Welcome to the nonprofits.
Our fourth and final segment this week is about our old friend evolution. Kelly, you're a resident scientist. Why don't you give us the lowdown here?
Sure, I'd love to Scott scientists in Sweden they've been discovering some really interesting data as part of a decade long study on snails. Yes, snails, those often overlooked animals
populating our shorelines, lakes and ponds across the world. In a long term study, they've been able to observe a species of snail common to the coast of Sweden actually change phenotypes within a few generations and even follow predicted paths, prediction, of course, being a very important part of the scientific method.
While this might seem like a victory for Lamarcki and ideology with them just changing in a couple generations, I want to make sure our viewers understand the science behind this and things like horizontal gene transfers, a relatively new idea among genetic biologists, while not downplaying how important a discovery is in the meantime. Now, this isn't an amazingly
new discovery. We had discovered things like this before, but it does fortify our ideas about how genetic changes can occur without sexual activity and gives us way more understanding into the science of genetics. This story is from Popular Mechanics and was written by Daniel Orf on October eleventh, twenty twenty four.
All right, excellent, Kelly, thank you very much. Now you mentioned Lamark, and he's known for promoting the now pass a idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics. Yes, how a parent can develop some characteristic and then that would get passed on to the children after that.
So I like to use the example of the fi. If the dad lifts weights a lot and becomes real strong, his children will be stronger.
Exactly exactly.
So how's Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection?
How's that different from Lamarck?
And why does this information support Darwin's specifically and not Lamark?
First off, I want to make I want to make sure it was Russell who came up with natural selection. It was dar when you came up with evolution off of Russell's natural selection. So I just want to make that clear before we go any farther, because Russell is he's like the black sheep of the evolutionists and nobody remembers who he was. But it differs in that natural
selection doesn't happen all in one generation. It's something that takes occurrence over quite amount of time, and it's done because the organism is trying to adapt better to its environment, which in Lamark the organ that you could actually create these things that you would pass out to your children, which of course we know is not true anymore. So I hope that kind of cleared up the idea between
natural selection and Lamarcky and ideology. Now people are still keeping Lamarcki and ideology alive, and it's had its ups and downs, and the Soviet Union it got real popular under trophrom Lyshenko and he actually became Minister of Agriculture in the Soviet Union under Stalin, mostly because he was a yes man, but he was using Lamarckian ideas and it led to a lot of problems with the agricultural programs there.
So how do the specific findings of these scientists support Darwin over Lamark? I mean, because you know, we're assuming that you know, there's massive amounts of scientific evidence supporting evolution in general, another mass of of inform of scientific research specifically supporting Uh, the idea of evolution by natural selection? What does this contribute to that? I was going to
say conflict, but it's not really. I mean, there's there's definitely strong scientific consensus in one direction, but as you mentioned, there's still people kind of pushing Lamarck's thoughts here. So what's what's stopping the Lamarckians from jumping on this as saying, see, see, we told you the whole time.
I would.
The way I like to explain is like as the red haired child, right, you can have a recessive gene that is still there that will later become useful. And what was happening here there was one species of sale with two different female types, one that lived off on rocks off the coast and one that lived on the shoreline. They were the same species, but they had different characteristics. Now, they took some of the shoreline snails, dropped them off on some of the rocks, and within thirty years they
became the rock snails. And what had happened was that gene was already there. It was recessive, it was not being used, and they just picked it right back up and became just like the ones that had been living there before them.
So they were kind of just keeping it in their hip pocket for the time being.
Right, Yeah, that's a great way to explain it.
Sure interesting. Okay, let's jump to Damien here. So Kelly was contrasting Lamarck and Darwin here. But how does this discovery shed light on the split between evolution in general and creationism?
Very good question. Well, look at creationists going to creation if that was a really bad, really bad sentence. But as I think, as ken Hoven would say, I can't believe I'm quoting ken Hooven here, but ken Hoven would say, but they're still snails.
You know.
It's like, if we're trying to use this article to prove that evolution is true, I really don't think this is this is going to be It's a really interesting article. And look, I'm I'm personally fascinated by how, you know, creatures, how organisms adapt to their environment. And I think my favorite example of this is the naked mole rat, which is this little African rat that lives in the desert underground and it's virtually blind and has like two teeth
and all that. But the way that this particular rat has has adapted to the desert environments fantastic, But I do want to take point with the article. There was one sentence that they said that kind of maybe go huh, and it's says once the snails found themselves in that familiar environment, they access that genetic information, which in turn
fueled rapid evolution. I would like to know how snails access genetic information, like do that have labs and like you know, DNA sequences and all that kind of stuff, or what it's like.
That isn't really interesting choice of words can because we love.
That they don't have highly can labs.
I mean, you know, it's fifty until we.
Know, right, because I you know, especially in previous years, you know, I used to get into quite heated discussions with creationists and one of the things that they would say is, you know, biology makes extraordinary claims that sound ridiculous, And to be fair in this instance, I have to agree snails have no way of accessing their own genetic information.
Right.
