Hive Mind: The 324th Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying
Bret Weinstein
0:04 Hey folks, welcome to the Darkhorse podcast live stream.
0:09 It's 3:24.
0:10 Can't be prime for at least several reasons.
0:14 Um I'm Dr.
0:15 Brett Weinstein.
0:16 You are of course Dr.
0:17 for Heather Hying.
0:19 And um we briefly had an amazing glimpse at what summer will
0:24 bring and it has uh receded and we're back in sort of uh
0:29 Yeah, it's it's it's a little gloomy.
0:30 It's it's not so cold, but uh it's it's remarkable what the mood
0:35 of a hairless ape will respond to.
0:38 You're talking about me.
0:39 I'm talking about all of us.
0:40 I'm talking about all of us.
0:42 uh that that when the sun is out,
0:43 it's just easy to uh to be optimistic and to to see
0:47 a future that looks like the present, which is sunny.
0:49 Yeah.
0:49 It is amazing what a powerful impact it has.
0:53 Yeah.
0:53 And even just the feeling of the sun on one's skin.
0:56 Oh, yeah.
0:57 Just unignorable for reasons that we
0:59 are increasingly finding out are deeply physiological.
1:02 Absolutely.
1:02 Who would have thought?
1:03 Who would have thought?
1:04 And you know, can we please stop imagining that what we
1:08 need to do is eradicate all the natural variation and then
1:11 add back it add it back in titrated drop by titrated
1:15 drop and villainize those who would not accept the titrated drops.
1:20 Like for instance, and I have not done a deep dive on this yet,
1:23 but the, you know, you need to give your newborns vitamin K at birth debacle.
1:29 I think that is happening in in real time
1:32 now where I think Bobby Kennedy was just uh,
1:36 you know, asked to please just put your support behind vitamin K drops at birth.
1:40 And he's and I think he said like,
1:42 look, I've literally never said anything about this.
1:44 I'm not going to start now while I'm beingounded by you.
1:46 But no, I'm not going to say yay or nay until I've looked into it.
1:50 My brief look into it is oh, and we've talked about this, I think,
1:53 a little bit on a on a Q&A before.
1:55 Um, is this is one more place where we have taken
2:00 a system about which we know something in one developmental stage,
2:03 in this case, adults, have asserted uh that the same things
2:08 must be true across all developmental stages, in this case, newborns.
2:11 When we don't find the same thing, we say, "Ah,
2:14 what we need to do is raise the levels to that of adults." Like, hold up.
2:19 You know, it's quite possible that a newborn
2:21 does not actually have the same physiology,
2:24 the same, we know, we know it doesn't have the same anatomical considerations.
2:28 And maybe that's an adaptation, not a problem uh that needs to be solved.
2:34 And if it is a problem that needs to be solved as opposed
2:36 to either an adaptation or maybe a trade-off wherein if you mess with it,
2:40 you're going to mess with the upside of something of something else,
2:43 maybe it's a problem because of something else
2:46 that we are doing in modernity that we could fix.
2:48 Yeah, it's side effects all the way down.
2:50 And we see this across every domain where we are told avoid
2:54 salt and then keep track of your electrolytes, you may be low.
2:58 It's like okay.
3:00 Um
3:01 you looked at what's in electrolytes.
3:02 That's it's it's salts.
3:03 Yes, you really need to cut down your cholesterol,
3:06 which turns out to be a profoundly important set
3:09 of molecules that you absolutely depend on for proper functioning.
3:13 Yeah.
3:14 You know, there's no question in my mind at this point that if you
3:19 had to go with the experts versus
3:23 doing triedand-true things and ignoring the experts,
3:26 as long as you did it from the beginning,
3:28 you'd be way better off avoiding anything that had touched
3:31 the experts than you would going with their latest and greatest,
3:34 which is um not surprising in light of the fact that they're talking about
3:40 US complex systems and all of the interventions
3:43 that they've figured we need to make.
3:45 Um, but it is it's a sobering lesson about
3:49 the difference between the enlightenment process, which is fantastic,
3:55 and operationalizing it based on the very partial
3:58 picture that you have at any given moment,
4:00 especially so early in our understanding of biology,
4:04 uh, especially of the humankind.
4:06 Well, and it's um one of the errors
4:08 is mistaking the incredible uh gains uh both theoretical,
4:15 empirical, and just sort of like toolkit wise of the Enlightenment.
4:18 mistaking that, conflating that with all that science is,
4:22 all that human understanding and flourishing can be, as opposed to saying, okay,
4:26 the rigor and the logic and the reason of the enlightenment are, you know,
4:32 absolutely helped us move out of a darker uh witchier, more superstitious time.
4:40 Um, but that's not to say that some of the witchier,
4:43 superstitious stuff didn't turn out to be right.
4:46 And it also doesn't suggest that reason is sufficient.
4:50 Reason is not going to be sufficient.
4:52 And reason isn't sufficient even within a scientific framework,
4:55 much less a human one.
4:56 Yes.
4:57 Um reason reason ultimately gets you there.
5:03 But it is sort of the instantaneous desire to figure out based
5:08 on what we know at any given moment what the advice ought to be.
5:11 And you know obviously I don't think it does what I don't think it's sufficient.
5:18 Um reason might well be sufficient if you were
5:21 at a very advanced stage of understanding some system.
5:24 And what reason would tell you is here are all the feedbacks
5:28 that are working in you that you have to be cautious not to disrupt.
5:31 And you know every so often there's
5:32 something that needs a disruption for some reason.
5:35 Usually as you point out for because of some prior disruption.
5:39 Um, but the wisdom of the experts, if the experts persist,
5:46 will ultimately involve extreme caution about disrupting things that were built
5:52 to work and disrupting the environments in which they uh evolved.
6:00 True.
5:59 All right.
6:01 How we um I don't know, pay the rent.
6:05 You mean the ads?
6:07 Yes.
6:06 Yes.
6:06 All right.
6:07 Uh so we always as always have three at the top of the hour here.
6:10 Um but we also have our locals watch party going on.
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6:16 Consider that.
6:16 And uh let's just get started.
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16:01 Go ahead.
16:02 Um Oh, yes.
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16:16 Um Yeah.
16:18 So this week uh Ross Duat in the New York Times uh published an opinion
16:23 piece uh that was titled I don't know by him but you know by the New
16:26 York Times oped team slouching toward Kamala
16:29 Harris uh of course a reference to slouching
16:32 toward Bethlehem and that caught my eye sufficiently that I I read the piece.
16:37 Um I like you.
16:38 I like I like his thinking.
16:39 He's he's a great writer and and his thinking and uh and sure enough uh well I
16:44 I didn't know actually that Harris was actually uh
16:49 looking like she might be the nominee for 2028.
16:52 So that like that is what he reveals in this piece.
16:56 Let's just read a little bit of it and and and then and then riff.
17:00 Um so also this picture is uh pretty remarkable.
17:03 It's a great picture.
17:04 It's a great picture.
17:05 I also don't quite understand where the light
17:08 must be coming from to make a shadow that looks like she's doing this when she's
17:11 actually only got one arm in the air.
17:13 So that's that's itself sort of an a question in physics and lighting.
17:17 It makes me wonder if it's even real.
17:19 Uh you know, it could be coming from down below in like
17:22 what looks like the it wouldn't be the orchestra pit because she's not.
17:26 But I I don't know.
