Heliconius butterflies do not all look the same even within ones species--they have different wing colors. These butterflies have the same adaptive poison to ward off predatory birds. Heliconius butterflies of different wing colors face no barriers to mating like humans.
The Human Genome Project was completed in the year 2000 [according to this documentary]. Bill Clinton declares that all human races are 99.9% the same. Human and chimpanzee genomes differ by about 3%.
John Hawks says that individuals with attention and focus problems are more likely to have more DRD4 genes.
Stanley Coren has determined that the Border Collie is a very intelligent dog breed.
Linda Gottfredson has found that even siblings have different levels of intelligence.
1. Interviewed experts: Andrew Brower, John D. Hawks, Stanley Coren, Linda Gottfredson, Simon Laughlin, Peter Ward (paleontologist), Alex Pentland.
Thanks for watching. Follow for more videos.
#cosmosspacescience
#throughthewormhole
#season3
#episode2
#cosmology
#astronomy
#spacetime
#spacescience
#space
#nasa
#spacedocumentary
#morganfreeman
#isthereasuperiorrace
#humanevolution
The Human Genome Project was completed in the year 2000 [according to this documentary]. Bill Clinton declares that all human races are 99.9% the same. Human and chimpanzee genomes differ by about 3%.
John Hawks says that individuals with attention and focus problems are more likely to have more DRD4 genes.
Stanley Coren has determined that the Border Collie is a very intelligent dog breed.
Linda Gottfredson has found that even siblings have different levels of intelligence.
1. Interviewed experts: Andrew Brower, John D. Hawks, Stanley Coren, Linda Gottfredson, Simon Laughlin, Peter Ward (paleontologist), Alex Pentland.
Thanks for watching. Follow for more videos.
#cosmosspacescience
#throughthewormhole
#season3
#episode2
#cosmology
#astronomy
#spacetime
#spacescience
#space
#nasa
#spacedocumentary
#morganfreeman
#isthereasuperiorrace
#humanevolution
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:01It is an idea that has spawned hatred, war, and genocide.
00:08It is one of the most polarizing questions we could ever ask.
00:13Do different races not just look different, are they fundamentally different?
00:22Will a future race of advanced humans look back and see all of us as a vastly inferior breed?
00:30Could there be a superior race?
00:39Space. Time. Life itself.
00:46The secrets of the cosmos lie through the wormhole.
01:00Speak of racial differences, and you are bound to inflame passions.
01:11Bosnian and Serb, Japanese and Korean, black and white.
01:17The belief that one group's germline is superior to another's has haunted history for thousands of years.
01:23But now, we are in the age of DNA technology.
01:29We can track down minute differences in these chemical strands,
01:34and perhaps discover whether they make Africans not just look different from Indians,
01:40but also think differently.
01:44Science has long been misused to try and prop up bigotry.
01:48But daring to ask how we might be different is important,
01:53because the answers could tell us where the entire human species is headed.
01:59I grew up in an all-black neighborhood in Mississippi.
02:09I never thought of myself as better or worse than anyone.
02:14But all around town, there were signs that other people did.
02:19Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream of racial equality.
02:28And in the last 50 years,
02:30we've taken some steps toward the colorblind world he imagined.
02:35But scientists are still trying to understand what race means,
02:40or if it has any scientific meaning at all.
02:44Is race only skin deep?
02:47Or is there something internal, invisible, that sets the races apart?
02:55Evolutionary biologist Andy Brower thinks we can understand what the word race means
03:01by looking at another species,
03:04one he feels he was born to study.
03:08Both my parents worked on butterflies for their PhDs back in the 50s.
03:13So I just became fascinated by that at five years old.
03:19And I had a little butterfly collection as a kid,
03:22definitely in my DNA right from the start.
03:26Andy studies heliconius butterflies.
03:29He has followed their fluttering wings all over the Western Hemisphere.
03:34As much as he is enchanted by their elaborate wing markings,
03:37he knows that their beauty is only superficial.
03:42They're poisonous butterflies,
03:44and they have pneumatic wing patterns
03:46so that they are advertising the fact that they taste bad
03:49to potential predators, birds usually,
03:53so that the more butterflies exhibit a common color pattern,
03:56the easier it is for the birds to recognize that,
03:59okay, there's one of those red and yellow things,
04:01they taste bad, I'm leaving those alone.
04:03But heliconius butterflies do not look the same everywhere.
04:08A group in one region of South America
04:10has completely different wing patterns
04:12from another group that lives just across a river,
04:15or another on the other side of a mountain.
04:19This is a box of butterflies that are all the same species.
04:24In French Guiana, a red band is on the forewing,
04:26and the hindwing is basically black.
04:28And then further south, you have the red rays and the yellow areas.
04:33These two rows in the middle here, the colors are different.
