00:00.00 archpodnet And welcome back to episode one zero five or still here with Stefan Milo we are not charging him by the hour for all his appearances but um Stefan mentioned in yes is not charging us by de silva at all that they have over. 00:09.33 StefanMilosavljevich Charging me more I paying me. Yeah, yeah. 00:19.84 archpodnet Population of their sample. Basically they're comparing different um cubic centimeters of cranial of cranial capacity among homo sapiens back to australopitheces total. They have 988 individuals in one hundred and eighty eight ah specimens however one of the things that I'd like to highlight is that um, most of that data is homo sapiens. So like if you look at the graph of this article and you guys will be able to find this article on our episode description. So if you look at the graph. Um, figure 1 on page 3 I mean they can have a a somewhat representation of how many samples they have. But if you actually go in. They'll tell you um with the supplementary data right? They have like 1 soanthropist they have 29 pulp parathropists 1 artippithecus you know like and then like 156 late plesocene homo sapiens or late plesoscene homo so that includes the denisovs neanderthals and early modern homo sapiens and then Holocene Homo sapiens 699. 01:31.63 Cornpop Dennisovs. 01:35.43 archpodnet So modern- day hope Homo Sapiens comprise over 70% of the data that they use whereas some of the more ancestral hominids going back from myocene hominids areloitthecines they're in like the single or double digits. It's like already like from my aspect of looking at this as as a data scientist. Um sample sizes. Is is critical and and this isn't like them trying to be sneaky this they're using the data that we have. We do not have complete skeletal skulls from most of our ancestral lineage and and I imagine. Some of these are also like reconstructed based off of the curvatures of the phones that they're finding. Um. 02:14.70 StefanMilosavljevich And they are I have spoken to Jeremy to so he is obviously well aware that that is the weakness of this study is the sample size but there is only 1 saanthropus skull in the entire world that we have so. 02:26.32 archpodnet Um, yeah, absolutely. 02:32.57 StefanMilosavljevich That is. It's just the that's just how it goes with the archaeological record when you go so far back in time like that. 02:38.84 archpodnet Right? And then also when it comes to you know with the homo sapiens schools are coming from a variety of regions right? And so what I like to see personally is like is there differences among continents among ah, ah, different demographics. That's what I'd like to see personally is just like okay we can lump all 699 homo sapiens schools together. But also we know today that um, if we were to compare modern homo sapiens schools we would we would break down the data a little differently so I'd like to kind of see like well maybe is it. Um. Are is this mean ah mean as in like the like the mean mean median mode is is this mean value that we're getting being weighed down by maybe like a particular region where um, these homo sapien crania or just happen to be smaller which could be you know due to a couple factors because maybe. Ah, those agriculture folks right? Like we've talked about early neolithic and late late mesolithic. Those folks are eating 1 if they're lucky they have 2 grains with rocks in them and like that's all they got you know like there. We. Yeah, we've yes. 03:49.87 Cornpop I've got rocks to me out me on me. Lord. 03:52.96 archpodnet And we've talked about it like early neolithic diets are are miserable and we haven't seen the benefits of you know, real agriculture until like the industrialization where we have it at our fingertips. Um, so I mean there's just I mean it's a fascinating topic and I'm really glad Stefan brought this up because like there's. Anybody can weigh on this topic like I'm not an evolutionary biologist by any means but I know how to how to kind of look at data and be like okay well how else can we do this differently and and that's pretty cool stuff and then you've had the opportunity to talk to him but I imagine like for the video right. 