0:00:49.409,0:00:51.582 Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen 0:00:51.582,0:00:53.964 It’s a very interesting, and unusual, 0:00:53.964,0:00:55.729 and weird experience for me 0:00:55.729,0:01:00.049 to be talking in my home town. Which is… 0:01:03.357,0:01:06.372 Now, amongst the books 0:01:06.372,0:01:08.902 that Constance mentioned [br]when she was introducing me, 0:01:08.991,0:01:11.289 The Hitchhiker’s Guide, [br]Dirk Gently and so on, 0:01:11.289,0:01:12.686 it was not my favourite book. 0:01:12.686,0:01:13.744 And my favourite book 0:01:13.744,0:01:15.607 is what I’m here to talk about tonight. 0:01:16.277,0:01:18.387 It's funny how, how often… 0:01:18.387,0:01:20.384 Virtually every author I know, 0:01:20.419,0:01:23.516 their own favourite book is the one[br]that sold the least. 0:01:23.896,0:01:26.069 It’s somehow the runt of the litter, 0:01:26.616,0:01:29.320 it’s the one you’ve always[br]just loved the most. 0:01:29.930,0:01:32.218 And I want to tell you about[br]how this came about. 0:01:34.850,0:01:37.699 Sometime in about the mid 1980s, 0:01:38.794,0:01:40.315 the phone rang. 0:01:46.607,0:01:47.862 And the voice said, 0:01:48.676,0:01:50.862 “We want you to go to Madagascar. 0:01:53.266,0:01:57.224 We want you to look for [br]a very rare form of lemur, 0:01:57.812,0:01:59.093 called the Aye-aye. 0:02:00.061,0:02:01.533 The plane leaves in two weeks, 0:02:02.034,0:02:03.715 we would like you to be on it.” 0:02:03.715,0:02:06.285 Now I—assuming they’ve got[br]the wrong number—said “yes!” 0:02:06.285,0:02:08.422 before they could discover their mistake. 0:02:11.785,0:02:13.897 But in fact it turned out [br]that they decided, 0:02:14.468,0:02:17.469 “Well, here is somebody who [br]doesn’t know anything about lemurs, 0:02:17.469,0:02:20.103 anything about the Aye-aye, [br]anything about Madagascar, 0:02:20.559,0:02:21.629 let’s send him.” 0:02:24.511,0:02:27.385 So I started to try [br]and find out something about it, 0:02:27.385,0:02:29.432 and it turns out it’s very interesting. 0:02:31.585,0:02:35.555 Lemurs used to be [br]the dominant primate in all the world. 0:02:36.906,0:02:40.746 And they were very, [br]very gentle, pleasant creatures. 0:02:41.134,0:02:43.719 They were a little bit [br]like sort of cat size, 0:02:44.733,0:02:46.739 and they used to hang around in the trees 0:02:47.246,0:02:48.498 having a nice time. 0:02:51.748,0:02:55.328 And then, Gondwanaland split up. 0:02:57.625,0:03:00.991 It always sounds like [br]some sort of 70’s rock group 0:03:00.991,0:03:04.471 going their own way [br]for reasons of musical differences. 0:03:04.473,0:03:06.067 But as you probably remember 0:03:06.542,0:03:11.681 Gondwanaland was that [br]vast continental landmass 0:03:12.019,0:03:13.961 that consisted of what then became 0:03:14.176,0:03:17.242 South America, Africa, India 0:03:17.394,0:03:19.624 Southeast Asia, Australasia 0:03:19.948,0:03:22.809 —uh, no—Australia, Australia and not 0:03:22.938,0:03:25.233 —and this will turn out [br]to be significant later— 0:03:25.571,0:03:26.608 not New Zealand 0:03:26.608,0:03:28.523 which turns out to be just a lot of gunk 0:03:28.533,0:03:30.215 that came out from under the ocean. 0:03:37.497,0:03:38.912 And as I say, 0:03:39.113,0:03:42.908 lemurs were the dominant primate[br]around the world 0:03:43.156,0:03:45.590 and when all these landmasses split up, 0:03:45.918,0:03:47.626 and Madagascar was one of them, 0:03:47.866,0:03:49.354 Madagascar kind of sailed off 0:03:49.354,0:03:52.664 into the middle of what then[br]suddenly became the Indian Ocean. 0:03:53.323,0:03:56.508 And took with it a representative sample 0:03:56.804,0:03:58.629 of the livestock of the period, 0:03:58.919,0:04:00.513 which included a lot of lemurs. 0:04:01.442,0:04:03.320 And they basically sort of sat there 0:04:03.518,0:04:05.643 for millions and millions of years 0:04:05.819,0:04:06.953 in glorious isolation. 0:04:07.875,0:04:09.400 While, in the rest of the world, 0:04:10.449,0:04:12.035 a new creature emerged. 0:04:12.499,0:04:13.694 A new creature arrived 0:04:14.055,0:04:19.036 that was much more intelligent [br]than the lemurs 0:04:19.806,0:04:21.184 —according to it— 0:04:25.156,0:04:26.538 much more competitive, 0:04:26.934,0:04:28.648 much more aggressive, 0:04:28.821,0:04:31.043 and incredibly interested 0:04:31.300,0:04:33.664 in all of things you could do with twigs. 0:04:35.059,0:04:36.589 Twigs were absolutely wonderful. 0:04:36.591,0:04:38.182 So much you can do with twigs 0:04:38.182,0:04:40.491 you can dig in the ground [br]for things with twigs, 0:04:40.705,0:04:43.134 you can burrow under [br]the bark of trees for grubs, 0:04:43.295,0:04:45.040 you can hit each other with twigs. 0:04:45.179,0:04:48.378 If there had been copies of [br]TwigUser Magazine around on those days, 0:04:48.378,0:04:51.342 these creatures would [br]have been lining up for it. 0:04:53.151,0:04:54.192 And these creatures 0:04:54.192,0:04:57.100 —which, as you have probably guessed, [br]are called the monkeys— 0:04:57.100,0:05:00.781 because they were more competitive [br]and more aggressive, 0:05:00.917,0:05:03.318 and they lived in the [br]same habitat as the lemurs, 0:05:03.648,0:05:05.603 they successfully supplanted the lemurs 0:05:05.818,0:05:09.286 everywhere in the world [br]other than Madagascar. 0:05:10.386,0:05:13.538 Because Madagascar was right out [br]in the middle of the Indian Ocean 0:05:13.538,0:05:15.399 and they couldn’t get there. 0:05:17.300,0:05:21.071 They couldn’t get there until[br]about 1500 years ago, 0:05:21.281,0:05:24.557 when due to startling [br]advances in twig technology 0:05:31.823,0:05:34.512 they were able to get there in boats, 0:05:34.865,0:05:36.307 and eventually planes. 0:05:36.768,0:05:40.267 And suddenly the lemurs,[br]that have had this place for themselves 0:05:40.267,0:05:42.571 for millions and millions [br]and millions of years, 0:05:42.571,0:05:45.931 were suddenly facing [br]their old enemy: the monkey. 0:05:47.468,0:05:49.142 So, this is Madagascar, 0:05:49.635,0:05:51.824 and it turns out that [br]the rarest of the lemurs 0:05:51.824,0:05:53.778 —and when I say the rarest of the lemurs, 0:05:53.778,0:05:55.829 at this particular point in the mid 80’s 0:05:55.829,0:05:58.179 they were thought to be [br]the rarest of the lemurs; 0:05:58.179,0:06:02.816 we’ve now discovered and even rarer lemur [br]called the Golden Bamboo Lemur, 0:06:02.816,0:06:05.578 which went straight to the number one[br]of endangered lemurs— 0:06:07.219,0:06:10.843 but the Aye-aye is a very [br]very peculiar animal. 0:06:11.780,0:06:13.253 It looks like an agglomeration 0:06:13.253,0:06:15.157 of all sorts of other different animals. 