Oh no, better call Professor Dave stat

 

Geezus, imagine what the creationists and Han nationalists can do with this one! Not to mention the purveyors of the multi-regional hypothesis...

Evidence for interbreeding between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens? 

That escalated quickly

 

Background: Professor Dave constantly attacks mathematician and gadfly Eric Weinstein, probably for political reasons. Weinstein is allied with Peter Thiel, while Dave pretends to be a "leftist". Thiel is the man who "created" J D Vance. Since most physicists regard Weinstein´s theory of everything (known as Geometric Unity) as pseudo-science or "not even wrong", Dave can pretend to be a valiant knight for Science (TM) when attacking Thiel´s alleged errand boy. 

Quantum physicist and science influencer Sabine Hossenfelder is apparently a friend of Eric´s, which may or may not explain Dave´s attacks on *her*. Are they also politically motivated? 

In the video above, Sabine accuses Weinstein´s detractors of hypocrisy. Yes, Geometric Unity isn´t really a "theory" blah-blah but everything else in theoretical physics is BS anyway, so on that score, Weinstein´s speculations are neither better nor worse than those of everyone else "working" in the field! For instance, the guys who gave us string theory.

This might get really ugly really fast. Sabine, how dare you?!   

Guilty pleasure

 

"Professor" Dave attacks an unhinged Incel and conspiracy theorist who claims to have learned physics "intuitively". I admit watching this was a guilty pleasure. If Mr Farina only attacked people like this, I might almost start to like him. Almost.  

Feralization

 

If you know, you know. Muh-hah-hah-hah! 

How long does it take for a domesticated species of plant to turn wild again? Does this have any bearing on the question of when agriculture began?

Excellent and deep question — let’s tackle it in two parts:

---

🌱 1. How long does it take for a domesticated plant species to “turn wild” again?

This process is called feralization — when a domesticated species reverts to a wild or semi-wild state after escaping cultivation or human management.

⏳ How fast can it happen?

• In some cases, feralization can begin within a few generations (e.g., 5–50 years), especially in annual plants that reproduce quickly.

• Traits that are lost or reduced during domestication — like seed shattering, seed dormancy, or thorn production — can re-evolve under natural selection if beneficial in the wild.

• Full reversion to a wild-type genome is rare, but feral plants often show:

  • Increased seed dispersal

  • Decreased yield

  • Resumption of natural defenses (e.g., toxins or spines)

📌 Example: Weedy rice (Oryza sativa f. spontanea), which evolved from domesticated rice and re-developed wild traits in only a few centuries (possibly faster in some regions).

---

📜 2. Does this affect how we date the beginning of agriculture?

Yes — feralization complicates the archaeological record of agriculture in important ways:

🧭 Here's how:

• Early farming was likely intermittent, small-scale, and low-intensity.

• If agriculture was abandoned for even a few decades or centuries, domesticated crops could go feral and vanish from the landscape and archaeological visibility.

• This means that early domestication events could have occurred thousands of years before the earliest definitive archaeological evidence.

🔄 Agriculture as a long process:

• Modern archaeology sees domestication as a gradual, multi-generational process, not a single moment.

• Some species show pre-domestication cultivation — early humans planted them before the genetic signs of full domestication appear.

• If early farming societies collapsed or moved, their plants may have reverted — making it seem like agriculture started “later” than it actually did.

🧬 Genetic evidence shows that domestication traits (like non-shattering ears in wheat or barley) accumulated slowly, and can be lost under feral conditions.

---

🧾 Summary

✅ Domesticated plants can revert toward wild forms surprisingly quickly (within decades to centuries), depending on the species and environment.

🧠 This means that early, failed, or abandoned attempts at agriculture may have left no clear trace in the archaeological record.

📆 As a result, the true origins of agriculture may be older and more complex than previously thought, with cycles of cultivation, abandonment, and re-domestication.

---

Would you like examples of specific plants (like wheat, barley, or maize) and how quickly they can feralize or re-domesticate?

Yes, all three. Also rice!

Great — let’s explore how wheat, barley, maize, and rice behave when feralized (i.e., revert from domestication) or re-domesticated, and what that tells us about the timing and complexity of agriculture’s origins.

---

🌾 1. Wheat (Triticum spp.)

🧬 Domesticated Traits:

• Non-shattering spikelets (seeds stay on the stalk, making harvesting easier)

• Larger grains

• Softer seed coats

🔄 Feralization/Reversion:

• Under wild conditions, non-shattering becomes a disadvantage (seeds don’t disperse).

• Studies show that feral wheat lines can evolve partial shattering again within ~20–50 generations (500–1,000 years).

