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Stuff To Blow Your Mind

The Fist Punch Theory of Evolution

Stuff To Blow Your Mind

iHeartPodcasts

Social Sciences, Science, Life Sciences, Natural Sciences

4.36K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2015

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Did the human fist evolve to punch faces? Did our faces evolve to take punches? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Christian explore University of Utah biologist David Carrier's research into human evolution -- including his 2015 study

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:22.1

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0:30.1

Deep in the mountains of Greece, the country's most-wanted man has been on the run for over a decade.

0:37.0

He's a bank robber, a barajah shaltz, a kidnapper, but to many Greeks, he's a hero.

0:44.0

His name is Vasili Spalio-Costas, and we're on the trail of the man behind the men.

0:49.0

A modern-day Robin Hood who steals from the rich and gives to the poor.

0:53.0

I'm Miles Gray. Listen to the Good Deep on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:23.0

Listen to Bachelor Happy Hour on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:30.0

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from How Stuff Works.com.

1:41.0

Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I am Christian Sager.

1:47.0

Hey Robert, I want you to hit me as hard as you can.

1:54.0

Alright, here it goes. You hit me in the ear. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

1:59.0

No, no, that was perfect. Are you okay? Hit me again.

2:04.0

No, maybe later, man, we've got an episode to record.

2:08.0

So as you may guess from our little fight club, homage there, this episode is about the evolution of punching, in particular, fists and human beings, and how we evolved in the theory that our hands specifically evolved so that we could fight each other.

2:27.0

Yeah, in particular, this is the theory that's been put forth by biologist David Carrier from the University of Utah, and he's done a number of different studies and that published a number of different papers supporting this theory.

2:41.0

And what do you agree with it or not? He makes some, he just makes a wonderful case for it. He's committed to this theory.

2:49.0

Yeah, I want to say he has like what, five academic papers published all about different parts of the body, but all around this theory.

2:55.0

Yes, the most recent of which just came out in the last couple of months. And in fact, we have done how stuff works video about it that you wrote and starred in, and there's a little like article accompanying it, yeah?

...

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