As a culture raised with the idea of Adam and Eve, it’s easy to think of the beginning of mankind in terms of the “first human.” Who was this first human? There are technically concepts that are similar to the “first human” — that of the chromosomal Adam (the common ancestor from whom all male Y chromosomes descended) and the mitochondrial Eve (the woman from whom all humans are descended matrilineally) — but neither of these would have been the first humans, as the other individuals alive at the time were all also homo sapiens.

Joe Hanson, creator of the YouTube channel “It’s Okay to Be Smart,” explains how there can be such a thing as humans, but how there’s no such thing as the “first human.” It sounds so simple, but consider my mind blown.

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