesn't it? You shouldn't play God. |
| 1:06.2 | This pearl of ancient wisdom actually comes from Frankenstein. Not even the book, the movie version. |
| 1:23.3 | Now, because this moral precept threatens to stifle progress, because it can be applied at such low intellectual cost, and because it comes from a random movie quote, I'm tempted to ignore it entirely. |
| 1:28.7 | Come on, we're supposed to just play primate until the end of history? |
| 1:31.1 | Why shouldn't we play God? |
| 1:36.7 | Today, we're going to talk about a reason why. |
| 1:39.3 | The cane toad. |
| 1:41.5 | Rinella Marina. |
| 1:45.0 | I'm Mackin, this is species. |
| 1:51.0 | Welcome to the show. |
| 1:56.5 | Today we are going to talk about one of the most colossal mistakes in human history. |
| 1:59.5 | Get comfortable, it's a long story. |
| 2:08.0 | If you want to support this show, if you want to help me to tell long stories, there are primarily two ways you can do it. |
| 2:13.4 | First, you can share it with people who like animals. Send a link around, post it on social media. |
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