04:26.17 StefanMilosavljevich It was in his main area of Expertise is on Bipedalism which is what I was talking to him about but I did ah bring it up and he is is gonna check the video before I release it just to make sure I don't misrepresent his point or research. Um. 04:31.82 archpodnet Ah. 04:44.98 StefanMilosavljevich But yeah, that's ah that is obviously you know there's so many things that could be said about this ah data Set. It is from a ah large geographical span. But obviously all of us are aware and I'm sure the listeners are aware. The. Science of Europeans traveling around the world measuring. People's brain sizes has been wildly misused in the past And yeah, yeah, yeah, speaking it always comes back to those guys. 05:09.94 Cornpop A. 05:15.89 archpodnet Back to that Nazi program. We mentioned earlier that. 05:22.40 Connor Well, we could also talk about it before that I mean we don't always have to talk about the Nazis Yeah, we could talk about like the late eighteen hundreds folks you know the? yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, the pioneers. Yeah. 05:23.95 StefanMilosavljevich Um, no, it's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 05:28.77 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, we could talk about who the nas nazis based their program off of which is like early american anthropologists who were the groundbreakers for everything the nazis did in the 30 s. Like how do we? How do we optimize the genocide of American Indians like let's let's take what the us did and and make it more efficient and. 05:46.82 Connor Well yeah, they they were. They're pioneers of our discipline that were then the pioneers of what was ultimately used for the nazi program like we we revere these people but there's always that asterisk right? like if you take this all the way to the end of where you want to. 05:48.87 Cornpop Godwin's law that's it say. 05:59.98 Cornpop Yeah. 06:01.12 archpodnet Yeah, you don't want it? yeah. 06:04.85 StefanMilosavljevich Yeah. 06:04.95 Cornpop I mean maybe people were coming in Ellis Island left and right maybe they took some calipers out and dished about to different states depending on the size of their heads. Maybe um, what? what can you do. 06:06.73 Connor To go. It's. 06:16.10 StefanMilosavljevich They didn't let David's family go further than New York they're like you got to stay right here, you're not going anywhere. 06:19.23 archpodnet Ah. 06:21.50 Cornpop No, but ah, your heads are too big. Stay here contribute to the economy. Um, um, speaking of oh yeah. 06:29.46 StefanMilosavljevich But but in in terms of like biases. So obviously there was that ah bias that people had that people just went around measuring skulls just to prove that Europeans were the best ah or they thought they were the best I should clarify. Yeah, yeah, yeah, worse than you're yeah, just. 06:42.66 archpodnet Western Europeans There's an abstract it wasn it all europeans. 06:49.16 StefanMilosavljevich British people were the best and and but there is also a bias in that there are not many publications of brain sizes of say homo sapiens after 30000 years but because there is maybe this assumption. You know you sort of measure cranial capacity when we're dealing with other species of Hominin because we want to gauge their intelligence and we also want to compare it to us. But then once homo sapiens are the only species in town and we're on every continent. I think honestly this tendency to measure our cranial capacity isn't there like if you guys found you know this brain reduction is hypothesized to have happened in the last three thousand years but and your guys' experiences archaeologists and anthropologists if you found a 3000 year old skeleton are you measuring its cranial capacity. That's all so there's there's various like factors at play here some conscious some not. 07:48.35 Connor No no. 07:49.69 archpodnet No. 07:55.74 Connor Yeah I think even like fifty years ago like would you measure measure someone of a minority ethnicity fifty years ago measure their skull for for brain size is that even considered ethical I think maybe we could get rid of it. You could get we could measure it today. 08:13.94 Cornpop That was just science class back then. 08:15.49 Connor With maybe ah yeah. 08:16.00 archpodnet I yeah that was like oh the indians dialec show big up dig up this indian burial like start measuring stuff that was yeah na for has't been pastor very long conard people were doing that in the 80 s absolutely. 08:27.80 Connor Yeah, but I'm just saying today like well that's that's that's the point of this is that you can't you can't go have these conversations today because we're not allowed to like Stefan's bring it up that we can't we can't measure those things without being like and this feels a little weird. 