A THROUPLE are bringing up their two-year-old baby as ‘theyby’, a term that refers to gender neutral parenting where the baby isn’t outwardly identified by its parents as either a boy or a girl. Baby Sparrow follows in the footsetps of their 10-year-old sibling, Hazel, who was initially brought up as a girl but came out themselves as non-binary aged just four. Hazel and Sparrow are looked after by three parent figures: Ari, Gwendolyn and Brynnifer, who themselves are either non-binary and/or transgender. While the family, from Orlando, Florida, lives within a supportive community, online critics have argued it’s no wonder the children are ‘confused’ about their gender.
biology
A thought-provoking talk on Transgenderism & Religion / Genetics & Biology
Richard is a prominent scientist, having published bestselling books on genetics and evolution, including The Selfish Gene (1976), The Blind Watchmaker (1986) — with the latter winning a number of awards. He set up the Richard Dawkins Foundation in 2006 to promote the cause of removing religion from science.
The Selfish Gene, published in 1976, established Professor Richard Dawkins as a leading figure in evolutionary theory and popularised the idea that replicating genes are the central force behind evolution, not individual organisms or species.
One of his main arguments is that if the world had been ‘designed’, as some people claim, then who designed the designer? For Dawkins, Darwin’s theory on natural selection solves the question of where humans come from.
Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is the belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.
He argues that human behaviour is inherently selfish, and even altruistic behavior has selfish consequences. Life is about maximizing individual payoffs at the expense of others, including family members (at times).
In addition, he sees religion as subverting science, fostering fanaticism, encouraging bigotry against homosexuals, and influencing society in other negative ways. Dawkins regards religion as a “divisive force” and as a “label for in-group/out-group enmity and vendetta”.
Richard Dawkins is a proponent of atheism, the critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or spiritual beings. Much of Dawkins’s work has generated debate for asserting the supremacy of science over religion in explaining the world.
Join me for another thought-provoking Q&A session with Taryn Southern on a wide range of topics, from the ethics of selective breeding and eugenics to western liberal sympathy toward Islam and wokeism. You asked me what I think about trans people, genes and sexual orientation, mindfulness and AI.
I ask Richard Dawkins if he saw the trans ideology uprising coming. He doesn’t mince his words! I used a photo of Ellen Page, now Elliott Page, in the thumbnail to represent trans and self-identification. We discuss Christopher Hitchens, Stephen Fry, Harry Potter and J K Rowling.
0:00 Ricky Gervais & Women’s Genitalia
0:40 The Dog Comment
1:00 Men vs Women Brains
2:40 Is Trans Belief Dangerous?
3:25 J K Rowling’s Worst Moment
3:55 Stephen Fry & Harry Potter
Transgender Neurobiolgoy / NeuroEndocrinology, Biology & Science
Robert Sapolsky is a neuroendocrinology researcher and author. He is a professor of biology, neurology, neurological sciences, and neurosurgery at Stanford University.
Sapolsky has received numerous honours and awards for his work, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 1987, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and the Klingenstein Fellowship in Neuroscience. He was also awarded the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, the Young Investigator of the Year Awards from the Society for Neuroscience, the International Society for Psychoneuroendocrinology, and the Biological Psychiatry Society.
In this conversation, he will share scientific research related to the neurobiology of transgender people with the goal protecting the rights of transgender people via the creation of informed policies.
2023’s breakthroughs in: Microbiomes, Mithocondria & Biology, Consciousness: Neuroscience & Psychology
I prepared a summary to introduce you to this topic:
Models of consciousness aim to inspire new experimental protocols and aid interpretation of empirical evidence to reveal the structure of conscious experience. Nevertheless, no current model is univocally accepted on either theoretical or empirical grounds.
The four current and major neuroscientific theories of conscious experience are: global neuronal workspace (GNW) theory, re-entrant processing theory, predictive coding, and integrated information theory (IIT).
A fantasy is an idea with no basis in reality and is basically your imagination unrestricted by reality. Reality is the state of things as they exist. It’s what you see, hear, and experience.
Imagery and perception are the same? A large body of evidence has shown that imagery and perception can behave in strikingly similar ways. For most of us, both can produce the subjective feeling (or qualia) of ‘seeing’; however, imagery is often a weaker and fuzzier version of visual perception.
