Anecdote in Science: The 224th Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying

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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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

[smokinbob]

Heather and Brett,
Hello from Easter Oregon. I am a long time viewer. I don't think I've missed a broadcast since you started. I can't say I've agreed with everything you espoused, but the number of disagreements are vanishing small. Your relentless pursuit of the gaslighting our government and large corporations have attempted to purpretated on us is greatly appreciated. And I very much enjoy the segments where you cover the evolutionary biology of things.

Bob

[SoilToSoul]

This podcast is such a conversational highlight of my week. I enjoy the banter between y'all, coupled with the intellectual capacity that is expressed. You make learning so much fun! Thank you ❤

[LisaFrostPhoto]

When I was young we had a massive male cat - biggest guy I've seen by a long way - he took on possums and won (not good). During his life we also got a puppy (toy poodle) and a kitten (female), and he mothered both of them - cleaning them and caring for them. The kitten actually used to get really angry with it and would end up smacking him across the face, but he never retaliated.

One day my mum was out the front with the poodle (now an adult) and a random german shepherd began approaching the poodle aggressively. From out of nowhere the cat came barrelling out of the bushes and leapt on the german shephard's back, resulting in it running away in terror.

This same cat also always seems to know when you were sick or feeling sad and would come and not only sit with you but basically put his paws around you and give you a hug. And both he and another cat we've had could open doors (with the handle), so clearly they learned through observation.

And a different story, I once had a horse (pony really), who must've been very badly abused at some point because she was very, very head shy. Many, many months...years actually...of patience, persistance, and the prodigious use of food, and I earnt her trust completely to be able to touch her all over her head and face.

She was an incredibly solid girl once her trust was rebuilt (personality-wise - very calm and unflappable) but never affectionate. A lot of the time she seemed hardly to even notice me, or care if I was there or not.

She lived to quite an old age, and by the time she got to the end of her life she was still living with my mum, but I was living a long way away. My mum called me one day telling me my horse couldn't eat anything and my mum didn't think she'd last the weekend, so I got on a plane within a couple of hours to be with her.

That last weekend I got to spend with her was one of the saddest, but most beautiful of my life. The entire weekend she kept wrapping her head around me, and bending down to give my legs lip nibbles. And every time I started to cry she'd walk over to her feed bin and try to eat something, even though she didn't want to...she knew why I was upset and tried her best to make me feel better. There's so much more I could say about her about her, sweet girl. Just writing this and I'm in tears 😌

[Stevie-J]

"Hello, fellow radicals! It's awesome to acquiesce! It's cool to comply!" - The Nation, probably

[alisondaly]

Great show! Loved the chat about cats and dogs domestication origin stories!

[tishie]

I had a Samoyed dog when I was younger. Im an only child and sge was basically my littermate. She was with me everywhere even outside my school which was 2 house down from my house. She would watch me on the playground from the fence backed up to the mountain. We were very very rural lol We lived in the snow and she loved it. When I was 7 or 8, I was stung by a bee right on the back of my hand. I screamed and she came running from right around the corner. I was waving my hand and crying and I remember her face to this day, she looked at me, looked at my hand, jumped up and was as tall as me, pinned me to the wall with one front paw and knocked at my hand with her other paw and front teeth specifically sideways to dislodge it.The bee hit the ground and she bit it and stomped it til it was dead while pinning me to the wall with her rear end of her body so I couldnt move. It was amazing. Then she howled and howled but my grandpa was already running from the workshed. She did the pointer thing at the bee and showed him the bee! Animals are amazing. She just knew.

[pathacker]

Why do cats and dogs eat grass when their stomachs are upset? Isn’t that a form of self medication?

[bajaxbajax]

I have a cat that did the same thing-- he was unneutered when I accidentally introduced four little six week old kittens to him (I didn't realize they were small enough to slip under the door). He was never more excited and elated in his life than the moment he realized they were in the house. I ended up having to keep two of them because they all just clearly loved each other. They're all neutered now.

[siculasicana]

Superbly done through a perfect lens. More, more like this cast.

[Uarehere]

I feel a lot of empathy for that Millennial orangutan. Growing up is hard!

[emilymiller]

We had a similar experience with our neutered male cat. He is big and tough and beats up some on our other adult cats. When two kittens came into our house, it is like he went into "dad" mode. He changed how he played and rough-housed with the kittens versus the other adults. He let "the little rat" win a good share of the time. He'd follow them around and groom them (not a habit very much otherwise with the other adult cats).

[pathacker]

I have to say I just revisited Evergreen. I have to say I am glad you both are independent actors now! 😋

[seedhound]

Thank you for your great conversations and sharing of wisdom. Summerville, SC.

[NoHair-pkxg]

The one thing that sets humans apart from all other species is that no other species uses Kronecker products.

[pathacker]

I spent a lot of time at the San Diego zoo as a kid in the fifties and sixties. I loved the orangutang exhibit.

The male that was there seemed really humanlike and interacted with us in that manner.

Sometimes he was comical and friendly and sometimes he reacted like he thought we were idiots and didn’t want to waste time with us.

[youcancallmeana]

I'm a photographer, I live on the Oregon coast. I have a pack of crows that have lived here longer than I have, but I am friends with them. Last summer I witnessed (and photographed) one of the crows commit a ritual suicide. The crow had been hanging around the house in an unusual manor for a couple of days. She (I believe it was the female alpha from her disappearing from her usual place on the fence the day after) had been just hanging out on the ground in the fenced part of the yard, which they never do, and there was a lot of blotches of weird looking poo. I have had quite a few birds die in my yard, so I am not put off by it, but I was sad. After a couple of days of this, in the late afternoon, she was on the ground near the birdbath, and all the other members of the pack (around 20 in all) were all watching from all over the yard and the wires above. She grabbed a newt (salamander) in her beak, and took a good lick ( I thought she might have swallowed it at first, but afterwords the newt was seemingly unhurt and crawled away) and then fell over on her face and died. The entire pack watched in a manor that I could only describe as solemnly. One of the most bizarre things I have ever witnessed or photographed.

[pathacker]

Is “ethno medicine” actually an accepted term?

What constitutes “ethno”?

[mayorofthenonsense]

Regarding the NYT article: I think when we look at the content of these pieces, it becomes clear that the point of the article is not to educate, or make a good argument, or really convince anyone of anything - but rather to reassure the people on ‘Team Compliance’ that whatever the risk or consequences might have been, they made the right choice, thanks (at least in part) to an imperfect but ultimately well intentioned media.

What these types of articles do (and there are plenty of them out there), is start with the same presupposition that was used during Covid and work backwards from there - that is that vaccines are amazing and that anything with the word ‘vaccine’ on the label is amazing, and that mass vaccination was the only solution because anything else would have been worse.

So it doesn’t really matter what they mention, or don’t mention, because the presupposition remains the same.

[juliedriscoll]

Listening to this makes me want to re-watch Chimp Empire. Love you guys!

[Jannette-mwfg]

I would really like you to talk to Naomi Wolf. I want to know exactly about mRNA and pregnancy!!!