What Makes Us Human?

[MrFibertiger]

i was surprised how ignorant that woman's comment was at 5:30. we don't argue about public funding for the arts? everyone sees the value of public funding for the arts? my ass...

[msjessypp]

some really good stuff here

[jessyjessy4]

good work here

[teslaNYproductions]

These people are not open minded. There not trying to figure out where we as a species came from.There narrow mindedness olny sees apes so apes is what they tell us, apes is what they study, apes is what they believe. For they are to blind to see anything else!

[mistermellow001]

What country and decade does Eugenie Scott live in? She may be correct about the problem of funding science, but funding of the arts and humanities are under attack, too.

Side note: I was looking for a good video on human nature to send to a friend, so was a bit disappointed to find that part of this video was devoted to funding, as well as promotion of the Leaky Foundation. I'm all for those things, but it played like a commercial. No biggy, they have a right to include whatever they want.

[PeeGeeBeeDee]

2:36 It Didn't Evolve For That. (Listen To The Part Preceding This Quote.) Some Of Our Psychological, Biological And Physiological Adaptations Are Not Well Adapted (Not Matched Well) To Our Current Environment.

3:24 Chimpanzees...Search For...Males And Kill Them...Only 2 Animals On Earth That Do This: Humans And Chimpanzees...A LOT MORE BIOLOGY TO OUR BEHAVIOR THAN WHAT WE USED TO THINK...

[Crazink]

Sadly, I have met several people who protested that public money goes to libraries. They said it let too many people get "a free ride." :(

[desasterz]

I dont think what makes us human should come from "Why are we different from chimanzes?" Otherwise, its not human to see. And have emotions. And are sad, angery, glad... However, there is one thing that clearly makes us distinkt from animals. Animals work from the ground up, we work down to the ground.

[bqureshi21]

indeed, there have been several different species of the human being, such as homo erectus, homo habilis, etc... its believed humans branched off from common ancestor with chimps about 5-7 million years ago. if u look at the species of human beings leading up to our current form (homo sapien), u can clearly see the transition phases (transition species)

[bary1234]

Religion is poison, and creationism is the pinnacle of human stupidity. Thank goodness for people who study and do proper science.

[Nchoulet]

umm we've hit an evolutionary stump because technology and material things has taken away our need to evolve, theres no need to hunt for food, or to run from wild animals, we have created a man-made playground that provides stimulation without working for it, humans evolved into incredible thinkers because our bodies are frail, our means for survival was running and thinking, making tools and evolving

[tobynsaunders]

@Nchoulet We are actually evolving... gene mistake are being selected for, mouths are getting smaller, races are inter-breeding are people are changing for sure. We aren't staying stable like horseshoe crabs have done for the past few million years anyway. We will soon genetically engineer ourselves (hopefully for the better), and that will change human evolution massively.

[Gutsyndicate]

people who believe in evolution are stupid. do these ppl really believe we come from apes?

why aren't apes still not evolving? why aren't we evolving to something else?

[TheLeakeyFoundation]

@Gutsyndicate Evolution asserts that we share a common ancestor with modern apes, not that we evolved from them. We evolved into our own species and apes into theirs. You can find more information here: pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library­/faq/cat02.html

[Gutsyndicate]

@Gutsyndicate are you saying we come from the same father? like Adam give birth to apes, that is BS. its like saying the fake Christmas tree shares an ancestor with real Christmas tree just because they look a like.

[TheLeakeyFoundation]

@Gutsyndicate Scientists believe our common ancestor existed 5 to 8 million years ago. Shortly thereafter, the species diverged into two separate lineages. One of these lineages ultimately evolved into gorillas and chimps, and the other evolved into early human ancestors called hominids.

[teslaNYproductions]

@TheLeakeyFoundation and i say show me the proof!