I agree that genes change, but I don't think I did it to themselves.
Yeah, right, right, Steven, I'd like to step over to you for a second. I know you've been itching to chime in on this subject here in the movie Jurassic Park, the character Ian Malcolm, who's famously played by Jeff Goldbloom. He says the famous quote life finds a way, right, So what kind of light do these results cast on ideas? Like doctor malcolms, uh, yeah, like I wish that I wish I had more hope for the future.
I'm sorry, adults, I think like all the billionaires are like getting as much money and they're going to hop onto Elon's rockets and they're just going to head into space and leave us peons down here until until the world is used up or is destroyed. And in that scenario, in that darkest scenario, it is encouraging for me to think that, you know what, life does find a way, that you know, like we are not like as great
as humans think they are. It is encouraging for me to just be reminded of how how small we are in the overall life narrative, that even snails are doing this really amazing thing where they're evolving back and forth.
They're operating high tech labs in Sweden there, right.
Yeah, in Sweden, of all places, those countries are funding everything, even the snail.
Labs that's going to lind up in some conservative political ad. I think, you know, atheists claiming that the Swedish scientists are actually snails.
As in disguise.
I think it's yeah, yeah, I just think it's encouraging. It helps me appreciate my place within the greater tree of life to remember that, you know, life will find a way, and even if we mess up this planet so badly that our way of living becomes a thing of ancient history, that life is going to find a way even without us.
Now, Kelly, you put in the notes, think of the gene that causes red hair. I would love to get your thoughts on that.
Well, that's what I was talking about. We have this this gene that that's a recessive gene. It's not good for it. We're not using it right. It just pops up every once in a while. And that was kind of like the gene that was accessed by the snails in Sweden.
Yes, got it.
So we're going down here, So we got to hurry up and finish up this segment here.
So where are we going to see the red headed sails of Sweden?
That's you know, that's what I was wondering. Next, you know, I did mention earlier, there's any introduction that this wasn't like the first kind of study we've done like this. There were several studies with Italian wall lizards and I'm in populations of wall lizards and those were kind of interest thing too, and they and we find out these
lizards would do the same thing. They would change phenotypes just within a few generations to better adapt to the new environment that they were put into, like being brought to a different island with different.
What is a phenos hype? Like, explain the phenotype and genotype because you know, when when someone discusses evolution, they will throw they will use these words. But to even to someone who is scientifically literate like me, you say phenotype, I go, I.
Do dogs a species? Labrador is a phenotype. Poodle is a phenotype. Subspecies not because they're the same species. Well, they're just a variation of there are just a variation of the species, but they're still within the species.
Okay. I contrast that with genotape.
Then what is a genohype.
That would be a subspecies There would be an actual genetic difference.
Okay, so we're talking about.
We're talking about I think we'll we're and now I'm not a biologist. Got to remember, I'm a geologist. I won't deal with dead things. But I think what we're talking about here is the amount of difference if you have and we and and I'm thinking this because we do this with minerals too. You know, if we have just a just too much manganese instead of iron, it
becomes a different mineral. Right, So but if they're you can still have just enough iron in it and it doesn't change being a mineral that's into a new mineral. So I'm thinking, I'm thinking, I'm assuming, not knowing biology that well, that that's what we're looking at here. The difference between a phenotype and a genotype. It's a certain amount of percentage difference.
Right, I always, I always, And I might be wrong here too, not too I'm saying Kelly's wrong.
I might be wrong.
Hey, I could be totally wrong. I said, I deal with rocks.
You know, I always learned about it as like genotype is correlates to a cause, and phenotype correlates to an effect. Right, if the pheno type is the outwardly observed differences we see, like like Kelly was saying, differences in dog breeds and things like that. And then the genotype is differences in the foundational the genes, right, it's the difference from at the DNA level.
So I don't know. I suppose that could be a way to look at it as well.
But Kelly, I want you, I want you were talking about the genotypes and the genes and genes lying in weight.
I think was the phrase that the article used.
I talked about having it in the hip pocket, that kind of thing. How does that affect our understanding of adaptation and the potential for adaptability of other species? If this species can adapt rapidly due to these genes lying in weight that may have been developed in the past and then set aside and unused, or you know, there could be any number of reasons how these could have
gotten developed. But what does that tell us about assumptions that we might make of other situations about the adaptability of other species.
Well, I don't I don't know that we can say that about all species can do, can can do this, can access that iron you can access that information in their little animal labs, So I know, I know, like we've done studies with the Wallers or the Italian Wallers, we know they can do it. We've done studies with
these snails. We know they can do it. But it's hard to do this kind of a study because you need to isolate the population to make the change happen, and you need to isolate it into a position in an environmental position where it has that gene to be used to adapt to that situation. It has to have that gene in its back pocket for that environmental situation, if you will.
So in some ways it's a matter of coincidence or is that what you're doing.
No, it's not really a coincidence, because that gene was already there. In this case with the snail, there were two populations, right, so they just and at one time they were probably one population, but the ones in the shore line stopped needing the characteristics that the ones out living out on the rocks off the shoreline need it. So they kind of just kind of, like you said, stuffed it in the back pocket and stopped using it.
