Adaptibility: Humanity’s Superpower, with Herman Pontzer
August 2, 2025
784,226
16,698
1,197
2.28%
Search the Record
IndexedEvery word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
Neil deGrasse Tyson Episodes Around August 2, 2025
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
46:30Now PlayingAdaptibility: Humanity’s Superpower, with Herman Pontzer
YouTube Description
as posted by the channelWhat’s the science of what makes humans special? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chuck Nice, and Gary O’Reilly explore how we evolved to be different from eachother, what's up with Neanderthal DNA, and humanity's superpower with Herman Pontzer, evolutionary anthropologist and author of Adaptable: How Your Unique Body Works and Why Biology Unites Us.
Is there such a thing as a textbook average human? Herman explains how biological diversity is not a dividing factor but an expression of our shared humanity. Are skin color and race scientifically meaningful? Why are we all “shape-shifters” biologically? Explore why cultural and biological inheritance together make us uniquely versatile in the animal kingdom, and where our individual differences come from. How many of them are adaptations versus random noise?
Learn how body shapes adapted to latitude, why high-altitude populations thrive where others struggle, and how Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA shaped modern humans. Did the gene that helps Himalayan people come from an extinct hominin?
The team examines whether modern life mismatches our evolutionary design. From heart disease to sedentary lifestyles, what do ancient bodies face in modern cities? Discover why natural selection needs individual mutation to work and how genetic diversity is what gives humanity our superpower.
Thanks to our Patrons PMC, Nannette Bartels, Dawn Dudzinski, Bernd Hendricks, crobarian, jobe, Malik, Christopher Jones, Jason Antone, Sean G, Hunky DOrk, Soumik Das, Wayne Arnold, Elizabeth, Rajan Thankurdesai, Wesley Westandorf, Philip Heller, james Liggett, Steve Lustig, Tan, Jimmy Golightly, Juniel Lugo, Patrick Hill, Tan Ngyuyen, kirenia, Flynn Dockery, Gabor Kalman, Roger L Chamorro, PlanetJomo, Rees Jones, Stacy Ford, t, Ash, Cesar Moya, Jacob, Jacob Kelley, Raymond Daigneault, Tyler Fleck, Tatiana Corleto, Paulo Dutra, Ryan Parish, Nic D., JKW, Allison Bergseng, Thomas Jones, Amelia Joselow, Austin Blair, Christian lara, Eric Bayer, Christopher Martin, David Gavrin, UntraProGamerNL, Vance Uribe, Marissa, K.D., Collin Wolfert, and Stephen Mueller for supporting us this week.
Check out our second channel, @StarTalkPlus
Get the NEW StarTalk book, 'To Infinity and BeyondA Journey of Cosmic Discovery' on Amazon
Support us on Patreon
FOLLOW or SUBSCRIBE to StarTalk:
About StarTalk:
Science meets pop culture on StarTalk! Astrophysicist & Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities & scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up!
#StarTalk #NeildeGrasseTyson
Links & Promotions
Guests & Subjects Covered
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.