Why Religious People Have More Children, Sea Turtles’ Clumsy Navigation Skills, and the Real Center of Our Solar System Isn’t the Sun

Curiosity Weekly

Warner Bros. Discovery

Science

4.6 • 964 Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2020

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Learn the surprising reason why religious people tend to have more children; why sea turtles are actually pretty clumsy navigators; and where astronomers found the center of our solar system (spoiler alert: it’s not the center of our sun).

Evolution explains why religious people have more children by Kelsey Donk

New research examines links between religion and parental support from non-family members. (2020). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-07/uoo-nre070120.php
Church attendance and alloparenting: an analysis of fertility, social support and child development among English mothers | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. (2020). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2019.0428
About the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. (2019). Bristol.ac.uk. http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/about/

Sea turtles are surprisingly clumsy migrators by Kelsey Donk

Sea turtles’ impressive navigation feats rely on surprisingly crude “map.” (2020). ScienceDaily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200716111631.htm
Hays, G. C., Cerritelli, G., Esteban, N., Rattray, A., & Luschi, P. (2020). Open Ocean Reorientation and Challenges of Island Finding by Sea Turtles during Long-Distance Migration. Current Biology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.05.086
True Navigation: Sensory Bases of Gradient Maps. (2020). Tufts.edu. https://pigeon.psy.tufts.edu/asc/Phillips/Default_Old_08_21.htm

Astronomers have located the center of the solar system and it's not the center of the sun by Grant Currin

Starr, M. (2020). Astronomers Have Located The Centre of The Solar System to Within 100 Metres. ScienceAlert. https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomers-have-located-the-centre-of-the-solar-system-to-within-100-metres
To find giant black holes, start with Jupiter. (2020). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-06/vu-tfg062920.php

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com.
0:06.4	I'm Cody Gough.
0:07.4	And I'm Ashley Hamer.
0:08.6	Today you learn the surprising reason why religious people tend to have more children. Why sea turtles are actually pretty clumsy navigators and where
0:17.1	astronomers found the center of our solar system.
0:19.7	spoiler alert, it's not the center of our son.
0:23.0	Let's satisfy some curiosity.
0:25.0	If you were raised in a very religious family,
0:28.0	you probably know of other families with six or eight or even ten kids. It's pretty well known at this point that
0:35.6	religious families have more children and many of the world's biggest religions
0:40.0	explicitly encourage that. Isn't it the Bible that says be fruitful and
0:44.8	multiply? But new research shows that reproduction in religious communities is
0:50.3	about more than specific orders or religious beliefs.
0:55.0	Instead, ritual behavior, like going to church or being part of a religious community,
1:00.6	is itself associated with having more children.
1:05.0	So I'm basically saying that it's not like religious people are having more kids because the church
1:08.8	says so, it's because of other factors, surprising factors that we're going to get into. So what is the deal? Why do people
1:16.3	who engage in rituals have more kids? Well, historically people had lots of kids, mostly to ensure their own family's survival,
1:26.0	since many children didn't survive past infancy. In modern society, though,
1:31.3	we've come to see some disadvantages of having a big family.
1:35.2	Studies have found that the more siblings a child has, the worse their mental and physical
1:39.8	development, and children from large families also seem to have a harder time achieving
	...

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