17:29 It's it's interesting for those of you just listening.
17:31 Uh it's it's a great picture that is surprising with regard to the shadow.
17:36 Uh but it's it's Kamla presumably I don't know I guess at the uh
17:39 at the Democratic National Convention
17:41 in which she was anointed appointed declared installed
17:47 installed uh for the 2024 uh Democratic uh nominee for for president.
17:53 Rosat writes there are three polling numbers you can use
17:56 to understand the condition of the Democratic party in 2026.
17:59 The first is Donald Trump's approval rating, which has dropped into the high30s,
18:03 a terrain usually associated with dramatic
18:05 public rebukes and mandates for the opposition.
18:08 The second is the generic congressional ballot,
18:10 which is promising Democrats decent midterm election results,
18:13 but is stubbornly refusing to promise a sweeping mandate
18:15 or a clear shot at flipping all the crucial Senate states.
18:18 And the third is polling for the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries,
18:22 in which the leading Democratic candidate is consistently Kla Harris,
18:25 the face of the party's 2024 debacle.
18:28 I want to read a little bit more of this, but let me just
18:30 click through on his evidence that Harris
18:33 is um consistently leading in in the polls.
18:40 And here indeed, we have this is from Real Clear Polling.
18:44 This is what's linked to in the uh DAT
18:47 oped in the New York Times from this week.
18:49 2028 2028 Democratic pres That's what I said.
18:55 2028 Democratic presidential nomination in which we have
19:01 uh names that will be familiar to everyone
19:04 and some that aren't necessarily familiar but Harris
19:08 uh in the leftmost column uh almost routinely
19:12 outranking everyone else on the board with the exception of in a few places like
19:18 in the Emerson poll Nuome Gavin Newsome and Buddha
19:22 Judge how does how do you pronounce his name?
19:23 Buddy, judge, Buddha judge, I think.
19:25 Buddha judge.
19:26 Uh, and but in general, uh, Newsome is the the second highest ranking guy,
19:33 but, uh, but Harris is across the board on average in the lead.
19:40 And that and then uh and then
19:43 in sort of fourth overall is Alexandria Accassiocortez.
19:47 Uh, who, you know, I think she would be a disaster as a president,
19:51 but she does seem to stand for something.
19:53 and have some competence to her.
19:56 I think actually she'd make a pretty remarkable candidate.
20:00 I'm hesitant to say that.
20:01 I feel like what I should do is attack Kla Harris as a foolish choice,
20:07 which would then of course have the inverse
20:09 reaction to the extent that anyone's paying attention.
20:13 Yeah.
20:12 Um but no, I think you know, Cortez would at least be
20:18 fascinating to watch and you know it it would
20:22 at least be an interesting She put up an interesting fight.
20:25 She would put up an interesting fight as would Newsome, I would say.
20:28 I mean,
20:29 you think so?
20:30 Well, the thing about Newsome, I read him as um a perfectly amoral creature.
20:40 Yeah.
20:39 Um but he's very smart.
20:41 He's very articulate.
20:43 He's very presentable.
20:45 And it, you know, if you're going,
20:48 he's a shape shifter,
20:50 of course, but if you're going to take some sort of, you know,
20:54 you're going to have two things.
20:55 There's the policy that this demonic party
20:57 wants for whatever reason it wants it.
21:00 And then you have the package that it has to be put in to sell it to the public.
21:05 Well, this and this ends up being Oh, keep keep going,
21:07 but we'll get back to the do that piece.
21:09 This is part of what he's he as I believe
21:11 a Democrat who will vote Democrat is arguing essentially this point.
21:16 But if you're going to, you know,
21:18 take some anti-American evil package of policies and you're going to try
21:25 to dress them up to look like they're public-spirited and patriotic,
21:30 Gavin Newsome is the perfect vessel because for one thing,
21:34 he lies without any sense that he even knows he's doing it.
21:42 I mean, I think he must because he's pretty good at
21:45 it.
21:45 Willie 2.0.
21:47 He's super smooth.
21:48 He's super smooth.
21:49 And
21:51 so I mean, you know, that's the job.
21:53 How do you take something that is hostile to the public
21:55 and sell it to the public as health food?
21:59 Gavin Newsome has one liability as I see it.
22:02 The liability is California is not in good shape
22:05 and he has a lot to do with that
22:08 which his liability being his entire track
22:10 record that would prepare him for the job,
22:13 right?
22:13 But he has a hidden advantage in this regard,
22:16 which is that he'd be running in the Democratic party where what
22:20 actually happens as a result of your policies is not taken as evidence.
22:24 In fact, if things that you do do not produce
22:27 the outcome that you wanted or more likely produce the inverse outcome,
22:31 the answer is, well, we didn't do enough of it, did we?
22:34 So, if that's if that's your game, Gavin Newsome's a great choice.
22:38 I but I think and you know it's possible that we just um aren't
22:42 tuned in to as much of the thinking in California as we used to be.
22:48 But what I hear from people who continue to vote
22:51 uh blue in California is that neither Harris as you know
22:56 as someone who was a senator in California before she was
22:58 uh VP nor Newsome uh are held in great esteem by Californians.
23:03 that you know the the very place where they came
23:06 from see what they did and uh and reject it.
23:10 Now that may not matter for you know California is still not going
23:14 to go red but it it feels like feels like a big hurdle.
23:20 Yeah.
23:20 Except that there's a dynamic here which is so
23:24 unfortunate where effectively there's a price point for changing.
23:31 I mean, Kla Harris was a an empty suit
23:35 who was invented into a political candidate almost overnight.
23:41 And yes, we'll we'll get to that.
23:42 But but but my point is if the point is you've
23:45 got Gavin Newsome who as a human being is capable of doing
23:49 the job of putting a human face on something inhuman and the problem
23:55 is that the people who've lived under his governance are uh belleaguered.
24:01 Well the question is how much money do you have
24:04 to throw at that problem to revise how they feel?
24:08 And it the answer should be that there's
24:10 no price because you know frankly the lived experience
24:14 of Californians ought to tell them that this guy
24:16 is has no business being in the White House.
24:19 On the other hand, if you look at something like
24:23 the campaign to dislodge Thomas Massie from his seat in Kentucky,
24:29 the point is, well, what's at work there?
24:32 This is a guy who's actually stood up for Americans.
24:36 and what is working against him,
24:39 the antipathy of the president and a huge amount of money, right?
24:45 There's just money being flooded into that campaign
24:48 against him and he's actually got
24:50 uh a a real race on his hands where that shouldn't be the case, right?
24:55 the president deciding to override the will of Kuckians by uh you
25:01 know by primary Massie with you know just an endless stream of propaganda
25:09 that shouldn't work but it works and so my sense
25:12 is just a question of how many how many
25:17 would it be hundreds of millions of dollars do you
25:19 need to spend to make Gavin Newsome fresh and new?
25:22 Well, I don't I don't know.
25:23 I guess um I I I have two reactions
25:28 to that that feel like they are they're rebuttals.
25:30 Um one is here in the state of Washington,
25:34 we are seeing simultaneously uh revenue grab from taxpayers and an absolute
25:40 squandering of the of the money that the state holds.
25:45 No amount of money is sufficient and no amount of money seem like almost none
25:49 of the money that is had seems to be going to actually fund the right things.
25:52 Like literally they are closing down state parks for the summer
25:56 because they don't have the staffing just to clean up the garbage.
