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Reality. Captured in user-friendly symbols
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The Idea Channel
I'm Paul Speice, host of Guppies to Groupers.
I've just finished watching the Life on Earth
series. Pure excitement! Now from my standpoint,
I'm much more interested in the fish- tropical
fish- as it applies to the hobby, but this series
is beautiful. I've had an advantage on you
in that I've seen it already, but you're going
to be able to see it in January on PBS when
it airs nationally. My excitement, I guess,
is evident. Take a look at this
and you'll be able to see why.
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There are some four million different kinds
of animals and plants in the world, four million
different solutions to the problems of staying
alive. This is the story of how some came
to be as they are, and of the millions of
other creatures that have lived and become
extinct since life began on earth over three
and a half billion years ago. Our guide is
explorer and filmmaker, David Attenborough.
It's very, very rare that there is any violence
within the group, so it seems really very
unfair that man should have chosen the gorilla
to symbolize all that is aggressive and violent,
and that's the one thing that the gorilla
is not and that we are.
Now, you may have noticed that although I
said I have a preference for fish, that there
weren't any fish in what we just watched.
Fish lovers- relax. We have an episode all
our own.
Fish occur in populations of billions. There
are over thirty thousand species, more than
in any other group of animals. They can fly,
produce electricity, live in the black ocean
depths, survive in hot Soda Springs or even
under the Antarctic ice.
Now you've seen a little bit of the Life on
Earth series, so you have some feel for why
I'm so excited, but the real reason I'm here
is to introduce you to David Attenborough.
David is an author, producer and narrator
of the Life on Earth series. He's a naturalist,
zoologist, indeed, a Fellow of the Royal Zoological
Society. We asked David to come here to Behrend
College in Erie, Pennsylvania to meet with
a group of people that have watched some of
the Life on Earth series, and what we're going
to see now are some vignettes taken from some
of those meetings.
What sort of questions have you got? You've
got a question?
Yes, what's the most dangerous animal?
The most dangerous animal of any kind? Us.
We are the most dangerous animal. We kill
things much more than any wild animals do,
so I think it's us, really.
Is there any way you can tell if a fish is
a male or female?
Oh, yes. There are, but there's no way in
which I can say all fish have that, and therefore,
they're male, and all fish have that and,
therefore they're female. It depends on the
kind of fish. You can tell... some fish may
be colored in a different way. Some fish may
have different shaped fins, some fish may
behave in different ways, and some fish may
not want to, as it were, let other fish know
whether they're male or female, except in
the breeding season, because you see, one
of the problems that all animals have is keeping
out of the way of danger, because you don't
want to be too bright, you don't want to advertise
your position too much, because there may
be a bigger fish that's waiting to eat you.
So you don't want to go around looking very
bright and very colored and very obvious.
You want to remain hidden. But you can't remain
hidden forever because at some time you want
to see- when breeding time comes up and you
need to see your mate. So, the ways in which
fish do that isn't for, a lot of them at any
rate, is that they actually change appearances.
They actually get more brightly colored- the
male gets more brightly colored usually. And
he gets slightly longer fins often, they're
more obvious or more showy. And he will keep that
for just as long as it takes for him to establish
his territory, to attract his female to breed,
and then when breeding is over and he doesn't
need to be obvious anymore, he loses his fins,
or he loses the long fins and he loses his
color, and he is not easy to see again. I'll
tell you something really very, very extraordinary
about male and female and how you tell male
and female in fish. There are some fish that
actually start off female and become male.
Think about that. It's absolutely true that
they change sex.
Do you really think the dog is man's best friend?
