Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A naturalist and zoologist, best known for his pioneering research on marine plankton and the biology of whales, and for illustrating his book 'The Open Sea'.
On the island
Eight records
In conversation
Presenter asks
4:16What were your feelings about the existence of sea monsters?
Well, I think it's very unlikely that there is anything like uh the Loch Ness monster yet to be discovered. I think we shall get some uh very remarkable fish not yet found in the depths of the ocean, and possibly certain kinds of squid. We've never really caught the giant squid. We nerve it from its remains, from the stomachs of sperm whale or the few damaged ones washed up on certain coasts. But these gigantic squid, going to sixty feet in length with a taking the length of the of the tentacles, have never been caught in any man made net.
Presenter asks
5:05You've held academic posts in a number of universities — what were they?
Yes, uh after I come back from this expedition on the discovery, I became professor of zoology and oceanography at the new University College of Hull. Then I became the Regius Professor of Natural History, a title I always very much liked, at Aberdeen, had the oldest chair in the country in zoology fifteen ninety three. And I was there for a number of years and then went back to be head of my old department where I was an undergraduate at Oxford, the Lineker Chair of Zoology.
Presenter asks
5:44Can you tell us about your rather sensational theory that man evolved from the ape in the sea?
The keepsakes
No book or luxury recorded for this episode.
Yes, it is rather unorthodox, and I I think some of the uh older anthropologists rather frowned upon it, but some of the younger ones uh I I I think are are quite favourable uh uh to it. My idea is that man uh only came down from the trees, uh driven by competition to uh seek food in the sea, living on shellfish and mussel, then going further and further out … You see, in almost every group of uh mammals we see representatives going into the water, uh the seals of course, the other of course the whales and the uh things like the sea cow have gone entirely into the water … He would then, gradually, this is taking place in the tropics, lose his hair going out swimming. Hair is a resistance in the water, but he'd keep the hair on top of the head, which is the water line, giving protection against the sun. And also, man has a layer of subcutaneous fat that is unique among all the other primates. This takes the place of the hair when he comes out of the water. It acts as an insulating overcoat … And then a hick man uh actually got his tool making uh on the shore. Here you get all the pebbles that he first used. You don't get pebbles out in the in in the ordinary uh jungle. And the only mammal that uses a tool like man is the sea otter … And I think man began in that way.
Presenter asks
7:42Will you tell us about the work you're doing at the research unit for religious experience in Oxford?
Well, here again I'm playing the part of a naturalist. You see, I feel that religion is something very deep in man's nature. There's nothing equaling it in emotion except sex. The wars of religion have always been far more bitter than those for economic ends … And I think we want to look at it as naturalists and get records of experience and see, analyse, compare, contrast them. We're very humbly following in the footsteps of those two great American pioneers, William James and Edwin Sarbou … We know far more about the religious feelings of Polynesians or of certain tribes in Africa, like the Dinkard and the Newer, than we do about the inhabitants of Manchester or London. And I think it's time we found out in making a systematic study of these
Presenter asks
8:52It's been said that you're preparing a sort of Kinsey report on religion — is that fair?
I think that's a fair statement. That is what we are trying to do. Getting an enormous number of records. And I hope we shall, from them, convince the intellectual world that here is something that is very real. Whatever the psychologists may say about its actual cause. But it's something that does influence the lives of people. People feel themselves in touch with something transcendental that … gives them strength, power and encouragement to do things they would not otherwise do. And in this I think it has a biological significance, a survival value in the original tribes that had it. It gave them more courageous, more powerful.
“I was invited to go on this expedition to study the biology of the South Polar Seas in relation to the development of the Great Whale fisheries. And we were using Scott's old ship, the Discovery, the one that's lying uh anchored uh at the Temple here in London.”
“These great whales are feeding on actually the the plankton. It's the most extraordinary relationship of the largest animal in the world feeding on very small.”
“anyone in a life raft with a a net to catch blank can certainly supplement his diet and I've paid on it many times. It's quite like a good uh sort of shrimp paste.”
“I don't believe there is myself [a Loch Ness monster]”
“We know far more about the religious feelings of Polynesians or of certain tribes in Africa, like the Dinkard and the Newer, than we do about the inhabitants of Manchester or London. And I think it's time we found out in making a systematic study of these”
“People feel themselves in touch with something transcendental that … gives them strength, power and encouragement to do things they would not otherwise do. And in this I think it has a biological significance, a survival value in the original tribes that had it. It gave them more courageous, more powerful.”