25:59 At a moment when uh you know the estate tax
26:02 and the capital gains tax uh and now the millionaires
26:05 tax which won't go into effect for a few
26:06 years have all been passed within the last few years.
26:09 You know the state has more funds than it than it's ever had.
26:12 And they're closing down state parks at the beginning
26:14 of the summer which is like what what is the west about?
26:17 What are what are the western states known
26:19 for other than at this point insane politics?
26:21 It's the natural beauty.
26:23 It's the outdoor lifestyle.
26:24 It's it's it's knowing that people, rain or shine or snow,
26:27 are interested in going out and climbing
26:30 and walking and running and cycling and kayaking
26:32 and being on the water and in the mountains and on trails and yeah,
26:36 we're going to close down the state parks because we don't have enough money.
26:38 So, there's there's that which is that actually
26:42 uh money doesn't seem to be the solution inherently.
26:46 inherently.
26:47 And uh and then I guess the second thing
26:50 that I was feeling as you were talking about
26:51 Nome and you know what could be done to change
26:54 the opinion of Californians who've been living under him.
26:57 Well, California is obviously a giant state.
27:00 Uh last I checked and I haven't looked in a while,
27:03 it was like the fifth largest economy in the world.
27:05 It was something incredible.
27:07 Like if it were a nation state,
27:09 it would be the fifth largest economy in the world.
27:10 And that may well have changed a lot.
27:11 That's that's been a few years since I looked into that.
27:14 Um but you know the the economics and the politics
27:17 of the central valley and of the coast are wildly different
27:20 of you know far northern California which has been trying
27:23 to secede as the state of Jefferson forever is wildly different.
27:27 um even from that in say um Eureka uh
27:31 or or no more yeah Eureka and um Cal and Humbult, right?
27:37 Uh so you know just lots and lots of different
27:39 areas within uh within California but some of the most
27:44 like most dedicated blue parts were so for instance
27:49 ravaged by the fires of 16 months ago now.
27:54 uh both so you we talked about the Palisades fire
27:56 because that's where I grew up and the neighborhood that I
27:58 grew up was just you know burned literally to the ground
28:02 and the uh Pasad Aladena fire at the same time.
28:06 It's been over a year and um the mitigation efforts are stalled.
28:10 They're terrible.
28:11 There's toxins in the soil and many people aren't being allowed to even consider
28:16 uh rebuilding or you know or doing anything to reclaim any of their lives.
28:20 And this is being stalled not just at the county
28:22 level but I think at the state level as well.
28:24 So those people who would otherwise
28:26 be absolutely dedicated blue voters are having
28:29 this experience of having had their amazing
28:32 upscale uh lives lives torn from them um
28:36 by a natural disaster that was absolutely made worse by tens of at least
28:43 of years of bad fire wildlands fire
28:46 management in um in Southern California at least.
28:49 but now by very bad policy from from on high which includes Nuome.
28:54 Well, I I don't disagree with that at all and I you know one would like
28:58 to imagine that there's a level of failure
29:01 that is so great that propaganda can't overcome it.
29:05 But I think we constantly underestimate the sophistication of propaganda.
29:14 Increasingly good at understanding our individual blind spots.
29:19 uh sympathies and we uh personally I believe there's a price point to make Gavin
29:28 Newsome the uh enthusiastically supported candidate of the party
29:35 if that's what they choose to do.
29:37 Why they would choose to do the same or attempt the same with Kla Harris,
29:42 I don't really know because she can't hold up her end of the bargain.
29:46 Yeah.
29:46 So, let's actually see what um what Duth has to say about her.
29:51 And then um I mean we we've we've
29:54 talked before during the last election about her.
29:57 But um he says, you know, there's there's these three reasons.
30:01 Uh there are three polling numbers you can
30:02 use to understand the condition of the Democratic party.
30:04 Uh and the third being that her Kamla
30:07 Harris is routinely leading in the polls for 2028.
30:13 He says all three numbers are linked
30:14 to the dominant mode in democratic politics right now.
30:17 It's not the rebellion or radicalism manifest in say Hassan
30:20 Piker's Twitch streamer Marxism
30:22 or Zaran Mandani's teleogenic democratic socialism.
30:26 Notable as those tendencies may be,
30:27 the Democrat's fundamental condition is a late
30:30 Trumpian stasis in which the president's
30:32 stark unpopularity encourages his opponents
30:34 to imagine that they can keep everything
30:36 basically as it was in the Biden era with the same broad priorities
30:39 and deference to activists and interest
30:41 groups and float back to power automatically.
30:44 And then just a little bit more here,
30:46 the continuing appeal of Harris is a useful indicator of this stasis.
30:50 Yes, she is unlikely to be the 28 2028 nominee.
30:53 I'm not sure why he says that, but uh
30:55 and part of her support is name recognition.
30:57 Mitt Romney did well in such polls in 2013 and 2014,
31:00 but she seems to want a second run more than Romney did.
31:03 And if she goes for it, she will have one notable advantage.
31:06 The fact that many Democrats who find her renomination unthinkable
31:09 are nonetheless incapable of acknowledging the real reasons that she lost.
31:14 I Ross Duthat will list some of those reasons.
31:18 First, her party was seen as too beholden
31:20 to progressive activists on a range of issues,
31:21 including immigration, crime, education, energy, and the transgender debate.
31:27 Second, Harris's vice presidency was itself a creation of the 2020
31:30 identity politics movement without which Joe Biden never would have picked her.
31:34 And she succeeded him without a fight in part because
31:36 no one wanted to acknowledge her painful limits as a politician.
31:39 Just a reminder, before she was picked, Biden said,
31:42 "I will choose a black woman." That's what he said.
31:46 Yep.
31:46 Finally, she tried to solve both the policy problem
31:48 and the identity politics problem through evasion and distraction and yet more
31:52 identity politics with empty rhetoric of joy and circumlocution about
31:56 her past positions and a mediocre Midwestern white guy running mate.
32:01 It's way worse than that.
32:04 She's utterly incompetent.
32:06 She has no track record.
32:07 I went again and we talked about this at some point.
32:10 Um, but I remember finding like a a USA Today article
32:13 that was lauding all of what she had done and its list includes,
32:17 you know, visiting a Planned Parenthood clinic,
32:20 you know, considering a such and such.
32:23 Like she's she's actually affected almost nothing at all.
32:27 There are a tiny like less than a handful of Senate bills that she pushed
32:32 through that involve like increasing by a few
32:35 acres the size of existing conservation areas.
32:39 cool, but really like that's that's the basis and obviously we all lived through
32:46 and some people may have managed to forget it as soon as they saw it.
32:50 But other than her one surprisingly competent
32:55 performance in the debate against Trump in every
32:59 debate or or every every interview that we
33:02 saw her in, she couldn't put together sentences.
33:05 She couldn't answer questions.
33:06 She couldn't speak English.
33:08 Like h how could we possibly be considering this?
33:11 And how could we possibly imagine that the party that would
33:14 put her up there is claiming to be the party
33:16 that wants to empower women when all they have managed
33:19 to come up with is this utterly palpably incompetent woman?
33:26 Well, I want to argue that there's something deeper here.
33:29 I hear echoes of it in what Dutat is saying,
33:31 but I don't think the diagnosis is right.
33:35 There is something on the blue team side
33:40 that cannot process evidence that it had it wrong.