04:37The wing pattern differences are probably driven
04:39by which colors and patterns stand out most clearly
04:42to the local bird population.
04:44But these different-looking varieties,
04:47you could call them races,
04:49appear to have identical inner biologies.
04:53They smell the same,
04:54they recognize each other as being potential mates,
04:57and so they produce hybrid offspring.
05:00Hybrid offspring are perfectly fine,
05:02they're viable and healthy,
05:03they're fertile, so they can lay their own eggs.
05:06These butterflies all have the same lifespans
05:09and the same adaptive poison to ward off predators.
05:13The differences appear to be only skin deep.
05:17It is the same for humans.
05:21Race poses no biological barrier to mating,
05:25and our lifespans are all very similar,
05:29no matter what our ethnic background.
05:32Our people, like heliconius butterflies,
05:36all the same beneath our different colored skins.
05:39In the year 2000,
05:44when President Clinton announced the completion of the Human Genome Project,
05:48the answer appeared to be yes.
05:50In genetic terms, all human beings, regardless of race,
05:54are more than 99.9% the same.
05:58Another decade of genetic study has lowered that number somewhat to 99.5%.
06:04No matter who you are or where you come from,
06:07a mere one-half of 1% of your genetic code is unique to you.
06:15What kinds of racial differences could lie in that half percent?
06:20Perhaps plenty.
06:22Human and chimpanzee genomes only differ by about 3%.
06:26That difference is enough to make our brains radically bigger and smarter.
06:33Human and chimpanzee genomes only differ by about 3% of the human beings.
06:38John Hawks is a leading paleoanthropologist
06:41at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
06:44He studies the bones of ancient humans,
06:47tracking how we have changed
06:48since our evolutionary line split off from that of the chimps
06:52about 6 million years ago.
06:55When we look at a real brief thumbnail of our evolution,
06:58we started out as apes
06:59and became upright walking people
07:02and then evolved stone tool manufacture and bigger brains,
07:05and those are big events that took millions of years.
07:08But most of my work in the last few years
07:11has been focused on the very recent part of our evolution,
07:15our time since we left Africa
07:17and evolved into the people we are today.
07:22Scientists now agree
07:23the development of separate races began around 50,000 years ago
07:28when modern humans migrated out of Africa.
07:32There, dark skin pigmentation was and remains
07:35a protective force against ultraviolet rays.
07:39But as humans moved further north,
07:42dark skin blocked too much sunlight
07:44and reduced the natural production of vitamin D
07:48in our deep skin layers.
07:49Lighter skinned people fared better in Europe and China.
07:55For those who migrated to South America and southern India,
07:59darker skin once again protected them from the sun.
08:03But John's research is showing that
08:05these now-isolated ethnicities
08:08continue to evolve over the ensuing millennia
08:11and that distinctions between racial groups
08:14do go deeper than our skin.
08:16When I study archaeological samples
08:19of skulls that have come out of the ground
08:21from 5,000 years ago, from 10,000 years ago,
08:25we can see many of the changes
08:27unfolding in those samples
08:29as we go forward in time.
08:32Brain size changed.
08:34Teeth changed.
08:36And then there are some kinds of changes
08:38that are distinct to different regions.
08:40So there are characteristics
08:42that we can point at in the skull
08:43that now characterize Asians versus Europeans.
08:48John thinks racial differences run much deeper
08:52than our bones.
08:53He believes almost every aspect of our biology
08:57changed as humans migrated around the world,
09:00even the way our brains work.
09:02What separates one race from another?
09:08In the 50,000 years since small groups of people
09:12began migrating out of Africa,
09:14we've developed plenty of visible differences.
09:18But what invisible differences might there be?
09:22Just how far apart has our DNA drifted?
09:26Paleoanthropologist John Hawks
09:39is tracking changes in our genes
09:41over the past millennia.
09:44And he's discovered something unsettling.
09:48Our DNA loves to gamble.
09:51So when we look at the way that DNA changes,
10:00you know, it's sort of like
10:01our genes are addicted to gambling.
10:03And it's got four possible base pairs,
10:05A, C, G, and T.
10:07And here we've got, well, four colors of chips.
10:10This is like a DNA sequence,
10:12except your DNA would be enormously longer.
10:15The way that evolution works
10:20on these gene sequences,
10:22as this gene sequence is reproducing itself,
10:26one base pair may get swapped out
10:29and a different one put in its place.
10:33As we lay out many individuals' DNA next to each other,
10:37those individuals are going to be different
10:39from each other at random places.
10:41When a mutation happens,
10:43that can cause an enormous problem.
10:45Or it could be an enormous advantage.
10:48Between every generation,
10:50DNA makes about 60 of these random changes
10:52to its sequence.
10:54Sometimes it hits the jackpot.
