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This is the latest post in my “12 Things Everyone Should Know” series. You can access the full collection here.
Science is by far the most useful tool we’ve ever created, underpinning most of our greatest accomplishments as a species. But science can also be a source of great joy. It offers a uniquely human pleasure: the thrill of understanding how the world around us works.
Some people are lucky enough to tap into that pleasure early on: They fall in love with science as children and maintain their passion for it for the rest of their lives. Others, though, aren’t so lucky. They could develop a taste for science, but for whatever reason, the initial spark never catches, and the fascination never takes hold.
As a result, those of us in the business of teaching science are always looking for ways to light that fire. One surprisingly underrated method, in my view, is to use viral YouTube videos as a sort of intellectual gateway drug to science. This approach is particularly useful when it comes to the science of animal behavior. Many viral animal clips appear to be little more than internet fluff. Beneath the surface, however, they often contain fascinating insights into the evolution of animal minds and behavior - including our own.
In this post, I’ll share some of my favorite examples.
Note that all these clips are pre-AI, so I can guarantee that they’re real!
1. Behavior Evolves
Natural selection doesn’t just craft anatomical adaptations like eyes and wings; it crafts psychological and behavioral adaptations as well. No less than the body, the mind and behavior are ultimately evolutionary products, “designed” to pass on the genes giving rise to them.
Here’s a nice example: a hard-working little spider, diligently weaving her web. The precise sequence of movements required to accomplish this task was crafted by natural selection, just as surely as the spider’s eight legs, eight eyes, and sturdy exoskeleton. Of course, the spider presumably doesn’t have an image of the final product in mind in the way that a human architect would. But it’s amazing nonetheless that natural selection can create such elaborate, highly patterned behavior, and pack it into such a tiny brain. Try making a miniature robot that could do this!
2. Natural Selection is a Gifted Engineer
The industrious spider is just one example of a broader pattern: Natural selection routinely produces mechanisms that would give even our best engineers a run for their money.
Consider, for instance, the neural circuitry underlying this hawk’s head-stabilization capacity. Head stabilization is widespread among animals, and especially common in birds. It serves much the same function as image stabilization in cameras: It keeps the visual world steady despite movement. The evolutionary advantage is obvious. A hunter that can lock its gaze onto a target, even while swooping and swerving through the air, stands a much better chance of nabbing its prey.