No, I don't think so. I don't know. I suppose
I think man's best friend is man, but what
would I say is man's best friend? I suppose
if I had to- you see, that saying is one which
stems from man's far, far history, because
actually the dog was the first animal that
he domesticated, back I'm talking now- about
200,000 years ago, when man was a hunter,
and he didn't have any home and he began to
settle down... when he began to settle down
into camps. It seems perfectly clear from
the fossil evidence that dogs came around
the camp as scavengers. And it also seems
a fair bet that just as we were talking now
about people being interested in animals,
that women and girls took puppies from a very
early stage and took the man's pets and enjoyed
having them as pets, and so puppies grew up,
and grew up in a circumstance in which they
became part of the same pack as the human
pack and assisted man in hunting. So that
in a historical sense, what you say is
probably quite right. The dog was, if not
man's best friend, probably his first friend
in the animal world.
When I was watching the movie, I saw that
you were standing inside like a shark's jaw,
and I was wondering where you found it.
Well, I didn't find that. That's a very, very
famous shark's jaw and it's actually in New
York. It's in the American Museum of Natural
History, and it's put together from teeth
of a big shark, probably the biggest shark
that ever existed. And they were all put together
on that jaw, but because as I explained to
you, sharks don't have bones in their skeleton;
they have cartilage, soft material. The jawbone
has been made up out of plaster. These teeth,
which are the bits that survived and fossilized,
have been stuck in it. But have a look at
it. It's in the American Museum of Natural
History.
I noticed that you didn't use a lot of technical
words when you were doing the film. You just
used more common words. Is that just so people
could understand it better?
Yes, I think that jargon has a use, because
in fact, all jargon is, is a kind of shorthand.
Because if you want to be very precise about
certain things so there's no misunderstanding,
you may, using ordinary words have to speak
a sentence. But if you're working with colleagues
who have the same problem all the time, you
don't have to say that sentence every time.
You just use that one word, which is, in fact,
a technical term. And it should- if you really
understand it- it should be possible in many
instances to replace the four syllable, five-syllable
technical term with some straightforward simple
sentence. Some of us- and I dare say I'm guilty
as much as others- take refuge in technical
jargon every now and again, but we shouldn't,
not when we're talking to a general audience.
How long were you in the process of filming
and making, planning and so on of that series?
The whole thing took us three years. But,
in a way, looking back on it now, it seems
to me that it took me sort of like a quarter
of a century (laughter) because a lot of the
material which I needed to know about I've
been gathering subconsciously for a quarter
of a century because I've been extremely lucky
in spending my time, a good deal of it at
any rate, filming--making natural history
films in Borneo and South America or whatever,
and when one comes to do this and you'll face
this terrible problem, say, "Okay, what is
important about primates? What is the crucial
thing about primates?" And you only have to
think about that. It's not a very original
thought. You only have to think about it for
a bit, and you know really that the things
that are important about primates are stereoscopic
vision and manipulative hand. And once you
have those two things, you have the seeds
which are going to sprout into homo sapiens.
And so once you've got that idea in your mind,
if you've been around a bit, you think, "Yes,
well I know in Borneo just where I can get
orangs. And I know in Africa just where I can
see chimpanzees. And I know too, that in Central
Congo if you're lucky enough you can actually
get with gorillas." And I actually spent a
long time too, in Madagascar, and I knew a
bit about lemurs, so it all helped.
Where did you go to school? Where did you receive
your education?
When did I go to school? Well, I'm English
you know. Unfortunately, there I am, I'm stuck
with it, and I went to school at a little
grammar school, a local school in a place
in the Midlands called Lester. And then I
went to Cambridge. And then I managed to bamboozle
the BBC into letting me make documentary films,
and that's where I really started learning
about animals. I mean I was a zoologist, but
as we all know, you can learn a lot about
zoology sitting on a lab bench like this,
but somehow when you're out there in the middle
of Africa, the animals are sort of rather
different. And if you really want to know
how to film them or how to understand them
or how to predict what they're going to do
or how to know if they're going to bite you
or whether they're going to charge, you learn
that out there, not in here.
Why are you interested in writing Life on Earth?
Why am I interested in writing it? Well, I
suppose because I just love looking at animals.
I love watching animals. I have been very
lucky to sit in Central Africa and play with
gorillas. A gorilla family actually came and
sat down and sat on me, and we played together.
