Episode 39 - Speculative Evolution

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

Science, Natural Sciences, Education, Earth Sciences, Science:natural Sciences

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2018

⏱️ 111 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode, we’re discussing the fun and fascinating “What If” thought experiments of evolution. From fantastical fictional stories to unusual scientific hypotheses to just-for-fun artistic creations, speculative evolution is all about exploring the unseen (and maybe never-to-be-seen) possibilities of real biological science. We’ll touch on some of our favorite “hard science fiction” as well as how this style of creative thinking can contribute to the study of real living creatures of the past ... and beyond. In the news: Native American dogs, Neanderthal hunting methods, mammal testicle evolution, and plant-induced insect development. Time markers: Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:04:30Main discussion, Part 1: 00:36:00Main discussion, Part 2: 01:15:00 Check out our blog for bonus info and pictures: http://commondescentpodcast.wordpress.com/ Follow and Support us on: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/CommonDescentPCFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/commondescentpodcast/PodBean: https://commondescentpodcast.podbean.com/ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-common-descent-podcast/id1207586509?mt=2YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCePRXHEnZmTGum2r1l2mduw The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org. Muscial Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Common Descent Podcast.
0:19.0	Hello, David. Hello, Will.
0:21.8	And hello, listeners.
0:23.9	Welcome to episode 39.
0:26.9	Ooh, hey, that's a multiple of 13.
0:29.4	Yeah, it is.
0:30.5	There you go.
0:31.2	There's your random numerology for the day.
0:33.9	That's something you know now.
0:36.3	Those are one of my favorite jokes on the internet. I'm a big fan of 13. That's something you know now. Those are one of my favorite jokes on the internet.
0:40.1	I'm a big fan of 13. That's something you know now. Today's episode is for a triplicate of a prime
0:48.3	number, a weird episode. I think that's fitting. I think so. This episode is on speculative evolution.
0:57.0	What?
0:58.4	Yeah, what?
0:59.3	So this, I'm so excited for this episode.
1:01.4	This is a concept I'm very happy to talk about.
1:05.7	Speculative evolution is the, truly it's a mostly just a thought experiment of taking an organism or a situation
1:15.9	and hypothetically thinking through what would be the path of evolution or what would be the
1:23.3	likely outcome of that situation. So basically saying how would an organism or a known organism, so new thing, thing we
1:31.5	already know, evolve if blank were the case, if it were on an alien planet, if this happened,
1:38.2	if something else didn't happen, or if it were able to continue to evolve.
1:44.4	And it's just a thought experiment of past, present, future scenarios.
	...

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