Four billion years of evolution in six minutes | Prosanta Chakrabarty

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2019

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Did humans evolve from monkeys or from fish? In this enlightening talk, ichthyologist and TED Fellow Prosanta Chakrabarty dispels some hardwired myths about evolution, encouraging us to remember that we're a small part of a complex, four-billion-year process -- and not the end of the line. "We're not the goal of evolution," Chakrabarty says. "Think of us all as young leaves on this ancient and gigantic tree of life -- connected by invisible branches not just to each other, but to our extinct relatives and our evolutionary ancestors."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a special archive presentation of TED Talk's daily.
0:05.0	This TED Talk features ichthyologist Przanta Chakrabardi, recorded live at TED-2018.
0:14.0	If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
0:20.0	Well, because we're not monkeys.
0:22.2	We're fish.
0:24.3	Now, knowing you're a fish and not a monkey
0:27.3	is actually really important to understanding where we came from.
0:31.8	I teach one of the largest evolutionary biology classes in the U.S.
0:35.3	And when my students finally understand why I call them fish all the time,
0:39.3	then I know I'm getting my job done.
0:42.3	But I always have to start my classes by dispelling some hardwired myths,
0:46.3	because without really knowing it,
0:48.3	many of us were taught evolution wrong.
0:52.3	For instance, we're taught to say the theory of evolution.
0:56.5	There are actually many theories, and just like the process itself,
1:00.2	the ones that best fit the data are the ones that survive to this day.
1:04.6	The one we know best is Darwinian natural selection.
1:08.5	That's the process by which those organisms that best fit in an environment survive
1:12.9	and get to reproduce,
1:14.7	while those that are less fit slowly die off.
1:18.2	And that's it.
1:19.5	Evolution is as simple as that,
	...

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