And I love watching birds of paradise display.
And I love watching fish. So, to write this
book, I had to go right around the world several
times, and to go and see lots of lovely places
and lots of lovely things. That's why I wrote it.
I'm sure that you had a lot of problems in
filming a series like this. Did you have anything
really unique or unusual? Did anything attack
you?
The most abiding memory, I've got to say--I
mean it's a rather obvious thing to say, really-
but my most abiding memory of that three years-
if you've seen the primate film, you've seen
it. It was that extraordinary meeting with
gorillas. I should say straight away that
it would be absolutely impossible to have
met with gorillas in those sort of terms had
it not been for the work of an absolutely
miraculous American zoologist called Dian
Fossey, who had been working with those gorillas
for 10 years and had habituated them to human
beings. So it was so possible, thus possible
for us to get close to them. I mean, if it
hadn't been for Dian, the chances of filming
gorillas like that would have been nil, absolutely
nil. And if you were introduced by Dian, then
you could get close to them, but I was absolutely
unprepared for the overwhelming experience
of being received into a gorilla group, as
we were. I mean, that in itself was moving
enough, but what you feel when you sit with
gorillas is an astounding affinity to these
things. You have to behave with politeness
in gorilla society. I mean it sounds sort
of absurd. Gorillas have manners? Gorillas
have manners. And if you actually flout gorillas-
if you are ill mannered in gorilla terms-
you're into trouble. I mean they won't stay,
but they may do worse. I mean they may in
fact, attack. To give you an example, you
know and I know how our human society knows,
that if you wish to be deferential to somebody,
to show respect to somebody, you actually
keep your voice- you don't shout at them.
And you keep your voice fairly low and you
keep your head fairly low. This is formalized
by the bow or the nod. Okay. That is exactly
the same in gorilla society, and the converse
is also the same in gorilla society. If you
wish to be aggressive, you actually stand
up tall and dominate. Now if you move into
a gorilla's territory, there is a big silver-backed
gorilla, male with maybe three females, four
females, and young... he's boss. I mean it's
his territory. And if you go in and stand
upright and talk loudly, he will either move
away or attack, and if on the other hand you
wish to say, okay, it's your territory, and
just as if you came into my territory, I would
expect respect from you, so I give you my
respect. Then you keep down... you keep low.
So that's why I was lying down. You keep your
voice down, which is why I was sort of whispering.
And what's more, you keep your head down!
But that is simple good manners. And it was
that kind of behavior, that- I just felt in
my bones when I was with those gorillas, that
I could convey what I was feeling in a profound
sense to the gorillas and they to me and that
I knew when I was welcome and I knew just
as they knew when okay, they'd had enough.
I'd been there for an hour, I'd been sitting
there playing with the babies, but nonetheless,
I'm a stranger, potential danger- so you have
to be a bit on edge. But okay, after an hour,
"We want to go back to feeding now, do you
mind?" Certainly not. So you push off. And
that was one of the profound- I can't imagine
what this question was, after all that.
With your obvious respect for animals, what
do you think about modern zoos and how would
you change them?
I think the zoos have two very important functions.
I'm quite sure that they will serve as refuges
for species endangered. And I'm quite sure
that you can't wait until the species is actually
on the verge of extinction before you discover
how to look after it. And there is a technology
of animal husbandry in zoos which we have
to learn and can only learn through experience,
and that experience resides in zoos. Zoos
have already saved species: the Hawaiian goose,
the Pere David's deer, many other smaller
things, the Carroboree frog... All kinds of
creatures have been saved by zoos. That is
a crucial function until mankind comes to
his senses and can actually restore the environment
to repopulate these species. That's the first
thing. The second thing is that mankind is
becoming- urban man is becoming progressively
cut off from the environment, progressively
divorced from the animal world, and that is
a disaster. I mean it's his loss, but is also,
if we are to manage the world in a sensible
way, that is a crucial thing that he should
have some empathy, some feelings as it were.