0:06:15.157,0:06:18.755 So, for instance, [br]it has a sort of fox's ears, 0:06:19.021,0:06:21.642 and it has a little sort[br]of bitty rabbit’s teeth, 0:06:21.914,0:06:27.957 and it has a kind of [br]ostrich feather as a tail, 0:06:28.211,0:06:31.612 and it has very weird eyes, 0:06:31.752,0:06:35.509 actually it has Marty Feldman’s eyes. 0:06:36.535,0:06:39.265 The kind of sort of looking [br]slightly beyond you 0:06:39.410,0:06:42.440 into a sort of other dimension [br]just over your left shoulder. 0:06:45.798,0:06:50.370 But it also has one very very[br]very peculiar characteristic, 0:06:50.773,0:06:56.843 which is its middle finger on both hands[br]is skeletally thin and very very long. 0:07:00.940,0:07:03.215 And it turns out there is[br]only one other animal 0:07:03.215,0:07:06.541 in the entire world that has this feature. 0:07:08.025,0:07:09.513 And this is called 0:07:10.867,0:07:13.497 —I love zoologists; [br]they have such vivid imaginations— 0:07:13.497,0:07:15.936 it’s called the Long-Fingered Possum. 0:07:16.997,0:07:20.815 And this is a creature [br]that lives in New Guinea, 0:07:20.889,0:07:26.535 and in fact it's its fourth finger [br]that is skeletally thin and elongated. 0:07:26.543,0:07:28.233 And this is the thing that tells us 0:07:28.233,0:07:30.712 that there is no relationship [br]between these animals, 0:07:30.712,0:07:32.276 it’s pure convergent evolution, 0:07:32.474,0:07:37.164 because the common factor [br]between Madagascar and the Aye-aye, 0:07:37.405,0:07:39.546 and New Guinea and [br]the Long-Fingered Possum 0:07:39.546,0:07:43.902 is that in both habitats [br]there are no woodpeckers. 0:07:46.220,0:07:47.976 And you see, the thing is 0:07:49.333,0:07:52.729 —life is very very opportunistic, 0:07:52.865,0:07:57.443 and it will take advantage of any [br]food source it finds around the place. 0:07:57.651,0:08:02.603 And if there are no woodpeckers looking [br]under the bark of trees for grubs, 0:08:03.086,0:08:06.933 then, in this case, it will be the mammals 0:08:07.326,0:08:12.547 that grow the skeletally thin long finger [br]to burrow under the bark of the tree, 0:08:12.610,0:08:15.934 and get to this source of food [br]which is the grubs under the bark. 0:08:17.176,0:08:22.435 So, the Aye-aye is this [br]very very very strange creature. 0:08:22.677,0:08:26.937 And at this time it was thought there [br]were only about fifteen of them left. 0:08:27.076,0:08:33.067 And they lived actually [br]not on Madagascar itself, 0:08:33.541,0:08:35.751 but on a tiny little rainforest island 0:08:35.908,0:08:38.874 just off the coast of Madagascar, [br]called Nosy Mangabe, 0:08:39.023,0:08:43.480 and it’s just off [br]the northwest tip of Madagascar. 0:08:43.480,0:08:45.516 And now to get there, what you have to do, 0:08:45.516,0:08:48.437 is you have to fly in a 747 to Madagascar. 0:08:49.579,0:08:52.745 And then in a terrible [br]old jalopy of an airplane 0:08:54.017,0:08:57.007 from Madagascar up to the northwest port. 0:08:57.535,0:09:01.208 And from there you have to go [br]in a kind of decreasingly excellent 0:09:01.556,0:09:04.331 series of carts and trucks and so on, 0:09:07.338,0:09:09.869 to a little port where [br]there was going to be a boat 0:09:09.874,0:09:11.931 that was going to take us to Nosy Mangabe. 0:09:12.265,0:09:14.979 So we arrived there, [br]and arrived at the port, 0:09:14.979,0:09:18.862 and we were looking around for the boat[br]that was going to take us to Nosy Mangabe, 0:09:18.862,0:09:20.088 and we couldn’t see it. 0:09:20.088,0:09:21.537 And we kept on asking people 0:09:21.537,0:09:23.062 –you know–“where is this boat?”, 0:09:23.062,0:09:25.211 and they would say [br]“It’s there! It’s there!”, 0:09:25.211,0:09:27.407 and we couldn’t see [br]what they were pointing at 0:09:27.407,0:09:30.277 because there was this terrible [br]rotting old hulk in the way. 0:09:31.401,0:09:32.983 Well as you guessed, 0:09:32.983,0:09:34.761 this is the terrible rotting old hulk 0:09:34.761,0:09:36.529 that we had to go to Nosy Mangabe in. 0:09:36.529,0:09:41.465 And it didn’t fulfill what to my mind [br]was the sort of basic criteria of a boat, 0:09:42.490,0:09:45.007 in that it was basically full of ocean. 0:09:45.928,0:09:48.689 And it seemed to me [br]that the whole point of a boat 0:09:48.689,0:09:50.494 was to keep the ocean on the outside. 0:09:52.401,0:09:54.862 Anyway, so we crossed to Nosy Mangabe. 0:09:56.564,0:10:00.000 And it’s this tiny little, very very [br]beautiful little rainforest island. 0:10:00.865,0:10:02.126 And we hit a major problem 0:10:02.130,0:10:07.101 which of course is that [br]this animal not only lives in trees 0:10:07.101,0:10:09.526 —nobody has seen it for [br]years and years and years— 0:10:09.526,0:10:13.176 lives in trees but [br]also it's a nocturnal animal. 0:10:13.461,0:10:17.105 And the quality of batteries [br]in Madagascar was very very poor. 0:10:19.144,0:10:22.047 So, we spent night after night[br]after night, 0:10:23.181,0:10:25.139 traipsing through the rainforest, 0:10:26.735,0:10:29.567 in what can only be described as: [br]the rain. 0:10:36.866,0:10:37.929 Getting rather ratty, 0:10:39.567,0:10:42.321 and basically we’ve just spent[br]night after night 0:10:42.468,0:10:44.240 sort of huddled under tarpaulins, 0:10:44.240,0:10:46.077 looking at us, saying “stop raining.” 0:10:46.437,0:10:48.341 And every now and then we would sort of, 0:10:48.341,0:10:50.674 “gah, I’ve been trying [br]to find this damn animal.” 0:10:50.674,0:10:52.013 Actually, this is wonderful, 0:10:52.130,0:10:55.001 we found this hut that used [br]to be this sort of game warden’s 0:10:55.175,0:10:58.390 —not game warden—a ranger’s hut. 0:10:59.191,0:11:00.548 And it’s a tiny little hut. 0:11:00.989,0:11:02.818 And it was actually full of wild life. 0:11:05.538,0:11:06.948 What happened, you see, 0:11:07.117,0:11:11.758 is you would open the door, 0:11:12.891,0:11:14.801 and you'd hear all this noise… 0:11:19.322,0:11:21.657 and you turn on the light [br]and it would all stop. 0:11:26.979,0:11:30.022 And you would see these little [br]giant spiders around the wall, 0:11:30.435,0:11:32.942 each with a sort of [br]half-eaten bug in their mouth! 