The Perky Effect describes the relationship between real visual information (perception) and mental imagery. Discovered by C. W. Perky in 1910, her experiments were able to show that visualization of images can depress the sensitivity of perception of real visual targets.
What did Perky find about projecting a faint image of a banana while participants created a mental image of a banana? Their descriptions of the mental image matched the real image.
*Definition & Explanation of the Perky Effect https://plato.stanford.edu/archIves/sum2020/entries/mental-imagery/perky-experiment.html
Quanta Magazine’s coverage of biology in 2023, including important research progress into the nature of consciousness, the origins of our microbiomes and the timekeeping mechanisms that govern our lives and development. Read about more breakthroughs from 2023 at Quanta Magazine: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-bi…
00:05 The Research of Consciousness: Our minds are constantly taking in new external information while also creating their own internal imagery and narratives. How do we distinguish reality from fantasy? This year, researchers discovered that the brain has a “reality threshold” against which it constantly evaluates processed signals. – Original story with links to research papers can be found here: https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-it-…
04:30 Microbiomes Evolve With Us: This year, scientists provided clear evidence that the organisms in our microbiome —the collection of bacteria and other cells that live in our guts and elsewhere on our body — spread between people, especially those with whom we spend the most time. This raises the intriguing possibility that some illnesses that aren’t usually considered communicable might be. — Original story with links to research papers can be found here: https://www.quantamagazine.org/global…
08:43 How Life Keeps Time: The rate at which an embryo develops and the timing of when its tissues mature vary dramatically between species. What controls the ticking of this developmental clock that determines an animal’s final form? This year, a series of careful experiments suggest that mitochondria may very well serve dual roles as both the timekeeper and power source for complex cells. – Original story with links to research papers can be found here: https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-m…
Are neurotransmitters the cause for depression? / Psychiatry & Neuro-biology
For more information on mental health or #YaleMedicine, visit: https://www.yalemedicine.org/conditio….
For many people, depression turns out to be one of the most disabling illnesses that we have in society. Despite the treatments that we have available, many people are not responding that well. It’s a disorder that can be very disabling in society. It’s also a disorder that has medical consequences. By understand the neurobiology of depression we hope to be able more to find the right treatment for the patient suffering from this disease.
The current standard of care for the treatment of depression is based on what we call the monoamine deficiency hypothesis. Essentially, presuming that one of three neurotransmitters in the brain is deficient or underactive. But the reality is, there are more than 100 neurotransmitters in the brain. And billions of connections between neurons. So we know that that’s a limited hypothesis.
Neurotransmitters can be thought of as the chemical messengers within the brain, it’s what helps one cell in the brain communicate with another, to pass that message along from one brain region to another. For decades, we thought that the primary pathology, the primary cause of depression was some abnormality in these neurotransmitters, specifically serotonin or norepinephrine. However, norepinephrine and serotonin did not seem to be able to account for this cause, or to cause the symptoms of depression in people who had major depression. Instead, the chemical messengers between the nerve cells in the higher centres of the brain, which include glutamate and GABA, were possibilities as alternative causes for the symptoms of depression.
When you’re exposed to severe and chronic stress like people experience when they have depression, you lose some of the connections between the nerve cells. The communication in these circuits becomes inefficient and noisy, we think that the loss of these synaptic connections contributes to the biology of depression.
There are clear differences between a healthy brain and a depressed brain. And the exciting thing is, when you treat that depression effectively, the brain goes back to looking like a healthy brain, both at the cellular level and at a global scale. It’s critical to understand the neurobiology of depression and how the brain plays a role in that for two main reasons. One, it helps us understand how the disease develops and progresses, and we can start to target treatments based on that.
We are in a new era of psychiatry. This is a paradigm shift, away from a model of monoaminergic deficiency to a fuller understanding of the brain as a complex neurochemical organ. All of the research is driven by the imperative to alleviate human suffering. Depression is one of the most substantial contributors to human suffering. The opportunity to make even a tiny dent in that is an incredible opportunity.
Genes are not ‘on/off switches’, we must move beyond ‘dualism’ in Biology / Genetic Determinism and Neo-Darwinism & Distorted Neo-Darwinism
I prepared this summary for you to have some background and understanding of the topic:
Double helix, as related to genomics, is a term used to describe the physical structure of DNA. A DNA molecule is made up of two linked strands that wind around each other to resemble a twisted ladder in a helix-like shape. Each strand has a backbone made of alternating sugar (deoxyribose) and phosphate groups.
