Something You Should Know - How to Shoot Perfect Holiday Videos & Why Species Go Extinct

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, a question that can determine how long you live, depending on your answer. Then, how to shoot great holiday video that everyone will want to watch. And all you need is your smartphone. The phone that you have in your pocket is so smart and so good at lighting.

Starting point is 00:00:52 You can do things that it took Alfred Hitchcock in the middle of the 20th century. A hundred people and 60 lights to do. Also, how to substantially reduce the stress of shopping at the mall during the holidays. And extinction. Is that a bad thing or is that just the way things go? Lots of species have come and gone. We think about the dinosaurs, of course. Famously, they die out. Big meteorite, blah, blah, blah. Actually, many more dinosaurs died out in the normal way. You know, food ran out. It got too cold. All this today on Something You Should Know. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures

Starting point is 00:01:38 and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks, and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, something you should know with Mike Carruthers. Hi. If my voice sounds a little weird because I'm sick, I've got that cold that's going around. The whole family is sick. Everybody in the house is sick, except the dog. First up today, you're well aware, of course,

Starting point is 00:02:30 that diet and exercise are important to good health and long life. But equally important is how you answer one specific question. And the question is, is it a pleasure for almost everyone that you are alive? Being helpful, patient, and kind is directly related to health and longevity. Think about your oldest living relative. Chances are they did not go to aerobics class or eat a low-fat, high-fiber diet. But odds are he or she was a nice person.

Starting point is 00:03:04 Solid research shows that relaxing and enjoying life and helping others enjoy theirs is great medicine for you and the people in your life. And that is something you should know. At holiday time, people take a lot of photos. But more and more people shoot video. And you've likely had the experience of looking at some video taken at the holidays, or any other time for that matter, and thinking, yeah, that really didn't quite capture the moment. Video can be very disappointing.

Starting point is 00:03:40 Well, and so can photos too. But with so much video being shot, wouldn't it be nice to create those videos so they're more watchable and really capture the essence of the moment? Well, Steve Stockman is here to tell you how. Steve is the author and creator of the book and video course, How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck. Hi Steve, welcome back to Something You Should Know. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Starting point is 00:04:05 So I'm sure there are a million things people could do to make their video look better. So let's just dive in and start with some of the basics. I think that the first easiest way to make your video way, way better is to think about how professionals shoot video. If you watch a film or a TV show, you're going to see cuts that little shots that last between one and 10 seconds. You know, video is not put together in one 20 minute thing and then we're done. And if you think in terms of shooting short shots,

Starting point is 00:04:42 even for your home video, then you'll find that whatever you have left looks way better even if you don't do anything else so what i'd recommend is instead of shooting 30 minutes of susie opening presents is you think about well let me get the beginning of her opening this present and i'm just going to shoot 10 seconds of that and then let me get the beginning of her opening this present, and I'm just going to shoot 10 seconds of that. And then let me get 10 seconds of her face as she takes it out of the box. And then let me get a two second closeup of the Lego set that she just pulled out.

Starting point is 00:05:17 And when you think about getting those shots that are very deliberately composed, almost like you're taking still photographs. And they each one contain like a little bit of action. When you put those together, you don't even have to edit. You just output them all in a string and they're going to look way, way more interesting than anything else that you could have put together. So I'm sure that there are plenty of people who have taken video with the best of intentions of editing it later in some editing program, but then they never do.

Starting point is 00:05:50 So I like what you're saying about give some thought to shooting the video in an order that makes sense and is watchable to other people. And then you don't have to edit it. The trick is when we want to do video that other people are going to watch, we have to think about the other people a little bit. It's sort of like the difference between, you know, in the olden days when you were shooting still photos or maybe if you still are, you might shoot a hundred photos of some big holiday celebration. But then when you make the little album for your grandmother, you pick the 10 best ones and you have them printed out online and then you send her this little album. And if you think about it that way, the video that you're shooting for the holidays for other people to watch needs to be curated just the way you do it for grandma's photo album. The next biggest mistake that people make is they just shoot too much. So if you think about your vacation, for example, if you shoot one

Starting point is 00:06:54 10 second shot every hour for eight hours for five days, that's 400 seconds of video, which is a little bit more than three minutes. I'm video, which is a little bit more than three minutes. Sorry, it's a little bit more than six minutes. It's almost seven minutes long. The problem is that nobody is going to want to watch more than seven minutes of your vacation. So often what people do is they'll get on their video camera and they'll shoot everything in their lives as if anyone else, including them, is going to care later what they had for dinner. And the result is you've got so much stuff that you need an entire other lifetime to watch it.