33:46 And so I think what's really driving Kamala is that
33:51 everybody wants a recount because everybody
33:53 who convinced themselves that Kamala was
33:55 a good candidate enough to actually vote
33:58 for her is feeling like something happened
34:03 that shouldn't have that this was not legitimate that the awfulness of Trump
34:07 in their minds is so profound that they have to go back and double down.
34:14 And so I think this is the double down instinct which
34:19 I mean whatever else the Democratic party may be, it's a political party.
34:25 If it can't learn the lesson of a massive
34:27 political catastrophe and just simply run a better candidate,
34:32 that tells you something.
34:34 One, one of the things it tells you is that
34:38 hey blue team, you drove out all your likable people.
34:41 You really did.
34:42 Mhm.
34:43 And so you don't have a deep bench of people
34:45 that you could simply not make the same error again.
34:48 At least make a new error.
34:49 You'll learn learn something new.
34:50 Making the same error is insane.
34:51 And maybe your point about Aassiocortez.
34:55 That would be a new that would that would be a new thing.
34:57 None of us have seen that one before.
34:59 Right.
34:59 Right.
34:59 That's a different thing.
35:01 So that would at least, you know, I don't know how to call that one.
35:04 Obviously, it depends on who she'd be running against.
35:07 Um it depends on what happens through the rest of the the Trump presidency,
35:12 right?
35:12 But at least it's not at least it's not the same error.
35:16 And even Gavin Newsome,
35:17 who I think is in some ways as ridiculous as Kla Harris at a policy level,
35:23 he has demonstrated his capacity to, you know, to wreck a great state.
35:32 Um, but it's at least not the same error.
35:34 And he's at least got a skill set she doesn't have, right?
35:38 He can answer questions in English.
35:39 Oh my god, he's he's good at it.
35:41 He's actually he's good at it.
35:42 And frankly, he's got one of these personalities that's kind of
35:47 if you don't know what he is, he's likable.
35:50 You know, he seems like a guy you could sit down with, that kind of thing.
35:54 And, you know, I I think we as Americans should be livid at this play,
35:59 which is not just a democratic play,
36:02 where they take somebody who's likable and they put
36:05 him in front of us to dress up horrifying things.
36:07 I mean, this was, you know, George W.
36:10 Bush, right?
36:11 He he was a guy who would be fun at the barbecue
36:15 and people couldn't see that he was a front for something that boy,
36:23 you don't want to be at that barbecue.
36:25 But so Kamla isn't that he's not the fun person at the barbecue.
36:31 She's But I mean, she tried right the brat summer thing like she she
36:35 that certainly didn't go well, right?
36:37 But but she tried to appeal to I guess
36:40 you know millennial women and maybe even Gen Z women.
36:44 Uh but it didn't it it I think it backfired.
36:48 Yeah.
36:48 It didn't work.
36:48 So you know if I were them I would certainly
36:53 try one of the two promising people who would create
36:57 a new race rather than trying to rerun the old one
37:00 when you know they won't even have Trump to run against.
37:03 So,
37:04 right,
37:04 uh, speaking of which, uh, so you can put my screen here back up.
37:07 This is what, uh, this is the real clear polling, uh,
37:11 data on who's who people think that they would
37:15 vote for if the election were today in 2028,
37:18 um, for the Democratic presidential nomination.
37:22 And then here's the equivalent information for Republicans.
37:25 Uh, and you know, this isn't surprising given
37:27 that he's the sitting vice president and uh,
37:30 uh, usually the sitting vice president is uh, the air parent.
37:34 Uh, but Vance is way ahead of all of the other contenders.
37:38 Um, but some of who's here was interesting to me.
37:42 It includes uh, Trump Jr., I had no idea that was even in the offing.
37:46 Rubio, okay, Dantis, interesting.
37:49 Um, I I think he could be great.
37:52 Uh, Bobby Kennedy Jr.
37:54 is even on here as is Gabbard.
37:56 Uh so obviously I I alled some people there but uh that just you
38:00 know overall that looks like a more interesting slate of people by a lot.
38:04 Yeah,
38:04 there was you literally one person on on the Democrat side
38:07 that seemed interesting and not you know Okasio Cortez seems interesting if
38:13 you know terrifying in a way.
38:15 Uh Tucker Carlson and Thomas Massie are not listed.
38:18 Well I don't Carlson is on here but I don't know if I maybe that is Tucker.
38:22 I I don't know what what that Carlson is.
38:24 Presumably it is.
38:27 Yeah.
38:25 Um and he he doesn't pull well here.
38:30 Yeah.
38:30 I mean, he's he's pretty far to the right here in term
38:33 and that's that's just a a ranked list left to right.
38:36 Uh getting about two and a half%.
38:39 There's one poll where he got four and most
38:41 polls he's not he's not uh polling at all,
38:43 but that may just be because they're not asking about him.
38:45 I don't know.
38:46 Right.
38:47 Right.
38:47 Yeah.
38:47 Well, he's not running, but uh Right.
38:49 But he's certainly being talked about.
38:51 Yeah.
38:53 All right.
38:54 Um, was there more on the uh that No, I mean the the piece goes on, but I think
38:59 uh I think I have been pleasantly not thinking about presidential politics,
39:08 about the race for a little while and the idea that we are
39:13 looking at a similar kind of show as we did last time is absurd.
39:18 Now obviously uh Trump is his own brings his own circus uh
39:23 and so it won't be exactly the same kind of thing but I am
39:28 totally shocked that Harris is has the hutbah to stand up and say
39:37 I'll do that again after her showing was as abysmal as it was.
39:42 Yeah.
39:42 I can't believe she would want it.
39:44 I mean she took such a beating.
39:47 just seems like a reasonable person would go do something else.
39:51 Um but okay.
39:53 Um you know, to me though, this is like the Democratic Party announcing,
39:59 "Yep, we're the people you you thought we were.
40:01 We haven't learned anything and we'll do it to you
40:03 all over again." Which again makes things very simple.
40:07 on the other side.
40:09 I cannot vote for a cabal that wants to use
40:14 an empty suit puppet to cloak what it's doing.
40:19 And you know, it's not that the Republican party hasn't done that, but my god,
40:24 I just it seems to be the the standard MMO of this party now
40:30 and the party faithful do not seem to be
40:33 processing the either the policy side at all.
40:37 And they're certainly not processing, hey,
40:40 that thing we wanted to do did bad things that we didn't anticipate.
40:45 Maybe it's not such a wise idea.
40:48 I think the inability to process that is
40:50 just it's disqualifying in a political discussion.
40:55 It should be.
40:56 Um, of course, some of what we have seen
41:00 in in the second Trump presidency has looked like few of us predicted.
41:09 Oh yeah.
41:10 uh with regard to what appears just to be capture,
41:14 right, which was exactly, you know,
41:15 I went back to my thinking which I published about why I voted
41:19 for him uh in 2024 having not voted for him any time before.
41:23 And uh one of the main reasons and what was
41:26 most important to me was that he was his own guy,
41:28 that he wasn't owned.
41:30 Uh and I see no evidence that that's still true.
41:32 Yeah.
41:32 I don't know.
41:33 I don't know what's going on and why, but I will say on the Republican side,
41:39 there are an awful lot of people who did vote for him who
41:42 feel betrayed and bewildered by how the very things that we were promised,
41:49 like no new wars, could be uh inverted in the way that they have been.