Each molecule of DNA is a double helix formed from two complementary strands of nucleotides held together by hydrogen bonds between G-C and A-T base pairs. Duplication of the genetic information occurs by the use of one DNA strand as a template for formation of a complementary strand.
Nowadays, the DNA double-helix is not just a model of a microscopic organic structure: it symbolises the backbone of our current understanding of ourselves. It’s the main pillar of evolution, which represents our history, influences our behaviour and gives us clues to our future.
The collective body of results shows that the double-stranded structure of DNA is critical not only for replication but also as a scaffold for the correction of errors and the removal of damage to DNA.
*Faults of this gene-centric Neo-Darwinian picture
*The alternative to genetic determinism
Contradicting Richard Dawkins
In this interview, esteemed biologist Denis Noble explains why our approach to biology is the wrong way around.
We thought that the sequencing of genetic information would unlock vast developments in medical cures for a whole host of illnesses. However, sequencing the genome alone hasn’t revolutionised medicine. Denis Noble argues that we have our treatments the wrong way around. Instead, we need to recognise that genes are not on/off switches, and move beyond dualism in Biology.
Watch world-famous scientist Richard Dawkins go head-to-head with celebrated biologist Denis Noble as they debate the role of genes over the eons at https://iai.tv/video/the-gene-machine…
00:00 Introduction
00:26 Why does the idea of genetic determinism have such a lasting appeal?
06:13 What do you see as the fault of this gene-centric Neo-Darwinian picture?
11:22 How did Darwin’s view get distorted by Neo-Darwinism?
14:18 What is the alternative to genetic determinism?
17:55 Can determinism come from the environment?
22:37 What do you make of CRISPR and human enhancement?
24:53 What is the biggest question in molecular biology at the moment?
Oxford Professor and one of the pioneers of Systems Biology, Noble developed the first viable mathematical model of the working heart in 1960.
Denis Noble takes on Richard Dawkins on the causality of change in genetics. Do genes control the organism or does the organism control its genes? Can organisms change their DNA?
Dawkins’ Selfish Gene has been hugely influential, both within evolutionary biology and in the wider public sphere. It’s a beautifully simple story: genes and not organisms drive evolutionary change. But critics argue the story is simplistic. The effect of a gene is not always the same and as is dependent on its host and the cell environment.
DNA does not come neatly divided into individual genes. And in 2010 the renowned biologist EO Wilson and others revived the case for group selection. Some are now arguing that the Selfish Gene paradigm is holding back medical research.
Is it time to move on and acknowledge that Dawkins’ theory is not the whole story? Might his theory be making a fundamental mistake in reducing humans to machines? Or does the Selfish Gene remain a remarkably powerful and accurate account of who we are?
World-famous scientist Richard Dawkins goes head-to-head with celebrated biologist Denis Noble as they lock horns over the role of genes over the eons.
Watch the full debate at: https://iai.tv/video/the-gene-machine…
The case against Free Will … does Free will exist ? / Neuroscience
I prepared a summary just to give you some context and introduce you to this topic:
Free will, in philosophy and science, is the supposed power or capacity of humans to make decisions or perform actions independently of any prior event or state of the universe.
Philosophers have been debating fate vs. free will for centuries. Some believe that people’s lives and choices are predetermined, while others believe that humans are responsible for their own actions.
A person who is forced at gunpoint to do something, does so with considerably less free will than someone who does something voluntarily. Similarly, a person with a brain disorder that causes constant coughing lacks free will over their coughing, even though they likely retain free will in other ways.
Most of us are certain that we have free will, though what exactly this amounts to is much less certain. According to David Hume, the question of the nature of free will is “the most contentious question of metaphysics.” If this is correct, then figuring out what free will is will be no small task indeed.
Most neuroscientists believe humans have at least some degree of free will. So do most philosophers and the vast majority of the general population. Free will is essential to how we see ourselves, fuelling the satisfaction of achievement or the shame of failing to do the right thing.
There is a kind of free will that we don’t, and cannot have, which is called Absolute Free Will. This is the kind that allows us to do otherwise for any previous decision. This type of free will is required for Moral Responsibility because if someone could not have done otherwise then they are not morally responsible.