• However, wheat is less weedy and does not easily naturalize without human help.

🧠 Implication:

Wheat domestication was slow, taking 1,000–2,000+ years, and could reverse partially if early agriculture was abandoned.

---

🌾 2. Barley (Hordeum vulgare)

🧬 Domesticated Traits:

• Like wheat: non-shattering spikes, larger grains

• Shorter dormancy, more uniform germination

🔄 Feralization:

• Weedy barley populations (H. vulgare f. spontaneum) are common near fields.

• Barley can hybridize with wild relatives, rapidly reintroducing wild traits like:

  • Seed dormancy

  • Rough awns (barbs)

  • Shattering

📌 Some barley reverts to near-wild form within <500 years when left uncultivated.

🧠 Implication:

Barley is more plastic than wheat, showing frequent gene flow with wild forms. This makes archaeological dating of “fully domesticated” barley complicated.

---

🌽 3. Maize (Zea mays)

🧬 Domesticated Traits:

• Derived from teosinte (wild grass from Mexico)

• Maize has:

  • Larger cobs

  • Multiple rows of kernels

  • Non-shattering seeds (fully dependent on humans to spread)

🔄 Feralization:

• Maize is highly domesticated and does not easily revert.

• However, teosinte-maize hybrids can arise spontaneously if maize is grown near wild relatives.

• Some “wild maize” types in Mexico are likely re-wilded hybrids, but they don’t fully return to teosinte.

🧠 Implication:

Maize is an outlier — it’s so altered that it can’t survive as-is in the wild. But gene flow with teosinte can blur the archaeological record.

---

🌾 4. Rice (Oryza sativa)

🧬 Domesticated Traits:

• Shorter seed dormancy

• Non-shattering grains

• Compact panicles (grain heads)

• Reduced awns

🔄 Feralization:

• Rice rapidly feralizes — a major modern problem known as weedy rice or red rice.

• This happens through:

  • Escape from fields

  • Hybridization with wild rice (O. rufipogon)

• Traits like seed shattering, dormancy, and red pericarps reappear in <10 generations.

📌 Weedy rice is genetically part-domesticated but behaves wild — showing how quickly selection pressure can undo human cultivation traits.

🧠 Implication:

Rice demonstrates how fast domesticated traits can be lost in just decades. This has serious implications for interpreting early rice domestication in East and Southeast Asia.

---

🧾 Overall Takeaways

Plant	Speed of Feralization	Key Points
Wheat	Slow–moderate (centuries)	Stable once fully domesticated; partial reversions
Barley	Fast–moderate (decades–centuries)	Hybridizes easily; common weedy forms
Maize	Rare, via hybridization only	Cannot survive without human aid, but gene flow with teosinte confuses the picture
Rice	Fast (within decades)	Weedy forms arise quickly; feral rice is a major modern issue

---

🌱 Final Thought

These examples show that:

• Domestication is reversible, especially in early stages.

• Many early agricultural episodes could disappear from the archaeological record within centuries, due to feralization.

• Therefore, true beginnings of agriculture may predate the first archaeobotanical evidence by millennia.

Would you like a diagram or timeline showing how these crops evolved across time and geography? 

Quantum stupidity

 

Professor Dave sounds less unhinged than usual in this 4 year old clip, in which he attacks "quantum mysticism" or the misuse of quantum physics (or rather the pop version of it) to promote New Age spirituality, New Thought-like self-help and alternative medicine. 

Deepak Chopra is prominently featured and so are the ubiqutuous crystals. Somewhat surprisingly, the budding cult leader Leo is still around on YouTube. I assumed he would be too uncharismatic to become the honcho of anything! Maybe a quantum effect of some kind? 

If Dave had always been like this, I might even start to like him, but alas, I suppose the pitbull style was more lucrative...  

Einstein´s garbage

 

So the only way to disprove Einstein is to go through the man´s garbage to find out what theories he discarded? I don´t know, it´s almost as if Albert was a genius or something...

Still, I support everything that sounds "common sense" so *of course* I like the idea that gravity is a force rather than...whatever Albie said it was. And the accursed math works, so scientific über-judge extraordinaire Professor Dave can´t say it´s pseudo-science, LOL. 

Seriously, though, an interesting contribution (I think).   

Low hanging fruit bat

 

The insufferable moonbat Professor Dave attacks the crazy wingnut Candace Owens (who I think is a friend of the master provocateur Kanye West). The internet race-to-the-bottom at its "best". 