Starting point is 00:07:35 And so you never will. So the first thing to do is to think about what's important in your video and how much you really want to spend time doing it. Like you want to triage it down to the stuff that you really want to get and then realize that if you only take one shot an hour on your vacation, you're going to have a very long vacation video that you may still want to edit later before you show it to other people. What's your professional opinion of, you know, real video camera versus the one in your phone? It's funny because the phone that you have

Starting point is 00:08:12 in your pocket is so smart and so good at lighting and so good at saying, oh, this is a sunset. I know how to make this look beautiful. That you can do things that it took alfred hitchcock in the middle of the 20th century a hundred people and 60 lights to do and you can do it with that thing in your pocket instantly and beautifully it's very hard to get a terribly lit shot on a smartphone and it's just going to keep getting harder as they keep adding new algorithms to it. So I would say if you are not a committed pro or semi-pro, like you're not shooting wedding videos for a living, or you're not seriously building out your YouTube channel, that your phone is going to do everything that you want it to do. And it's going to do everything that you want it to do and it's going to do it way better than anyone could do it 60 years ago so it's going to look great so i'm i'm big in favor of using phones to shoot

Starting point is 00:09:13 everything that isn't absolutely professional stuff it almost seems like getting a real video camera is like now is more like left for like real video files more than everyday folk because the phone cameras are just so good. I mean, they're just like some of the video people take is just looks amazing. It just looks amazing. It's kind of like learning to ski. It's like you show up at the rental store and you go, well, this is the first time I've ever skied. And they give you the crappiest skis. And it doesn't matter to you because you're worried about standing up and not falling in the snow while you're waiting for the lesson to start. And videography is kind of the same way. You can go quite a ways on your smartphone before you're even going to know what you

Starting point is 00:09:59 don't like about shooting with it. So, I would say, you know, you can do short films, you can do music videos, you can do great home video, you can do all that stuff and just start in. And then when you start to go, oh, I wish I could change the exposure on this, or I wish I could change the frame rate, or I wish I had a better lens. Then you're starting to know enough to know what you want to buy if you want to graduate up to a professional or a semi-professional camera. But until then, it's not the equipment, it's the way we think about how to shoot that makes the difference between a good video and

Starting point is 00:10:37 a bad video. A professional director could, and some have, shot entire feature films on a smartphone. And conversely, there have been very many terrible things shot on professional equipment. It's not about the equipment and people get all hung up on that. It's really about learning how to put together a video that people will want to watch. Everyone has watched a video that they maybe have shot, you know, that sunset or the, you know, the birds on the beach and all that. And you never get the sense you got when you actually shot it. Like somehow it's just not, it's not even close.

Starting point is 00:11:21 And I want to know why, but my sense is why is especially when there's people, you're too far away. I think that's true. We forget that all of the video we watch is about people, right? And if you think about your own home video, what you want is the memories of the people that you were with. It's like the Grand Canyon is going to look exactly the same in 100 years as it looks today. And it's been shot by photographers way better than you. So unless something happens and it blows up, in which case you'll be able to Google it, you don't need beauty shots of the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is your location.

Starting point is 00:12:04 But what you need is great shots of your kids and what they're doing of the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is your location. But what you need is great shots of your kids. And what they're doing at the Grand Canyon with the Grand Canyon as a backdrop to that. You need shots of your hike, you need shots of them enjoying it. You need an interview with your daughter talking about how cool it is that she's walking into the Grand Canyon, and down through all those eons of rock to the bottom. You know, these are the things that we're going to remember because in five years, the Grand Canyon will look exactly the same and you will not, and neither will your daughter.

