In this 224th in a series of live discussions with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying (both PhDs in Biology), we talk about the state of the world through an evolutionary lens.
In this episode, we discuss animal behavior: the implications of an orangutan using a medicinal plant to treat a wound, and the one-off videos that we’ve all seen—of cats preventing toddlers from falling, of a beluga whale retrieving a woman’s phone. What does this say about the minds of these other organisms, and about us? Also: dog domestication, from wolves, but not from foxes. And: the New York Times publishes more insipid garbage about vaccine injury, Bret returns to the question of what safety means, and The Nation turns its back on its muckraking roots.
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Mentioned in this episode:
Laumer et al 2024. Active self-treatment of a facial wound with a biologically active plant by a male Sumatran orangutan. Scientific Reports, 14(1), p.8932. [ Ссылка ]
County Highway: [ Ссылка ]
Thousands Believe Covid Vaccines Harmed Them. Is Anyone Listening? [ Ссылка ]
Chris Martenson on the NYT: [ Ссылка ]
Benn et al 2023. Randomized clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines: Do adenovirus-vector vaccines have beneficial non-specific effects?. Iscience, 26(5): [ Ссылка ]
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Welcome
(01:40) Sponsors
(09:00) Orangutans and abstract error
(19:40) Orangutans using medicine
(22:30) Fertility and mating
(32:40) Past evidence of ethnobotany
(38:09) Three hypotheses
(49:20) Dogs rolling in gross stuff and local fauna
(01:02:40) Beluga whale, cat, dog helping humans
(01:17:30) Darwin and dog domestication
(01:27:40) NYT on vaccine injured
(01:42:40) Early treatments and lab leak revisions and the meta story
(01:45:55) The Nation COVID cartoon
(01:50:50) Wrap up
