Episode 0151

Hello everyone and welcome back to English Pod. We have an advanced lesson for you today. My name is Marco.

It's very interesting, it's about a very uh controversial topic and a very popular person in history, Charles Darwin.

That's right. So he's most famous perhaps for his book The Origin of the Species and we're going to be talking a lot about science today. So put your thinking caps on.

All right, so uh without further ado, why don't we listen to this dialogue for the first time.

Man, it's been forever. What have you been up to lately?

I've been busy preparing for my exams. Not to mention all the term papers I've had to write.

Same here. I'm up to my neck in work, but at least we've got summer holidays after finals.

Where are you headed now?

I'm going to my Anthro class. We've been focusing on Darwin all term since it's the 200th anniversary of his birth or whatever.

What? Why?

I don't like him. His theory of human evolution and natural selection is full of holes.

It's not as solid as you make it out to be.

Say that again and you'll make enemies with half of the academy, not to mention your professors.

I'm not minimizing his huge contributions to science.

It's just that his theory reminds me of the conundrum of the chicken and the egg.

What are you talking about?

Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

This is a classic logical problem and I think it applies to Darwin's theory.

How did the very first living organism come to be?

Interesting.

I think that question is better suited for my philosophy class.

All right, interesting. They have very different views on um, on Charles Darwin, right?

They do, and they're both pretty nerdy people. This is a very nerdy university like conversation that's happening between classes.

Yeah, I think maybe they're like PhD candidates or something.

Perhaps.

All right, so before we get to talking about some of the ideas in today's dialogue, let's talk about some of the words and phrases that we hear to understand better what's going on. The first part we're going to talk about in today's language takeaway.

All right, on language takeaway today, let's take a look at the first word, and well, one of the things that many people say is that Darwin revolutionized the fields of biology.

And so he revolutionized these because he pushed them forward. He made many changes. He forced changes. So people had to change the way that they thought about these things.

If you revolutionize something, a topic or an idea, you are creating new knowledge almost, right?

Exactly. You can think of the word revolution, which is a thing, so you think of the Russian Revolution or the American Revolution, these are times of change. So to revolutionize is to bring about change.

All right, so uh moving forward, they were talking about human evolution. Human evolution. What is that exactly?

Good question.

So uh you're not a monkey, I'm not a monkey, but we come from monkeys, right?

So we evolved.

Right. So the process is called human evolution. That means the process by which humans changed forms to become what we are today.

Okay, so you evolved.

Now, is it evolution, you usually think of something positive, right? Something evolves into something better. Is it always that way?

Um, no, we have another word for the negative, right? So the positive is to evolve, to become better. Um, to get worse is to devolve.

Okay.

Yeah, to devolve, to go back and to kind of lose things that you had.

Okay, interesting.

And then they were also talking about Darwin's theory of natural selection, natural selection.

Okay, this is maybe one of the things that Darwin was most famous for, and that's why we've included it in in this um, language takeaway because it's a it's a key phrase, it's something you hear people talk about a lot.

Okay, so natural selection is a process again, and it's uh, the process by which um, stronger animals survive over time and weaker animals don't.

So um, if there's a weak species, it can't really survive because it keeps dying and dying and then finally there's no more.

And so this is called natural selection because no one's actually choosing what animals will survive, but it's kind of a natural process.

Right, mother nature is choosing it.

Right.

Very good. So natural selection. This is one of this is one of the things that Darwin is most famous for.

And well, as Catherine mentioned, uh Darwin wrote the book Origin of the Species.

Right, so uh origin means beginning.

So the origin of mankind, right?

So there are many different kinds of animals. You could even say there are many different kinds of um, like mammals. But there are many different species within that. So um, human beings, black bears, um, koalas, chimpanzees, these are all species.

And so a species is a classification. So the origin of the species is kind of a way of telling the story of how all these things came about.

All right, the origin of the species.

And the last one, this word is kind of strange. He talked about the conundrum of the chicken and the egg.

Conundrum. Um, it means like a problem or a riddle or something that's hard to understand.

All right, so in this case it's the conundrum of the chicken and the egg, right? Which came first?

Uh, how else can you use conundrum?

Um, you could say that maybe there's a situation that's very strange and hard to understand. This is quite a, quite a conundrum.

This is quite a conundrum we have.

Yes.

All right, so uh interesting words on language takeaway, why don't we move on now to four phrases on fluency builder.

All right, on fluency builder today, we have four phrases as we said. So what's the first one?

The first one is great. It's uh, it's very visual. You say I'm up to my neck in work. Or I'm up to my neck in papers to write.

Right, so this means I have so much stuff to do that you could pile it up and it would come up to my neck.

So I have as many papers that are almost as tall as I am.

Exactly, and so I could say I'm up to my neck in work. I have no more time to do anything.

Sometimes people also say I'm up to here and then they'll like, they'll, they'll, they'll point at their forehead or somewhere around their head. I'm up to I'm up to here with your nonsense.

Exactly. So this is a way of saying that I'm really busy, really, really busy. I'm really tired of it.

I'm really tired of it.

All right, and um, our next phrase is one that most mothers use.

I'm sick and tired.

Ah, I'm sick and tired of all of your whining. Go do the dishes and don't complain.

Right. So it's always, it always goes together. You are sick and tired.

Right, and sick comes first. So I'm sick and tired of this. I'm sick and tired of your bad attitude.

Okay, so, and that means that you are I'm just tired of it.

I don't want you to have a bad attitude anymore, or I'm just, yeah.

