If I told you right now that humans are “perfect”
organisms, and that in our mothers wombs, we first are fishes, who then develop into
amphibians, and then reptiles, birds, primates, before finally becoming what we know as human.
I’m sure you’d look at me like I’ve gone insane. And I have, but that’s besides the point. Just as recently as 1811, because of the
works of scientist Johann Friedrich Meckel, everybody thought that was true. And this is
because science is transient. What we once hold as truth quickly fades away upon
closer inspection. And looking back, we can only laugh at ourselves for the scientific
“facts'' we once held dear to our hearts. Some other times, these aren’t even actual
scientific facts. They’re just very popular opinions that all of us have collectively agreed
to be true, even though they are in fact not. These are all the times we were wrong. Not everything Meckel said was wrong, though.
In fact, he was the first scientist to correctly predict that embryos have gills. Well, slits
on their necks that closely resemble gills, at least. However, unlike what he suggested, we
don’t pass through a fish phase in our mothers’ wombs. These slits are most likely due to the fact
that both humans and fish share a common ancestor and some DNA, and not because we’re trying
to attain some kind of biological perfection. I mean, who are we kidding,
we are far from perfect. But for a long time, scientists
believed this to be true, well, until the late 19th century when Charles Darwin’s
theory of evolution started to gain traction. We realised that a linear series of evolution
in our mothers’ womb was completely illogical. The theory of evolution is one that has been
completely riddled with lots of false claims and ideas that are simply not true. In reality,
evolution is a very difficult subject to research because of the limited amount of fossil
information available. As a result, a lot of times, all we’re left with are hypotheses, some of
which are brilliant, and others, err, not so much. For a long time, scientists believed that
all of life was aquatic, until one day, many millions of years ago, a brave fish dared
to walk on land. Starting with very short periods on dry ground, the fish started spending
more and more time on land and gradually, its gills got replaced with lungs and it became
amphibian. Then the amphibians became reptiles, who became birds, who became mammals. And while
these scientists got the process of evolution right, that one brave fish was not the first
animal to step on land. The earth was rich with insects, funguses, and was bubbling with life
before that fish ever came into the picture. Another hypothesis that we all seem to
collectively get wrong is where humans come from. If I asked you right now, you most likely
would tell me that we evolved from chimpanzees, our closest living relatives. But while
the second half of that statement is true, the first half is completely false.
We didn’t evolve from chimpanzees. Yes we evolved from apes. However, we did
not evolve from any apes living today. We, monkeys, chimps, and gorillas,
all evolved from a common ancestor, the so-called “great apes” that lived
in Africa around 7 million years ago. It was around that time in the evolution chain
that we split. So although chimpanzees are our closest living relatives, we’re farther apart
on the family tree than a lot of us think. Our much closer relative, although now extinct,
are the neanderthals. Modern humans split from neanderthals just around 500,000 years ago. But
even these guys certainly came with their own controversy. For a long time, scientists believed
that neanderthals and humans never lived together, with some believing that neanderthals evolved
into humans, but that’s again not true. Archaeologists have since found
ancient human skeletons that prove that modern humans and neanderthals
coexisted for thousands of years. Infact, they didn’t just co-exist, they
actually mated, which is why most humans living outside of Africa have anywhere between
1-4% of Neanderthal DNA still in them today. When we start talking about the theory of
evolution and ancient humans, we can’t help but talk about Dinosaurs. You know, those giant
scary lizard looking things from Jurassic Park. The ones that have earth-like tones, lizard-like
scales, and roars more earth-shattering than that of a lion? Well, in reality, the dinosaur
was none of those things I just mentioned. First, Dinosaurs are more closely related to birds
than lizards. In fact, every single living bird today is a modern-day dinosaur, a descendant of
theropods, a species of ancient dinosaurs. And because they’re birds, they mostly had feathers
covering their scaly skin. Fossil evidence has shown that a lot of tyrannosaurus had feathers,
which means that even the great T-Rex probably had a few as well, mostly on its head and tail.
Dinosaurs also never ran fast. Because they always had to have one leg on the ground, they
could only get to around 25mph. Which is still pretty scary because… well one, they’re massive,
and two, the average speed of a human is 15mph. But if you’re Usain Bolt, you’ve got nothing to
worry about; you can outrun these guys any day. And let’s be honest, have you heard any bird roar?
Yeah, me neither. Which is why a recent scientific study has shown that the T-Rex most likely
hooted, cooed, or made deep-throated booming sounds like the emu, not a trembling roar like a
giant lion. It’s funny when you think about it. Now we can forgive ourselves
for getting these details wrong. After all, all of these things
happened tens of millions of years ago, before any of us ever existed. But if you look
much closer in time, you will still see a lot of things we get wrong everyday. Even things
that are as simple as George Washington’s teeth. In 1789 when George Washington was inaugurated as
president, he had only one natural tooth left. But because the president needed an amazing smile, he
wore dentures. Now in reality, these dentures were made from hippopotamus ivory, brass, and gold.
But for some reason, we like to believe they were made from wood. Why we believe that, I have no
idea, but it’s not too late to change your mind. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, a person who often changes their beliefs
or behaviors in order to please others or to succeed is called a chameleon.
