The History of Life on Earth in Three Minutes | Big Think
The History of Life on Earth in Three Minutes
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Kirk Johnson delivers a complete history of life on Earth in 3 minutes.
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Kirk Johnson:
Kirk Johnson is the Sant Director of the National Museum of Natural History. He oversees more than 460 employees, an annual federal budget of $68 million (museum’s federal budget in FY 2012) and a collection of more than 126 million specimens and artifacts—the largest collection at the Smithsonian. The Museum of Natural History hosts an average of 7 million visitors a year, and its scientists publish about 500 scientific research contributions a year.
As a vice president of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Johnson was part of a team that led the museum and managed its $40 million annual budget. The museum, which receives 1.4 million visitors per year and has a staff of 400, launched a $170 million capital campaign in 2005.
As chief curator at the Denver museum, Johnson oversaw a 70-person research and collections division that included curators, archivists, conservators and technicians and managed its $3.5 million annual budget. He was responsible for the museum’s 24 collections, and he led the completion of the museum’s first comprehensive long-term collections and research plan. He served as a curator of paleontology since joining the museum in 1991.
Johnson is the author of numerous scientific papers, and he has edited seven scientific volumes. He has written nine books, including his most recent, Digging Snowmastodon: Discovering an Ice Age World in the Colorado Rockies, which was published by the museum and the People’s Press in 2012.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Kirk Johnson: Life on Earth is an amazing story. The planet forms around 4.567 billion years ago. The first rocks that appear to have any chemical evidence of life show up around 3.8 billion years ago. Then by 3.5 billion years ago we actually see evidence of these bacterial mounds. And we waited a long time before we see any life forms that are large. The first large life forms show up about 600 million years ago and they are sea floor organisms that are now extinct that looked like placemats believe it or not. After that there’s somewhere around 500 million years is an explosion of marine life, lots of diversification, the first organisms that were related to the different groups of marine animals you find today. It’s not until about 400 million years ago that the first life emerges onto land. The first little arachnid spider-like organisms, early plants that were only maybe a centimeter tall. Wait another 100 million years you get your first forest.
You get your first large bodied terrestrial animals. Things like giant millipedes and the first land living vertebrates evolving from fish. Sometime after that animals – four-legged animals finally learned how to eat plants. It took a while for the first terrestrial herbivores to appear. That happened somewhere around 300 million years ago. And then there’s a major extinction that happens at 250 million years ago. Don’t really know the cause but something to do with the perturbation of the Earth’s carbon cycle where we lose something like 90 percent of the species on the planet. When they disappear it’s like the near shave for life on Earth. But out of that grows the age of the dinosaurs. And for 150 million years we have a world that’s warm, a world that is so warm that no polar ice caps. And in that world a great diversity of animals that start to look familiar to you cohabit with the dinosaurs. We get the first birds. We get the first mammals. We still have these large dinosaurs and then at 66 million years ago an asteroid the size of Denver traveling 20 times the speed of a bullet crashes into the Yucatan Peninsula and causes a massive extinction of all animals that are larger than dogs on the planet.
The recovery from that is the footing for our modern world. That’s when we see the evolution of the birds, the mammals we know, marine mammals. And then the temperature starts to cool down driving forests away, building the ice caps that we know, creating grasslands. And about eight million years ago the first humans ancestors appear in the savannahs of Africa and evolve through time. And eventually colonize the world arriving here in North America about 13 thousand years ago and create agriculture and domestication of animals about ten thousand years ago and cities. And eventually we learn to dig and use fossil fuels a couple hundred years ago and create the great civilizations we live in now.
@ancomarzio8190
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
all this evolution, up until now where humans watch kitties on youtube (and pay to watch Justin Bieber)
@chasep5539
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
Pure imagination
@gladysmendozan9238
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
Great topic and good investigation
@vandj914
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
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@gilkoronel2671
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
ALL LIFE ARE CAME FROM THE GRAVITY CALLED GOD PARTICLES
@julianreddihough9995
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
He doesn’t explain that there are no transitory fossils for all the early life that appeared in the Cambrian period
@yodamuppet1473
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
Debunk me time or give me a better theory.
A long time ago the earth was super hot from a impact from a asteroid or planet which fused h2o then as time passed and the earth cooled the particles or cells which where so used to being in a supercharged high energy environment started to take or "feed" energy of the other particles or cells like batteries. So began evolution as the earth got cooler. I say this because every living thing takes energy in one form or another to keep it's state. LIFE
@rossmartens
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
I'll also ad how can you date something you have no clue how to date let's be honest here
@rossmartens
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
how the fuck do you know what happened that long ago you know nothing we have no idea where we put our keys half the time let alone how life on earth came to be
@AwsomwDudeMinecraft
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
Ms mosby anyone?
@eddieking2976
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
2,497 likes must have cracked open a science book and actually did some reading. Here's an idea. Get your nose out of Kim Kardashian's ass. Stop watching Duck Dynasty marathons, and NASCAR and run to the library before your brain turns to mush.
@shonshrinks
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
Love that little smile at the ending
@Potts2k8
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
that felt a bit rushed…
@kylekrumm6452
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
I'm agnostic and I'm just going to ask all of you Atheists and Non-Creationists one question. How can you have NOTHING and then have SOMETHING. Everything has a BEGINNING and an END. And because of that reasoning I find it hard to believe in God because…. WHO CREATED GOD and so on and so on, but all I'm saying is that that in itself is more proof for a Creator or "Intelligent Design" than anything for The Big Bang. Hey! Maybe (a) God put evolution into motion by creating everything and watching it go… WE WILL NEVER KNOW! So believe what you want, but I will never find Atheists capable of logical reasoning lmao GG
@raydresman4738
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
Science contradicts theories of evolution.. one point: there five types of kinds of creatures, these kinds can not be interchanged. period… Even artificially they will not produce. That is a proven fact. Science today with all of its technology cannot mix these kinds. Where did they come from?? Since it is impossible for one kind of creature to create a different kind of creature. The theory that things evolve will always remain a theory. As Darwin stated himself in the last chapter of his book, (Origin of the Species). evolution cannot be proven! Since there is no evidence..only theory, that leaves the only written historical account of the beginning of man! Man had to be created!
@gustavofreitas2320
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
VAI (TOMAR NO CÚ)
! KKKKKKKKK
@carlosibarra8941
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
I love how people say the bible is a fairy tale.
@Tomace707
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
Sooo, we spend billions of dollars a year trying to save endangered species, but nature on its own (without us) has successfully wiped out 90% of the species on the planet… something is not right… remind me why we interfere with nature again?
@mentionnumbersbecauseyoune9701
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
100 million years ago the first smart arse who dribbles shit thinking he knows everything was born and thats how the human race began
@bpjunkiezzz8279
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
Evolution doesn't make any sense. I mean, how could an African American.. evolve from a white person. They're different skin.
@hanabillings576
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
Not even kidding; I learned more in 3 minutes on YouTube than I would in 3 months at school
@kotd009
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
3.5 million years ago…and god created life 5 to 6 thousand years ago hahah
@TheRussellComer
February 3, 2026 at 12:17 pm
Sick of all the supposed dates, nobody genuinely knows, even assuming is rediculous.
There is no evidence to support the transition of one kind to another NONE!
Macro-Evolution is just another religion, yet it's tax supported.
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
Maybe, look at;
"Evolution vs God" being open minded for arguement.
Comments are closed.