Ed Yong on how animal senses reveal the world around us

The TED Interview

TED

Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2022

⏱️ 44 minutes

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Summary

Like any animal, humans understand the world through our senses. But unlike other creatures, we can't detect magnetic fields with our bodies, or the flow of water from a fish swimming hundreds of feet in the distance. But Ed Yong wants us to really imagine what it would be like to perceive the world in these ways. In this episode, the Pulitzer winning science writer shares the unique ways that other living species get information about the world–from the melodic data-loaded songs of treehoppers and cicadas, to the olfactory brilliance of an average dog. Listen in for a glimpse at the beautiful animal narratives that lie beyond our restrained worldview that Ed writes about in his new book "An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal The Hidden Realms Around Us", which is out now.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Have you listened to Talk Radio recently?
0:03.0	Let's talk about this war on white people.
0:05.0	That's a pro-quiling, it's good for you.
0:07.0	Bill the Keystone pipeline, deport illegals, build the wall.
0:10.0	I'm Katie Thornton, host of the divided dial,
0:13.0	a new five-part series from WNMC's On the Media,
0:17.0	about how the American right came to dominate Talk Radio
0:21.0	and how one company is launching a conservative media empire
0:25.0	from the airwaves.
0:26.0	Listen every Tuesday and on the media feed.
0:29.0	Welcome to the Ted interview. I'm Stephen Johnson.
0:37.0	This is the first episode in what's going to be a truly mind-expanding new series
0:42.0	we are doing all about health and the human body.
0:45.0	Now, our bodies are unique as are all the ways they interact with the world around us.
0:50.0	But that's why we thought we'd start off by talking about non-human bodies
0:55.0	and all the things that our human senses don't detect.
0:59.0	Because our human senses are all we have in order to perceive the world around
1:03.0	as we sometimes have a tendency to assume that they are giving us a comprehensive picture of reality.
1:08.0	But in fact, our senses only detect a small sliver of all the potential information out there.
1:14.0	And science has come to appreciate just how limited our perception is
1:18.0	by studying the remarkable range of sensory systems across the animal kingdom.
1:23.0	So this is going to be a conversation that asks you to stretch your imagination.
	...

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