I'm really annoyed by it.

I'm annoyed.

Okay, sick and tired.

And then we saw a phrase that was a little bit separated. He said, the sentence went like this: His work turned thousands of years of ideas about creation on their head.

So to turn something on its head.

Like you said, Marco, it's it's split into two parts. So, um, he turned the field of computer science on its head.

So to turn on its head means to completely reverse something, to turn it around.

You think 180 degrees.

Okay. And so if biology used to be one way, then um, Darwin made it completely different.

So we can say that Isaac Newton completely turned physics on its head with his theory or his findings on uh, gravity.

And then years and years later, we had Albert Einstein who turned those theories uh, or who turned that theory on its head with his own ideas about physics.

Very good. So to com- to turn something on its head, to completely change the course of or prove something to be maybe wrong.

And uh, the last phrase that we have is uh, the person argued that Darwin's theories were full of holes.

Okay, so to say a theory is full of holes is a little bit different than saying that his pants are full of holes because when you say something is full of holes, maybe they actually have holes, but a theory is a it's an idea, so it can't have holes.

What you're saying is that it's not completely sound. It's not without some problems.

And so maybe you're saying that um, well, the cookies are gone out of the kitchen, Marco, and I saw you in the kitchen, so clearly you ate the cookies.

Right, so I can say that's full of holes because it was me and it was three other people who were in the kitchen, so you can't blame me.

Okay, it could have been the two other two people.

Right. So if something is full of holes, it's that it has maybe mistakes or it's still missing complete evidence to prove it right.

Or it has bad logic.

Bad logic, all right.

Interesting. So um, we've taken a look at a lot of words and different phrases here. Let's listen to this argument one last time.

Man, it's been forever. What have you been up to lately?

I've been busy preparing for my exams. Not to mention all the term papers I've had to write.

Same here. I'm up to my neck in work, but at least we've got summer holidays after finals.

Where are you headed now?

I'm going to my Anthro class. We've been focusing on Darwin all term since it's the 200th anniversary of his birth or whatever.

What? Why?

I don't like him. His theory of human evolution and natural selection is full of holes.

It's not as solid as you make it out to be.

Say that again and you'll make enemies with half of the academy, not to mention your professors.

I'm not minimizing his huge contributions to science.

It's just that his theory reminds me of the conundrum of the chicken and the egg.

What are you talking about?

Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

This is a classic logical problem and I think it applies to Darwin's theory.

How did the very first living organism come to be?

Interesting.

I think that question is better suited for my philosophy class.

All right, we're back. So uh interesting this uh Darwin's theories and uh his explanations for the origin of of species and life as we know it.

Um, but there is the opposite to this, right? There is a a certain thing called creationism.

There is, and this is a big source of controversy, especially in the United States because um, in some places, people want to teach creationism as well as evolution in schools.

And so this is the big question. Are they still equal as theories or is one theory more proven than the other?

Right. And uh it is kind of hard to determine which one is better because one is based on faith, the other one is based more on scientific evidence, right? So they're not really even in the same on the same scale.

As we learned before, that's kind of like apples and oranges, right?

It is, and there are some people who would say that we have lots of ways of um, of quote-unquote proving what happened in the past, but as long as we weren't there, we never really do know.

And there's always changes in science. So how can we be sure that what we know now isn't false, isn't misunderstanding?

Right. I think for now, it this is the best explanation, but that doesn't mean that it's the it's the correct one. Maybe in 100 years from now, we'll have another explanation that's much better or maybe complementary to this one.

Well, we want to know what you guys think. Uh, come to our website Englishpod.com. We would really want to hear your opinions. What do you think about this topic? It is a little bit controversial, so we really look forward to your comments and any other questions you may have.

Yep, and uh just a reference, creationism is the idea that God created the world or a a superior being created the world and that everything came from that.

And so, let us know what you think. I am very curious too.

And uh that's about it for today. So, until next time. Bye bye.

The English audio review.

Listen to the meaning, then say the vocabulary word.

bored or annoyed.

Sick and tired.

in a state of disagreement.

At odds with.

logical and consistent.

coherent.

to make something as small as possible.

minimize.

including many faults.

full of holes.

A school that provides training in special subjects.

Academy.

A process by which the best creature survive.

Natural selection.

A confusing or difficult problem.

Conundrum.

Let's try that faster.

To make something as small as possible.

Minimize.

bored or annoyed.

Sick and tired.

logical and consistent.

coherent.

A process by which the best creature survive.

Natural selection.

in a state of disagreement.

At odds with.

A confusing or difficult problem.

Conundrum.

including many faults.

Full of holes.

A school that provides training in special subjects.

Academy.

Now say the word and hear it in a sentence.

Sick and tired.

Sick and tired.

Sick and tired.

At odds with.

The professor's opinions were often at odds with his student's views.

At odds with.

The president was often at odds with Congress.

At odds with.

Instead of being continually at odds with each other, the competitors agreed to cooperate.

Coherent.

She could speak at length about films in a coherent and eloquent manner.

Coherent.

The dazed man could not deliver a coherent response to his rescuers.

Coherent.

Minimize.

I don't want to minimize your contributions to this company, but you must admit that idea was not yours.

Minimize.

Minimize your impact on the environment and try to recycle.

Minimize.

During the interview, she minimized her weaknesses and emphasized her strengths.

Full of holes.

Your paper is well written, but your thesis is full of holes.

Full of holes.

Full of holes.

The jury decided the man was guilty because his case was full of holes.