08:31.20 Cornpop Shares you. 08:43.39 archpodnet Yeah, we we have now cultural tappoos in archeology revolving like cranial metrics now like we need a couple more generations to die before we feel comfortable. We need some bridges to get rebuilt before we can even have those conversations again. Absolutely. 08:44.91 StefanMilosavljevich Certainly exact. Yeah. 08:45.58 Connor You know so. 08:53.51 Connor So yeah. 08:58.96 Connor Yeah, well, it's ah and it's a fair. It's a fair criticism like there's all the stuff that's been levied against it is fair and justified. But at the same point Wish we need to be able to have that conversation in the future. That's all I'm saying. 09:14.58 Cornpop Um, before we end the last segment I was thinking about um like Birth. Um, because last time I brought out that was gonna be a father but how's a joke the so if humans heads are getting smaller as like. We'd go on and we thought it would be not that like our heads are so big and like until what like 1980 like people died in childbirth left and right so like maybe it has something to do with that. Like your brains just had to be smaller or else like you just didn't survive. Um. 09:49.86 archpodnet Well and if our heads are getting smaller Then how come the gray's heads are so big does that mean that they're violent still and they're not as domesticated the grays from roswell. 09:57.78 StefanMilosavljevich The whose heads who are the grays had done our way's talking about oh the great. Oh the gray Alien Sorry yeah yeah, yeah. 09:57.86 Cornpop The aliens. 10:03.48 Cornpop Um, like the yeah no paul. 10:06.42 archpodnet It's an alien joke Stefan like I got it shaking his head I now I haveve you never seen I've ever seen Paul or like how aliens have massive heads. 10:11.00 Connor I I I thought it was like a skyrim joke or something. It's like this the storm cloaks or I don't know it's like I don't know what you're talking about. 10:22.16 StefanMilosavljevich They're all being delivered by c-section once you get to that level of technology for sure. But no, but you're right? David there is this like push pull factor with like the evolution of our brain size like on the 1 hand you want the biggest brain possible to. 10:24.13 archpodnet Ah. 10:25.10 Cornpop Ah I did see things say oh you go you go. 10:39.40 StefanMilosavljevich You know, just have more room for memories and intelligence and all these things. Ah but you know the the other side of that is yeah is that you're going to kill your mom if your brain is too big so there may be fundamentally some. 10:45.22 Cornpop You don't want to dislocate your pelvis. 10:57.96 StefanMilosavljevich Survival advantage in having the smallest possible brain that can still function perfectly. Well in human society just because of that easier childbirth that just might be fundamentally advantageous. 11:09.72 archpodnet And maybe like and this is once again I have no background on this the advent of the printing press and writing and like documentation where we don't maybe there's a part of our brain for memory that isn't being needs as much energy because now we have like a Dropbox. And the form of literature the web that we don't need to put as much and I have no idea how the brain works like I am completely totally off on this but maybe like our processing power right? going back to that analogy isn't required to remember stuff as well because we have these other. Extra biological mechanisms to help our brains function without our brain having to put in the effort. 11:52.79 Cornpop Yeah. 11:53.79 Connor Another. 11:55.34 StefanMilosavljevich That's what deilva and his crew hypothesize is that if their study is correctly identifying the point in time where our brains started reducing say 3 to five thousand years ago yeah what has developed since then for sure like large-scale urbanism. Writing ah and things like that things that have allowed us to externalize information and when you factor in what we said at the start about how expensive our brains are to maintain. They're so expensive that we literally had to shrink our guts to allow them to develop. Then maybe if we're writing stuff down and we don't need to remember it. There's some advantage in the in having a smaller brain. 