10:56Sometimes it goes bust.
10:58Most of the time,
10:59these mutations do nothing at all.
11:02But all the changes that don't kill us
11:04are handed down to the next generation,
11:08living on like molecular fossils.
11:10And these fossils give John a way
11:13to calculate how old any particular gene is.
11:17The longer it has been around,
11:19the more random mutations
11:20will have collected around it.
11:23The part that's functionally important
11:24stays the same.
11:26But as you go farther and farther away from that part,
11:28it's more and more likely
11:29to have swapped up with another sequence.
11:32It's the length of that part
11:35that hasn't been swapped
11:37that gives us an idea
11:38of how long it's been around in the population.
11:40Because the longer the gene has been around,
11:43the more likely it is
11:44that we'll have these random changes.
11:46When John and his colleagues
11:48used this gene-dating technique
11:50in populations native to Europe,
11:53Asia, and Africa,
11:54they were in for a big surprise.
11:57Many genes were much younger
11:59than they'd expect it.
12:00What we discovered was that
12:02lots of them showed evidence
12:04of really fast adaptive changes.
12:06We're talking about 2,000 places
12:09that in one part of the world or another
12:12have undergone really recent adaptation.
12:15We were pretty surprised
12:16to find that the number was so large.
12:18John had expected to find
12:20that just a fraction of a percent
12:22of human genes
12:23would show signs of recent mutation.
12:25But instead, he discovered
12:28that about 7% of our genes
12:30have mutated to new forms
12:32in the last 10,000 to 20,000 years.
12:36Some of these genes are only found
12:38in certain racial groups.
12:40These mutations are not just related
12:43to skin color and physical appearance.
12:46The changes go far deeper.
12:49Probably the most obvious examples
12:51are the examples where
12:52there's a disease that's new
12:54that some people have developed
12:56resistance strategies to.
12:57So malaria, for example,
12:59is a disease that has been around
13:01for about 5,000 years
13:02as a human pathogen.
13:04Over that time,
13:05populations in South Asia,
13:07in Africa,
13:08have developed new adaptations
13:10to this particular disease.
13:12But John suspects
13:13there is another force
13:15driving these genetic changes.
13:17Our civilization.
13:19It is an idea that puts him at odds
13:21with most evolutionary scientists,
13:24including the father of them all,
13:26Charles Darwin.
13:28Darwin talked about
13:29the hostile forces of nature,
13:32you know, the sun beating down on us,
13:34the cold of the winter.
13:37And these would change us
13:39because we had to adapt
13:40to those environments.
13:42And in human evolution,
13:43we could invent things.
13:45We could change our behavior
13:46and our culture
13:47to insulate us,
13:49to buffer us from those things.
13:51And so the idea was
13:52that humans didn't have
13:53to change biology
13:54in order to adapt to new places.
14:00Charles Darwin's argument
14:02was that farming,
14:03houses, clothes,
14:05should stop our genes
14:07from changing and evolving
14:08because we began protecting ourselves
14:10from our environments.
14:12But John's research shows
14:14that the different ways
14:16groups of humans chose
14:17to live in different parts
14:19of the world
14:20could actually have driven
14:22genetic changes.
14:23Probably the best example
14:25of how culture has influenced
14:26our evolution
14:27is milk drinking.
14:29Now, it's not normal
14:30for adult mammals
14:31to have access to milk.
14:33If you think about a bull
14:35trying to get milk up
14:36from underneath the cow's udder,
14:38it just doesn't work in nature.
14:40There have been many populations
14:45that have adopted dairy animals
14:47of different kinds.
14:48Five of them have developed
14:50new mutations
14:51that give them,
14:52as adults,
14:53the ability to digest
14:54the sugar in this milk.
14:56In Northern Europe,
14:58this is a really common mutation.
15:00But if you go to some parts
15:01of the world, like China,
15:02it's very rare for people
15:04to be able to drink milk.
15:07But in fact,
15:08it's the ability
15:09to digest this milk.
15:11The lactase persistence,
15:12as we call it,
15:13which is the weird
15:14mutant version of this.
15:16And it's all happened
15:17in populations
15:17because they've changed
15:19their culture.
15:21Just as the climates
15:22where different ethnic groups
15:23lived varied,
15:24so did the rules
15:25and habits of their societies.
15:28And their DNA
15:29was forced to adapt.
15:31If you're a human,
15:33you have to survive
15:34and deal with other people
15:35every day
15:36in order to reproduce.
15:38And that makes culture
15:40your environment.
15:42Genetic adaptations
15:44may even have altered
15:45the way our brains work.
15:48John and his colleagues
15:49have discovered
15:50around 100 mutations
15:52in genes controlling
15:53brain chemistry
15:54that have taken place
15:55since humanity migrated
15:57from Africa.
