WEBVTT

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If we evolved from monkeys,

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why are there still monkeys?

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Well, because we're not monkeys,

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we're fish.

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Now, knowing you're a fish
and not a monkey

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is actually really important
to understanding where we came from.

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I teach one of the largest
evolutionary biology classes in the US,

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and when my students finally understand

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why I call them fish all the time,

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then I know I'm getting my job done.

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But I always have to start my classes

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by dispelling some hard-wired myths,

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because without really knowing it,

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many of us are taught evolution wrong.

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For instance, we're taught
to say "the theory of evolution."

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There are actually many theories,
and just like the process itself,

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the ones that best fit the data
are the ones that survive to this day.

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The one we know best
is Darwinian natural selection.

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That's the process by which those
organisms that best fit an environment

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survive and get to reproduce,

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while those that are less fit
slowly die off.

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And that's it.

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Evolution is as simple as that,

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and it's a fact.

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Evolution is a fact

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as much as the theory of gravity.

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You can prove it just as easily.

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You just need to look at your bellybutton

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that you share with
other placental mammals,

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or your backbone

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that you share with other vertebrates,

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or your DNA that you share
with all other life on earth.

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Those traits didn't pop up in humans.

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They were passed down
from different ancestors

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to all their descendants, not just us.

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But that's not really how
we learn biology early on, is it.

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We learn plants and bacteria
are primitive things,

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and fish give rise to amphibians
followed by reptiles and mammals,

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and then