41:53 So, that's a different thing.
41:56 And I'm not saying that there isn't
41:57 a totally committed to Trump quadrant over there.
42:03 There is.
42:04 There are people for whom he can do no wrong.
42:06 And frankly, those of us who are, you know, uh,
42:11 feeling like we're getting things that we specifically voted against,
42:15 that we are betraying the president by calling him out for these things.
42:19 I think it's just our responsibility to try to hold him to the promises that he
42:23 made and and to try to understand
42:25 the reason that he's not following through on them.
42:27 Were were they lies when he said them or has something kicked in?
42:31 Has the the dynamics of the politics taken control?
42:36 But nonetheless, you don't find all of the people
42:40 who voted for Trump happy with whatever Trump does.
42:44 That is not what's going on over uh on the red side.
42:49 Yeah.
42:49 And I think, you know,
42:50 that was certainly uh a caricature of Trump voters in 2016
42:55 and even in uh 2020 uh when he did not take office obviously,
43:02 but uh people people in the mainstream media
43:07 in in blue team mindset thought that the critique
43:13 that was coming at Biden was simply because there
43:16 was totally unnuanced celebration of Trump no matter what.
43:19 And again, I as you I would say I'm
43:22 sure there are some people like that out there just
43:24 as there are some people um like that out there
43:26 with the opposite veilance um over in over in blue team.
43:29 Uh but that is not how he won.
43:33 That is that is that is he he certainly could not have won
43:36 on the basis of uh everything Trump does is going to be a good decision voters.
43:43 Yeah.
43:43 And there weren't, you know, there are certainly many Trump loyalists,
43:47 but Trump loyalists on their own were not enough to elect him.
43:50 A coalition of people got behind him because he seemed to be
43:56 willing to partner with people like Bobby Kennedy on, you know,
43:59 values that were not traditionally under the Republican banner.
44:03 So, you know, that coalition has to figure out what
44:07 to do in order to um not go down with this ship.
44:14 Yeah.
44:14 um to to continue to be heard
44:17 and to demonstrate that we're you know we're a real we're a real
44:22 coalition with real views who actually you know maybe in some
44:24 ways seem like you know hippie granola moms and uh
44:28 and you know mothers of vaccine injured children and also 2A advocates
44:33 and hunters and ranchers and outdoors people who want to hike
44:37 and kayak and yes that is one set of people um
44:40 many of whom have historically voted in opposite directions but actually
44:43 have a shared love of uh of our planet and don't
44:47 want to see it destroyed for uh for for trivial reasons.
44:51 And I will just remind people of the overarching dynamic here,
44:55 which I' I've pointed out many times,
44:57 which is there's something odd about the fact that we don't
45:01 have a party that simply represents the interests that most people have.
45:08 It's such an obvious winning strategy if it was allowed to escape the crib.
45:15 The problem is anything that attempts to do that is strangled in the crib.
45:19 And so what we're left with is two deeply corrupt parties beholden in many cases
45:24 to the very same interests doing the bidding
45:26 of somebody else at the expense of Americans.
45:31 And you know that's the whole game is you're
45:34 not going to be allowed to have a reasonable choice.
45:37 and we will then divide over which
45:39 of the unreasonable choices is less unreasonable.
45:42 And that's that's a blinking red light, right?
45:46 That is nature's way of telling you that something about
45:48 your democratic republic is simply not functioning because, you know,
45:54 in what universe is there not a single party that just figures out
45:58 what people want and then advocates for it and wins election after election?
46:02 How could that not be a feature of our landscape?
46:04 And the answer is the interests that do control
46:07 our system know that they can't afford to have it exist.
46:11 And so they do everything in their power
46:14 to prevent it from, you know, ever setting seed.
46:18 And you know, that's really the problem
46:20 until it's solved or until the republic fails.
46:23 It's one of the two.
46:26 Let's hope for the former.
46:27 Yes.
46:27 Let's try to solve it.
46:28 Yeah.
46:29 All right.
46:29 Let's try to solve it.
46:30 Which brings us very direct.
46:32 No, it does not bring us even remotely to our next
46:36 I don't know what you're going to talk about.
46:37 But you have these tells.
46:40 Oh, do I?
46:40 Oh, you do?
46:41 I do.
46:42 But then, as you know, once you start depending on those
46:45 tells tell you what the tells are then you can un untell yourself.
46:49 Yes, I can untell myself even though that's not a thing.
46:52 Um, all right.
46:53 So, I ran across something that was new to me.
46:57 I don't know how it had escaped my notice all this time.
47:00 Apparently, it was new in 2013.
47:03 Are you not concerned about getting poop on your computer?
47:09 You You've got it right.
47:10 Oh, the dung beetle.
47:11 Sorry.
47:12 What could possibly be going on that I'm unaware of in this studio?
47:16 Yes.
47:16 No, that's just a sculpture of a dung.
47:17 I I just If possible,
47:19 you could put you point that that way so that so the dung beetle doesn't have to
47:24 We are redecorating real time.
47:26 That's I mean I too would like to have my computer there,
47:28 but I I just feel like the dung beetle deserves a space.
47:31 Oh, 100%.
47:32 Um, for one thing, those aren't easy to control,
47:34 so you don't know what direction.
47:36 Exactly.
47:36 That's I felt like you you were going to get that on your computer.
47:38 And then what?
47:39 Yeah.
47:39 And then what?
47:40 Exactly.
47:41 Um, all right, Jen, do you want to show the video that I sent this?
47:46 So, I had not seen this and it alerted me
47:49 to a biological phenomenon that I was just completely unaware of.
47:52 I'll be curious if you knew about it.
47:54 Okay.
47:54 I don't know what we're talking about yet.
47:56 Plants are rooted to the ground and have a small negative charge.
48:01 The higher up the plant you go, the greater the electric charge.
48:05 This creates an electric field around the flower.
48:08 We can't see it, but these electrodes are picking up the energy
48:12 of this tiny field and converting it into the sound that we can hear.
48:17 Bees, on the other hand, have a positive charge.
48:21 Friction whilst flying causes them to lose electrons.
48:24 As a bee approaches a flower, the charged fields around the flower
48:29 and the bee interact and the sound changes there.
48:34 And when it lands, the positive
48:36 and negative fields immediately cancel each other out.
48:40 As this happens, there are two very surprising consequences.
48:44 Firstly, the plant's negatively charged pollen actually
48:48 jumps across onto the positively charged bee.
48:53 Secondly, the plant has a changed electrical
48:55 field and when another bee comes along,
48:58 it detects this altered electrical signature and avoids the flower.
49:03 The plant is in effect telling the bee
49:06 that it has no nectar and to come back later.
49:11 I have I have seen that Attenboroough clip
49:13 shared actually by our our wonderful friend Diane.
49:17 Um it's it's bees grounding.
49:20 Yes, I was going to point out this connection.
49:22 You have been uh increasingly intrigued with the idea of grounding.
49:26 I've been a little uncompelled by it.
49:29 Um, but I will say this does strike me as consistent with the idea
49:34 that grounding is not only potentially
49:37 a significant factor in something like human health,
49:41 but that we have almost certainly disrupted the natural
49:47 relationship that we have electromagnetically to the ground.
49:49 And I was thinking about this as I was coming over here in my, of course,
49:53 rubber bottom shoes, right?
49:55 an insulator that prevents you from being connected
49:59 uh to the earth in an electromagnetic way.