Stanford neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky believes humans have no free will. By studying baboons in Africa and human behaviour for decades, he’s concluded neurochemical influences determine human behaviour. The supposition should create a more just world, Sapolsky claims.
Here the paradox is that not only is the status of the concept a matter for debate, but the very existence of free will as a subject of research remains unclear.
Many philosophers and theologians have however, taken the general idea of free will as a legitimate defense and explanation for the problem of evil. The (religious) argument is made that God desires free creatures, free creatures are created, and therefore it is the free creatures that bring evil into the world.
Most psychologists use the concept of free will to express the idea that behaviour is not a passive reaction to forces but that individuals actively respond to internal and external forces.
Is there a quantum reason we could have free will? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice explore the concept of free will and predetermination with neuroscientist, biologist, and author of Determined: The Science of Life Without Free Will, Robert Sapolsky.
A special thanks from our editors to Robert Sapolsky’s dog.
Could we put an end to the question of whether or not we have free will? Discover “The Hungry Judge Effect” and how little bits of biology affect our actions. We break down a physicist’s perspective of free will, The Big Bang, and chaos theory. Is it enough to just feel like we have free will? Why is it an issue to think you have free will if you don’t?
We discuss the difference between free will in big decisions versus everyday decisions. How do you turn out to be the type of person who chooses vanilla ice cream over strawberry? We explore how quantum physics and virtual particles factor into predetermination. Could quantum randomness change the actions of an atom? How can society best account for a lack of free will? Are people still responsible for their actions?
What would Chuck do if he could do anything he wanted? We also discuss the benefits of a society that acknowledges powers outside of our control and scientific advancements made. How is meritocracy impacted by free will? Plus, can you change if people believe in free will if they have no free will in believing so?
Thanks to our Patrons Pro Handyman, Brad K. Daniels, Starman, Stephen Somers, Nina Kane, Paul Applegate, and David Goldberg for supporting us this week.
A special thanks from our editors to Robert Sapolsky’s dog.
NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free.
Does free will truly exist, or are we merely sophisticated meat machines running our biochemical programming with sentience as a byproduct? Stanford University neurologist Robert Sapolsky, having extensively studied the topic, asserts that not only is free will a myth but also that our insistence on its reality adversely affects the world we inhabit. In this episode, Adam speaks with Dr. Sapolsky about how choice is an illusion and the impact this has on our society, from workplace meritocracies to criminal justice reform. Find Dr. Sapolsky’s book, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will, at factuallypod.com/books
The 3 brains we have: reptilian, mammalian (limbic) and cortex / Neuroscience
The brain consists of three layers: the reptilian brain, the limbic system, and the cerebral cortex. The reptilian brain controls bodily functions like hormones, body temperature, and hunger. The limbic system handles emotions such as fear, anger, joy, and gratitude. The cerebral cortex is responsible for impulse control, decision making, and long-term planning.
Understanding the functions of each part of the brain allows for more mindful thoughts and better decision-making. For instance, recalling a favourite memory or something that brings happiness can activate the reptilian brain, resulting in a decrease in body temperature and blood pressure. This can reduce stress and promote a more joyful experience throughout the day.
In this video, neurologist Robert Sapolsky explores these concepts in greater depth.
You’ve heard about your ‘lizard brain’. But what about the other two?
What’s the best way to think about the brain? While most of us think of it as a dense gray matter that’s separate from the physical body, that actually couldn’t be further from the truth. Our brain is actually made up of 3 layers, and each layer not only directly impacts the other, but has control over the physical body and how you feel.
Neurologist Robert Sapolsky explores these separate brain systems as individual characters, all with different goals and motives. The brain comes in 3 functional layers: the reptilian brain, the limbic system, and the cerebral cortex. The reptilian brain controls the regulatory systems in your body like hormones, body temperature, blood pressure, and even hunger. The limbic system is the emotional function of your brain, making you feel fear, anger, joy, or gratitude.
Finally, the cerebral cortex is the most evolved part of the brain that oversees impulse control, decision making, and long-term planning. With a better understanding of how each part of the brain functions, we can have more mindful thoughts that will influence more favourable decision-making and outcomes in life. For example, when you think of your favourite memory or something that makes you happy, your reptilian brain will quickly cool down your body and even lower your blood pressure. This can then lead to feeling less stressed, and finding more joy throughout the day.