Starting point is 00:12:36 And those are the things that we want to remember. So staying close to the people is exactly right. I mean, it's what we want out of any video. You know, you don't watch TV shows about rocks or trees. You watch TV shows about people who may be in a particular location, which is important to the story, but it's not about the trees. Yeah. Well, I've seen this with photographs mostly but but also with video where when there's a lot of people and and it's like well let's get everybody in the shot together and the photographer keeps backing up and and and i think this is this is going to be the worst picture ever you're not going to be able to even tell who's in it but you got everybody but now

Starting point is 00:13:21 nobody cares right exactly this is why i always tell people not to shoot until you see the whites of their eyes which is a kind of a way to remember that if we buy the idea that video is supposed to be about people faces are where the people are right we carry all of our emotion and our expression and we say things all with our faces. And those are the things that we want to remember from five years ago or 10 years ago. We're talking about holiday videos, how to shoot them so they look absolutely fabulous. My guest is Steve Stockman.

Starting point is 00:13:57 He's author and creator of the book and video course, How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck. This is an ad for better help. Welcome to the world. Please read your personal owner's manual thoroughly. course, How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck. life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterhelp.com. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so.

Starting point is 00:14:55 Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. So, Steve, are there things, specific, very specific things on all smartphones, you know, that you recommend, turn this off, turn this on, you know, this isn't good, this will make your videos better. Is there anything like that that you can recommend, understanding that there are different kind of smartphones and different kind of things, but some general but specific guidelines? Yes. smartphones and different kind of things but some general but specific guidelines yes specifically don't let your phone do anything permanent to your footage so some phones come with you know the the little emojis that can animate through the frame and they'll do sepia tone or black and white or any of those things and the first thing that you want to do to take good video is never do any of that. There's a reason that you don't see any of that stuff in the TV shows that you watch. And that reason is that they're stupid. But the second

Starting point is 00:15:56 reason is that they're permanent, right? If you do it with your phone, you're stuck with it. There's no unclown nose button on your editing program. So if that's the way you shoot it, that's what you've got. Whereas if you really like that stuff and you want to play with it, you can play with it in an editing program and hit undo later. So turn all of that stuff off. The other thing that I would argue is if you're not putting this video on a social channel that requires a vertical orientation, you know, like a tick tock and Instagram and, and YouTube shorts, some of those are more oriented toward holding your camera the long way up and down so that the picture is thin, right? It's fine to do that if that's what you're aiming for.

Starting point is 00:16:48 But if you're just going to share videos with people or post to YouTube, note that the widescreen exists for a reason. And the reason is that that's kind of how we see the world. That replicates the way humans view things. And you get way more information in a frame if you do it wide than if you do it straight up and down. So for all the home video that you're doing or the marketing content that you're going to put on YouTube or on your website, all that stuff really needs to, you need to hold

Starting point is 00:17:21 the camera the wide way. Is there any default setting typically, or something that you might be better turning that off, or maybe turning it on if it's defaulted off, or anything like that? I think that part of the process of getting better at video is playing with your equipment. It used to be, I remember when my dad gave me a still camera when I was a kid and he gave me the still camera and the instruction booklet and said, now read this carefully so you don't break anything. And that seemed like great advice at the time because I was eight, but it's not the way we do things now. Things come so that you can play with them out of

Starting point is 00:18:02 the box. And what I would say is go out with your camera just in your yard or your living room and play with it and see what it does and experiment with it. Because again, the equipment itself isn't what's going to make great video, but your ability to take a great picture is going to make great video and your ability to know how to get close to things and know how the picture looks when you turn on the lights versus turn off the lights. That's going to make great video. it and experiment a little when you're not shooting grandma taking the turkey out of the oven and you're not kind of under pressure to just get stuff and get to know your equipment. And then you'll understand how to use it a little bit better when you shoot. So one of the things that I notice in videos that people take is as great as cameras, phone cameras are and everything else, the audio

Starting point is 00:19:08 sucks because it's that little microphone in the phone and, and, you know, it's far away and, and it's not a real top tier microphone and that can ruin a video because what do you say? What? I can't, what? And being an audio guy, I, you know, I like good audio and I hate when I can't like, Oh man, that's just sucks. Yeah. I know what you mean. I come from radio as well. And I'm very, very sensitive to that, but, but even mixing a movie or a TV show, you have to be super sensitive to that because it's true. It's you can get away with a like a bad shot because it only lasts about