[tobynsaunders]

@Gutsyndicate it's not that we have the same father... we have a common ancestor, a great great great etc. granfather or grandmother. All living things on Earth have a common ancestor. It's a fact like the roundness of Earth is a fact (it has that much evidence). Fake trees are not organisms, they are the products of conscious design. The evergreens you mentioned evolved & could have been bred by humans (by 'artificial' selection). 'Adam' is a mythological character.

[adrenalinefriend]

@Gutsyndicate didn't you pay attention in bio when you were in high school lol,

[gongboom]

@Gut Syndicate Both apes and humans are evolving. It just happens at a very slow pace. I fear apes will sooner go extinct than be afforded the luxury to evolve into a being that can cohabit the planet with their cousins homo sapiens.

I guarantee you in 500000 years humans will have noticeably different features than those living today. Generation after generation the most fertile humans will be instrumental in bringing about these changes. Fecundity is the key operator that drives evolution.

[gongboom]

@Gutsyndicate Both humans and apes are continually evolving. It just happens at a very slow pace. I fear apes won't be afforded the luxury to evolve into a being capable of sharing the planet with us.

I guarantee you in 500000 years humans will have significantly different features to those of us alive today.

Fecundity is what drives evolution. Generation after generation the most fertile humans with the most fertile offspring will be instrumental in setting the course of our evolution.

[tobynsaunders]

@Gutsyndicate humans are evolving (mouths are getting smaller for example)... a few hundred thousand years ago 'we' (the animals whose descendants are us) were rather different. Some animals though, like alligators & horseshoe crabs, have lived in environments which don't change enough to influence evolution. Evolution is a fact to same extent that the heliocentric theory of the solar system is a fact.

[tobynsaunders]

@Gutsyndicate to be clear, alligators & horseshoe crabs evolved, but they haven't changed much in millions of years because of the stability of their environments. Like today, the humans who breed the most happen to have the least intelligence, on average, so it's entirely possible that future generations of humans will have less natural intelligence.

[McTaggStar]

@Gutsyndicate: I'm not going to be as nice about this as the rest here. People who believe in evolution are stupid? I take that very seriously. Have you ever heard of understanding something before you criticize it? If you can't even understand why apes aren't giving birth to humans, what makes you think you're in a position to criticize evolution, and label those who advocate it as stupid? You clearly don't even have the most BASIC understanding of evolution. On the contrary; you you stupid. Go

[McTaggStar]

@Gutsyndicate: pick up a book and do some reading.

[BalkanibalX]

@Gutsyndicate

Over the course of time everything is evolving. Human race is evolving at this minute, but you have to give it 10.000 years to see the results. There is no hoax in it, it just is, it has been proven. All the world get it, except conservative part of America.

The whole world is laughing at you guys, I mean seriously. I'd start to questions myself and not the evolution theory if I were you.

[AceofDlamonds]

@Gutsyndicate

hey, since the past 10,000 years, our bodies have become relatively weaker....less fast twitch fibers substituted for less need to go around working and stuff...........settling down on the couch has made the western world relatively weaker and clumsier.

That's just one change within a VERY SHORT period of time. If we look back at fossils 100,000 years ago......there you see the major difference.

[TRZbebop675]

@Gutsyndicate When you run out of substantive points to argue on, you discredit your case by calling the other guy an idiot, a fool, or a retard....good job, you just joined 90% of the people on the internet.

[ronizzle21]

i HAVE A SKULL AND RIBS AND FINGERS AND IF SOMEONE HITS ME I FEEL IT.

[ForteVictory]

What an A team Pinker, Sapolsky, Goodall

[lukebccb]

The bible doesn't mention anything about the Leakey Foundation so therefore the Leakey Foundation doesn't exist.

[pawsoned]

Does evolution make us human?

[pawsoned]

Does evolution makes us human?

[gokiludo]

are we evolved ????? i mean for real think about it :)

[frenchjd01]

Evolution and a belief in God are most sincerely contradictory. Just ask Richard Dawkins.