15:59One of them,
16:00a genetic variant
16:01called DRD4,
16:04may even have triggered
16:05that migration
16:06in the first place.
16:08It's linked to ADHD
16:10because when we study
16:11patients who have ADHD,
16:13they have a greater chance
16:14of having this gene.
16:16One possible reason
16:17is that it made people
16:18more likely to move.
16:20The DRD4 mutation
16:22is most commonly found
16:24in populations
16:25that live outside of Africa.
16:27It appeared around
16:2850,000 years ago.
16:30It has been called
16:32the migration gene
16:33because traits
16:34like rapidly shifting
16:35focus and quick movements
16:37could have been
16:38very useful
16:39when our ancestors
16:40were on the move.
16:42Even though short attention
16:44now appears
16:45less useful
16:45in our modern
16:46sedentary society.
16:49DRD4 is the best example
16:51of a gene
16:52that is clearly
16:53recently selected
16:54and has behavioral impacts.
16:56It affects the brain
16:57in some way.
16:58But there are others.
16:59And we don't know
17:00what they do,
17:01but we can say
17:02that they're expressed
17:03in the brain,
17:04they're related to
17:05our behavior
17:06in some way potentially,
17:07but we don't know
17:08what those changes are for.
17:10The notion
17:11that genetic changes
17:13affecting the brain
17:14might actually underpin
17:15the spread of humanity
17:16across the globe
17:18leads to an unsettling question.
17:21Might some races
17:22have evolved
17:23to become more intelligent
17:25than others?
17:26It is a highly
17:28divisive notion.
17:30But some scientists
17:31are probing the issue
17:33and their conclusions
17:35have triggered outrage.
17:40Race.
17:42It is a word
17:43that stirs
17:44powerful emotions.
17:47Some scientists
17:47think the genetic
17:48differences between us
17:49are so small
17:50that the word race
17:51doesn't even make sense.
17:54But understanding
17:55how evolution
17:56has shaped the races
17:57and continues
17:58to do so
17:59is of great
18:01scientific importance.
18:05The trait that sets
18:06humans apart
18:07from all other species
18:08is our incredibly
18:10complex brain.
18:12But could the brains
18:13of different races
18:14be different?
18:16Could they have
18:17different intelligences?
18:18different races?
18:21Renowned psychologist
18:22Stanley Koren
18:23has spent years
18:25studying intelligence
18:26differences.
18:27Not among different
18:28races of people
18:29but in different
18:31breeds of dogs.
18:33Dogs are a marvel
18:35of genetic engineering
18:36simply because
18:37we've kept the breeds
18:38separate.
18:39You know
18:41my grandparents
18:43were Latvia,
18:44Lithuania,
18:45Russia
18:45but you know
18:46I take a golden retriever
18:47and his granddaddy
18:49was a purebred golden retriever
18:51and his great granddaddy
18:52was so on and so forth.
18:54So there's less noise
18:55in the genome.
18:57For at least
18:5814,000 years
19:00humans have systematically
19:01shaped the evolution
19:03of dogs
19:03changing them
19:05to fit our needs.
19:07Stanley has measured
19:08the intelligence
19:09of more than
19:09100 breeds.
19:12So we can get
19:13dogs which
19:14because of their breeding
19:15differ in terms
19:17of their intelligence.
19:19If you take
19:19a young child
19:20below 18 months
19:21of age
19:22and you put a towel
19:23over his head
19:23he thinks that the world
19:25has gone away
19:25and he sits there.
19:27So if Montana
19:28has a mental ability
19:29beyond an 18-month-old
19:31human
19:31Montana should
19:33throw the towel
19:33off of his head
19:34very quickly.
19:35You ready Montana?
19:36Come.
19:38Stanley's test results
19:45have convinced him
19:46that there are
19:47big differences
19:48in canine intelligence
19:49from breed to breed.
19:51Where has the world gone?
19:53Okay, what a good dog.
19:56And then I've got
19:58a beagle
19:58and his job
20:00is to amuse
20:01my grandchildren.
20:02As dog intelligence goes
20:05beagles are seven
20:06from the bottom.
20:07So this bench
20:09that I'm sitting on
20:10right now
20:10is more trainable
20:11than a beagle.
20:12The top dogs
20:14in terms of intelligence
20:15are the border collie
20:17followed by the poodle.
20:19Some people say
20:19the poodle?
20:20That's a fru-fru dog.
20:21No, the poodle
20:22is a retriever.
20:23Okay?
20:23And he didn't ask
20:24for that silly haircut.
20:25If some breeds
20:28of dogs
20:28are smarter
20:29than others
20:29why could that
20:31not be true
20:32for the animals
20:32at the other end
20:33of the leash?