Starting point is 00:19:47 10 seconds but if the audio in your video is terrible and unintelligible um people are gonna turn it off really fast you know nobody watches bad video and that's so not annoying people is one of your your first mantras so the thing thing that people don't understand about the phone mics is that they pick up the sound, but they don't really understand what sound they're getting. So they pick up all the sound. So if you put a lot of physical space between you and your mom across the room, then they're going to, the mic is going to pick up everything in between the air conditioner, hum, the clatter of the silverware, the people talking behind you.

Starting point is 00:20:33 And it's going to amplify that. And it's going to make it impossible to hear your mom. So there's no such thing as a zoom mic. And people tend to hang way back and shoot from far away with their cameras zoomed way in. And what's better is to zoom with your feet, walk up close to mom. And especially if you want to hear what she's saying, or if you're going to interview her or ask her a question, which is a great way to get people into your home video in a way that you'll remember them and remember all about them and what they were doing later. And if you're going to be more than two feet away from somebody and you want to hear them, you need to use an external microphone. Which aren't all that expensive anymore. It's amazing that people will spend, you know, $1,200, $1,500 on a phone but won't get an external microphone that i mean we found them for you know 30 bucks and it they're not fabulous but they're better than the one in the phone oh way better yeah it's funny that the the emphasis in technology in the in smartphones seems

Starting point is 00:21:40 to be about picture because they've figured out how to fix your terrible lighting pretty well. Um, but they have not figured out how to fix your terrible sound. And so you're really responsible for that all by yourself. So if you're doing anything that you actually want people to hear and understand, you should definitely get an external mic. One of the things that I find is that, you know, when you shoot a video, very often it's kind of, oh, we got to get this on video. And it kind of like starts in the middle. Like you miss the beginning. And so it doesn't have a like context.

Starting point is 00:22:18 It has no beginning. It's just everybody's there. And like, what is this? Yeah, I think you can do you can do what we do in the professional world is something called pre-production and that can take days or weeks or years for a big project. But I like to think about it because pre-production is where we sit down and go, okay, where are we going to shoot this video? And what do we want to get? And who do we need to cast? And what props do we need and all that. And where you're not going to do that at Christmas, you can walk into your living

Starting point is 00:22:52 room the night before and you can go, okay, well, here's where the fireplace is. Here's where the tree is. Here's where the presents are. Here is where Sarah is going to sit to open her presents. And here's where you know, where the window is. And I know that mom is going to make cinnamon rolls. And I know that everybody's going to come over at two o'clock for a big dinner. So what things do I want to shoot? And even if you think about it for five minutes, your video will get better.

Starting point is 00:23:26 If you actually like brainstorm and write down on a piece of paper, what things that you might want to get, your video will get way better really fast. What are some other real quick, but powerful tips that would help people shoot better video that's more watchable? So here's a tip for you next time you shoot a home video, especially around the holiday season, is don't try to hide the camera. You know, often you'll have this little battle where you'll go, I want to shoot you cooking this. And the person cooking will go, oh no, I look terrible, right? So often people try to fool people into being videotaped, you know, or you'll hide the phone somewhere. And I recommend that you don't do that.

Starting point is 00:24:10 And instead, just shoot anyway. Just not, don't shoot in their faces and don't shoot at them if they don't want it because that's rude. But just keep shooting the event. And after a while, people will become oblivious to the fact that you're shooting and they'll get bored with you and they'll start acting natural. And that's the kind of video that you want to look at 10 years from now. Anything else? Any other good little tip? I like to tell people to shoot first and yell later when they're doing video, especially of their kids, which is to say, it's great if everybody has a perfect holiday

Starting point is 00:24:45 and everyone minds their manners, but it's more memorable if the cat climbs up the tree, knocks it over and creates a giant mess. So unless somebody's bleeding, shoot what's going on because you're going to remember it later. And don't worry about cleaning it up until it's all over. And if somebody is bleeding, now you've got evidence for the trial. Yeah, exactly. Now you've got great video. I mean, that's, that's killer. Well, listen, this is always interesting because everybody shoots video at least once in a while. And it's good to get some suggestions and tips that to make it better to make it more watchable i've been speaking with steve stockman he is author and creator of the book and video course how to shoot video that doesn't suck and there's a link to the book and to the video course

Starting point is 00:25:35 in the show notes thanks steve appreciate you coming on thanks so much all right steve take care since i host a podcast it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation.