Apparently, Candace´s latest revolution in science is the claim that space is "fake and gay" (just like the dinosaurs), although I´m not sure what that even means. Is she a flat earther? Personally, I see space floating above me every night and there are plenty of dinosaurs flying around me by day, so there´s that, but maybe the situation looks different from Ye´s bunker c/o The Event? But sure, the earth *does* look flat. At least in Kansas, LOL.

As for Davie, well, if you don´t want the wingnuts to talk about trans all the damn time, maybe you moonbats should stop promoting it all the damn time!

Just sayin´.     

The Metatron has spread his wings

 

The Metatron calls out "Professor Dave". Here we goooo....

I have three problems with Dave. One: He´s a Woke Hamas-versteher. Two: He constantly (and I really mean constantly) insults people, including innocent by-standers in the commentary section. It´s beyond parody at this point. 

Three and most importantly: He defends a kind of "party line" in which Science (TM) can never do anything wrong. Replication crisis? Predatory academic publishing? Scientists acting as gate-keepers for dogma? Corruption? Nah, none of that is real, comrade! He is essentially the Science Pravda. This presumably explains his unhinged attacks on critical scientists such as Sabine Hossenfelder or on dissident scientists like Eric J Lerner.

Aren´t we all obsessed by this truly outrageous character? :D 

Meta-metaphysics

 

Professor Dave and Grayson Hawk discuss excerpts from the marathon interview with Chris Langan made three years ago by Curt Jainmungal on his YouTube channel. Langan, rumored to have the highest IQ in the world, is a somewhat controversial figure who developed a "theory of everything" known as the CTMU. It´s really a philosophical or metaphysical system. While I don´t get half of it, there does seem to be a broad family likeness with Whitehead´s process philosophy and Ken Wilber´s Integral Theory. Perhaps CTMU could be described as an evolutionary form of panentheism? 

Grayson believes that it´s idealism pure and simple, but expressed in a more convoluted language. Think Berkeley. Both Dave and Grayson consider materialism and "scientific realism" to be proven once and for all long ago, so Langan´s model (in which consciousnes is primary) strikes them as downright kookish. It´s worthless as a scientific theory, despite using scientific-sounding language. And while claiming to explain everything in physics, the CTMU contains no math. It also postulates the existence of God (or as Langan prefers to call it: G.O.D.) The two skeptical debate bros further believe that Langan deliberately uses an obscure and self-invented Newspeak when describing his theory, making it needlessly difficult to understand. 

True to form, Dave also cracks ad hominems! Speaking of which: note that the first section of the video deals with another drama: the "debate" between Dave and the Christian creationist Tour in Texas about a year ago. 

Langan went super-viral a couple of months ago, when he was featured in an interview on the Daily Wire, an interview which apparantly has 11 million views to date?! Perhaps because the Daily Wire gave people the impression that "the smartest man in the world" is some kind of Christian. Personally, I suspect super-intellectual Hindus and Buddhists may find the CTMU more to their liking. OK, good luck with this material... 

She seemed like such a nice girl

 

Here we go... 

The final countdown

 

Here we go again. "Professor Dave Explains" have the latest updates on the so-called Final Experiment and its aftermath. 

As many people probably know by now, American Christian pastor Will Duffy took several flat earthers with him on an expedition to Antarctica. The purpose: to prove once and for all that the Earth is a globe. On the most popular flat earth "model", there can´t be a 24-hour sun ("midnight sun") in Antarctica. Indeed, Antarctica doesn´t even exist but is a mysterious ice wall guarded by heavily armed troops c/o NASA or some such agency?! Lo and behold, the flat earthers did see the sun at midnight. As far as I understand, there were three flat earthers present, but only one changed his mind and rejoined the rest of the humanity. Note that the entire 24-hour day with sunlight was livestreamed on YouTube, that compasses and GPS were used to prove that the team actually was in Antarctica (and not in the Arctic) and that drones were flown over the area to prove that they weren´t in a studio. 

Meanwhile at home (and on the web), the fallout has been *epic*, with most flat earthers experiencing cognitive dissonance and coming up with various ad hoc explanations as to what actually happened in Antarctica. This wasn´t unexpected, but "Professor Dave" hopes that the flat earth community is about to split apart, since every "flerfer" seems to have his own pet theory about The Final Experiment. Some even debunk the worst conspiracy claims of the others! Were they filming inside the Vegas Sphere? Did they build a similar building in Antarctica? Or is a 24-hour sun in Antarctica compatible with a flat earth model, after all? The flat earthers who accompanied Will Duffy are accused of being "shills" or "double agents". 