50:02 So anyway, I was fascinated by a the fact that you
50:07 have a perceptual mode that is totally cryptic to uh us humans
50:15 that is apparently an important part
50:17 of the ecological interaction between apparently
50:20 all flowering plants and at least bees presumably other arthropods as well.
50:25 So there's a question about um does does the act
50:30 of flight cause uh insects who visit plants in order
50:36 to get nectar and inadvertent to them but the point
50:39 for the plant end up um pollinating as a result?
50:42 Does the act of flight cause you to lose electrons such that when
50:45 you arrive you were effectively positively charged as a flying insect be or not?
50:50 There's that question and then there's the question
50:52 of do other insects besides bees are
50:54 they able to detect uh which is the second part of what Adam is talking
50:58 about in this clip right that uh that it also acts as a mode
51:02 of communication between the plant where we we
51:04 would have using our limited understanding of senses.
51:09 We would have thought can they you know can they smell can they detect can
51:12 they you know can they can they smell can they see uh can they feel
51:17 uh through sort of vibratory uh or you tactile methods the lack of nectar
51:23 and thus move on quickly without considering all
51:26 of these other sensory modalities that actually exist.
51:29 Right?
51:30 And so I think the answer to the first question is clear.
51:33 It seems to be that that flying insects are naturally positively charged
51:38 by virtue of the fact that they have lost negatively charged electrons.
51:42 Electrons being inherently negatively charged.
51:44 They get stripped off in the same way as they fly by the act of fly
51:48 by the act of flying.
51:49 Um so it's like uh rubbing I think a feather uh
51:54 on a balloon or rubbing a a a plastic rod with a a cloth.
52:00 The stripping of the electrons creates a static charge,
52:03 which we've all experienced.
52:05 You can create it as you're scooting across your carpeted
52:08 floor and then you touch the doororknob and the charge
52:10 you've built up discharges with a little little lightning
52:13 bolt that you can actually see in the dark.
52:15 Um, but anyway, okay.
52:17 So, the bees are naturally charged by virtue
52:21 of flight and that I might have seen coming.
52:25 I didn't realize that the plants were inherently negatively charged.
52:29 And I did a little digging on why the plants
52:32 are negatively charged and I got a lot of[ __] back.
52:35 Okay.
52:36 I'm sure.
52:37 Yeah.
52:37 I have not gone looking at that.
52:38 Yeah.
52:38 So, the[ __] I initially got back was well, you know,
52:44 all creatures including plants do a lot of work to get
52:47 a voltage across their membranes um by virtue of ion pumping.
52:54 Okay.
52:55 Um that doesn't No, that doesn't get you there.
52:57 It doesn't get you there unless the um positive
53:01 charges the protons that is a hydrogen atom without its
53:05 electron which is just simply a uh a proton
53:09 which is positively charged unless they're lost to the environment.
53:13 It doesn't result in a net charge.
53:15 It just results in a voltage across the membrane.
53:18 So, even though there's a lot of explaining about the uh the work
53:21 that the plant is doing to get the inside of its cells to be negatively charged,
53:25 it does not explain.
53:26 It's the beginning of a story, but it it doesn't it doesn't get us there.
53:28 Yeah.
53:28 It's not even it's not even really involved as far as I can tell.
53:32 It it could be the beginning of a relevant story.
53:34 Yeah.
53:34 Well, if Yeah.
53:35 If there was some mechanism where
53:36 the positive charges built up somewhere, of course,
53:38 there's pressure for that not to happen
53:40 because the positive charges repel each other.
53:42 But anyway, it seems to be a simple extension
53:46 of the fact that the Earth itself is somewhat negatively charged.
53:50 And so you've got basically a negative antenna sticking up off the Earth.
53:55 All plants are in effect permanently grounded is what's going on.
53:59 And that results in the negative charge.
54:01 But these negative charges um are sens that seems that that seems like right.
54:07 It's satisfying and it does it doesn't require all that e extra
54:11 architecture of the cells and their um you know movement of of protons.
54:16 Yeah.
54:18 Um but in any case so this opens up several kinds of questions.
54:21 A you've got the plants are negatively charged presumably always have been.
54:25 The bees as long as there have been bees have been presumably positively charged
54:29 after as they fly as they fly as a result of their flight in the hive.
54:33 You might think that they because the hive itself is
54:36 attached to the ground would also be negatively charged maybe.
54:40 Kind of depends how it's attached and it's a really interesting question.
54:43 I have not delved there.
54:45 Um how it's attached and what it's made of and how insulating.
54:48 I mean the fact yeah what they're on.
54:50 If they're if they're on honeycomb which
54:52 is fully insulating then they're just going to
54:54 end up at some neutral which might be
54:56 actually neutral or might be slightly negatively or possibly right.
55:00 And you might imagine that there is a whole story to be told.
55:04 A hives are obviously constructed of different materials.
55:08 They're constructed in different places.
55:10 Those may have radically significant impacts on the foraging of those bees.
55:14 In other words, you might find that bee preference is about places that do allow
55:20 either the buildup or the dissipation of charges
55:23 that allow this other system to function.
55:25 because maybe another potential reason that bees are
55:27 failing that if hives are being built
55:29 in places that actually do not allow them uh to build up the right charge.
55:35 Yeah.
55:36 Although we're doing so many things that have
55:40 a potential impact on this electromagnetic uh interaction that who's
55:44 to say I mean you know you've got
55:47 yeah pesticides spraying the pesticides stick to the plants.
55:51 You know, one of the problems with the early pesticides,
55:54 if you're interested in this story, I strong
55:56 You mean like early in time in history or early applied in the crop?
55:59 Early in history.
56:01 Okay.
56:01 So, early in history, if you're interested in the story,
56:04 uh go read the moth in the iron lung.
56:06 It traces the history of early pesticides trying to beat
56:11 an uh an escape of gypsy moth caterpillars um from Europe,
56:17 which began to devastate plants in the US.
56:21 And anyway, the early pesticides, some of them were effective,
56:25 but they washed off the plant.
56:27 So every time it rained, you had to reapply them.
56:29 And so the upgraded pesticides were ones
56:32 that persisted through that, which meant that they
56:35 were also on the fruit at the point that you consumed it, etc., etc.
56:39 So question is, okay, what is the impact of that on the electromagnetism
56:45 uh of these plants as they're being sought by bees?
56:49 Anyway, there's lots of things we're doing
56:51 in the environment that potentially have an impact.
56:53 You know, we're also uh putting up effective giant antennas, right?
56:59 Where we've got these towers everywhere that and electrical
57:02 lines and the electrical lines have fields of their own.
57:05 And so, the number of ways given that the punchline of this is
57:08 that it turns out that the bees
57:11 have evolved sensitivity to this natural charge differential.
57:17 Not only does it result in pollen transfer uh where the the pollen
57:22 is partially adhered to the bee by this electro uh by static electricity
57:27 and then it it jumps.
57:28 That's that's that's remarkable.
57:29 You know that that is a piece of the pollination
57:32 process that always seemed a little too accidental
57:35 like half-hazard like really the the bee is getting
57:38 the nectar and has to just be waggling around.
57:40 Waggle is the wrong word because it's used in a different form in in honeybees,
57:44 but has to be moving around sufficient to get coated in pollen.