Starting point is 00:26:17 And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker.

Starting point is 00:26:41 Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology.

Starting point is 00:27:27 That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. When you hear the word extinction, well, that sounds bad. Things, species, they shouldn't go extinct. But is it really bad or is it just normal? That's just what happens. And what about evolution? How does that work exactly?

Starting point is 00:28:16 Probably different than the way you think, according to Michael Benton. Michael is a professor of vertebrate paleontology at the University of Bristol. He's written more than 50 books, and his latest is called Extinctions, How Life Survives, Adapts, and Evolves. Hi, Michael. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hello. It's a great pleasure. Thank you. So let me start with something, because I think when people hear the word extinction, as in a species goes extinct, people infer from that that something went wrong, that we did something. If we had just left things alone, it wouldn't have gone extinct.

Starting point is 00:28:58 But isn't extinction just part of the process, or is it because somebody screwed something up? This is a great question, and you're absolutely right people think because we look at extinction today oh my goodness we did something bad the dodo died out or you know some other species but you're quite right to bring it up because it's important to remember that in in the normal course of evolution species evolve they change and and sometimes they go extinct by turning into another species or they sometimes go extinct absolutely um and that's quite natural and in the entire history of the earth through the millions and millions of years lots of species have come and gone we think about the dinosaurs of course famously they die out at a particular point in time big meteorite terrible uh crisis blah blah blah actually many more dinosaurs died out in the

Starting point is 00:29:52 normal way uh you know food ran out it got too cold and because they were around on the earth for many hundreds of millions of years therefore we expect extinction to go on anyway at a kind of natural level and are we all destined to become extinct at some point somewhere yes so yeah we would like to think our own species Homo sapiens is somehow immune from these processes and I guess we could engineer that, but all species we see around us today. So the typical observation is that most species have a natural lifetime of averaging about 1 million years. Some might last for longer, you know, up to 10 million years. Some slow evolving things like clams, but others like mammals like us, we're quite fast evolving. We change, we adapt, you know, the environment changes. And so our chances of extinction are

Starting point is 00:30:51 quite high. And so when we talk about evolution, I don't think I really understand what evolution is or isn't. And I mean, I have a sense that we adapt because of the environment but we don't adapt in the way i think people think we adapt it's can you in in a nutshell that's a big question yeah explain what that is i think you're right and it is difficult to grasp because things happen on many different time scales. We as humans, of course, we think of a time scale of days. You know, oh my God, I've got to do this tomorrow, and oh, look at the weather, this is not good, and blah, blah, blah. Whereas evolution is happening, and we think of longer-term things as well, of course.

Starting point is 00:31:39 There are wars, there are famines, there are events on tens or hundreds of years. Evolution is the same. It can work on a small scale, on a larger scale, but adaptation is the business of fitting the environment. So somehow you as a plant or an animal or a human, your body, your whole life cycle changes in different ways over time between individuals over the long generations grandparents parents blah blah blah over the years but we think more on the population level rather than on the level of individuals and it might well be if for example at the moment climates are getting warmer we would expect various species to adapt and that the individuals within a species that are better adapted to surviving in hotter conditions, maybe they need a bit less water than

Starting point is 00:32:33 others or they're more able to survive on their food for longer. It's an effect though that you would only detect, whereas the climate might be changing on the scale of years, you might only detect that adaptation on tens of years or hundreds of years because genetics and change and the turnover, it all depends on the turnover of individuals, populations giving birth and the new young ones survive or don't survive. I guess the famous examples of boom-bust cycles that people have documented in Canada, where, for example, the lynx feeds on the rabbit. You might have a huge population of rabbits one year. Lynx will then increase their population sizes, guess what, not that year, but the next year. Because, of course, they can't just have babies like this.

