In this final episode of our deep dive into the hybridization and evolution topic, we continue to go through Dr. Eugene McCarthy's material on his website about hybridization and stabilization. After a few final words on the subject of "species", we read about hybridization itself and how common it really is in the wild. We talk about generational hybrids, reciprocal crosses, backcross breeding, extinction and absorption, intermediacy in characteristics, and more.
Near the end of the show we also read some excerpts from the section of the website that discusses the possibility that modern humans are a product of hybridization long ago, and that we all still show the evidence of it in fertility, morphology, and characteristics as well.
Continuing on from last week's discussion, we read and respond to emails about evolution and how people think about it in various ways, with analogies and references to consciousness and a possible spirit realm, or other more mechanistic ways of thinking about it. We talk to the Watcher about genetics and genetic expression in reproduction, and chromosome pairing.
Then we continue to dig through the information on MacroEvolution.net and the work of Dr. Eugene McCarthy, and his Stabilization Theory of evolution. We read about the "fuzzyness" of terms like "species", and how the entire process of the categorization of life is based in an idea of immutability of form, even though that concept has long since been discarded.
Prompted by listener emails, we discuss the topic of evolution and our thinking on it, and how our thinking on it has evolved over the years. This leads to some reading from the excellent website of Dr. Eugene McCarthy and his theory of hybridization and stabilization as a better version of the evolutionary theory.
This is a topic with a lot of details, many of which we don't fully understand. We intend to work on it some more and perhaps dive deeper in the next episode.
