Vultures and the Public Health: The 323rd Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying
April 30, 2026
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1:33:27Now PlayingVultures and the Public Health: The 323rd Evolutionary Lens with Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying
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as posted by the channelOn this, our 323rd Evolutionary Lens livestream, we discuss vultures, politics, and complex systems. Vultures, which have evolved multiple times (like mangroves, poison frogs, and “trees”), specialize on carrion. In India, a painkiller commonly used in people but toxic to vultures, diclofenac, came out of patent, began to be used in cattle, and the vast majority of vultures in India died. Downstream effects include the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and tens of billions of dollars in economic losses. Now in Africa, vultures are being poisoned intentionally, and a similar devastation is likely to happen. Vultures are ugly, smelly, and gross…and utterly central to the health of not just their ecosystems, but the people who live in and near them. Welcome to complex systems. Also: Katie Wilson, the mayor of Seattle, seems to be engaged in a kind of “scientific socialism,” akin to “scientific racism,” in which quasi-scientific ideas are used to justify (bad) policy.
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Mentioned in this episode:
Frank & Sudarshan 2024. The social costs of keystone species collapseevidence from the decline of vultures in India. American Economic Review 114(10)30073040
Anoosh Moonka tweet
On the Origin of Species
Katie Wilson clip from Brandi Kruse
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