Normalizing Normativity: The 219th Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying

In this 219th 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 evolution and intelligent design, and why the failures of institutions and institutional science during Covid are causing people to question everything that science has concluded. We also discuss motonormativity—aka car brain—both steel manning it as a concept, and critiquing the research that named the phenomenon. Finally: sex chromosomes in cephalopods (octopus and their kin)—older than you think.

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Mentioned in this episode:

“Giving Up Darwin” - Gelernter’s review of Meyers’ book: https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/giving-up-darwin/

Motonormativity: critical car theory (at Principled Bicycling): https://substack.com/home/post/p-142960056

Walker et al 2023. Motonormativity: how social norms hide a major public health hazard: https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJENVH.2023.135446?af=R

Oldest known animal sex chromosome evolved in octopuses 380 million years ago: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00637-0

Coffing et al 2024. Cephalopod Sex Determination and its Ancient Evolutionary Origin Revealed by Chromosome-level Assembly of the California Two-Spot Octopus: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.21.581452v2.full.pdf

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Timestamps:
(00:00) Welcome
(03:20) Sponsors
(10:40) Challenges to Darwin
(35:00) Waiting time problem and micro/macro evolution
(44:05) Moto normativity and car brain
(58:08) Abstract
(01:43:45) Octopus sex chromosomes
(01:59:50) Wrap up