But are chameleons really chameleons? This definition is derived from the assumption
that chameleons change the color of their skin to match their surroundings, most likely to
camouflage. And while there are animals that excel using this tactic like the octopus,
the chameleon is not one of those animals. In reality, most chameleon species can only
change from green to brown and back to green. And they do not change colors to blend into
their surroundings. They do it to regulate their body temperature. When the chameleon is
cold, it becomes darker to absorb more heat, and when it’s hot, it turns pale to
reflect more heat so it can cool down. There is one species of chameleon that
can change into any color, though, and that’s the panther chameleon. But even those
guys don’t do it to match their surroundings. Their flamboyant display of colors helps them
fend off against males competing for territory... and also to attract females. I mean, isn’t that
why we all buy designer in the first place? Speaking of fancy, who else was taught
that diamonds are made from coal? Sorry, but that's not true at all, it’s
a terribly common misconception. In fact, most of the diamonds that have been dated were
found to be far older than even the very first plants that appeared on Earth. And because you
need trees to make coal, it’s impossible for coal to produce diamonds when diamonds existed long
before the material that makes coal even existed. NASA researchers have even found a
number of nanodiamonds in meteorites. Nanodiamonds are diamonds that are
just a few nanometers in diameter, simple enough. They’re too
tiny to be considered gems, but it’s still pretty cool that you can have these
precious objects just floating around in space. Still, it makes you question why we deem them as
so precious when, in reality, they’re extremely abundant in our universe. There are planets
in space where it literally rains diamonds. Anyway, of course these asteroids are floating
because there’s no gravity in space. Right? Well, unfortunately, wrong. There is gravity in
space. It’s what holds the moon in orbit around the Earth, and the Earth close together
around the Sun with all the other planets. It’s just that as you get farther
away from the Earth, the Earth’s gravitational pull on you weakens, and other
gravitational forces begin to take priority. But in reality, everything in space is falling… in
every direction imaginable, all at the same time. The only reason it seems as if
you’re floating and not falling is because space is very large and mostly
very empty, at least compared to Earth. For instance, on Earth, if you were to... and I really, really don’t
recommend it, jump off a building, you could feel the strong winds on your face, you
would see the ground appearing closer and closer, you can tell that you’re falling quite easily.
And in just a few seconds, impact. You’re on the ground because the distance between the height you
fell from and where you landed isn’t that much. In space, there is no air, so no whooshing sound
to accompany your fall, no buildings and landmarks to see becoming larger as you get closer to the
surface, and because it’s so large, it takes you anywhere from a few hours to many years to
land on one surface when you fall from another. So it feels like you’re floating. But you’re
not. You’re falling, really, really slowly. And that’s because of gravity, one
of man’s most important discoveries. When you think about the fact that it is
one of man’s most important discoveries, you would imagine that the story behind it would
be preserved carefully. But the version almost all of us have heard, has not been preserved at
all. The old tale goes that Newton was tired from all the many failed experiments he had had in his
career, tired and frustrated, he sat under a tree to rest his head. As he sat, a ripe apple dropped
down from the tree and hit Newton on the head, and in a eureka moment, he discovered one of
the most important forces in physics, gravity. But the truth is much less dramatic than that.
In reality, Isaac Newton was observing the apples falling from the tree of their own accord when he
discovered that there must be a force behind it. He wasn’t sitting under the tree, and the
apple certainly didn’t fall on his head. You see, sometimes I understand why
we make up some of these stories. They help make us feel better about
ourselves. When we believe that some of humanity’s greatest achievements couldn’t
have happened without a huge slice of luck, we can keep hope alive for our own share
of luck, our piece of the apple pie. It’s the same with the story of Albert Einstein.
We all heard growing up about how he failed in class but still went on to become one the
greatest physicists the world has ever seen. But that’s just not true at all.
Einstein always excelled in school. He didn’t learn to read late in life, and he
most likely didn’t have a learning disability. Our teachers must have told us these stories
to make us feel good about ourselves, give us hope that even if we
have rough starts in school, we could still become geniuses
later in life if we worked hard. And while there are a thousand examples of this
exact theory, Einstein simply wasn’t one of them. Aristotle is one of the greatest philosophers who
have ever lived and was the first true scientist. He practically invented formal logic and he
described and explored the different scientific disciplines and their relations to one another.
But for all the good he did, there was one thing he got terribly, terribly wrong - he claimed
that the Earth was at the center of the universe. I mean, why wouldn’t he? Most things you
observe point to this exact conclusion. Now while Aristotle wasn’t the first to say this,
he championed the fight. He claimed that using logic, he had found this to be 100% true, and
would not back down from his argument. It took the work of Galileo, almost two millennia later,
to discover that the Sun was the center of the solar system and not our Earth. And still, people
didn’t believe him, in fact, they ostracized him. And this is just one of the many times that we
as humans have overemphasized our importance. In the movie Lucy, Morgan Freeman
says this in a room full of students, “It is estimated, most human beings
only use 10% of their brain’s capacity… Imagine if we could access 100%.
Interesting things begin to happen.” While it’s fun to think that humans are
capable of a whole lot more if we could just find a way to tap into that remaining
90% resource, reality is far less exciting. Most of the brain is active almost all the
time. While they might not actively be used for thinking, they’re working, busy doing
other things... like keeping you alive, kind of important. Think about it, the brain is
just 3% of the body’s weight, but it uses 20% of the body’s energy. To burn through that much
energy, you have to be doing something, right? Even though we get it wrong most of the time,
it’s fun to explore the world around us. As a species, we will continue to make
assumptions about everything we see, and chances are, most of it’ll be wrong. But that’s a good thing, because
if we never know what’s wrong, we can never know what’s truly right.