20:37University of Delaware
20:38sociologist
20:39Linda Godferson
20:40has been analyzing
20:41IQ test scores
20:43for the past
20:44two decades.
20:45She claims
20:46they reveal
20:47a subtle
20:48but measurable
20:49link
20:50between intelligence
20:51genetics
20:52and race.
20:54For very complex
20:56traits like
20:57intelligence
20:57many genes
20:59of small effect
21:00may push a person
21:02this way
21:03or that
21:03and they're
21:05really, really
21:06hard to find.
21:09Individual IQs
21:10are as diverse
21:12as the grains
21:13of sand
21:14on a beach.
21:16But Linda believes
21:16there are patterns
21:17in this noise.
21:20Patterns that depend
21:21on our genes.
21:23As any parent knows
21:25brothers and sisters
21:26look different
21:27they often have
21:27different personalities
21:28and they often have
21:30different levels
21:31of intelligence.
21:33The average difference
21:34between siblings
21:36is 12 IQ points.
21:39If you compare
21:40to random people
21:42walking on the beach
21:43you might ask
21:43well how different
21:44are those people?
21:45On the average
21:46strangers differ
21:48by 17 IQ points.
21:50So you see
21:52that biological
21:53brothers and sisters
21:54are two-thirds
21:55as different
21:56on the average
21:57as random strangers
21:58on the street.
22:01The genes of strangers
22:02vary more than
22:03those of siblings
22:04and Linda argues
22:06this is why
22:07their IQs vary more.
22:10Her interpretation
22:10of this data
22:11has led her
22:12to a controversial notion
22:13that the genetic
22:15differences between races
22:16might lead to differences
22:18in the average
22:19intelligence
22:20of those races.
22:22I guess there would be
22:23two rules
22:24about human diversity.
22:27One is that
22:28there's lots
22:30of variation
22:32within all groups
22:34but there's
22:35also a gradation
22:38between groups
22:39so that
22:41there are
22:42recurring
22:43and sometimes
22:44large average
22:45differences
22:46between racial
22:47ethnic groups.
22:49IQ scores
22:50in any group
22:51of people
22:51are spread
22:52across a bell curve
22:53ranging from
22:54a score of about
22:5570
22:56to about
22:57130.
22:59There are
23:00outliers
23:00on either end
23:01but most people
23:02are clustered
23:03around an average.
23:04There are
23:06differences
23:07between racial
23:08ethnic groups
23:09on the average
23:10in IQ.
23:12The average
23:13white's IQ
23:14is arbitrarily
23:15set at 100.
23:17Blacks
23:18in the United States
23:19and in many
23:20other western
23:21countries
23:22average 85.
23:24Hispanics
23:25the average
23:26would be about
23:2680.
23:28Native Americans
23:29around
23:30that level
23:31and then
23:33Japanese
23:34and Chinese
23:35Americans
23:36above the
23:37white average
23:37and then
23:38Ashkenazi Jews
23:39probably around
23:41110
23:41to 115.
23:44Linda's research
23:45has made her
23:45a scientific
23:46outcast.
23:48She's even
23:48been called
23:49a racist
23:50a claim
23:51she denies.
23:53Her critics
23:54argue that
23:55IQ test results
23:56are heavily
23:57skewed
23:57by socioeconomic
23:59facts.
24:00childhood
24:01nutrition
24:01and access
24:02to health
24:03care
24:03can vary
24:04widely
24:04between
24:04different
24:05racial groups.
24:07If you live
24:07in a good
24:07neighborhood
24:08with well-funded
24:09schools
24:10you are more
24:11likely to be
24:11accustomed
24:12to the academic
24:13setting
24:13of an IQ test
24:14and if you
24:15live in those
24:16neighborhoods
24:16you are more
24:18likely to be
24:18Asian
24:19or white.
24:21There are
24:21also concerns
24:22over whether
24:23the test
24:24questions have
24:24a cultural
24:25bias
24:26a bias
24:26reflected by
24:27the fact
24:28that it's
24:28the white
24:29IQ average
24:30that's set
24:31to a hundred.
24:33Is one race
24:34smarter than
24:35another?
24:37Depends on
24:38what you mean
24:38by smart.
24:40Could IQ
24:41scores predict
24:42the greatness
24:42of an artist
24:43like Picasso
24:44or of a
24:45political leader
24:46like Gandhi?
24:48IQ is a
24:49narrow obsession.
24:51No two people
24:52think the same
24:53way
24:54regardless of
24:55their race.
24:55race.
24:56So here's
24:57a new
24:57question.
24:59If the brains
25:00of the races
25:00are similar
25:01now,
25:02will that
25:03always be
25:03true?
25:05We are
25:05still evolving.
25:07Could our brains
25:09one day become
25:10as different
25:10as those of
25:11Boyd-O-Collies
25:13and Beagles?
