Richard Prum & Tim Blais: Dino Birds, Beauty and the Fitness of Free Choice | Science Life

Tim sits down with Yale professor of ornithology Richard Prum!

The second episode of Science Life is here, and the first remote one! I skyped with Yale professor of ornithology Richard Prum just before releasing my latest video, and it was a super cool conversation. Here we start off pondering why birds are so fascinating, and talking about the ways in which, weirdly, birds are more like people than a lot of mammals are. Then we get into the evidence for birds being the descendants of reptilian dinosaurs: Their bone structure, their mating habits, and the feathers that originated back before T-Rex. We also talk about how our understanding of oviraptor went from sneaky egg their to communally caring dad. Then we talk about how beauty emerges as a result of choices, both in birds and in flowers. Then we get into the tubular evolution of feathers, before returning to choice in the form of the sometimes-disturbing sexual practices of ducks and and the more cultured bowerbird dating scene.
Finally, we get into how a young person might become part of the next generation of great ornithologists, why minds matter in evolution, and why some dissident and reckless voices in science are crucial to its survival!

[keetrandling]

Hey, you just got a shout-out on Way to go!!!!

[debsavageau]

This is so fascinating! I took a MN birds Class in College held at the Dodge Nature Center. I can see now how it just scratched the surface. I had no idea of the dinosaur correlation.

[MrCmon]

I didn't know that the Fisherian runaway was controversial at all. I thought that that was THE main explanation of features that don't have a straight up survival advantage. Maths aside it's a really simple idea and there's analogues in culture and game theory.

[thatplane]

Chemistry song please. I know how hard it is to make a song, and I love them all, i will listen to any of your song

[MrIlnyapasdepommes]

Hey, can you tell me why gravity increases when objects get more dense? I mean a star that collapses into a black hole shoud by my views also not let light escape from his gravitational pull, when it is still a star. That because the mass of the star makes the star have gravity, and the amount of matter doesn't rise when the star collapses, right?

[KevinKindSongs]

Paul Cizek out of Montreal is the only coherent model of brain > behavior, across species. "Nothin gin biology makes sense, except in light of ..."..phylogeny.