Monday, July 10, 2023

Zach Hancock interviews me on his YouTube channel

We had a good time talking about junk DNA, alternative splicing, and science misinformation.


7 comments:

  1. That was really good, I enjoyed it.

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  2. It was much less embarrassing than I feared. Zach is very smart and knowledgeable. We talked for two hours.

    He cut out some stuff that would have been too controversial!

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  3. Now of course we're curious as to the details of that.

    I very much enjoyed your book; I just finished reading it.

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  4. Larry, it is a very useful and educational interview.
    In the video 'human exceptionalism' was discussed. I would like to know your thoughts about 'human exceptionalism.' A very closely related concept is 'speciesism': a prejudice or bias in favor of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species, on the basis of species alone." (Peter Singer, 2013, 'Animal Liberation Now'). This is the justification for humans killing other animals (for food, etc).
    Example: for the first time in the Netherlands a member of the species Canis lupus has attacked a member of the human species (only minor injuries). The mayor ordered to shot the individual.
    In general: what do you think: does rejecting 'human exceptionalism' imply rejecting 'speciesism'? too and why?

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  5. Just finished listening to the video. Very well done on both your part and Zach’s. The two hours flew by.

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  6. So like the pos-it inventor, it seems to me that R. Dawkins got it wrong but at the same time right when he stressed natural selection and the gene as respectively main force and unit of life evolution?

    But his intended domain was incorrect. Instead of metazoans it is more suited for prokaryotes (where gene sharing overtrumps ancestry for niche exploitation) and maybe some unicellular eukaryotes too?

    But I may well get it all wrong. I am a lay person just trying to make sense of the talk.

    Very informative video (and as always blog). I hope I made good sense of it. Thanks Larry. Pablo

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  7. Some interesting points in the interview. I must say however you brought up how one side had decided it was all; settled and no more debate. As a creationist we would say this happened long ago with creationism/evolution in exactly the same way. It simply shows these small circles quickly all agree with each other and no more debate. It rquires others to be aggressive to stop that conclusion.

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