0:11:35.135,0:11:36.369 And say, “yes?” 0:11:41.013,0:11:42.531 And you turn the light out and… 0:11:46.032,0:11:48.107 So this is our shelter, you know, 0:11:48.107,0:11:49.544 we were having a great time. 0:11:53.624,0:11:55.294 And eventually… 0:11:55.294,0:11:56.860 But one night, one night, 0:11:56.860,0:11:59.872 we were all sort of—as I said—[br]huddled under our tarpaulins, 0:11:59.880,0:12:01.956 and I sort of got out, [br]and wandered around, 0:12:01.965,0:12:05.474 and suddenly, suddenly, [br]I looked up and on a branch 0:12:05.887,0:12:07.601 at about that high above my head 0:12:08.000,0:12:10.936 this creature came out. 0:12:11.896,0:12:15.451 This creature came out along the branch, 0:12:17.369,0:12:19.405 looked down on me, 0:12:20.050,0:12:23.285 and I looked at it, and as it looked to me 0:12:23.539,0:12:26.415 —it obviously didn’t at all like [br]to look at what it saw— 0:12:26.944,0:12:28.899 it turned around and went away again. 0:12:30.612,0:12:32.621 Whole encounter about ten seconds. 0:12:34.025,0:12:36.299 And that’s what we’d come for. 0:12:38.038,0:12:40.875 I had actually seen, and we saw 0:12:40.875,0:12:44.603 —we all just managed to get a quick [br]photograph of it when it appeared— 0:12:44.603,0:12:47.122 but I suddenly realised [br]we’d seen an Aye-aye. 0:12:48.186,0:12:51.573 Now, I was absolutely [br]transfixed by that moment, 0:12:51.573,0:12:54.779 for reasons that I couldn’t entirely [br]explain to myself immediately. 0:12:55.407,0:12:58.187 Because a month earlier[br]I’d never even heard of this animal 0:12:58.188,0:13:00.851 and now here I was, staring at it, 0:13:01.116,0:13:03.908 thinking that something [br]extraordinary happening here. 0:13:04.195,0:13:06.577 So I began to sort of [br]think about it a little bit, 0:13:06.577,0:13:08.794 and the thought I put together was this. 0:13:12.163,0:13:18.994 In traveling here, [br]in traveling on a 747 to Tananarive, 0:13:19.272,0:13:21.195 which is the capital of Madagascar, 0:13:21.408,0:13:23.432 and this terrible old jalopy[br]of an airplane 0:13:23.432,0:13:26.220 that took us out to the northwest corner, 0:13:26.484,0:13:29.611 and then in the decreasingly excellent[br]series of carts and trucks, 0:13:29.615,0:13:34.024 and then in the rotting old hulk[br]that took us to the rainforest 0:13:34.278,0:13:37.452 where we basically walked through[br]the rainforest night after night, 0:13:37.452,0:13:39.881 it was as if we were taking [br]a kind of time journey 0:13:40.127,0:13:41.355 —a time travel journey— 0:13:41.659,0:13:44.275 back through the history[br]of twig technology. 0:13:46.337,0:13:48.591 And what this encounter had been, 0:13:48.940,0:13:52.028 what this encounter had been was: 0:13:52.155,0:13:53.814 I was a monkey looking at a lemur. 0:13:55.083,0:13:56.183 And you suddenly think, 0:13:56.185,0:13:58.582 there is a huge amount of history 0:13:58.881,0:14:00.857 to this moment that we don’t think 0:14:00.857,0:14:03.317 —we don’t realise—we carry around with us. 0:14:03.749,0:14:09.175 Our roots in this planet go back [br]an awfully awfully awfully long way, 0:14:09.608,0:14:12.403 and we don’t tend to [br]think about that very much. 0:14:12.801,0:14:14.627 And it takes a confrontation like this 0:14:14.631,0:14:20.874 suddenly to realise how sort of[br]broad and deep your family goes. 0:14:21.383,0:14:24.181 So I thought, [br]well this is terribly interesting. 0:14:25.140,0:14:29.629 And I talked to the guy who had been[br]kind of my guide out there, 0:14:29.697,0:14:31.927 who was a zoologist [br]who had been sent along 0:14:32.173,0:14:35.193 to make sure I didn’t sort of [br]fall out of the trees and so on. 0:14:35.193,0:14:39.274 And his name was Mark Carwardine,[br]and I said to him, 0:14:41.302,0:14:42.953 “I would love it if we could …, 0:14:42.956,0:14:45.573 do you fancy the idea of [br]sort of going around the world 0:14:45.573,0:14:48.472 and looking for other rare [br]and endangered species of animals, 0:14:48.472,0:14:49.960 maybe doing a book about this?” 0:14:49.960,0:14:52.219 He said, [br]“well, that’s what I do for a living!” 0:14:53.123,0:14:54.787 “So yeah, OK.” 0:14:55.527,0:14:57.546 And so we did. 0:14:57.546,0:14:59.453 Now, there was a pause at that moment 0:14:59.453,0:15:02.609 because I had a couple of novels[br]I’d just contracted to write. 0:15:02.609,0:15:06.804 So I wrote Dirk Gently’s[br]Holistic Detective Agency 0:15:06.804,0:15:08.719 and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, 0:15:08.719,0:15:10.616 and then it was time to go. 0:15:11.556,0:15:15.675 And the first place we went, 0:15:15.820,0:15:21.523 we went to look for a particular animal[br]which is the Komodo Dragon Lizard. 0:15:23.514,0:15:26.068 Now you know what [br]lizards are like, don’t you? 0:15:26.405,0:15:27.543 I mean they’re sort of… 0:15:30.589,0:15:34.361 The Komodo Dragon Lizard [br]is a little bit bigger than that. 0:15:37.205,0:15:43.359 The biggest one we saw actually[br]it was about 13 feet long, 0:15:44.542,0:15:46.275 and its head came out to about here 0:15:48.993,0:15:51.631 fucking huge [br]I think is the technical term. 0:15:54.945,0:15:57.717 It’s thought they're the origin[br]of the chinese dragon myth 0:15:58.010,0:16:01.922 —because they are well huge, [br]giant giant lizards, 0:16:02.080,0:16:05.195 they’re scaly, they’re man eaters, 0:16:05.361,0:16:06.862 literally they are man eaters, 0:16:06.958,0:16:08.754 and they don’t actually breathe fire, 0:16:08.754,0:16:12.086 but they do have the worst breath[br]of any creature known to man. 0:16:14.078,0:16:18.212 And they live on this island[br]called Komodo. 0:16:19.146,0:16:22.198 Now, it’s not enough—it turns out— 0:16:22.419,0:16:30.674 that this island has fifteen hundred, [br]fifteen hundred man-eating dragons on it. 0:16:33.344,0:16:37.112 It turns our that actually that [br]the most endangered animal on the island 0:16:37.462,0:16:39.619 is anything other than the dragons. 0:16:45.536,0:16:47.761 In fact—as I said—they’re man eaters. 0:16:47.761,0:16:50.268 They don’t actually eat you[br]sort of straight out, 0:16:50.268,0:16:52.834 they don’t sort of lunge at you[br]and just gobble you up. 0:16:52.834,0:16:54.037 They sort of sneak around 0:16:54.037,0:16:56.149 and they come [br]and give you a bit of a bite. 0:16:57.221,0:16:59.872 Because their saliva is so virulent 0:17:00.231,0:17:01.854 that your wound would not heal 0:17:02.089,0:17:04.679 and after a while you will die. 0:17:05.056,0:17:07.171 And so one of the dragons[br]will get to eat you 0:17:07.171,0:17:09.664 —it doesn’t matter if it’s[br]the same one that bit you— 0:17:09.664,0:17:10.953 they just have a strategy 0:17:10.953,0:17:14.648 of having as many dead and dying[br]creatures lying around the island 0:17:14.648,0:17:17.567 as they can manage [br]and that kind of keeps them going. 0:17:20.983,0:17:23.728 But it turns out it’s not enough[br]that the island 0:17:23.728,0:17:26.544 has fifteen hundred [br]man-eating dragons on it. 0:17:26.544,0:17:28.789 Just to make it a little bit [br]more interesting, 0:17:28.789,0:17:32.322 it also has more poisonous snakes on it 0:17:32.361,0:17:33.641 —per square meter of land— 0:17:33.831,0:17:36.414 than any equivalent [br]area of land anywhere on earth. 