57:47 Everyone's presumably seen bees that are coated in pollen,
57:50 but uh that seems that seems really lucky and it feels less lucky if
57:56 the pollen is jumping onto the bee on account of the difference in charge,
57:59 right?
58:00 And so um you can imagine adaptations on both sides.
58:05 And the digging I did suggests that the adaptations on the bee side,
58:09 I don't think they've been fully explored,
58:10 but they've at least been somewhat explored.
58:12 And what has been discovered is that the bees have become sensitive
58:19 to the uh the charge of individual flowers because as Attenboroough points out,
58:26 it conveys um information about how recently the flower was visited.
58:32 And I will just tell you from back when I was a bat biologist,
58:37 one of the things that emerged in looking at nectariviverous bats,
58:41 that is bats that visit flowers,
58:43 is that the game played by flowers, is it's game theoretically fascinating.
58:49 It's not just simply that flowers have nectar
58:53 and animals visit them to collect the nectar.
58:57 It's that the the plants have an incentive to keep the insects moving.
59:04 An insect that stays on one bush all day is not
59:07 doing the job that the plant is attempting to pay for.
59:11 The plant needs the bee to keep going.
59:14 So or the bat or the bat or whatever the pollinator might be
59:18 needs the animal to move on in order
59:20 to accomplish the job that is being done here.
59:23 So, uh, to put it in in somewhat deeper context,
59:26 when you have pollen covering your car, as we've recently had here, so much
59:33 that pollen is wind dispersed pollen and in order to be wind dispersed,
59:38 it has to be extremely light so that it floats on the wind,
59:42 which it obviously does very effectively.
59:44 It is not very efficient in terms of the plant
59:49 generating the pollen reaching the plant capable of being fertilized.
59:55 So the broadcasting of huge amounts of pollen
59:58 is necessary in order to get the job done and results in a spectacular waste
1:00:04 for the plant doing this wind pollination thing.
1:00:07 Insects are a solution because an insect has a a effectively
1:00:13 a brain that can take it precisely from one plant
1:00:17 to a partner plant which means that one you need a lot
1:00:22 less pollen and two the pollen can be a lot bigger.
1:00:27 it can be a bigger, more durable thing because
1:00:29 it's riding on it's effectively taking an Uber between plants.
1:00:33 And so and and and with that relationship,
1:00:36 you also get the evolution of showy flowers, of good smelling flowers.
1:00:41 You you get the evolution of the communication
1:00:43 by the plants to woo the wouldbe pollinators,
1:00:46 which is to say the insects and the bats and the hummingbirds and such, right?
1:00:50 But the advertisement does not have to be honest in each case.
1:00:55 So the pollinators are looking for plants
1:00:59 that are producing a large reward ratio
1:01:02 for the amount of searching activity and the plants
1:01:05 are economizing on how much reward they're providing.
1:01:08 If they're too stingy,
1:01:09 the pollinators will ignore that plant altogether because it
1:01:12 knows it's not a good uh source of profit.
1:01:16 Um so the plants are constantly modulating the behavior of the animals.
1:01:20 they're providing enough nectar to get them to arrive,
1:01:22 but not so much that the animal could just sit there and drink all day.
1:01:26 So, it causes the behavior that we see,
1:01:28 the hunting behavior for, you know, for a a big cache of nectar.
1:01:35 Mhm.
1:01:34 Um, and so that interacts with this system too.
1:01:37 The bees are looking for information that says
1:01:40 that flower is not worth visiting um
1:01:43 because it's been recently visited and therefore is
1:01:46 at least somewhat depleted in terms of nectar.
1:01:48 Of course, it may not be in the plant's
1:01:50 interest to convey that if there's still value.
1:01:54 So, imagine a flower that has been visited and depleted of nectar,
1:01:58 but still has pollen.
1:01:59 The plant doesn't care that the bee isn't going to get paid.
1:02:02 In fact, it may be good for the plant to have effectively
1:02:06 a dry flower advertising to a bee and the bee lands, hunts for nectar,
1:02:11 doesn't get it, still gets dusted in pollen,
1:02:13 and has to fly off to some other flower,
1:02:14 which is exactly what the plant is looking for.
1:02:17 Um so the bees have adapted to read these signals.
1:02:23 That much is very clear.
1:02:25 The bees have adapted and in fact they have hairs
1:02:29 that are sensitive to the electromagnetic attraction of the flower.
1:02:33 So you can imagine that as a bee
1:02:36 approaches a flower there's almost a magnetic pole
1:02:39 that the that the animal can detect that tells
1:02:41 it actually this one hasn't been visited in a while.
1:02:43 It's probably a good bet.
1:02:45 What's less clear is whether or not the plants are
1:02:49 modulating these signals because the plants are naturally negatively charged.
1:02:55 And so that's just a feature of the universe.
1:02:57 And the fact that it happens to momentarily deplete after a bee
1:03:00 has visited is a natural consequence of just the way static electricity works.
1:03:04 It dissipates.
1:03:05 So the question that I have is are the plants
1:03:09 modulating these signals in a way that is clearly adaptive and to them
1:03:14 to the plants, right?
1:03:16 Yeah.
1:03:16 Well, and no plant will only have one modality of signal, right?
1:03:22 There will be uh if you have a pollinator
1:03:25 as opposed to a wind dispersed like a fur tree.
1:03:28 Uh if you have a pollinator you have a flower which is a visual
1:03:33 signal and often the visual signal goes
1:03:35 beyond the visual spectrum that we can see.
1:03:37 So bees for instance can see into the ultraviolet and you
1:03:40 have probably many people will have seen images of like
1:03:43 ultra uh what daisies look like under ultraviolet uh which
1:03:46 is even more like pointed towards the middle of the Yeah.
1:03:49 There's like little landing strips that we can't see.
1:03:51 Yeah.
1:03:52 Uh and then there's of course the the alactory signals.
1:03:56 Uh so whether or not the plant can
1:04:01 modify the electromagnetic signals uh does not necessarily mean
1:04:06 even if it can't doesn't mean that it
1:04:08 can't modify other aspects of it of its signal.
1:04:10 Although we do not we know that some flowers close up uh at the time of day when
1:04:14 their pollinators are not out right you have night blooming
1:04:18 flowers but much more often you have day blooming flowers.
1:04:21 uh that that close up when their pollinators aren't around.
1:04:24 Uh thus potentially preserving both their petals and their aromomas.
1:04:28 Um and for sure there is evidence of uh modulation of scents.
1:04:34 Um both the the kind of you know floral scents
1:04:37 that we associate with how how flowers smell as beautiful
1:04:41 but also uh pherommones that mimic uh the females
1:04:45 of the pollinators uh that they are trying to attract.
1:04:48 Right?
1:04:48 And so the question is how would you test whether or not
1:04:51 the plants are modulating this signal the way they modulate other signals and
1:04:57 I was wrestling with that question and I came up with a kind
1:04:59 of a quadrant where there are some predictions
1:05:02 one of which I think is very clear.
1:05:04 Um the flowers have a differential interest in being visited
1:05:11 depending upon what kind of uh life cycle they have.
1:05:16 In other words, you have plants that have both male and female parts.
1:05:21 In some of those plants, they're both active at the same moment.
1:05:25 In some of those plants, they're sequential.
1:05:27 I've forgotten what the term for that is,
1:05:29 but you can imagine that uh a plant that was
1:05:33 switching from its male phase to its female phase, unless those phases overlap,
1:05:39 that there would be a period in which they do not want visitation.
