Bak 2 Skool 7: D.N.A.

I was looking up reviews for this show online and New York Times called this show "The Greatest Show of Our Era", "A Triumph", "A Show to Be Enjoyed for Generations to Come". That's really saying something.

This was great. More Paul please, if Jeff can handle 2 of them

Paul comparing a long self-experience to the knowledge of an entire scientific history is a hilarious concept to me lol

I'd like to offer a metaphor to help Paul and Dan:

Think about a rain drop rolling down a window. There are drops of water already on the window, many affecting the path of our rain drop. The water already on the window is like DNA in that it shapes the path and building materials of the rain drop. There are a handful of forces here, but ignore those. The "force" in the building scenario of life is really just chemical reactions. There's no magical driver or gravity-like force to consider there - at least not for the sake of this lesson.

Paul Ryckert is a treasure that must be protected.

French toast crimes were commited in the making of this video and I'm here for it.

Getting Dan's dad to join the show for an episode was an awesome idea.

Ryckerts are asking the right questions, and Jeff could just say: "We don't know yet."

Abiogenesis is a field that tackles the origin of life (cells), we have many theories, but no experiment have managed to "produce a cell from chemical reactions", if possible at all.

How matter turned into life through chemical reactions, environment factors, and emergence, is an area of active research.

Seeing Dan's father in this episode, I now understand Dans strange ass sense of humor so much more then I ever did before.

@df: I hear you on the “we don’t know” angle, but frankly half of their questions weren’t even that, they were just asking why some component of a cell behaves a certain way, whether it’s copying DNA, reading DNA, etc. Their issue seemed to be questioning how parts of a cell “know” to do anything, not necessarily going all the way back to abiogenesis. Jeff’s answer that it’s an automatic response wasn’t bad, though he bungled it several times, and comparing it to breathing just confused Dan more.

The simple answer to a lot of their questions was “we do know why that happens on a cellular level, but we don’t have 8 weeks to give Dan and Paul a crash course in biochemistry, so Dan and Paul need to trust that within cells there are a bunch of pieces that all have specific functions related to chemical processes happening all the time. And there are biochemists that spend their entire lives studying this, so sometimes there isn’t a 5-second explanation that will suffice.”

I know that comes across a bit like a hand wave, but usually that’s what you’re going to get with a 5-minute TedEx talk anyways. Rarely do they offer a deep explanation, and they’re communicating concepts in broad analogies anyways. I don’t know what else Jeff could say without launching into a biology history lesson of how we learned how each part of a cell functions.

All these have been funny but this one was gold. The Ryckerts are magical human beings.

@bisonhero:exactly what I was going to say. Every time they asked specific questions about processes, I was saying to myself that that's what people go to multiple courses in college for and we do know. And I really wished they got the answer of chemical attraction and repelling for many of their questions because that covered a huge part of their curiosity in "how do they know to do that."

There are a lot of concepts in this episode that I know are taught multiple times within the public school system, at multiple levels. It still amazes me not that Dan doesn't understand these concepts that were taught repeatedly, but that Dan is surprised by some of these concepts.

As a scientist this was both hilarious and cringe at the same time. Jeff should have just described DNA and its functionality as a computer code. That may have made it easier for Dan to follow.

This was glorious.

28 minutes and NOPE... just too much. Usually love the Rykert content but for some reason, just couldn't get through this.

The Ryckert questions seem more philosophical than scientific. The Ultimate Question Why has not been answered. Science only observes and reports on behaviors; not WHY things behave the way they do.

I love these so much

@crimsonnoir: I think it's because he doesn't know the answer to those questions and considers it outside the scope. Like the simplification of a nucleus to a brain breaks down when you look at the actual biological (aside from function).

I'd say hire Paul for a season of.. well, anything!

It's great how fast this became another Ryckertcast

Pushing back against anthropomorphic language may help respond to the "how does it 'know'" questions. It doesn't! It's just chemistry. Got to it at the end!

Another great episode! Loving this series XD

Damn. Paul showed up some great questions. The kinda questions that make a teacher bluff

a slam-bang action thriller! spectacular! a rock solid adrenaline rush! the thrill ride of the year!

I’m five minutes in and this is already one of my favorite videos

Paul is so great, hilarious episode!

Is life a rougelike or a rougelite?

@axl159: It shows that he did understand it, to think of one seed or 'run' in a procedurally generated game out of all the possible configurations,

Dan and Jeff were right that the odds of being born are astronomical, from which sperm and zygote on which night of conception (any factors such as difference in diet/drugs) to all the happenstance that lead to your ancestors surviving long enough to hook up multiplied by however many generations you want to count back (keeping to homo sapiens, with generations 20 years apart, I saw figures from 110, 000 to 350, 000 ancestral generations.)

Paul has some legitimately great questions in this. He doesn't give himself enough credit.

Let's do a bonus episode about Baseball Cards with Paul!

This was a joy.

@munnyshh: Exactly! They had excellent questions! One of the things that fascinates me about biochemical systems is how they're driven by random processes. It's all just molecules bumping into each other.

That was awesome. Thank you for the content.

Man I wish I caught up on this sooner this was fantastic. I like JERF trying to stay positive-teacher vibes, and Paul was like NO I'm a dumbass! XD This can't wait to catch up on the rest!

What a gem of an episode.