0:17:37.331,0:17:39.448 So, we approached Komodo 0:17:39.741,0:17:41.979 —I have to say—slightly nervously, 0:17:42.411,0:17:44.350 and in a slightly roundabout way. 0:17:45.105,0:17:47.317 In fact we approached [br]in such a roundabout way 0:17:47.317,0:17:49.424 that we went by Melbourne in Australia. 0:17:51.454,0:17:53.150 And the reason we went by Melbourne 0:17:53.150,0:17:55.406 was somebody who[br]we wanted to go and see there, 0:17:55.406,0:17:57.940 a man called Dr. Struan Sutherland. 0:17:58.921,0:18:01.839 Actually I want to read you[br]a little bit about him, 0:18:02.052,0:18:08.034 he was a great expert in snake venom. 0:18:10.626,0:18:12.942 I should apologise [br]before I read this, actually, 0:18:12.962,0:18:16.463 for the fact that [br]my australian accent isn’t very good. 0:18:16.714,0:18:17.858 But then, what the hell, 0:18:17.858,0:18:20.628 you’re all americans [br]you won’t know the difference anyway. 0:18:33.573,0:18:35.168 There is in Melbourne a man 0:18:35.168,0:18:37.346 who probably knows more[br]about poisonous snakes 0:18:37.346,0:18:38.870 than anyone else on earth. 0:18:39.925,0:18:41.798 His name is Dr. Struan Sutherland, 0:18:41.798,0:18:43.514 and he has devoted his entire life 0:18:43.716,0:18:45.431 to a study of venom. 0:18:46.211,0:18:47.955 “And I’m bored at talking about it”, 0:18:47.955,0:18:50.505 he said when we went along[br]to see him the next morning 0:18:50.505,0:18:52.446 laden with tape recorders and notebooks. 0:18:52.446,0:18:54.518 “Can’t stand all these [br]poisonous creatures, 0:18:54.518,0:18:56.869 all these snakes and [br]insects and fish and things. 0:18:56.869,0:18:58.496 Wretched things, biting everybody. 0:18:58.496,0:19:01.310 And then people expect me [br]to tell them what to do about it. 0:19:01.310,0:19:04.275 I’ll tell them what to do.[br]Don’t get bitten in the first place. 0:19:04.275,0:19:05.147 That’s the answer. 0:19:05.147,0:19:07.390 I’ve had enough of [br]telling people all the time. 0:19:07.390,0:19:09.125 Hydroponics, now that’s interesting. 0:19:09.933,0:19:12.058 Talk to you all you like [br]about hydroponics. 0:19:12.058,0:19:13.112 Fascinating stuff, 0:19:13.267,0:19:15.064 growing plants artificially in water, 0:19:15.209,0:19:16.494 very interesting technique. 0:19:16.524,0:19:19.955 We’ll need to know all about it [br]if we’re going to go to Mars and places. 0:19:19.955,0:19:21.587 Where did you say you were going?” 0:19:21.587,0:19:22.298 “Komodo.” 0:19:23.078,0:19:25.243 “Well don’t get bitten, [br]that’s all I can say. 0:19:28.830,0:19:32.392 And don’t come running to me if you do [br]because you won’t get here in time, 0:19:33.458,0:19:35.655 and anyway I’ve got enough on my plate. 0:19:36.248,0:19:39.414 Look at this office, full of [br]poisonous animals all over the place. 0:19:39.414,0:19:42.522 See this tank, it’s full of fire ants. [br]Venomous little creatures. 0:19:42.522,0:19:44.192 What are we going to do about them? 0:19:44.192,0:19:47.404 Anyway, I got some little fairy cakes[br]in case you were hungry. 0:19:47.404,0:19:48.987 Would you like some little cakes? 0:19:48.987,0:19:50.617 I can’t remember where I put them. 0:19:50.628,0:19:52.557 There’s some tea but it’s not very good. 0:19:52.557,0:19:54.241 Anyway, sit down for heaven’s sake. 0:19:55.201,0:19:56.703 So, you’re going to Komodo. 0:19:56.703,0:19:58.725 Well, I don’t know why you want to do that 0:19:58.725,0:20:00.437 but I suppose you have your reasons. 0:20:01.212,0:20:03.891 There are fifteen different [br]types of snake on Komodo, 0:20:03.891,0:20:05.457 and half of them are poisonous. 0:20:06.354,0:20:07.877 The only potentially deadly ones 0:20:08.017,0:20:09.302 are the Russell’s Viper, 0:20:09.463,0:20:11.986 the Bamboo Viper and the Indian Cobra. 0:20:13.190,0:20:16.780 The Indian cobra is the fifteenth[br]deadliest snake in the world, 0:20:17.474,0:20:20.425 and all the other fourteen[br]are here in Australia. 0:20:22.194,0:20:24.239 That’s why it’s so hard [br]for me to find time 0:20:24.239,0:20:27.661 to get on with my hydroponics, [br]with all these snakes all over the place. 0:20:28.264,0:20:32.155 And spiders. The most poisonous spider [br]is the Sydney funnel-web, 0:20:32.360,0:20:35.650 we get about five hundred people[br]a year bitten by spiders. 0:20:36.106,0:20:37.373 A lot of them used to die, 0:20:37.373,0:20:41.233 so I had to develop an antidote to stop [br]people bothering me with it all the time. 0:20:42.378,0:20:46.336 Took us years. Then we developed[br]this snake bite detector kit. 0:20:47.521,0:20:50.874 Not that you need a kit to tell you[br]when you’ve been bitten by a snake, 0:20:50.886,0:20:53.743 you usually know, but the kit is [br]something that will detect 0:20:53.743,0:20:56.608 what type you’ve been bitten by[br]so you can treat it properly. 0:20:57.056,0:21:00.456 Would you like to see a kit? I’ve got a[br]couple here in the venom fridge. 0:21:00.471,0:21:03.111 Let’s have a look. Ah look, [br]the cakes are in here too. 0:21:03.131,0:21:05.998 Quick, have one while they’re still fresh. 0:21:05.998,0:21:07.579 Fairy cakes, I baked ’em myself” 0:21:09.093,0:21:11.850 He handed round the snake venom[br]detection kits 0:21:12.160,0:21:15.744 and these home baked fairy cakes[br]and retreated back to his desk, 0:21:15.749,0:21:17.709 where he beamed at us cheerfully 0:21:17.737,0:21:19.739 from behind his curly beard and bow tie. 0:21:20.760,0:21:23.239 We admired the kits [br]which were small efficient boxes 0:21:23.239,0:21:26.261 neatly packed with tiny bottles, [br]a pipette, a syringe, 0:21:26.280,0:21:28.296 and a complicated set of instructions 0:21:28.299,0:21:31.554 that I wouldn’t want to have [br]to read for the first time in a panic. 0:21:33.432,0:21:36.979 And then we asked him how many of[br]the snakes he had been bitten by himself. 0:21:37.709,0:21:38.900 “None of ’em,” he said. 0:21:39.047,0:21:41.972 “Another area of expertise I’ve developed 0:21:41.972,0:21:45.111 is that of getting other people [br]to handle the dangerous animals. 0:21:48.384,0:21:50.995 Won’t do it myself. [br]Don’t want to get bitten, do I? 0:21:51.466,0:21:53.427 You know what it says on my book jackets? 0:21:53.427,0:21:55.480 ‘Hobbies: gardening, with gloves; 0:21:56.300,0:21:57.831 fishing, with boots; 0:21:58.168,0:21:59.497 travelling, with care.’ 0:21:59.768,0:22:01.172 That’s the answer. What else? 0:22:01.172,0:22:04.305 Well in addition to the boots [br]wear thick baggy trousers. 