Special Episode: Evolution and Genetics

The Science of Everything Podcast

James Fodor

Natural Sciences, Science, Social Sciences

4.8 • 750 Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2022

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this special episode I discuss various topics in evolution and genetics with Art Woods of the Big Biology Podcast. We begin by analysing various ideas associated with the extended evolutionary synthesis, including plasticity, epigentics, and niche construction, discussing the extent to which these ideas are a challenge or merely an addition to the mainstream understanding of evolution. We then consider several common misconceptions about genetics, including the idea of DNA as a blueprint and genetic essentialism. We conclude with a discussion of some politically contentious aspects of genetics. If you enjoyed the podcast please consider supporting the show by making a PayPal donation or becoming a Patreon supporter. https://www.patreon.com/jamesfodor https://www.paypal.me/ScienceofEverything

Transcript

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0:00.0	Oh, wow, oh, oh, wow, oh, wow, oh, wow.
0:13.0	Oh, wow.
0:15.0	Oh, my. Hello, you're listening to a special episode of the Science of Everything podcast. I'm your host, James Fodor.
0:38.8	Today we're going to be talking with the Big Biology podcast,
0:42.5	and in particular one of its co-hosts, Art Woods.
0:46.3	And we're going to have a discussion about genetics and evolution,
0:50.4	including a discussion about the extended evolutionary synthesis.
0:53.8	So we'll be talking a bit about some ideas about building on modern synthesis of combining Darwinism with Medellian genetics
1:00.0	and some ideas about how that needs to be extended by incorporating ideas like niche construction, epigenetics and plasticity.
1:07.0	Then we go into talking about some popular misconceptions of genetics and evolution and how those
1:12.8	may play a role in public understanding of genetics as well as various political and public policy
1:18.2	debates. This is a pre-recorded interview and at the start of it you'll hear myself and
1:23.2	art introducing ourselves in our podcast and then we go on to talk about evolution. So I hope you find
1:28.5	this interesting. This episode does assume a little bit of background knowledge about genetics. So
1:33.9	if you are a bit rusty on that, you might want to check out episodes 34 and 35 DNA structure
1:39.7	and function, parts one and two, as a bit of background. But without further ado, let's start the interview.
1:45.1	I'm the host of the Science of Everything podcast, and I've been doing my podcast for about, well, 12 years
1:49.9	now. A long time. Yeah, yeah, on and off a bit, but pretty, pretty consistent for most of that time.
1:55.1	And I started my podcast because I've been interested in science a long time. I've studied a few
1:59.4	different degrees and I'm currently doing a PhD in computational neuroscience, but I have been interested in science a long time. I've studied a few different degrees and I'm currently
2:01.0	doing a PhD in computational neuroscience, but I have an interest in many different scientific
2:05.7	fields, and I found that there wasn't really a podcast that kind of fit the niche that I was
	...

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