Episode 78 - Exaptation

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

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

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2020

⏱️ 109 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hand a kitchen appliance to a child and they’re likely to find a whole new way to use it. This happens in evolution, too – traits adapted for one purpose turn out to be beneficial for a whole other reason, and so the trajectory of natural selection changes. The term for this is exaptation, but it’s a complicated concept, and not everyone even likes using the word. Let’s discuss what this word means, why it exists, and what some people find wrong with it. In the news: the oldest forest, an ancient parent, young T. rex, and fossil lungfish. Time markers: Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:04:30Main discussion, Part 1: 00:35:30Main discussion, Part 2: 01:00:00 Check out our blog for bonus info and pictures:http://commondescentpodcast.wordpress.com/ The Common Descent Store is open! Get merch! http://zazzle.com/common_descent 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. Musical 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.
0:21.0	And hello, listeners.
0:22.6	Welcome to episode 78 and the first episode of the new year.
0:27.5	Happy 2020.
0:28.7	Yeah.
0:29.4	So welcome back.
0:30.5	It's missed you since last year.
0:32.0	Been a whole year.
0:32.7	Oh, man.
0:34.6	Today we're talking about exaptation.
0:36.8	What?
0:37.4	Yeah, exaptation is an interesting scientific term, both in what it represents and in the history and current culture around it.
0:46.9	So, acceptation generally, we're going to go in more detail, but generally is the idea of when a trait evolved from one purpose is repurposed for a side purpose, for a
0:59.8	different feature. And that repurposing or co-option, as you'll also hear it called all the time,
1:07.9	is acceptation. One trait repurposed for another purpose. And this is an
1:14.0	interesting term because it's a young one and is still being fairly heavily debated today.
1:22.1	Yeah, a little bit controversial. So we're going to go into it. We'll go into the history.
1:26.7	What are the classic given examples for it? What is some of the research that has been done to try to support or look for it? And what is that debate? Why is there a debate? All that good stuff. This episode was also requested by two of our listeners, Rafa, and our patron Lydia.
1:44.9	Hey, thanks.
1:45.6	So thank you for the requests.
1:47.5	And before we move on, announcements.
	...

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