0:22:04.585,0:22:07.949 And preferably have half a dozen people[br]trampling along in front of you 0:22:08.115,0:22:09.818 making as much noise as possible. 0:22:11.237,0:22:14.022 The snakes pick up the vibrations [br]and get out of your way. 0:22:14.022,0:22:15.718 Unless it’s a Death Adder, 0:22:16.699,0:22:18.426 otherwise known as the Deaf Adder, 0:22:20.339,0:22:21.783 which just lies there. 0:22:22.874,0:22:25.779 People can walk right past it[br]and over it and nothing happens. 0:22:25.779,0:22:28.783 I’ve heard of twelve people in a line[br]walking over a Death Adder 0:22:28.783,0:22:31.769 and the twelfth person [br]accidentally trod on it and got bitten. 0:22:32.331,0:22:34.657 Normally it’s quite safe [br]to get twelfth in line. 0:22:34.970,0:22:36.361 You’re not eating your cakes. 0:22:36.361,0:22:37.664 Come on, get them down you, 0:22:37.664,0:22:39.633 there’s plenty more in the venom fridge.” 0:22:42.669,0:22:44.794 We asked, tentatively, if we could perhaps 0:22:44.948,0:22:47.714 take a snake bite detector kit [br]with us to Komodo. 0:22:48.026,0:22:49.659 “Course you can, course you can. 0:22:49.659,0:22:51.337 Take as many as you like. 0:22:51.337,0:22:55.042 Won’t do you a blind bit of good because [br]they’re only for Australian snakes.” 0:23:03.357,0:23:07.679 “So what do we do if we get bitten by [br]something deadly, then?” I asked. 0:23:08.934,0:23:10.898 He blinked at me as if I were stupid. 0:23:12.858,0:23:14.829 "Well what do you think you do?” he said. 0:23:14.829,0:23:17.322 “You die of course. [br]That’s what deadly means.” 0:23:24.828,0:23:29.475 “But what about cutting open the wound [br]and sucking out the poison?” I asked. 0:23:30.795,0:23:32.655 “Rather you than me,” he said. 0:23:32.869,0:23:34.698 “I wouldn’t want a mouthful of poison. 0:23:34.698,0:23:36.339 Shouldn’t do you any harm, though, 0:23:36.339,0:23:38.325 snake toxins are of high molecular weight 0:23:38.325,0:23:40.844 so they wont penetrate [br]the blood vessels in the mouth 0:23:40.844,0:23:42.816 the way that alcohol or some drugs do. 0:23:42.897,0:23:45.904 And then the poison gets destroyed[br]by the acids in your stomach. 0:23:46.112,0:23:48.691 But it’s not necessarily going [br]to do much good either. 0:23:48.691,0:23:51.846 I mean, you’re not likely to be able[br]to get much of the poison out, 0:23:51.846,0:23:54.819 but you’re probably going to make[br]the wound a lot worse trying. 0:23:54.819,0:23:58.687 And in a place like Komodo it means you’d [br]quickly have a seriously infected wound 0:23:58.687,0:24:00.949 to contend with as well as[br]a leg full of poison. 0:24:00.980,0:24:03.828 Septicaemia, gangrene, [br]you name it, it’ll kill you.” 0:24:04.923,0:24:07.190 “What about a tourniquet?” I asked. 0:24:07.467,0:24:10.675 “Well, fine if you don’t mind having[br]your leg cut off afterwards. 0:24:11.342,0:24:13.069 You’d have to because if you cut off 0:24:13.069,0:24:15.471 the blood supply to it completely[br]it will just die. 0:24:15.890,0:24:18.376 And if you can find anyone [br]in that part of Indonesia 0:24:18.376,0:24:20.100 who you’d trust to take your leg off 0:24:20.100,0:24:21.694 then you’re a braver man than me. 0:24:23.207,0:24:25.305 No, I’ll tell you, [br]the only thing you can do 0:24:25.305,0:24:27.584 is apply a pressure bandage [br]direct to the wound 0:24:27.727,0:24:30.450 and wrap the whole leg up tightly, [br]but not too tightly. 0:24:30.824,0:24:34.417 Slow the blood flow but don’t cut it off [br]or you’ll lose the leg. 0:24:34.680,0:24:37.603 Hold your leg, [br]or whatever bit you’ve been bitten in, 0:24:37.840,0:24:40.092 lower than your heart and your head. 0:24:40.485,0:24:48.920 Keep very, very still, breathe slowly [br]and get to a doctor immediately. 0:24:51.123,0:24:53.414 If you’re on Komodo [br]that means a couple of days, 0:24:53.419,0:24:55.079 by which time you’ll be well dead. 0:24:56.627,0:24:59.269 Now, the only answer, [br]and I mean this quite seriously, 0:24:59.269,0:25:01.395 is don’t get bitten. 0:25:02.718,0:25:04.331 There’s no reason why you should. 0:25:04.332,0:25:06.650 Any of the snakes there [br]will get out of your way 0:25:06.650,0:25:08.379 well before you even see them. 0:25:08.379,0:25:11.533 You don’t really need to worry [br]about the snakes if you’re careful. 0:25:11.767,0:25:15.208 No, the things you really need to [br]worry about are the marine creatures.” 0:25:15.208,0:25:16.217 “What?” 0:25:18.465,0:25:20.757 “Scorpion fish, stonefish, sea snakes. 0:25:20.757,0:25:23.038 Much more poisonous than anything on land. 0:25:23.038,0:25:25.909 Get stung by a stonefish [br]and the pain alone will kill you. 0:25:26.742,0:25:29.062 People drown themselves[br]just to stop the pain.” 0:25:36.436,0:25:38.980 “Where are all these things?” 0:25:39.241,0:25:40.917 “Oh, just in the sea. Tons of them. 0:25:40.919,0:25:42.649 I wouldn’t go near it if I were you. 0:25:42.649,0:25:44.482 Full of poisonous animals. Hate them.” 0:25:45.786,0:25:47.338 “Is there anything you do like?” 0:25:47.338,0:25:48.823 “Yeah", he said, "Hydroponics.” 0:25:54.198,0:25:57.658 “No”, I said, “I mean are there any [br]poisonous creatures 0:25:57.662,0:25:59.088 you’re particularly fond of?” 0:25:59.524,0:26:01.498 He looked out of the window for a moment. 0:26:01.505,0:26:03.435 “There was,” he said, “but she left me.” 0:26:20.539,0:26:24.564 Anyway, in fact my favourite [br]of all the animals we went to see, 0:26:24.799,0:26:27.805 my favourite, was an animal [br]called the Kakapo. 0:26:29.933,0:26:32.063 And the Kakapo is a kind of parrot. 0:26:33.828,0:26:35.263 It lives in New Zealand. 0:26:36.307,0:26:40.981 It’s a flightless parrot, [br]it's forgotten how to fly. 0:26:43.592,0:26:48.582 Sadly, it has also forgotten [br]that it has forgotten how to fly. 0:26:55.660,0:27:04.633 So a seriously worried Kakapo has been [br]known to run up a tree and jump out of it. 0:27:10.226,0:27:12.708 Opinion divides as to what next happens: 0:27:14.484,0:27:18.103 some people said it has developed [br]a kind of rudimentary parachuting ability, 0:27:19.978,0:27:22.137 other people say [br]it flies a bit like a brick. 0:27:24.955,0:27:25.857 But the thing is 0:27:26.046,0:27:28.365 —I might talk about a [br]seriously worried Kakapo— 0:27:28.568,0:27:31.807 the fact is you’re not likely to find [br]a seriously worried Kakapo 0:27:31.973,0:27:34.742 because Kakapos have not learned to worry. 0:27:36.617,0:27:38.681 It seems an extraordinary thing to say 0:27:38.838,0:27:42.189 because worrying is something [br]we’re all so terribly good at, 0:27:42.962,0:27:45.196 and which comes so [br]absolutely naturally to us, 0:27:45.466,0:27:47.585 we think it must be [br]as natural as breathing. 