Starting point is 00:33:23 Oh, lots of babies, lots of rabbits. Let's get on with it. There's always going to be these kind of time lags. And then the next year you get a flush of lynx or other predators looking for all these rabbits. Where are they? But if the population of rabbits then has plummeted and you don't get a repeat of the huge population the next year, those predators are going to starve so the the boom bust cycles is one way of thinking um of the kind of time scales and and the ways in which organisms respond is it considered evolution when human beings use their knowledge to change things let me give you an example so we humans live longer now than we did just a few hundred years ago in part because of things like diet medicine we're able to prolong life is that evolution

Starting point is 00:34:15 because humans are using their brains to do is that part of evolution or is that something entirely different that would not be called evolution. That is a part of the wider process of simply adapting and living. And within their lifetimes, we and others can do all kinds of stuff. And during your lifetime, you can build your muscles by weightlifting, but necessarily well does not pass to your children they will be just as weedy as any other baby and if they want to be muscular they have to do something about it in their lifetime so stuff is only evolution if it passes from parent to baby and then it's becoming fixed in in the um the germ line as it's called the germ line, as it's called. The germ line is the sort of succession of eggs and sperm

Starting point is 00:35:06 that go from parent to offspring to offspring to offspring, way, way on into the future. And once something gets into the germ line, then we talk about evolution. All the rest that we do during our lifetime, you know, you have a terrible accident, you have to have your leg amputated. As I say, you do weightlifting, you have a terrible accident you have to have your leg amputated as i say you do weight lifting you adopt a vegetarian diet your hair falls out all sorts of different things

Starting point is 00:35:31 happen that don't necessarily get passed on to the offspring but selection is happening more at the population level so if for example climates have changed in a substantial manner such that to be adapted to hot climates ensures survival. Those people or animals or plants, whichever we're talking about, that are better able to survive, they will produce more offspring than the ones that are not well adapted to survive in those continuing challenging circumstances. So here's an example, and I don't mean to put you on the spot because you may not specifically know this, but an example of evolution that I have heard that I don't understand is over time, the human jaw has gotten smaller because we don't need to, you know, rip our food with our teeth anymore. And then that causes problems with wisdom teeth because there's too many teeth to fit the space. I mean, I'm oversimplifying, but we hear that.

Starting point is 00:36:36 Okay. So how in the world did that happen? Because you still need your teeth and your jaw. So how did over time, it seems like such a small change, but how would it even happen? change that was happening in the evolution of the human face was a kind of flattening you know if you look at the face of a chimpanzee they have a jaw that sticks out as you say they've got a big powerful jaw a gorilla or a chimp can and orang they can chomp leaves and twigs in a way that we couldn't do and I guess you're right actually I'm not familiar with this particular case in

Starting point is 00:37:23 detail but the other evolutionary change that was happening to our face was to do with the expansion of the brain. So as our brain expanded, the part of the head that holds the brain effectively is growing out in all directions and kind of is partly growing forward. So part of the flattening of the face is not entirely the loss of the snout, but you're right, you know, that's part of it. We don't need those powerful crunching jaws. It's partly the shortening of the snout, but it's partly the outgrowth of the head. And so, of course, the expansion of the brain was in evolutionary terms very important for early humans because the brainier you are the better you are at solving problems at surviving if they were i don't know competing for food or fighting with each other if you were

Starting point is 00:38:10 a bit smarter that would give you advantages even if it meant your jaws were a bit weaker there's some sort of payoff and another example you could have quoted is why do we all get back problems you know we all struggle with our backs and kind of standing upright and we get all these you know arthritis and sore backs and this and that and yet standing upright but the whole thing is standing upright is the thing and early in human evolution it said that standing upright was really important it allowed our ancestors on the african grasslands to look around for danger whereas if you're down on all fours you're kind of not able to look around for danger. Whereas if you're down on all fours, you're kind of not able to see around. And also that we could use our arms for carrying stuff. And it's a small price to pay for the advantages of walking upright, that we get sore backs and we get

Starting point is 00:38:58 slip discs and all those other horrible things that we shouldn't get. And so as you describe it, evolution is this necessary process that happens. But when you step back and look at it, it seems evolution seems kind of cruel. I would say that nature in general has no moral purpose or standards. This is the same as the erosion of hillsides or the eruption of volcanoes they happen because they happen and you could designate evolution as cruel or not you know that's an important philosophical question but I don't think you know would would you say that I don't know would you say different aspects of chemistry are kind or cruel? You just can't say that.