[Lukith66]

The whole idea of religion was just put forward to give people hope. As humans evolved, we began to become aware of ourselves, of death. Alot of questions were asked about our existence. Religion was a lazy excuse to comfort people, to prevent insanity being a result of thinking too much about death. When something is unexplanitory, the majority of humans naturall respond with ignorance by using their imaginary scapegoat 'god'.

[shaneclone15]

religion should be kill after this video

[ZnikiG]

we are nothing like chimps we were genetically engineered from animal dna.

[shmexiihobo]

so . . . im just curious but do these people not believe in the whole god created us and behold humans exist thing? does that make them atheist?

[TheLeakeyFoundation]

You may find this site helpful: talkorigins(dot)org/faqs/faq-g­od(dot)html

[TheNand311]

@shmexiihobo Even Darwin believed in God

[SuperGuitarAlex]

@TheNand311 Darwin was actually one of the first atheists.

[walkinwithjesus]

@shmexiihobo Im just curious, do you believe in science, or are you insisting that evolution is fake and there's a huge conspiracy among scientists that are trying to keep all the "evidence" against god a secret?

[narudh]

@shmexiihobo is it wrong being an atheist?

[McTaggStar]

@shmexiihobo: Being a paleontologist/psychologist/an­thropologist does not require that you're an atheist; evolution is compatible with the notion of a God. However, evolution is not compatible with standard Judeochristian theology, and so it is likely that many of these people are not religious.

[squirl436]

@shmexiihobo no you just made them atheist in your mind quit putting things and labels on peoples complex shit. fack off

[faviolalb]

SO WHAT MAKES US HUMAN?

[marktsheppard]

finally... a common sense video, thank you

[Me1now]

" WOW " ...... AWESOME ......

[TheFutureUnquiet]

Evolutionists now tell us that the word "theory" has a new meaning when applied to Darwin's monkeyshines. There's no such thing as "atheism" when speaking of human beings. Cats are atheists, dogs and chinchillas, but not people. We have a conscience, we question nature. Humans are the supreme life force of this planet. "Atheism" denigrates us. It champions autocracy, pornocracy and necromancy.

[ihatekhomeini]

@TheFutureUnquiet how deoas atheism denigrate us to champion autocracy (what the hell is pornocracy) and necromancy. An atheist would be completely opposed to necromancy, and it is various religions that practice it, and religious people who think they can "talk" or have "contact" with their dead parents/lovers etc. Atheism is just one thing, the non-belief in super-natural entities. You can question nature as much as you want as an atheist, and seing that most scientists are atheists they do.

[ananiasacts]

@TheFutureUnquiet, I get the feeling that religion is an inadvertent technology. The scriptures are basically lessons in immorality--god's immorality. I think the reason it benefits humanity is that those stories are deeply repulsive to decent people, but not to the morally bankrupt people. For the most loathsome and wicked people religion offers redemption. By inducing the worst of us to opt out of studying reality religion artificially raises the quality of the people doing everything else.

[amaxamon]

@TheFutureUnquiet How the heck does a non-belief in magic promote necromancy? If everyone was atheist there would no longer be any magic practiced on earth!

[TedDGPoulos]

The most fundamental question of all: What is The underlying law of nature?

[Alarm4321]

None of this matters anyways since the world is going end in 2012 and we're going to Hell for our sins. Praise the name of Jesus Christ.

[Tropicalpisces]

Since when did the bible come to tounce the understanding of why we are here on this wonderfully perfect Earth? WHY? How did we change from apes to us? I wish more people believed in evolution, b/c sadly, even after all the evidence, there are still people thinking it's a 'myth' or incorrect., that everything was POOFed here by 'god' . "People believe in God b/c the world is very complicated and they think that it is very unlikely that anything as complicated ...could happen by chance."

[KourtlandtP]

@Tropicalpisces the term "myth" does not imply fabrication or falsehood.