0:27:47.948,0:27:50.275 But it turns out that worrying 0:27:50.575,0:27:53.834 is simply an acquired [br]habit like anything else. 0:27:57.385,0:28:01.399 It’s something you’re genetically [br]disposed to do or not to do. 0:28:02.266,0:28:06.253 And the thing is that the Kakapo[br]grew up in New Zealand 0:28:06.629,0:28:14.470 which was, until man arrived, [br]a country which had no predators. 0:28:14.665,0:28:17.241 And it’s predators that, [br]over a series of generations, 0:28:17.241,0:28:19.847 will teach you to worry. 0:28:21.483,0:28:26.140 And if you don’t have predators then the [br]need to worry will never occur to you. 0:28:27.763,0:28:31.341 Now I said earlier, that New Zealand[br]turns out to be 0:28:31.488,0:28:34.137 just a load of gunk that [br]came out from under the ocean. 0:28:34.551,0:28:36.157 And this is why, when it emerged, 0:28:36.236,0:28:39.406 it didn’t have any life on it at all[br]—maybe a few dead fish. 0:28:44.987,0:28:48.559 So the only animals that [br]inhabited New Zealand 0:28:48.624,0:28:51.886 were the animals [br]that could fly there, i.e. birds. 0:28:51.886,0:28:54.154 There were also [br]a couple of species of bats 0:28:54.164,0:28:56.170 which are mammals, but you get the point. 0:28:56.170,0:28:59.248 So it was only birds [br]that lived on New Zealand. 0:28:59.555,0:29:02.259 And, in an absence of predators, 0:29:02.679,0:29:05.914 there was nothing [br]for them to worry about. 0:29:06.560,0:29:09.446 Now it’s very very peculiar for us[br]to try and understand this 0:29:09.577,0:29:16.809 because we have never ever encountered [br]an environment with no predators in it. 0:29:17.447,0:29:18.514 Why not? 0:29:18.514,0:29:20.306 Because we are predators and because, 0:29:20.306,0:29:23.719 therefore, if we are in that environment[br]it is a predated environment. 0:29:27.440,0:29:30.771 For the europeans who [br]originally arrived in New Zealand, 0:29:34.741,0:29:38.439 … sorry, that was [br]an extraordinary thing to say. 0:29:38.649,0:29:41.781 Of course there were [br]the Māoris before them 0:29:41.933,0:29:48.419 and before them the Morioris, [br]the Māoris ate the Morioris 0:29:49.695,0:29:52.538 and then the europeans came along. 0:29:54.359,0:29:57.620 But before all of that happened—as I said— 0:29:57.781,0:30:05.035 the island had no predators, and the [br]birds basically led a worry-free life. 0:30:05.035,0:30:08.605 Now you can actually see another example[br]of this if you go to the Galápagos, 0:30:08.605,0:30:12.363 there is a type of animal, [br]there is a bird on the Galápagos Islands 0:30:12.519,0:30:13.992 called the Blue-footed Booby. 0:30:14.845,0:30:18.228 And the Blue-footed Booby is so called[br]—I believe—for two reasons: 0:30:19.036,0:30:21.586 one of which has to do [br]with the colour of its feet, 0:30:22.756,0:30:26.322 and the other has to do with this [br]piece of behaviour I’m about to describe. 0:30:26.322,0:30:29.276 Because, apparently you can [br]walk up to a Blue-footed Booby 0:30:29.276,0:30:31.885 —it will be sitting there on [br]the beach or on a branch— 0:30:31.885,0:30:35.911 and you can walk up and[br]you can sort of pick him up. 0:30:37.040,0:30:38.860 And what the Booby will be thinking 0:30:39.780,0:30:42.203 is that once you finish with him[br]you’ll put him back. 0:30:53.853,0:30:55.039 And if you haven’t lived 0:30:55.042,0:30:58.086 through generation after generation[br]of people trying to eat you, 0:30:58.320,0:31:00.398 it’s very easy to come to that conclusion. 0:31:02.405,0:31:04.626 So the Kakapo, as I say, 0:31:05.069,0:31:08.560 had grown up in an environment [br]without predators. 0:31:08.975,0:31:10.991 And because they were all birds, 0:31:11.141,0:31:16.563 and because nature has a way—as I say—[br]very opportunistic 0:31:16.912,0:31:20.634 and life will flow into any niche [br]where it’s possible to make a living, 0:31:21.729,0:31:25.365 so—if I can be very naughty and [br]anthropomorphise for a moment— 0:31:25.365,0:31:27.333 it’s as if some of the birds figured out, 0:31:27.333,0:31:31.556 “Well, this flying stuff [br]is very very expensive. 0:31:31.790,0:31:32.993 It takes a lot of energy, 0:31:32.993,0:31:34.588 you have to eat a bit, fly a bit, 0:31:34.588,0:31:35.628 eat a bit, fly a bit, 0:31:35.628,0:31:37.824 because every time you [br]eat something—you know— 0:31:37.824,0:31:39.739 you weight down and it’s heavier to fly, 0:31:39.739,0:31:41.276 so eat a bit, fly a bit—I mean— 0:31:41.276,0:31:43.188 there are other ways of life available.” 0:31:43.188,0:31:45.177 And so it’s as if some of the birds said, 0:31:45.177,0:31:49.005 “Well, actually what we could do is we [br]could settle in for a rather larger meal, 0:31:49.005,0:31:50.583 and go for a waddle afterwards!” 0:31:56.485,0:31:58.545 And so gradually over many [br]many generations 0:31:58.546,0:32:01.560 a lot of the birds lost [br]the ability to fly, 0:32:01.710,0:32:03.253 they took up life on the ground. 0:32:03.755,0:32:06.625 The Kiwi, the most famous bird[br]—I guess—of New Zealand, 0:32:06.778,0:32:13.169 and the Weka, and the old night parrot[br]—as it was called—the Kakapo. 0:32:13.968,0:32:19.638 Which is this sort of big, fat, [br]soft, fluffy, lugubrious bird. 0:32:21.236,0:32:24.909 And because it has never learned to worry, 0:32:25.560,0:32:27.737 when man arrived and brought with him 0:32:27.890,0:32:33.218 his deadly menagerie of [br]dogs, and cats, and stoats, 0:32:33.481,0:32:37.181 and that most destructive of all animals 0:32:37.468,0:32:40.529 –other than man—which is [br]Rattus rattus, the ship’s rat. 0:32:42.308,0:32:47.207 Suddenly, suddenly these birds [br]were waddling for their lives. 0:32:48.505,0:32:50.709 Except in fact they [br]didn’t know how to do that 0:32:50.709,0:32:53.845 because they were confronted [br]with an animal which was a predator, 0:32:53.845,0:32:55.187 they didn’t know what to do, 0:32:55.187,0:32:57.185 they didn’t know what the social form was, 0:32:57.185,0:33:00.049 they just waited for the other [br]animal to make the next move, 0:33:00.049,0:33:02.832 and of course—as usually—[br]a fairly swift and deadly one. 0:33:04.614,0:33:10.368 So, suddenly from there [br]being a population of 0:33:10.534,0:33:12.918 —we don’t know exactly of how many— 0:33:12.918,0:33:14.577 probably not as many as a million, 0:33:14.577,0:33:16.785 but hundreds of thousands of these birds, 0:33:17.147,0:33:22.286 their population plunged at an incredible[br]rate down into the low forties. 0:33:22.446,0:33:26.574 Which is roughly where it is[br]at the moment. 