Most original - surprise - is Dean Odle, the Christian fundamentalist preacher who was too crazy even for Greg Locke (another fringey preacher). Odle claims that Will Duffy is a "fake pastor", that many of the participants in the expedition were Satanists, and that Satan himself tricked everyone with a fake 24-hour sun?! Not sure what this even means. Was the "sun" actually a UFO, a mirage, or Screwtape having a break? Odle also believe that the US government can change the weather (let me guess: HAARP?), so I suppose the Devil has many friends in high places...

I think it´s still too early to tell whether this is the final countdown, or whether the flat earthers will eventually unite around a common explanation and simply continue to proselytize á la Marian Keech in "When Prophecy Fails". Odle will certainly do so. But yeah, the whole flat earth thing does feel "so 2015". Maybe it really is time to move on. 

Hollow Earth next?   

The smartest man in the world

 

While this video (from the YouTube channel Formscapes) is nominally a polemic against "Professor Dave", it´s actually about the history of science, the nature of scientific theories and (to some extent) also about Chris Langan´s speculations. Langan, mostly known for reportedly having an IQ of 200, has developed his own "Theory of Everything" known as the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU). I don´t claim to understand it, but at a cursory glance, Langan´s system sounds like an attempted synthesis of pantheism and theism. Formscapes makes comparisons to both Neoplatonism and Whitehead´s process philosophy.

The video isn´t easy to follow, but the main point seems to be that those who reject the CTMU doesn´t even understand what it is. It´s not a scientific theory generating testable hypotheses, but rather a metaphysical model explaining how scientific theories are possible at all. Which raises the question why we would need metaphysics in the first place? Why not simply have testable scientific hypotheses and be done with it?

Formscapes believes that modern science has moved further and further away from reality, into a kind of la-la-land of increasingly illusory and absurd theories, nominally accepted because "the math works" but actually because of the institutional power that comes with this kind of scientism. In the real world, modern cosmology is empirically falsified at every step (the example mentioned in the video is how "dark matter" is used to save the Big Bang). This seems to be more or less true. But what should be done about it? For Formscapes, the solution is a return to metaphysics. Hence his interest in the CTMU. 

Personally, I would rather make science even more empirical than it currently is. How about replacing Einstein´s theory of relativity with a theory that isn´t "perspectival"? I suppose Formscapes would argue that even such a science needs metaphysical grounding, but why really? Why can´t our experiences simply ground themselves? After all, that´s what they actually do, in the really real world...  

Pineapple on pizza

 

Yes, there is a crisis in science. Deal with it! Sabine Hossenfelder is back in force. No law of diminishing returns here!

First, Hossenfelder argues that there actually is a crisis in science. Or, more precisely, that science requires more funding and more staff to reach results that could previously be done with less of both. So in a sense, there is still "progress", but it eats up (progressively as it were) more of our resources than before. The whole thing reminds me of fracking for oil. Yes, fracking did work. And then there´s the fine print, yes? Hossenfelder also points out that much of the breakthroughs in today´s science are applications of ideas or technology that has existed for decades, perhaps generations. So what happens when we run out of old wine?

Second, Hossenfelder discusses various theories about why progress in science is stalling (but without mentioning her own). In her estimation, science started to stall already during the 1960´s and 1970´s. One reason often mentioned by entrepreneurs and the scientists themselves is the absurd bureaucracy surrounding research grants, new inventions, and so on. A clip shows Elon Musk claiming that his company SpaceX had to run tests on how their space ships would affect whales and sharks (!). 

Another reason is that scientists have gotten increasingly risk-averse and therefore only do research on "safe" topics which won´t jeopardize their grants. This has led to a lot of "boring" (but really bullshit) research. Hossenfelder fears that this will trigger a backlash among the paying public sooner or later. You don´t say!

Finally, there are those who claim that science either becomes more difficult as most "low hanging fruit" are plucked, or that science only ever can pluck "low hanging fruit". Hence, the "end of science" is baked into the cake from the start. I suppose this *could* be true, but if so, it means that humanity as a whole is stalling, since there is obviously *a lot* we don´t know or understand yet. So this is hardly a convincing apologia for modern civilization´s lack of progress.

Maybe we have to do with pineapples on pizza? Forever.     

Doubling down

 

Sabine Hossenfelder doubles down on the crisis in really existing science. This time she calls out Woke censorship. Meltdown from Professor Pravda in 10, 9, 8, 7... 

Parasitic divergence

 

This seems to be a *very* heterodox channel, but still in some sense "scientific", so plz don´t tell Prof Dave, LOL. In this "sneak peak", the content-creator Curt Jaimungal talks to Chris Langan, the creator of the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU). 