And I can put pictures of elephants on the
screen till I'm blue in the face. I can produce
nice books with color illustrations of elephants
till I'm blue in the face. But unless you've
actually gone and stood by an elephant and
seen the bulk of the thing and heard its belly
rumbling and smelled it and see it shift about,
creaking in its skin, you've not really understood
what an elephant is. And that is another important
element in zoos. So I am all for zoos, from
that point of view. But they only become tolerable
if the animals are kept in conditions which
are tolerable to them. And a touchstone of
that is whether they breed or not. If an animal
breeds and doesn't molest its young and rears
them, you can be reasonably sure it seems
to me in saying okay, it's relatively adapted
to this environment, it's not too bad. Now
up to twenty years ago, zoos simply didn't
bother about breeding- most didn't. I mean they
said okay, it died, we'll go and get another
one. Today, thank goodness, zoos are very
much more aware of this problem, and they
don't plunder the resources of the wild in
the way that they did. The ninety percent
of the big mammals in the London Zoo breed.
The best zoo in the world in my book is San
Diego... I mean sensational. Having said all
that, I then have to say to be absolutely
truthful that my own stomach for going to
the zoo I have lost. That if you're extraordinarily
privileged as I have been, to sit with gorillas,
it's very hard to go and watch gorillas in
a zoo. You cannot but feel that those creatures
are not living as full a life as they might
otherwise do. So I find that difficult.
There are certain plants that you filmed and
you filmed the insides of them. How did your
camera crew get the cameras inside the plants?
I was going to say it's a professional secret.
But of course in fact, you can imagine that
you have to actually have to bring it into
a laboratory if you want to look inside plants.
You may be thinking of the yucca plant, are
you?
Is that the one that the fly fell into?
That's right, and the bucket orchid- yes.
Well those- in order to get inside a plant,
you clearly don't have a camera which is the
size of a marble. You actually have to cut
the plant open. You'll sometimes have to adopt
very subtle techniques to prevent it drying
out and shriveling under the hot lights, and
to get the insect to go on doing what it was
before is also quite difficult.
What are some of the most difficult tasks
you had in photographing some of the animals?
Well, we had twenty different camera crews
working at various times and my job was to
write the scripts, which I did, without any
thought of mercy for these poor men. And I
would write in the most impossible thing,
I mean really absurd. There is, for example,
a kind of frog called Darwin's frog, which
lives in Tierra del Fuego on the far southern
tip of South America. And I read a research
paper about the behavior of this frog. As
you know, one of the problems that frogs have
is how to provide liquid for their young.
Most of them just live in the water, and the
tadpoles develop there. But other frogs have
managed to populate land away from water,
and Darwin's frog is one of them. And to exemplify
the extraordinary techniques they use, I mention
Darwin's frog because what it does is this:
The female lays the eggs and they are then
fertilized. And the males, having fertilized
them, then sit around looking at these little
groups of eggs in a sort of gorpy way, which
frogs do. And then when there's movement inside
the egg, the male frogs lean forward and apparently,
to all intents and purposes, actually eat
the eggs. And the eggs, in fact, don't go
into the stomach. They go into the vocal sacs,
which are around the full length of the underside.
And inside the vocal sacs, these ten or dozen
eggs develop into tadpoles. So when you see
a pregnant male Darwin's frog, as you might
say, its underside is all wiggling with these
tadpoles all squirming about inside... an
absolutely extraordinary sight. And it's obvious
to anybody that the way eventually those tadpoles
are going to have to come out of the animal's
mouth, out of the parent male's mouth. And
as far as I know, nobody's ever seen this
happen- ever. We just assumed it happened.