0:33:27.790,0:33:33.804 And, so there are groups of people [br]who dedicated their entire lives 0:33:34.554,0:33:37.770 to try to save these animals, [br]trying to conserve them. 0:33:39.401,0:33:41.951 And one of the problems [br]they’ve come across 0:33:42.025,0:33:45.079 is that it’s all very well [br]just to protect them 0:33:45.160,0:33:48.887 —from predators—which is [br]very very very hard to do. 0:33:49.035,0:33:51.780 But the next problem they come across 0:33:52.006,0:33:55.757 is the mating habits of the Kakapo. 0:33:55.930,0:33:58.668 Because it turns out that [br]the mating habits of the Kakapo 0:33:58.668,0:34:00.667 are incredibly long drawn-out, 0:34:01.167,0:34:02.484 fantastically complicated, 0:34:02.596,0:34:04.770 and almost entirely ineffective. 0:34:08.578,0:34:11.723 Some people would tell you [br]that the mating call of the male Kakapo 0:34:11.723,0:34:14.870 actively repels the female Kakapo, 0:34:15.227,0:34:16.660 which is the sort of behaviour 0:34:16.660,0:34:19.200 you would otherwise only find [br]really in discotheques. 0:34:26.312,0:34:30.385 The people who’ve heard the [br]mating call of the male Kakapo 0:34:31.304,0:34:35.804 will tell you, you can hardly [br]even hear it, 0:34:35.968,0:34:40.810 it’s like a sort of …[br]I’ll tell you what they do. 0:34:42.188,0:34:47.138 This animal every—for about a hundred [br]nights of the year— 0:34:48.158,0:34:49.992 it goes through its mating ritual. 0:34:49.992,0:34:54.163 And what it does is it finds [br]some great rocky outcrop 0:34:56.346,0:34:59.573 looking out over the great [br]rolling valleys of New Zealand, 0:34:59.974,0:35:03.042 because acoustics are very important [br]for what's about to happen. 0:35:06.810,0:35:10.616 It carves out this kind [br]of bowl that it sits in. 0:35:12.067,0:35:13.001 And it sits there, 0:35:13.819,0:35:18.571 and it puffs out this great sort [br]of air-sacks around its chest. 0:35:19.596,0:35:21.355 And it sits there 0:35:21.723,0:35:25.531 —and these are reverberation chambers, [br]this is a kind of reverberation chamber— 0:35:25.531,0:35:29.565 and it sits there and for [br]night after night after night 0:35:29.565,0:35:31.140 for a hundred nights of the year, 0:35:31.140,0:35:32.902 for eight hours of the night, 0:35:33.366,0:35:37.292 it performs the opening bars [br]of Dark Side of the Moon. 0:35:45.278,0:35:50.907 Now, I see some grey hairs here [br]so you’ll know the album I’m referring to. 0:35:52.927,0:35:55.561 Which as you remember starts with 0:35:55.561,0:35:59.254 this great sort of boom, boom, boom, 0:35:59.583,0:36:01.738 it’s a heartbeat sound. 0:36:02.056,0:36:05.404 And this is the noise, [br]that the Kakapo makes. 0:36:05.591,0:36:07.911 But it’s so, it’s so deep, 0:36:08.081,0:36:11.465 that you more kind of feel it like a [br]wobble in the pit of your stomach. 0:36:11.465,0:36:14.669 You can only just sort of [br]tune your hearing in to it. 0:36:15.035,0:36:17.052 Now I never managed to get to hear it, 0:36:17.285,0:36:23.202 but those who do, say they feel[br]it’s a very eerie sound 0:36:23.259,0:36:26.546 because you don’t really hear it, [br]you more kind of feel it. 0:36:26.703,0:36:32.224 And, it’s bass sound. 0:36:32.696,0:36:34.535 It’s very very deep bass sound, 0:36:34.881,0:36:36.677 just below our level of our hearing. 0:36:36.685,0:36:40.452 Now it turns out that bass sound [br]has two important characteristics to it. 0:36:41.070,0:36:46.539 One of which is that [br]these great long waves, 0:36:46.905,0:36:49.949 these great long sound waves [br]travel great distances, 0:36:50.033,0:36:53.844 and they fill these great valleys [br]of the south island of New Zealand. 0:36:53.921,0:36:57.382 And that’s good. That’s good. 0:36:58.333,0:37:03.371 But there is another characteristic [br]of bass sounds, 0:37:03.371,0:37:04.858 which you may be familiar with, 0:37:04.858,0:37:08.481 if you’ve got this kind of—you know—[br]the kind of stereo speakers you can get. 0:37:08.902,0:37:12.372 Where you have two tiny little ones [br]that give you your treble sound, 0:37:12.381,0:37:16.106 and you have to put them [br]very carefully in the room, 0:37:16.106,0:37:18.469 because they’re going to [br]define the stereo image. 0:37:19.298,0:37:21.459 And then you have [br]what’s known as a subwoofer 0:37:21.459,0:37:25.247 which is the bass box, [br]and that’s going to produce 0:37:25.247,0:37:29.036 just the bass sound and you can [br]put that anywhere in the room you like. 0:37:29.575,0:37:31.691 You can put it behind the sofa [br]if you like, 0:37:31.897,0:37:34.083 because the other[br]characteristic of bass sound 0:37:34.083,0:37:37.369 —and remember we’re talking about [br]the mating call of the male Kakapo— 0:37:37.369,0:37:39.737 is that you can’t tell [br]where it’s coming from! 0:37:53.590,0:37:55.269 So just imagine if you will, 0:37:57.012,0:38:00.146 this male Kakapo sitting up here, 0:38:00.768,0:38:05.545 making all this booming noise which, 0:38:05.884,0:38:11.542 if there’s a female out there[br]—which there probably isn’t— 0:38:12.056,0:38:15.530 and if she likes the sound of this booming[br]—which she probably doesn’t— 0:38:18.181,0:38:21.389 then she can’t find the [br]person who’s making it! 0:38:24.119,0:38:25.265 But supposing she does, 0:38:25.265,0:38:27.628 supposing she’s out there[br]—but she probably isn’t— 0:38:27.628,0:38:30.342 she likes the sound of this booming[br]—she probably doesn’t— 0:38:30.342,0:38:33.071 supposing that she can find him[br]—which she probably can’t— 0:38:33.797,0:38:39.064 she will then only consent to mate [br]if the Podocarp tree is in fruit! 0:38:47.019,0:38:49.101 Now we’ve all had [br]relationships like that … 0:39:01.483,0:39:05.631 But supposing they get through[br]all those obstacles, 0:39:05.850,0:39:07.847 supposing she manages to find him, 0:39:09.050,0:39:13.393 she will then lay one egg [br]every two or three years 0:39:13.559,0:39:15.857 which will promptly get eaten [br]by a stoat or rat. 0:39:17.605,0:39:19.044 And you think, well so far 0:39:19.044,0:39:21.642 —before trying to sort of [br]save them and conserve them— 0:39:21.642,0:39:24.700 how on earth has it managed[br]to survive for this long! 0:39:27.172,0:39:32.617 And the answer is terribly interesting, [br]which is this: 0:39:34.132,0:39:37.380 it seems like absurd behaviour to us, 0:39:38.687,0:39:43.297 but it’s only because its environment has [br]changed in one particular and dramatic way 0:39:44.951,0:39:47.005 that is completely invisible to us. 0:39:48.271,0:39:53.597 And its behaviour is perfectly attuned [br]to the environment it developed in, 0:39:54.127,0:39:58.343 and completely out of tune with [br]the environment it now finds itself in. 0:39:59.456,0:40:03.888 Because in an environment [br]when nothing is trying to predate you, 0:40:04.719,0:40:07.464 you don’t want to reproduce too fast. 0:40:10.042,0:40:13.319 And it turns out you can actually [br]sort of graph this on a computer. 