Langan is said to be the smartest guy alive, with an IQ of 200 (?!). I looked into the CTMU some years ago, and (of course) didn´t get half of it, but I got the impression that it was some kind of neo-Hinduism trying to synthetize pantheim, theism and maybe even cyberpunk. And Whitehead as per usual? 

Or maybe not. Note Lagan´s laughing criticism of trans-humanism in the clip above. Well, at least there is *one* problem we don´t have to handle in the near meta-future!    

 

Loss of information

 

I *think* I know what Sabine Hossenfelder is saying here. Kind of. Her critics seem to have a hard time grasping that math isn´t necessarily "reality". Just because "the math works" doesn´t mean that a scientific theory is real (in the robust everyday sense of that term). 

About 20 years ago, a quantum physicist at a certain forum explained to me that there are four basic theories of Quantum Mechanics (one of them being his own). All four "work". Indeed, all four are compatible with known empirical observations. Yet, they can´t all be true, since they contradict each other! 

I think this is known as "scientific theories are underdetermined by the evidence" in the philosophy of science (check it at your leisure). In this particular case, the only way to really prove or disprove the various solutions to the "black hole information problem" is to make observations over an enormously vast time-span...or find a mini-black hole in your backyard (perhaps with superstrings attached). None of which is likely to happen any time soon!

Oh, and Sabine´s thumbnails are muh bad or sumethin´ cuz Electric Universe or sumethin´. LOL!   

Lack of nuance

 

Sabine Hossenfelder reacts to "Professor Dave Explains", but without mentioning Dave or his channel by name. Pre-emptive strike to avoid further flare-ups? Or the opening guns of Flame War III? I suppose we´ll know next week or so...

Guilt by association

 

"Professor" Dave messes with the wrong mama, and comes out as a 100% pro-establishment shill. But we knew that already. 

Note the guilt by association, science fraud denial, science slow down denial, weird misunderstandings of Hossenfelder´s points and outright paranoia. Dude, get a grip! The Velikovskians won´t bite you.

I think Pravda-esque propagandists like my man Dave will collapse together with current establishment science circa 2040, although I suppose it´s possible that they will make a U-turn at the last possible moment (as many Communists did in 1989-91). Of course, when this crisis happens, all kinds of actual kooks might indeed gain an audience, but that´s precisely why we need science communicators like Sabine Hossenfelder, who try to save the scientific method from the really existing institutions (and some of the really existing scientists). And the math? 

I suppose we could see Hossenfelder as a kind of Gorbachev, while Dave is firmly stuck in the Chernenko era... 

The Experiment

I´m not a big fanboy (or fan-alien) of Professor Dave, but this video is actually interesting - and funny. Yes, it´s the Flat Earth again! 

Apparently, a Christian pastor in California named Will Duffy offered to organize an expedition to Antarctica to empirically test one of the Flat Earth models predictions: that there is no "midnight sun" there. Incidentally, such a journey would also disprove the conspiracy theory that nobody can travel to Antarctica in the first place. The whole project is known as The Final Experiment. All participants would get their expenses paid by Duffy.  

As far as I understand, only two flat earthers have been willing to accept the offer. Both seems to have been disavowed by the broader Flat Earth community. All other true believers contacted so far have turned down Duffy with various excuses. One common strategy is to simply change the goalposts and claim that, actually, there could be a midnight sun in the Antarctica even under a Flat Earth scenario. Funny they came up with that *now*, not earlier. A more extreme proposal is that NASA will stage a fake midnight sun with advanced technology, or that Duffy will stealthily take everyone to Greenland instead! Dude.

In passing, Dave mentions podcaster Tim Pool and Christian fundamentalist preacher Greg Locke (without naming him) who also offered Flat Earthers money for a trip to Antarctica, only to be turned down.

I looked into the Flat Earth phenomenon about ten years ago. I had very mixed feelings about it. Part of me thought it could be a psy-op staged by all the usual suspects. Read: MK Ultra. Another part of me felt that at least some actors in the milieu were genuine spiritual seekers, although very misguided ones! For one instance, see my review of "The Flat Earth Survival Guide" by Winston S. However, I have to say that the bunch featured in this video come across more like the usual kooks-cum-conmen.

If the expedition goes ahead, it might actually become the topic of an interesting documentary. If it convinces the Flat Earth crowd marooned at home, is another matter entirely... 

Lost in math

 

Is current physics just as bad as parapsychology? Debunk this, Professor Dave! 

Sabine Hossenfelder is *lit* in this video, arguing that much that passes for "science" these days is agenda-driven or insular pseudo-science. 

A piquant detail is that she doesn´t trust the climate scientists in the belief that they *under*estimate the crisis!