But so I, sitting in my study at home, just
wrote it in: "Frog opens mouth and tadpole
emerges." Well, we went down to Tierra del
Fuego and we caught these pregnant male frogs,
and of course, they weren't doing anything,
nothing was happening. I took them back to
Bristol, where we had a specialist cameraman
called Rodger Jackman, and I said to Rodger,
"Well, now, we've got these pregnant male
frogs, " and Rodger's very phlegmatic, "Yeah,
yeah." I said, "What will happen is that he
will open his mouth and the young will come
out." "Oh... yeah." "And that's the shot we
want." "Oh... yeah. When's it going to happen?"
I said, "Well, I don't know. That's your problem.
I'm going off to Madagascar." So Roger took
these pregnant males, and he built a little
set in his house and he watched them, him
and his assistant, watched them continuously
for 210 hours without taking their eyes off
of them. And then with that extraordinary sort
of seventh sense, which really great naturalist
photographers have, he knew that it was about
to happen because it's no good pressing it
after it's happened or even while it's happening.
You've got to press the button before it happens.
And this little frog went sort of like (clicking
noise), Rodger pressed the button, and then
the frog did another couple of (clicking noise),
and then he coughed. And this baby shot out
of its mouth. And that was the first time,
the first time, it had ever been seen by human
beings, had been discovered. And it's entirely
to Rodger Jackman's credit. But that's the
kind of photography that is in this series,
and to which I attenuate I'm eternally grateful
to all those cameramen who worked on it.
How much thinking have you done about where
life on earth is headed, particularly among
the animals?
A bit, yes. The trouble is that the processes
that have been initiated by man are so much
swifter than the processes of natural evolution
that I think that the dominant factors that
will influence the history of the earth over
the next few thousand years are going to be
non-evolutionary things which have been created
by man. I mean, we are- it's a cliche now-but
in the last century, of course, we have profoundly
changed the nature of the surface of the earth.
We are in the process of changing in a major
way the contents of the atmosphere. We, unless
we pull ourselves together, are going to do-
those processes are going to continue for
a long time to come and getting worse and
worse and worse. We are so powerful and we
are so clever that it is absolutely within
man's power to devastate the fertility of
the earth to such a degree that mass starvation
will overcome us homo sapiens, and with us,
a great deal of the animal life. And I suspect
that the changes that are going to come to
the earth will be of that kind rather than
any other. The other thing that occurs to
me to say is that if Darwin was right in explaining
evolution on which all serious zoologists
are agreed, Darwin's mechanism of natural
selection is the mainspring of evolution-
then it has to be said that natural selection
has stopped largely in homo sapiens because
natural selection is only a polite way of
saying natural rejection. You can't select
without rejecting. And we do not reject our
young even if they are incapacitated in some
way or less fit than others. But that is not
actually an argument for eugenics because
the crucial factor that has made man into
what we all are has been for the past 2,000
years not physical evolution, but cultural
evolution. My skeleton is indistinguishable
in any important sense morphologically from
the skeleton of a Stone-Age man of 30,000
years ago. My skull capacity has not increased.
My brain is not bigger. I am slightly larger
in terms of overall length, but that's because
of nutrition, not of anything else. What makes
me different from a Stone-Age man- me, who
has the capacity to look at articles like
this, or television, or to work computers
or to read in the library- is not anything
physical up here, it is the cultural inheritance
by which you and me and all of us are the
inheritors of a thousand years of thought,
of careful experiment, of accumulated wisdom
which has been passed on not through my genes,
not through DNA, but through libraries, through
word of mouth, through memory and now through
computers. And it's cultural evolution which
has enabled man to get into the situation
where he is so clever as he is. What one hopes
and prays is that he isn't just clever, but
sooner or later surely he might become wise.
I really envy David Attenborough, his knowledge
of all of life, and the success of his Life
on Earth series. I'd like you to watch on
your local PBS station. I think you'll enjoy
it just as much as I did.
I've spent 25 years looking at individual
animals, looking at individual environments
and producing films and books about the details.
And what I wanted to do after 25 years was
to produce something which distilled the details
and reduced it to the significant, reduced
it to the important, so that you could actually
get an overall view of what is, after all,
the greatest story on earth, four billion
year's story long, of the development of life.
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