12:36.71 Cornpop Shit. 12:37.60 Connor And I would love to see the effect of the internet you know factored into this too which is like all these like writing bookkeeping etc to like such a crazy degree where it's all in 1 place where we're all like ah a second away from finding an answer. Like I wonder you know in the longer studies. We have how the internet affects that because I assume it's the same with you know, language and all those sort of things I bet you could see like different things changing like that it would be interesting I feel like. The kids of these days these Tiktok kids are like not using their brains as much right. 13:17.57 archpodnet I Will tell you as someone who teaches freshman I am concerned for the ability of students to retain information because it is I can't tell if it's I'm becoming an old curmudgeon. Maybe a little bit of both. Yeah well. 13:22.53 Cornpop Ah. 13:30.60 Cornpop They got a lot on their plates. 13:36.61 StefanMilosavljevich Is how that is the implication of this study though is that if writing externalized information and so we shrank our brains then our ability to externalize information has increased infinitely in the last twenty years you know. 13:37.24 archpodnet I'm I'm concerned as a instructor. Okay. 13:49.59 Cornpop A. 13:53.37 StefanMilosavljevich Like ah yeah, your listeners could literally be shrinking their brains listening to this podcast because we've we've assembled. Yeah yeah. 13:55.85 archpodnet They they are They are they absolutely are like there's no doubt and we do not offer financial compensation like yeah, we we are not liable for any damages to your ears brain. You know. 13:56.00 Connor They oh they are they are yeah confirmed. 13:56.56 Cornpop Um, yeah, according to the emails we get. 14:08.75 Cornpop That's fascinating though because then like in an apocalypse situation. 1 people are going to start dying a childbirth left and right again so there could be a huge bottleneck and then also you can't but don't isn't it still like they. 14:17.23 StefanMilosavljevich Well not if our brains have gotten smaller. But yeah carry on. Yeah. 14:25.95 Cornpop It's pretty rough to have a baby I don't know I've never had 1 Um, okay, ah. 14:26.77 StefanMilosavljevich Well definitely a lot more. Yeah I mean for sure more would die if modern medicine just poof and disappeared more people would die for sure. Yeah, but. 14:26.94 Connor So it's. 14:27.34 archpodnet I Mean that's also just bipedalism in general like yeah, exactly yeah, let's get back to the dark ages in terms of child mortality. 14:41.11 Cornpop But with that in addition to like not being able to externalize and share information. Well and you're going back into like little bands of people. Um like yeah population it would just like that's interesting because I don't know I go on a whole tangent on that. But yeah, would. 14:56.17 Connor Well, it's like it's like you have an external hard drive that you loaded all your files onto and you keep it all there. Yeah yeah, you keep it in the Cloud You keep it somewhere else where you're like I need to access this at some point and then you cut off that connection to that and then you're stuck with just like yeah just with your base Files you're like. 15:01.80 Cornpop In the cloud. Okay. 15:10.81 archpodnet That yeah, internet's gone. Yeah. 15:15.64 StefanMilosavljevich Susan. 15:16.11 Connor I can drink water I can maybe eat food I can maybe want to have sex. You know there's like you might lose the more complex things in there but like the base data is still there. The Os is still there kind of thing. 15:28.46 Cornpop True huh what would be Ram. 15:33.10 Connor Just to continue Carlton's what is Ram. 15:37.30 archpodnet I I don't know fellas I don't know what Ram is in our ithetical comparing humans to you know computers eat idea. but but no 15:39.44 Cornpop A. 15:41.51 Connor Yeah, we're. 15:47.73 StefanMilosavljevich I'm just desperately trying to think of a sex joke would be the rare I'd be the Ram David repopulating the Earth. Ah. 15:55.16 archpodnet Ah, she's well I guess like you know this? This was a lot of fun Stefan like thank you for pushing us to talk about a topic. Um. 15:58.80 Cornpop Um, yeah, you got it, you go. 16:10.67 archpodnet Push it outside Royal House I Really enjoyed this conversation. It's always a pleasure having on the show. Maybe one day we'll be able to compensate you for your time but it is not this day. It is not this day but um, yeah I mean. 16:21.10 Cornpop One day 16:24.50 StefanMilosavljevich And I. 16:25.93 Connor Ah, we are we are there is there's some sort of trade going in the background that we probably shouldn't talk about because you know we don't want to talk about why we are trading our in our half indian friend to Stefan for good than services. Yeah. 16:38.19 archpodnet Yeah, life and life ah life in roads is Indian giving where we're engaging in Indian giving is is is what's happening right now. 16:38.33 StefanMilosavljevich Well actually I'm probably going to interview you all 1 by 1 Yeah, the new thanksgiving. 