But now we're going to take them out to the We're going to isolate them out on one of these scaries, these rocks, and they go, hey, you know, great grandpa knew how to do this, and pulled, they bring it right back up. So that was almost the silliest access thing, it wasn't it. You want to do this?
Hey, you know the gloves are off tonight, right, the gloves are off.
We're we're just hitting it. We're telling it like it is. That's the deal.
You're seeing it here right here on the nonprofits. I want to go back to Damian real quick here. So what does this tell us about? Because because they this was something that they discovered in the wild, and and you know, we hear critiques of evolution talking about, you know, you've never observed this kind of thing, and and even if this type of thing is observed in the laboratory, it's set aside as well, you were intelligently manipulating the scenario.
So what does the impact of finding a situation like this where we do see these drastic changes over a relatively short period of time in the wild, though, what's the what's the significance of that, of the fact that this was in the wild versus the laboratory?
I think absolutely nothing. To someone who is absolutely convinced that life as we know it was created by an intelligent agent more or less in its current form, you could just dismiss all of this as variations, you know, and this is something that Kent Hoven we're probably like ken Hoven, we hear he would probably say, this is all these variations variations on a kind. There's still snails,
there's still you know. And this is what I think I mentioned this before, is that you know that we're not creationists are looking for that like Pokemon type change where now I don't know about Pokemon very well, but you know, someone give me a Pokemon that changes quickly.
Pikachu, the Pokemon poke Pokemon.
Right, Okay, I'm trying to give a example of a Pokemon. But yeah, like creationists are looking for that Pokemon that goes from one form to another within one generation. So we can we can prove via numerous different means, how genes change, how genes affect body plans. You know, we can see the fossil record that goes all the way back also all the way down in geology, all that kind of stuff. But you're never going to convince someone
who doesn't want to be convinced. But I think from from a rational from.
A rational as practical matter, it doesn't make a difference.
Is what you're saying no, I don't think so this is this will be one more data point that they could ignore, because then the battleground would go from how do they get the genetic information in the first place to you can't explain consciousness? How does a how does a person made up a material match to have a brain to be able to understand this in this place? It must be because of the god.
Damien's turning into a presop over here. I think we're watching it. We're seeing it in real time here, that's.
Not scientific by saying and I think Damian brought it up earlier. Yeah, but it didn't change kind. It's it's still a snail, so it didn't make kind and kind doesn't mean shit in science, right, It's just it's a word. So when you're trying to talk to people in the Bend about stuff like this, they don't even understand the language that's supposed to be used. And it's really difficult to get these ideas across. And I want to point
out that we did. We have watched the new species evolved that happened in the Glopico silence in the nineteen eighties. It's called the big bird finch. It's a species of finch that came off of one of the native finches, and a ground finch that was accidentally blown there during a storm, and there is now an established colony of these animals. It was a whole new species that was born and we were able to watch it happen. So we have actually seen in real time evolution happy in
creating a new species. And I have talked to creationists about that, and yeah, but it didn't change kind.
And this proves my point, Kelly, is that to someone who is adamant that a deity was involved, or even people who believe that evolution is essentially eugenics, or that you know that evolution was why Hitler did all the things he did, you know, you can point to a group of snails in Sweden that access the genetic information and you'll not convince the creationists that evolution happens anything more than anything more than minor variations.
Yeah.
I do want to point out one thing really quick here, and our director apparently knows much more about Pokemon than we do, because he's been cranking out names of Pokemon's in the in the show chat here. So just I just want to get that on the record, there, but
I want to go back to Stephen. So this kind of implies that there is at least the potential for some species to adapt and evolve rapidly if maybe if things go back to a previous state where they might have seen before, you know, they've had an opportunity to evolve in that. Does that have any impact on our
human perception of conservation of the environment. You know, we talk about how the environment is changing global climate change, and it's affecting our ecosystem negatively in such a way that it's making it more and more difficult for us to survive. Does this give us hope that maybe we can overcome something like that? Or what are your thoughts on that? I mean, does it have an impact on our views on conservation?
Like I it gives me. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feelings to consider the fact that even if we mess up the planet so severely that we can't live here, that other species will be able to pull into genetic material that maybe will help them at least survive. That makes me feel happier that that other species will be able to survive our colossal fuck ups even if we can't. Yeah, just the idea that that that you know that other creatures that share this planet can be more adaptable and
can adapt quickly. I think that'll be a tremendous advantage. And I worship our I welcome our soon snail overlords as they.
Are redheaded Swedish snail laboratory.
They got the white coats on and everything, and apparently iron worship.
They've evolved that iron fist and they lead with ruthlessness.
Right.
I hope they don't revive their old snail religions though, as long as they leave.
You guys, I've loved you since.
I met you.
Boy, we've sure gotten to that place, haven't we. All right, well, maybe this was that I think this would be a good place to stop here.
We've we've we've split
Off on as many tangents as we possibly can with this subject.