25:18Evolution has
25:19given human beings
25:20one incredible
25:21asset.
25:23The remarkable
25:23network of nerve
25:25cells buzzing
25:26around inside
25:27our heads.
25:28The growth of these
25:30three pounds of
25:31soft tissue
25:32catapulted human
25:33intelligence to a
25:34level far above
25:35the other species.
25:36How much further
25:38can it grow?
25:40Will we
25:41eventually evolve
25:42into a superior
25:43race of
25:44super-intelligent
25:44humans?
25:56Neuroscience
25:57Professor Simon
25:58Laughlin from
25:59the University
25:59of Cambridge
26:00studies brainpower.
26:03He tests
26:03the limits
26:04of what brains
26:05and their nerves
26:06themselves can do,
26:08all the while
26:08watching how much
26:10fuel they guzzle.
26:11So I'm interested
26:12in what the
26:12physical limits
26:13to the performance
26:14of brains are
26:15and in what
26:17determines the
26:17processing power
26:18of brains.
26:21Simon has
26:22developed a
26:22unique way to
26:23see just how
26:24much information
26:25living brains
26:25are processing
26:26while simultaneously
26:27keeping track
26:29of how much
26:29energy they are
26:30using.
26:31His window
26:32into the human
26:33brain is through
26:34the bulbous
26:35eyes of flies.
26:38They're a simpler
26:39system, so it's like
26:40looking at a pocket
26:42calculator before you
26:43work up to actually
26:44try to understand
26:45a really big computer.
26:46The basic principles
26:48by which the fly's brain
26:49operates is the same
26:50as ours, but they're
26:52much easier to work
26:53with and we have a much
26:54more complete
26:54understanding of what
26:55they do.
26:57Simon's ability to
26:58measure the performance
26:59of fly brains is all
27:02thanks to this insect's
27:04most bothersome
27:05characteristic.
27:08Anybody who's
27:09tried to spot a fly
27:10knows that they're
27:11very good at
27:11detecting movement,
27:13and to do that,
27:14they have to be able
27:15to respond to very
27:16rapid and fast
27:17changes in light.
27:19In fact, detecting
27:22light is most of
27:23what a fly's brain
27:24does.
27:26Simon's lab is
27:27stocked with two
27:28species, the blowfly
27:30with large, bulging
27:31eyes, and the
27:33diminutive fruit fly,
27:35whose eyes are much
27:36smaller.
27:38He and his team fit
27:39microelectrodes into
27:41the fly's nerve cells.
27:43Then they expose them
27:44to a flickering light to
27:46record their processing
27:48power.
27:50So the cell responds
27:51to the light by changing
27:53its membrane potential,
27:55and then we can process
27:56those signals to work
27:57out how much information
27:58they contain.
28:01Simon discovered that
28:03while the fruit fly is
28:04able to see some of the
28:05changes in light, the
28:07blowfly picks up on even
28:08the most minute flicker.
28:11The blowfly's bulbous
28:12eyeballs spew out a huge
28:14quantity of neural data.
28:16Enough to fill up a one
28:18gigabyte memory stick
28:20every minute.
28:22But there's a downside
28:23for the blowfly.
28:25So the blowfly picks up
28:26about five times as many
28:27bits per second as the
28:29fruit fly.
28:30But because it has a much
28:32higher performance,
28:33those bits of information,
28:34each bit costs it about
28:36ten times more energy.
28:38Information is very
28:39expensive for a fly.
28:40So we have a sports car.
28:53It has a very high top speed.
28:54It has a very high performance,
28:56but also it has a very heavy
28:58fuel consumption.
28:59It uses a lot of energy.
29:01So as we're idling along now
29:02in Cambridge, we're not using
29:04any of our performance at all.
29:13This little car here has a lot
29:15lower performance than this
29:16sports car, but it's much
29:18more economical.
29:19It uses much less energy to go
29:20a given distance.
29:21So you pay a high price for a
29:23high performance, just like
29:24neurons.
29:24The powerhouse brain of a
29:27human being is even less
29:29fuel efficient than that of
29:30the blowfly.
29:32And this is why Simon is
29:33almost certain that the
29:35human brain has reached its
29:37limit.
29:38So if the blowfly is this
29:39sports car, then the human
29:42brain, with its vastly
29:43superior performance, is like
29:46a space rocket.
29:47Huge amounts of energy being
29:49used to process information.
29:51The human brain is only 2% of
29:54our body mass, but it consumes
29:5620% of our oxygen when we are
29:59at rest.
30:00The smarter we get, the higher
30:02the energy cost.
30:04If we wanted to have a brain
30:05that was 10% better, we might
30:07have to have one that was
30:08actually 20% bigger.
