Can we have your liver? The 286th Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying

Today we discuss organ donation, and parenting in the animal world. Organ donation: how can we modify incentives so that people who need organs have a good chance of getting them, but people with healthy organs are never sent to an early death because their organs are valuable? Then: a natural history primer on parental care and feeding ecology of some local mammals and birds. What can be learned from observing the successful parenting of both barn swallows and red foxes?

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Thumbnail Solskin/DigitalVision via Getty Images

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Mentioned in this episode:

NYT 2025: Push for more organ transplants puts donors at risk: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/us/organ-transplants-donors-alive.html

NYT 2003: Bret letter to the editor on organ donation and incentives: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/18/opinion/he-gave-of-himself-so-that-i-could-live-3-letters.html

Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life on organ transplants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp-pU8TFsg0

Cornell on barn swallows: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Barn_Swallow/overview

Avian Architecture: https://amzn.to/4f4Hxh5 (commission earned)

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Timestamps:
00:00:00 Holding Screen
00:05:22 Connecting Organ Donation and Wild Animals Raising Their Offspring
00:16:06 NY Times: A Push for More Organ Transplants is Putting Donors at Risk
00:31:22 Federal Pressure for Transplant Procurement
00:32:25 55 Medical Professionals Reported Witnessed At Least One Disturbing Case?
00:36:14 People are Fallible
00:39:35 Manner of Death Matters
00:42:07 A Solution: Bret's Letter to the Editor from 2003
00:50:53 Hard-Headed Liberals
00:53:46 Bret's Pitch: A Proper Feedback Mechanism
01:02:49 Monty Python: Slapstick to Reality
01:06:07 Barn Swallows
01:16:49 How Did Barn Swallows Learn to Build a Nest?
01:28:22 Parenting Wisdom from Wild Animals