Starting point is 00:39:49 They're just chemistry. It's the way molecules operate. And, you know, you could say acids are cruel because they burn people and disfigure people. But, of course, who knows? Acids exist and they have a purpose. Well, I shouldn't even say that we designate purposes for them but acids exist because of the nature of chemistry as you look back at evolution are there moments in time that we can see where you go wow that was something because it seems like evolution is more

Starting point is 00:40:22 like you know when a cut heals like it happens slowly, but then one day it's gone. But you didn't really notice much change. In evolution, are there moments where you can see, wow, that was really something? Or is it just so slow, it just is? Oh, I think we, so looking back in time, we have the great advantage of a great span of time to look at and therefore we can in a sense ignore you know as a i'm a paleontologist i study the history of life and what ancient creatures looked like and ancient environments and mass extinctions and these things so with the benefit of of stepping back a little bit and it's like looking through your telescope at the distant planets we're looking at distant times and we're only seeing flashes we

Starting point is 00:41:11 don't see everything obviously um and in that sense yes there are moments of great excitement of creativity in evolution major creativity and major destruction and and the examples of major creativity Would be the origin of life in the very first place the origin of more complex life, you know cells with multiple internal structures with different functions and even Multiple cells of course we and any plant or animal that we can see is made of multiple cells, whereas lots of simple organisms are just a single cell, a bacterium or a virus. And then the move on to land is another one people get excited about for a long time. As far as we know, all of life was restricted to the oceans. And then at some point, a variety

Starting point is 00:42:03 of different plants and animals kind of crept out onto the shore and then gradually the whole landscape was filled with life over hundreds of millions of years the origin of flight was another big thing you know the first it was insects and then later birds and other creatures and so some of these events in the history of life have been fantastically exciting. So I understand why you study this and why you, because this is what you do, but why is this important for the rest of us to understand? And why do you write books for people to read about this? Because you think, you think why? What's the big deal? Yeah, it's a great question. I think that what we're dealing with here are fundamentals of life. People from the earliest times have looked at living things like plants and animals,

Starting point is 00:42:56 and they've realized they're different from rocks. They don't all move. Obviously, plants don't move necessarily or not much, but they nonetheless are alive. What do we mean by that? So this is a kind of very deep question that I think people have probably talked about for a long time. They've wondered. But I think origins is a big thing.

Starting point is 00:43:18 People want to know where do human beings come from, where does language come from, where do all the attributes that we regard as important come from where does language come from where do all the attributes that we regard as important come from and then you you kind of roll back turn back and say well okay when if we if humans are here we do whatever we do have we always been here or was there a time when there were no humans and what was there before and if we are mammals because we share characteristics with all the other mammals when did they originate and then if we are vertebrates we have bones and skeletons like fishes and reptiles where did they come from and you know life on land versus life in the sea so I suppose all of those and and then when people

Starting point is 00:44:00 discover dinosaurs Wow or when people and this seems to happen at the ever younger ages I'm watching my grandkids they seem to know about dinosaurs at the age of one and a half you it's sort of hardwired it seems amazing I suppose they're just exposed everywhere but they themselves have a wow factor you know when you discover that the really big dinosaurs maybe weighed 50 tons, 50 tons, and yet the biggest land animal today would be an elephant weighing maybe five tons. How does that work? You know, you look at an elephant and you think, blimey, when they hear the word extinction, we immediately think dinosaurs, you know, the dodo bird, that kind of thing. How often do species go extinct? Is it like happening all the time or it's a big event every once in a while or what?