30:10Then it would make increasingly
30:12large demands on the body.
30:15Well, if the human brain got
30:16bigger, it would be more
30:18difficult to give birth to
30:20children, and if you wanted to
30:23make it much bigger when the
30:24child was born, the brain
30:26would have to be less well
30:27developed than it is now.
30:28So infancy and childhood would
30:31last longer.
30:34Our brain has evolved to strike
30:37some sort of balance between
30:39the cost of processing the
30:41information, which is very high,
30:42and the amount of information we
30:44actually need to process.
30:45But there may still be a way for
30:49us to become smarter if we take
30:52matters into our own hands.
30:54We may build a superior human race,
30:58and only some of us will be part
31:01of it.
31:06All of modern humanity can trace
31:09its ancestry back to a small group
31:11of people living in East Africa
31:13about 50,000 years ago.
31:16We all looked very similar back
31:18then.
31:19Over the millennia, we've adapted to
31:21our local climates and become the
31:24rainbow of people we are today.
31:26But evolution hasn't stopped.
31:29Where are we headed?
31:32Could a future race of superior humans
31:34look like this?
31:43Peter Ward is a paleontologist at the
31:46University of Washington in Seattle.
31:48He finds evolution everywhere he
31:51looks, even inside a fish market.
31:55Well, we've got two really standard
31:57wonderful food fish in the
31:58Northwest.
31:59We've got this nice big halibut and
32:01these beautiful salmon.
32:02If we look at the fossil record,
32:05actually, these are way more
32:05primitive.
32:06These guys were here first, and in
32:08fact, far more fish look like this,
32:10that beautiful fusiform shape, than
32:12this rather ugly thing.
32:14It's been squished down and flattened.
32:17It's like taking a salmon, rolled it
32:19on its side, bringing an eye over,
32:21and living forever with that totally
32:23rotated shape.
32:26This guy lives on the bottom, and
32:28this is a superb adaptation for where
32:30it lives.
32:30From the salmon, evolution created the
32:34halibut.
32:36What, Peter wonders, might it do to
32:39humans?
32:40It is tempting to believe that nature
32:43has a master plan to evolve us into
32:45fitter, smarter, more attractive
32:48beings.
32:49But nature doesn't work that way.
32:52Our best traits and our worst traits
32:55are chosen for us quite randomly.
33:00Albert Einstein most famously said,
33:03God does not play dice with the universe.
33:05Well, maybe he was writing physics, but in
33:08evolution, there's a whole lot of dice
33:09playing.
33:10Here's my evolutionary dice, die.
33:13This is A, T, G, and C, the genetic code.
33:17When they combine together, they tell an
33:20organism what traits it's going to have, and
33:22much of that combination comes together in
33:25random fashion.
33:26So if I throw this evolutionary die, I'm going to
33:30be stuck with this particular gene, and that gene might take me up any
33:35one of these four roads, three of those roads might kill you almost
33:39instantly.
33:40One of them might be towards a really superior
33:43organism.
33:47If Peter wants to make his way across town to a high-end
33:51restaurant using the rules of DNA navigation, he will have to rely on the
33:56random role of a die.
33:58One turn could get him closer, the next could turn him back toward where he
34:09started.
34:10There's no telling when or if he will ever make it.
34:14Evolution is a random process that usually leads to genetic dead ends.
34:22But what if Peter could escape the randomness of natural selection?
34:26Up until we became a technical species, we were, like every other species, at
34:32mercy to the randomness and to really the nastiness of evolution.
34:37The next stage of human evolution is going to be we humans tinkering right into
34:43the genome itself.
34:46Not only can we change people in their lifetime, but we'll be able to change
34:52their very DNA so that they and their changes get passed on to the next generation.
34:59With this type of directed evolution, Peter does not have to blindly depend on chance to
35:05get him where he wants to go.
35:11Waterfront seafood grill.
35:12Genetic technology could take you on a direct route from A to B, as long as you can pay for
35:25the ride.
35:27Peter believes that once humans start pursuing unnatural selection, we will
35:31diverge into two separate races.
35:34Those who are left rolling the evolutionary dice and those who can afford to design their
35:40own genome.
35:42All right.
35:43Thank you so much.
35:44Hell of it.
35:45Thanks.
35:46I can see a point where once the differences we engineer into ourselves are so different
35:53from what you find in the wild stock humans versus the genetically engineered humans, there
35:59will be a divergence.
36:01If you had children that bred with other children with these enhancements, it keeps going.
36:06You're going to see a social drifting apart.
36:09And speciation happens when gene pools separate, populations separate.
36:15It is a grim vision of the future.
36:19A global gated community of super rich, long-lived human 2.0s hogging all the resources.
36:27And a completely separate species of people who can barely survive.
36:34But another technological force is driving us in a different direction.