[wjwildcat]

wow these people are tall

i just envy tall people

[nazboy16]

Well if we came from primates why do we have a sense of morality? If we came from apes, why is it wrong if i go and murder someone? Apes don't get punished out in the wild if they kill one another. But now you have to ask yourself, where did our sense of right and wrong come from? God has placed this sense inside our minds. All of our laws that were set into place at the beginning of the US. were based upon the Bible. It's right whether you like it or not.

[GermBrit]

Nueroscience is beginning to uncover some of the misconceptions of man that seem so apparent to us. It's been discovered that it is our unconscious minds that ultimately make our 'moral' judgements. Are ability to rationale and express our emotions follow from these preconcieved judgements developed by our intuition. I suggest reading Marc Hauser's book Moral Minds: the nature of right and wrong.

[resistanceunion]

First of if you don't know something you don't assume god did it.. It dsn't explain nothing and just kills the curiosity . Koran , Bible also talks that raping and killing other nations is good. Also prove your religion is real word of god if you can't everything you say is just an opinion without any value.

[mattwjohnston]

Amen!

[hybeerian]

@nazboy16" All of our laws that were set into place at the beginning of the US. were based upon the Bible. It's right whether you like it or not." Whether YOU like it or NOT that statement is incorrect. Actually the "LAWS" or U.S. Constitution was influenced by many other different sources which HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BIBLE!! Ranging from Ancient Athens & Rome(B.C. era) to the Iroquois Confederacy ( which was formed before they even heard of a bible)Plus many other influences.

[naturalpreservation]

There is a lasting question that evolutionary theory cannot explain about humankind and culture.

Why is that over 100s of millions of species over 100s of millions of years there is a seeming finiteness about life and their communicative 'range of relevance' and with humans who "have the gift.....of internalising the very cosmos." (Dawkins, A Devil's Chaplain)

Science (to date) hasn't answered that, social and natural sciences.

I think social science will get there.

[mrcitydocs]

iamhewho..You are an ignorant tool that belongs in the bronze age when the bible was written. Either that or your a little retarded.

[mrcitydocs]

we have language because we are an evolved complex species and language is intergral to our survival..Is this tool serious in thinking that these aren't question that have a scientific answer. Is the world still this ignorant??

[iamhewho]

i think lloyd pye has proven we didnt evolve from apes. and hes done all this with no funding.

[tongvabear]

Pye is an attention starved "star child," as I am quite sure you are. Sad that in 2009 such nonsense as his is capable of getting any sort of acknowledgment.

[sleepcity]

...which is why whoever the hell that is just won the Nobel Prize and is obscenely rich and the most esteemed thinker since Einstein!

...or he's a crank and you're promoting bullshit. One or the other. If you don't think 150+ years of evidence from phylogenetics, paleontology, molecular biology, biochemistry, etc. doesn't back up the claim that modern man branched off from the ape lineage, you simply do not understand the implications of basic science.

[kshackleton]

In fact, we didn't evolve "from" apes....we are apes right now!

The closest cousin to chimps and bonobos are humans, not gorillas, not orangutans....humans.

[RobertZepeski]

right on

[peacearchanthropuses]

First known Europeans, since 700.000 years ago watch?v=scKqrz754gU

Knowledge for a peaceable co-existence

[MaxSafeheaD]

700,000? That will be homo neanderthalensis then, not Homo sapiens.

[saxmanchiro]

That's Homo sapiens neanderthalensis(subspecies).  We are H. sapiens sapiens.

[Aslavetotime]

Maybe we eat more when we are not feeling loved, because when separated from your social group food is not readily available. To counter this the brain tells your body to start eating more in a attempt to prepare for a scarcity of food that may come from being ostrasised for the group. Kinda like preparing for hibernation only for a highly social animal. Where ostracism for a extended period time can mean starving to death.

[PeeGeeBeeDee]

So your saying a good weight loss plan would be one that incorporates A LOT of social time with people that love you such as your kin group? Yeah, I guess that makes some sense because fat people tend to not have many loved ones (kin related or not).

[LITTLER0CKAR]

fascinating.

[billyshake]

What a great video! Thanks.