Starting point is 00:44:59 I think there are three kinds of extinction. So normal extinction is what we talked about before, that no species lasts forever. There isn't a kind of preordained point at which a species dies out, like, oh, that species is kind of exhausted, it will go. But species die out. And I mentioned, on average, each species may last for about a million years. So what is the normal rate of extinction? So the best estimates are that there are something like 10 million species of organisms, meaning plants and animals and fungi, on the earth today. 10 million species, which is pretty huge. And bear in mind that there are only 10,000 species of birds. 10,000 species of birds. So that 10 million is birds and mammals

Starting point is 00:45:48 and clams and plants and mushrooms and everything. If there is one, if each species lasts for a million years and there are 10 million species, that means on average, there should simply be, there should only be 10 extinctions each year. 10 million species on earth, average duration 1 million years,

Starting point is 00:46:09 10 should go extinct each year. Whereas all the different estimates that people are making of current extinction rates are higher. Some are much higher, some are a little higher. But so at the present time, I think we can say reasonably that the rate of extinction is higher than it should be. But then that's the first kind of extinction is normal. And that kind of goes on and goes on.

Starting point is 00:46:31 And those extinctions are no big deal. Each one is just it would just go like that. You wouldn't really notice necessarily. So the other two kinds of events are regional extinctions where particular groups go in a particular region. So like at the end of the ice ages in Europe and North America, all the big mammals that were adapted to cold climates, they kind of died out because of changing climates. And then the big ones, the mass extinctions. These are the times when all kinds of species disappear of all kinds, marine, terrestrial, small and large, plants and animals.

Starting point is 00:47:06 And there have only been a limited number of mass extinctions, maybe five or six. And my last question is, and I think this is one of those childlike questions, but I've never really understood it. If we are descended, if we have evolved from apes, chimpanzees, whatever, then why are there still apes and chimpanzees? We didn't evolve from chimps or gorillas. We evolved from common ancestors of chimps and gorillas. So it's like saying, if we go back to my great-grandparents, they had four children. And my God, their families are still alive. So the families of your cousins are not your ancestors.

Starting point is 00:47:48 They're your cousins. And chimps and gorillas are our cousins. And they're alive today. And you don't kill off all your siblings and relatives at distant parts of the family. We can all supposedly trace ourselves back to Henry VIII or somebody or other like that. And if you go back dozens of generations, back to some ancestor, of course, your relatives living today may be in their hundreds. They may have the same name. They may have different names. They're your cousins, many times removed. And that's the way evolution works. It's

Starting point is 00:48:22 like the family tree. the cousins are all there reptiles are still there birds are still there everything is still there but our ancestors are not so the common ancestors of chimpanzees and humans they lived six million years ago and they are gone well for me and i imagine a lot of people your explanations shed new light on that how extinctions and and how evolution really works. I've been speaking with Michael Benton. He is a professor of paleontology at the University of Bristol. And the name of his book is Extinctions,

Starting point is 00:48:55 How Life Survives, Adapts, and Evolves. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you for being here, Michael. Yeah, thanks very much, Michael. It's been a great pleasure talking. If you're still planning to go out into the real world and shop, here are a few things to keep in mind from Morgan Hall, author of a book called Retail Hell. Although people claim Black Friday is the busiest shopping day, it is historically December 23rd.

Starting point is 00:49:30 So that would be a day to avoid shopping if possible. If you're kicking yourself because you could have done all this shopping earlier and avoided the crowds, there is some comfort in knowing that waiting until the last few days before Christmas is actually a good idea because that's when retailers really start slashing prices. You can cut your stress levels drastically if you don't drive and park at the mall. Take an Uber, have someone drop you off, pick you up. Looking for parking is often more aggravating than the shopping. And when in doubt, gift cards really are a good idea.

Starting point is 00:50:07 Years ago, they used to call them gift certificates, and giving them was considered pretty lame. But gift cards, they have a completely different image now. It is cool and acceptable to give gift cards. People like getting them, and it is so easy. And that is something you should know. I know you're busy this time of year, but if you have a moment, it would be great if you could take some time to write a rating and review of this podcast

Starting point is 00:50:36 and post it on whatever platform you listen. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between

Starting point is 00:51:17 her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Contained herein are the heresies of Redolph Buntwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favored children. The Heresies of Redolph Buntwine,

Starting point is 00:52:02 wherever podcasts are available.

Something You Should Know - How to Shoot Perfect Holiday Videos & Why Species Go Extinct

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