36:40The next big leap toward creating a superior human race may come from us putting aside our
36:45differences and putting our heads together.
36:48Earth is already a crowded place.
36:55And by the end of this century, the human population will probably reach 11 billion.
37:01We'll be packed in as tightly as bees in a hive.
37:06That prospect has inspired some scientists to envision a new evolution of mankind.
37:10Just as insect colonies share the workload, perhaps we can learn to harness the power of multiple
37:17brains and create a vastly superior global hive mind.
37:26Sandy Pentland is the head of the Human Dynamics Lab at MIT.
37:31He's a pioneer of a new field of research, computational social science.
37:35Sandy believes humanity is about to become a smarter, superior species, not because we're
37:43going to evolve at the individual level, but through a transformation in the way we work
37:48together.
37:49So human organizations are a little bit like an information machine.
37:53The gears not only have to fit together, but they have to be synchronized so that they
37:57work together rather than against each other.
38:00So this desire to synchronize is something that's very ancient in our species, and you see it
38:06in dance and also in music, like here with MIT Logarithms, where bass comes in, and the baritone
38:17comes in, and the tenor, and then they meld together.
38:30And then they gather into a whole.
38:31Music like this is an example of something that's much bigger than just the individuals.
38:42Humans are naturally social creatures.
38:49We developed language and culture to trade knowledge and share experiences.
38:54Sandy believes that we are about to supercharge the degree to which we share
39:00knowledge, thanks to a quantum leap in communication technology.
39:04One of the most profound changes that's happened in the last decade, and something that's not
39:10well appreciated, is the fact that we all carry around phones, and these are getting
39:14smarter and smarter.
39:16Take traffic, for example.
39:18You can now look on your phone or on your car dashboard and see how dense the traffic is
39:23and get real-time updates.
39:25Technology that lets us share pictures, share stories in a way we never could, and just turns
39:31the clock rate up more, that's all driven by those phones that people are carrying around.
39:36So we're being able to make this sort of unified intelligence.
39:39Handheld smart devices are getting us to work and think together like never before.
39:46They are merging humanity into a single, interconnected mind that spans the globe, capable of feats
39:54no single brain could achieve.
39:58In 2009, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency set a challenge designed specifically for
40:04Hive Mines for Hive Mines.
40:06It placed ten red balloons, each adorned with a special certificate, at secret locations across
40:12the U.S. It offered a $40,000 prize to the team that discovered the GPS coordinates of all
40:19ten balloons the fastest.
40:22Thousands of teams took up the challenge.
40:26Sandy's plan was to engage a swarm of cell-toting, social media-connected minds.
40:32And what we did is we leveraged social media in a very creative way.
40:38So I wouldn't just give you a prize for finding a balloon, I'd give you a prize for recruiting
40:44people one of whom might find a balloon.
40:47So if they found the balloon, you'd get some too.
40:49And what this does is it creates a cascade, thousands and thousands of people all recruiting
40:56their friends to look for the balloon because it's in their interest to do that.
41:00Sandy's method worked incredibly well.
41:04His MIT team bagged photos of all ten balloons, uncovered in places like San Francisco's Union
41:11Square and a tennis court in Virginia in just nine hours.
41:16We were able to find the balloons faster than anybody else in the world, in fact, in a time
41:22that they generally thought was impossible.
41:25In social species, there's a drive to be social.
41:29If you ask what's the number one thing that contributes to life satisfaction, it's building
41:34things with other people.
41:36And what we've done is developed technology to try and help us do that.
41:43Imagine a sea of humanity with instant awareness of events taking place over ranges of thousands
41:50of miles.
41:51We could trace the source of a viral epidemic to one apartment block in a matter of hours
41:57just by seeing who is staying home from work with their cell phone turned on.
42:02We could solve age-old problems of hunger and poverty by tracking supply and demand for
42:07food on a minute-to-minute basis.
42:10What you'll see in the future, where we're able to pool our experience to make all of our
42:15individual experiences better.
42:19So, what is the future of race?
42:25Genetics tells us that there are subtle differences between us, both on the inside and the outside.
42:32Those differences emerged as we wandered the earth as separate tribes for more than 50,000
42:37years.
42:38But now, something new is happening in human history.
42:42We don't have room to be separate anymore.
42:45Technology, combined with our deep instincts to work together, is about to push us one giant
42:52step forward and will create not a superior race, but a superior species to which we will
43:01all belong.
43:07Speakled up, capital-based technology
43:11bringing in without a準 and transparent
43:23creation polypriculation.
43:25It is a systematic race and powerful race.
43:26We don't have room to break each other.
43:27It is insane.
43:32It has its 본 coração, inner heart, inner heart.
43:33It is a striking one scarecrow.
43:34It looks like a wolf or plague.