The Human Animal

Viewed as a pattern of human feeding behavior a trip to the supermarket is a remarkable endpoint of a long journey through evolutionary time. A journey that started in the primeval forest and ended at the checkout counter. To me it's a story of arboreal ape which became a ground dwelling predator which in turn became a credit card customer. (Desmond Morris)




The Human animal is a TV series made in 1994 and available to watch on google video. I found them rather fascinating. They are made by Desmond Morris English zoologist, painter and curator of animal art. It's an anthropological study of human beings as animals. It's not quiet scientific in the sense that it doesn't seek to establish any truth or prove any theories. As Morris himself points out it's rather a personal view on the issue. But it's the view of a very well-informed man. In a way a man who has the right to have opinion, and to his credit he himself more or less always makes a clear distinction between facts and theories and opinions.
I found there some pieces of information which I never stumbled upon before and which I'm not sure if are really consistent with the mainstream science. For example the very complicated behavior of spermatozoon whilst in the body of a woman. He is suggesting that there are spermatozoon that are guarding the egg from another spermatozoon possibly from another man. I don't know I'm not a biologist and apparently he knows what he is talking about, I just wander why such information, which I find absolutely fascinating isn't available anywhere else. Or maybe it is? Maybe it's all my fault and I'm just making fool of myself now.
I found absolutely charming the idea that at some point in our evolutionary journey, just a few million years ago, we were semi aquatic apes, which could be one of the reasons why we lost the hair on our bodies. Though Morris himself admits that there is lack of evidence to prove such theory, the idea of my ancestors being something like otter-apes or mermaid-apes or call it whatever is very interesting indeed. At least it feeds my fantasy.
In the 60's Morris had a chimp called Congo, who learned to paint and his paintings were quiet popular then. In the series Morris examines learning patterns of children when they learn to draw and finds similarities. So what if many things in our culture our social rituals, dinners, and anthems, and football games and behavior on the date and elsewhere really can be explained at least partially from zoological point of view? After all we are apes.
And there is much more, and all this is done without any cynicism. It's rather a celebration of the beauty of nature.

It is possible to find all 6 series on google video.