16:40.44 Cornpop Are. 16:43.43 Connor Um, that's the first thing I thought of when you sent that email back. You're like oh I loved Carlton to come talk about this, you know and I was like oh my god we're selling our indian. 16:46.92 Cornpop This is. 16:53.54 StefanMilosavljevich Well well well well well well well before I look absolutely. It's terrible I would like to point out David's already come on my Youtube channel and talked about dogs and I just don't know where you study Connor so that's the flips. 16:54.99 Cornpop Ah, and. 16:56.51 archpodnet We're give it. We're we're trading our indian. 17:08.36 archpodnet Um. 17:08.78 Connor I don't ah I don't I don't study enough to make a video. Ah no no I don't make I don't study enough and stuff that is important enough to make a video about so it was just a really bad joke. So sorry. 17:12.28 StefanMilosavljevich But you're welcome to come on and talk about it. 17:18.97 StefanMilosavljevich Yeah. 17:23.20 Cornpop Do you have any? ah, any final thoughts or things you want to say Stefan about these these papers. It's been fascinating I guess it'll it'll be in the video. 17:30.36 archpodnet Yeah. 17:31.50 StefanMilosavljevich Ah, just you know bear in mind that I've been researching this topic a lot for the video upcoming video but I could have got some things wrong. But also I was right about everything and it's a really fascinating subject and yeah, it's a. 17:41.15 archpodnet Oh. 17:50.87 StefanMilosavljevich I'd love I'd love to yeah if anyone has any other sort of quirks of human evolution that they think they've heard about let me know on Twitter at Stefan Milo History smilo 17:58.34 archpodnet Will do and feel free to use any yeah and feel free to use any clips if they're useful of this episode for your for your show I don't know if there's anything your um elite audience can can take out of a life and ruins banter. 18:17.15 Connor Oh. 18:17.30 archpodnet But feel free and for anyone else for for a handful of beads in a blanket. You too can get an indian to appear on on your show Youtube or or podcast. Whatever whatever platform you use. It's. 18:27.44 Cornpop Lord um I had a a question about Putin like does he have more prognasticism than other people and that's why he's more aggressive. Um. 18:39.20 Connor No, no, let's not do this right at. 18:40.33 StefanMilosavljevich While I do worry that after I've released this video everyone's going to be looking at their like big headed cousin kind of funny like what's going on with this guy. 18:45.98 Cornpop Who Yeah, that would be the implication could get applied bad. Um, but no I think I should be all right? um. 18:58.20 Connor Awesome! So where where can our people are are people who are already following you where can they find you on your youtubes your your twitters your all all these things. 19:06.67 StefanMilosavljevich Just go to best place is http://youtube.comforward Slash Stefan Milo S T E F A N M I lo don't skip the ads and ah yeah, that's it. 19:18.26 archpodnet He needs that revenue guys. Well Stefan. It's always a pleasure having you on the show man. We really appreciate your time. Um, you guys can find Stefan on Youtube as you just said Stefan Milo really great content I use it to teach my students when I don't feel like teaching so keep up the good work Stefan. 19:35.37 Cornpop It's all right I've seen. 19:37.54 archpodnet Um, and with that we are out and everybody is that time once again, you've made it through the closure of our show and it is time for Connors's Joe Connor what you have for us today. 19:55.32 Connor I just put my child down to bed and I'm ready to give you a dad joke. So I learned recently that dogs keep track of the amount of times you step on their tails. It's your Yelp Score 20:00.49 archpodnet Oh. 20:11.74 StefanMilosavljevich Oh yeah. 20:12.23 Cornpop Oof. 20:17.53 Cornpop Ah, all right now. 20:18.68 archpodnet Ah, with that We are really out. Thank you everybody.