Unnatural Selection Trivia Quiz

Answer: Because present-day monkeys and humans shared an ancestor that was a monkey, but is not alive today

As Baba puts it later in the song:
"Allow me to illustrate a similar instance
I'm descended from Dutch Calvinist immigrants
Who came to Canada in the 1950s
And I still have second cousins who live in the Netherlands
But they're not my ancestors; they're my relatives
Since we have common genetic elements
Inherited from our great grandparents
That's just three generations back, but here's the relevance
Three thousand generations back, human beings all have
Common ancestors, so really we're all relatives"

Both we and all present-day monkeys are descended from a creature that, if we saw it, we would call a monkey. However, this ancestor is long-extinct.

Answer: A costly item that the possessor used precious resources to acquire

Many male animals put on extravagant displays in order to attract females- huge antlers or horns, elaborate nests, ornamental feathers, elaborate mating displays. These displays are extremely costly of an animal's precious energy resources. So why do they do it? Because a male that can afford to "squander" resources on enormous antlers or perfect plumage shows females that he has quality genes.

"'Cause you never hear them say they got it cheap on sale
Which means that bling is meant to represent
How much they really spent, and at the end of the day
That's the definition of a "fitness display"
Like a bowerbird's nest, which takes hours of work
And makes the females catch a powerful urge
Just like a style of verse or an amazing flow
But it takes dedication and it takes a toll
'Cause the best displays are unfakeable"

Answer: The inheritance of mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondria, the energy factories of the cell, have their own DNA, derived from their bacterial ancestors (mitochondria were once bacteria that were engulfed by cells and then became a symbiotic part of them.) Because the few mitochondria in sperm are lost after an egg is fertilized, mammals inherit their mitochondria only from their mothers.

Analysis of mitochondrial DNA shows that, around 200-250,000 years ago, a female proto-human lived in East Africa who is the matrilineal ancestor of all humans alive on Earth today. She is called "Mitochondrial Eve."

Answer: Why disadvantaged societies have high rates of crime and teen pregnancy

Evolutionary psychology shows that both high crime rates and high pregnancy rates in disadvantaged societies are adaptive.

If you live in a violent society with a short life span and are male, you have little to lose by committing crime and much to gain- access to resources and status. If you are female, having children at a very young age may be your only chance to have them. Thus, in order to address the true causes of these problems, we must address the inequities that spawn them.

"But if we really want to change the outcome
Then maybe we should just start questioning how it's adaptive
And the bottom line is that inequity and life
Expectancy are the ultimate causes of crime
And the results of crime; to me that's true
The two combine together in a feedback loop"

Answer: Language

Language may have evolved as a tool for mate selection, just as birdsong did. The cleverest males demonstrated their verbal aptitude, and thus their intellectual fitness, to their potential mates.

"We're all just Shakespearean primates verbalizing our cherry behinds"

Answer: Revision=mutation

Variation- revision- in genomes occurs through mutations. These can cause chances in the physical makeup and performance- the phenotype- of an organism. And these changes can affect survival= the feedback.

"See, the genes are like a text with a thousand pages
And revision occurs in the random changes
That come from mutations, and when they see the light
That's the performance, that's the phenotype
And natural selection is the feedback side
That's about who survives and whose genes catch rides
In the next generation"

Answer: They share food with unrelated vampire bats

The evolution of altruism is a tricky subject. Why would an animal risk itself to benefit another? In most cases, altruism is due to kin selection- if you do a good act for a relative, you increase the chances of the survival of genes that both you and that relative share, even if your chances for reproduction are lessened. But what about situations like vampire bats, where one bat will offer food to another, unrelated bat? This can be explained by reciprocal altruism- if I give you food today, you will be more likely to reciprocate and give me food tomorrow.

"And you don't have to reciprocate either
Because karma is a sophisticated teacher
Karma isn't just energy waves in the ether!
No, karma's in the way everyone hates a cheater
Cheater detection will keep you in check when
You jump cues and refuse to treat people respectfully"

Answer: They went against church orthodoxy

Darwin's demonstration that all organisms are related through common descent- that humans are not "specially created"- and Copernicus's demonstration that the Earth revolves around the Sun and is not the center of the universe both violated centuries of Christian theology.

"The acid burns into the superstitious side
Of the human mind, and fills it with light
It even dissolves the original sin of pride
The pride that says: "I'm a special creation
And my creator has given me dominion over nature
And he has the power to replenish his creatures
So if species go extinct, he can recreate them later
And if he doesn't, well that's just part of his plan""

Answer: Social Darwinism

Many people have attempted to use Darwin's theories to justify atrocities.

"In the nineteenth century it was aristocratic eugenicists
In the twentieth century, genocidal menaces
Used "survival of the fittest" to justify their death sentences
And gangsters still use it today to degrade their victims
Not to mention the purveyors of disaster capitalism
These are all examples of "Social Darwinism"
But none of this is based on scientific evidence
Merely showing that something exists in a state of nature
Doesn't give it a moral basis; that's a false correlation"

This last is important to realize. Even if crackpots attempt to use evolutionary theory to justify their vile acts, the theory itself is not invalidated.

Answer: The origin of all life forms from a common ancestor

It's one of Darwin's most famous- and most beautiful- quotes.

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one, and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful, and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
Charles Darwin, Origin of Species