1:05:44 And then there are two periods in which they want visitation.
1:05:46 But even better is the fact that at the point that a plant has been fertilized,
1:05:53 at the point pollen has been delivered,
1:05:56 the plant actively, if I'm getting the ecology right,
1:05:59 has an active interest in not being visited
1:06:04 because it has some set of pollinators and it
1:06:07 wants to concentrate those pollinators efforts on flowers
1:06:10 where there's still a profit from the plant's perspective to be made.
1:06:14 And so the question is,
1:06:15 could you detect something like the shutdown of the electromagnetic attraction?
1:06:22 Right?
1:06:22 The bees are looking for this negative charge.
1:06:25 It's depleted when the plant has been visited.
1:06:28 It apparently reestablishes itself over time as the nectar refills.
1:06:32 At the point that the plant has been
1:06:34 fertilized and has nothing left to gain from pollinator,
1:06:38 you might expect that effectively faster than the petals would wilt
1:06:43 that you would see a shutting down of this electromagnetic signal.
1:06:46 So from the point of view of an approaching bee,
1:06:48 it can tell that that's already a spent flower and it can
1:06:51 spend its time elsewhere which would be in the interest of the plant.
1:06:54 Uh I didn't I don't remember it from the Atenboroough video and I
1:06:57 don't I it's been a while since I looked at anything primary on this.
1:07:01 Are you suggesting that the bees can detect the EMF,
1:07:04 the electromagnetic field uh at some distance or do they need to be
1:07:09 No, it's it's going to be at on approach.
1:07:12 That's that's what I like very very close.
1:07:14 But imagine a a bush full of flowers, some of which have already been pollinated
1:07:20 and some of which have yet to be pollinated.
1:07:22 The plant wants the pollinator to concentrate
1:07:26 on the flowers that still have yet to be pollinated,
1:07:28 hopefully bringing pollen from somewhere else.
1:07:30 And so what I'm imagining is it would take adaptation to cause an active
1:07:37 shutdown of that mechanism rather than just
1:07:40 its passive decay as the plant falls apart.
1:07:42 So instead of being over the course of hours or days,
1:07:45 it might be in a matter of a minute.
1:07:47 just the same way that the visitation causes
1:07:49 a quick change in uh in that parameter.
1:07:53 And you might even be able to see this, you know,
1:07:55 at a cellular level because of course the plant does have
1:07:58 the capability to move ions around and so it could neutralize a charge.
1:08:03 So anyway, I'd be very interested to know if we can detect the activity
1:08:08 of selection having favored the modulation of that signal
1:08:13 in some way that is not accidental.
1:08:15 Well, or even I mean I feel like the mechanism could be B lands on flower.
1:08:20 Uh charge gets neutralized between both bee and flower.
1:08:23 Bee flies off less uh less positively charged than it was.
1:08:27 He was she was uh and flower is at the moment less wait I reverse that.
1:08:35 The bee came in positively positively charged.
1:08:38 The bee the flies away with more electrons.
1:08:41 the flower remains um at a more neutral state.
1:08:46 And so can you can the flower effectively
1:08:48 block electromagnetic transmission from the rest of the plant
1:08:51 and maintain its new neutral charge since
1:08:53 being visited by the by the uh pollinator.
1:08:57 Yep.
1:08:58 I agree with that.
1:08:59 Although in that case you have to ask
1:09:02 the question of whether the plant is simply not
1:09:06 spending energy to rebuild a charge that has no
1:09:10 uh utility to it rather than an active shutdown.
1:09:13 I'd be much more compelled by an active turning
1:09:17 off of that signal which I think would be detectable.
1:09:21 Um but anyway, it's fascinating.
1:09:23 You might also imagine that there are
1:09:25 games played by pollinators that, you know,
1:09:30 if they can neutralize the negative charge that suggests a fresh flower,
1:09:37 then they could maybe retain, you know,
1:09:39 especially given the way pollinators work.
1:09:41 The pollinators know the specific location of the plants they visit.
1:09:46 Generally, they track this.
1:09:47 They actually have adaptations that allow them to keep track of it.
1:09:50 And so if you've discovered a flower that's putting out nectar at some rate,
1:09:55 you don't necessarily, you know, if you're a bee in a hive,
1:09:59 you may very well want other bees to be
1:10:00 able to detect it because they're your your sisters.
1:10:03 Um, and even more highly related than normal sisters would be,
1:10:07 but you don't necessarily want other insects to detect it.
1:10:11 Um, and in fact, I wonder in the case of honeybees,
1:10:16 honeybees famously communicate the location of rich patches of uh,
1:10:24 resource pollen and nectar with the waggle dance.
1:10:28 And it could be that a beehive that has become
1:10:32 aware of a patch of nectar uh would actually be
1:10:36 interested in neutralizing the visibility or the attractiveness of that patch
1:10:41 to other insects because it doesn't need them as much.
1:10:46 Yeah.
1:10:46 Although I mean it's complex systems, man.
1:10:49 And part of the benefit is that uh the pollen
1:10:52 jumps onto the bee when you have the the electron differential.
1:10:56 Mhm.
1:10:57 Uh so I I I feel like that's uh I can imagine the little bee engineers
1:11:02 trying to make this happen and then realizing
1:11:04 there were unexpected consequences of of their engineering protocol.
1:11:08 Well, that's the beauty of this being natural selection
1:11:10 is that it only it only works if it works.
1:11:12 Yeah.
1:11:12 I just I so I I think it won't I I think it's
1:11:15 I think it won't work because you've got both sides of of the trade-off.
1:11:20 Yeah.
1:11:20 Well, it's an interesting question and you know
1:11:22 and you've got both sides of the trade-off.
1:11:24 Also, if you had like a, you know, a daisy bush,
1:11:29 the animal still gets a benefit from knowing which flowers are unvisited,
1:11:38 although that advantage is conveyed by the last bee.
1:11:42 So, I don't know.
1:11:43 I think I think it's an interesting question as to whether
1:11:45 or not there might be some um I'm I'm sure
1:11:49 we can find systems in which blocking that signal would
1:11:52 be to the advantage of uh the first animal to visit.
1:11:56 I'd be curious if it ever happens and whether they
1:11:59 given that information is being transferred uh there
1:12:02 is the potential for communication to be occurring not
1:12:07 just between uh the signaler and the recipient
1:12:10 but between two asynchronous synchronous potential recipients of the signal.
1:12:15 Yeah.
1:12:16 Exactly.
1:12:17 Exactly.
1:12:18 All right.
1:12:19 Well, I think we're there.
1:12:22 All right.
1:12:23 All right.
1:12:24 Um, maybe the sun has come out by now.
1:12:26 Who knows?
1:12:28 How How would we possibly know?
1:12:30 We'd have to install a hole in the wall or something like that.
1:12:33 Yeah, I say I say we do it.
1:12:35 I I I say we do it.
1:12:36 Okay.
1:12:36 So, we'll actually be back on Saturday uh
1:12:39 in order to accommodate a little more travel next week.
1:12:42 Uh and uh check and we'll do a Q&A then.
1:12:45 Uh so uh consider joining us not just for the podcast
1:12:49 but the Q&A on Saturday uh afterwards on Locals as always.
1:12:54 And until you see us next time,
1:12:56 be good to the ones you love, eat good food, and get outside.
1:13:00 Be well everyone.