Bill Nye The Evolutionary Benefits of Sex Beyond the Obvious Big Think

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27 Sep 2021

Watch the newest video from Big Think a https 3A 2F 2Fbigth ink 2FNewVideo a Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos a https 3A 2F 2Fbigth ink 2FEdge a ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What were the first organisms to have sex We may never know the answer but as Bill Nye explains in this Big Think interview scientists are very interested in why sexual activity remains so popular in nature beyond the obvious reproductive implications The Science Guy delves deeper into this topic in his latest book Undeniable Evolution and the Science of Creation ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY Bill Nye scientist engineer comedian author and inventor is a man with a mission to help foster a scientifically literate society to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life In Seattle Nye began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night Nye then quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle's home-grown ensemble comedy show Almost Live This is where Bill Nye the Science Guy was born The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central originating at KING-TV Seattle's NBC affiliate While working on the Science Guy show Nye won seven national Emmy Awards for writing performing and producing The show won 18 Emmys in five years In between creating the shows he wrote five children's books about science including his latest title Bill Nye's Great Big Book of Tiny Germs Nye is the host of three currently-running television series The 100 Greatest Discoveries airs on the Science Channel The Eyes of Nye airs on PBS stations across the country Bill's latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called Stuff Happens It's about environmentally responsible choices that consumers can make as they go about their day and their shopping Also you'll see Nye in his good-natured rivalry with his neighbor Ed Begley They compete to see who can save the most energy and produce the smallest carbon footprint Nye has 4 000 watts of solar power and a solar-boosted hot water system There's also the low water use garden and underground watering system It's fun for him he's an engineer with an energy conservation hobby Nye is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society the world's largest space interest organization ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT Bill Nye Sex fascinates me I will say As a scientist or a scientific investigator as a science educator it fascinates me but as a guy it fascinates me No one s exactly sure what the first organisms were that had sex But there s very reasonable theories about it and very reasonable theories about why it persists why it s so popular in nature So you can observe bacteria exchanging DNA through these little pipes these pili And they exchange DNA and they carry on and you can imagine one of them exchanging big pieces of DNA slowly and another one exchanging small pieces of DNA quickly And so they would then it is reasonable that two different versions of the same strand of DNA the same genes came to be One would become the egg and the other would become the seed or the sperm And it s not hard to imagine after you observe these things under a microscope exchanging DNA But then why would it persist Why wouldn t other bacterial species let s say in the case of bacteria why wouldn t other bacteria outcompete the slow exchange fast exchange versions just by budding off in the traditional split yourself in half type of binary bacterial reproduction Well apparently your biggest enemy is not lions and tigers and bears which of course can be trouble don t get me wrong Your biggest enemy is germs and parasites So apparently by having sex organisms are able to come up with a new mixture of genes a new combination of genes a new strand of DNA that the germs and parasites are not able to disable as readily are not able to hijack as easily So this is such an important thing and such a valuable innovation that well you just think of all the love songs that are written every five minutes but just look at dandelions and the lilies of the field I might add I mentioned this in the book To read the transcript please go to a https 3A 2F 2Fbigthink com 2Fvideos 2Fwhy-sex-is-so-popular a