How stress impacts the human Body / Neuro-endocrinology
How can humans be so compassionate and altruistic — and also so brutal and violent? To understand why we do what we do, neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky looks at extreme context, examining actions on timescales from seconds to millions of years before they occurred. In this fascinating talk, he shares his cutting edge research into the biology that drives our worst and best behaviours.
Dr Robert Sapolsky is a Professor at Stanford University, a world-leading researcher, and an author. Stress is an inevitable part of human life. But what is stress actually doing to the human body when it happens for such a prolonged period of time? And what does science say are the best interventions to defeat it?
Expect to learn the crucial difference between short term and long term stress, how stress actually impacts the human system, the neurodevelopmental consequences of stress and poverty, how to detrain your dopamine sensitivity, what everyone doesn’t understand about how hormones work, whether believing in free will is a useful world view, why there is a relationship between belief in free will and obesity and much more…
00:00 What Robert Wished People Knew About Stress
06:00 Where is the Threshold of Short-Term Stress Becoming Long-Term?
12:29 How Brain Development is Influenced by Mother’s Socioeconomic Status
25:50 Does Your Stress Impact Your Descendants?
29:00 Finding Solutions to Manage Stress
35:52 How to Better Enjoy the Good Things in Life
42:50 Can You Actually Detox from Dopamine?
53:18 Why Robert Wanted to Study Our Lack of Free Will
1:01:46 How Having No Conscious Agency Impacts Justice
1:11:10 The Myth of the Self-Made Man
1:32:43 How to Acknowledge Your Lack of Agency & Not Feel Depressed
1:40:22 Where to Find Robert
Animal Classification / Facts, Vocabulary, Pronunciation & Song
Learn how animals are classified into different groups. Classification breaks very large groups down into smaller groups. This makes them easier to be studied. Scientists classify animals, plants and insects based on things they have in common.
Taxonomy means to classify living things. Scientists and biologists use a taxonomy chart to classify all the organisms on Earth. This chart includes the following groups: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species. Throughout the video we will learn about the different taxonomies, how animals are classified and spend a little more time on vertebrates and invertebrates.
Animals are classified into different groups based on their characteristics. Invertebrates are animals that do not have a spine, or backbone. Vertebrates are animals that do! Vertebrates are further classified into fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
Lyrics:
Do you have a backbone? That’s weird
Ninety-five percent of earth life does not
You’re called a vertebrate because of the spine you’ve got
There are five vertebrate classes
Some have warm blood and some have cold
Some on land, in the air or sea
What are they called? Repeat after me:
Mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians, and fish
Mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians, and fish
Hedgehog:
Most mammals don’t come in eggs like all the others
The babies drink milk from their mothers
And we all have fur or hair on our soft skin
We have cats, deer, platypus, kangaroos, and you
Fun fact: whales and bats are mammals, too
Turtle:
Reptiles are covered in scales or bony plates
Yeah, we know you can’t relate
We lay eggs with a leathery shell
We have snakes, lizards, crocodiles, and turtles, as well
Toucan:
Birds are born from hard-shelled eggs
We have beaks and feathers, but scales on our legs
Not all of us take to the sky
But most of us have hollow bones and most of us fly
Frog:
Amphibians lead a double-life in cold blood
Our metamorphosis takes us from the water to the mud
We start with gills, then we graduate to lungs
Some of us catch food with our specialized tongues
Some of us look like worms, and some of us are long
And some of us are toads, but most of us are frogs
Shark:
Fish, fish, fish are the largest groups of vertebrates
And we’ve been around much longer
We have scales and fins, we’re ectothermic
And we lay our eggs in the water
And guess what: a jellyfish is not a fish cause it doesn’t have a backbone…
Same with starfish, shellfish, cuttlefish, and crayfish. These are fake fish
Ok, I’m done… But they’re fake
There are so many ways to divide up the data
But we all have spines in subphylum Vertebrata (subphylum Vertebrata! subphylum Vertebrata!)
Mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians, and fish (Shark: but only the real ones!)
Mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians, and fish
Bird, Amphibians, and fish
brain-perks 