0:40:14.169,0:40:18.333 That if you take a given [br]reproduction rate, 0:40:19.225,0:40:23.920 and you take the ability of [br]any given environment 0:40:24.044,0:40:26.466 to sustain any particular[br]level of population. 0:40:27.523,0:40:30.526 And you start say with [br]a fairly low reproduction rate, 0:40:30.893,0:40:33.077 and you just plot it[br]over several generations 0:40:33.417,0:40:36.392 and you find that the population [br]goes up and up and up 0:40:36.392,0:40:39.149 and then sort of steadies out [br]and achieves a nice plateau. 0:40:39.149,0:40:40.961 Tweak the reproduction rate up a bit, 0:40:41.223,0:40:43.175 and it goes up a little bit higher, 0:40:43.347,0:40:46.234 and then maybe settles down, [br]and levels out. 0:40:46.659,0:40:49.153 Tweak the reproduction rate [br]a little bit higher yet, 0:40:49.153,0:40:51.610 and it goes up, and it goes too high, 0:40:51.668,0:40:53.621 and it drops down, it goes too low, 0:40:53.702,0:40:57.120 goes up, too high, and settles [br]into an oscillating sine wave. 0:40:58.284,0:41:02.007 Tweak it a bit more, and it starts to [br]oscillate between four different values. 0:41:02.186,0:41:03.678 Tweak it more and more and more 0:41:03.678,0:41:07.032 and you suddenly hit this terribly [br]fashionable condition called chaos. 0:41:07.728,0:41:16.091 Where the population of the animal just [br]swings wildly from one year to another, 0:41:17.562,0:41:19.266 and will just hit zero at one point 0:41:19.266,0:41:21.719 just out of the sheer mathematics [br]of the situation. 0:41:21.719,0:41:24.507 And once you’ve hit zero, [br]there is kind of no coming back. 0:41:26.795,0:41:29.746 And so, because nature [br]tends to be very parsimonious 0:41:30.615,0:41:34.906 and is not going to expend[br]energy and resources 0:41:34.906,0:41:36.986 on something for which there is no return. 0:41:37.206,0:41:45.664 So the reproduction rate of an animal [br]in an environment with no predators 0:41:46.002,0:41:50.748 will tune itself to an [br]appropriate level of reproduction. 0:41:51.081,0:41:53.914 Now, if there is nothing trying[br]to eat you—particularly— 0:41:53.914,0:41:56.138 then that reproduction rate [br]will be very low. 0:41:56.803,0:42:00.360 And that is the rate at which [br]the Kakapo used to reproduce, 0:42:00.775,0:42:04.066 and continues to reproduce [br]despite the fact that it’s being predated, 0:42:04.084,0:42:05.796 because it doesn’t know any better. 0:42:05.842,0:42:09.672 Because nothing has managed to teach it[br]anything different along the way, 0:42:10.250,0:42:13.190 because the change that occurred [br]happened so suddenly, 0:42:13.432,0:42:14.952 that there is no kind of slope, 0:42:15.200,0:42:19.388 there is no slope of gradual[br]evolutionary pressure, 0:42:19.573,0:42:21.998 which is the thing that tends[br]to bring about change. 0:42:22.003,0:42:23.847 If you have a sudden dramatic change 0:42:24.023,0:42:27.734 then there is no direction to go [br]and you just have disaster. 0:42:27.888,0:42:32.078 So, again if I can anthropomorphize[br]for a moment, 0:42:32.231,0:42:39.375 what seems to have happened[br]is that the animal 0:42:39.538,0:42:42.290 suddenly reaching a crisis [br]in his population thinks, 0:42:42.306,0:42:43.975 “Whoa, whoa! I better just do, do, 0:42:43.978,0:42:46.619 what I do fantastically well, [br]do what is my main thing, 0:42:46.619,0:42:48.666 which is I reproduce [br]really really slowly!” 0:42:50.064,0:42:51.460 And its population goes down. 0:42:51.460,0:42:53.276 “Well, I’d better really do what I do, 0:42:53.276,0:42:55.682 and reproduce really really really [br]really slowly!” 0:42:56.014,0:43:03.431 And it seems absurd to us because [br]we can see a larger picture than they can. 0:43:03.582,0:43:10.565 But if that is the type of behaviour that [br]you’ve evolved successfully to produce, 0:43:10.720,0:43:14.203 then to do anything else would be [br]against kakapo-nature, 0:43:14.339,0:43:16.717 would be an inkakapo thing to do. 0:43:19.050,0:43:25.800 And it has nothing to teach it any other [br]than to just do what it’s always done, 0:43:25.978,0:43:27.622 to follow its successful strategy, 0:43:28.275,0:43:30.280 and because times have changed around it, 0:43:30.294,0:43:34.461 it’s no longer a successful strategy, [br]and the animal is in terrible trouble. 0:43:38.013,0:43:39.918 There is another animal we went to find, 0:43:39.918,0:43:42.979 it is in even worse trouble now. 0:43:44.416,0:43:50.284 And this is the Baiji, [br]the Yangtze River Dolphin, 0:43:50.720,0:43:54.685 which is an almost blind river dolphin. 0:43:56.455,0:43:57.875 The reason it’s almost blind, 0:43:57.875,0:44:00.770 is that there is nothing to see[br]in the Yangtze River. 0:44:03.688,0:44:07.352 Thousands and thousands [br]of years of agriculture 0:44:07.501,0:44:09.222 along the banks of the Yangtze River 0:44:09.253,0:44:13.235 have washed so much mud [br]and silt and so on into it, 0:44:13.578,0:44:16.360 that the river has become [br]completely turbid. 0:44:16.733,0:44:19.068 Which is a word I didn’t even [br]know the meaning of 0:44:19.075,0:44:20.510 until I saw the Yangtze River, 0:44:20.675,0:44:23.128 and basically [br]you can’t see anything in it. 0:44:24.642,0:44:29.340 So these animals, dolphins as I said, 0:44:29.388,0:44:33.964 gradually they abandoned the use of sight. 0:44:34.281,0:44:41.833 Now—as we all know—marine mammals also [br]have this other faculty available to them, 0:44:42.333,0:44:44.630 which they can develop, [br]which is that of sound. 0:44:45.245,0:44:50.858 And so what the Yangtze River Dolphins did[br]was over thousands of years, 0:44:51.419,0:44:54.232 as their eye sight deteriorated, 0:44:54.232,0:45:00.615 so their sonar abilities became [br]more and more and more sophisticated, 0:45:00.615,0:45:02.690 and more powerful and more complex. 0:45:02.690,0:45:06.805 And it’s very interesting, you can [br]actually watch—if you feel like it— 0:45:08.416,0:45:10.862 the development of a Baiji foetus, 0:45:12.531,0:45:17.320 and you’ll see that right at[br]—as you may or may not know— 0:45:17.388,0:45:20.371 there is a certain amount[br]of truth in the idea 0:45:20.558,0:45:25.699 that the development of the foetus [br]recapitulates stages 0:45:25.810,0:45:27.921 in the evolutionary development[br]of an animal. 0:45:27.921,0:45:31.232 And you see, right at the beginning of [br]the development of the foetus, 0:45:31.232,0:45:33.334 its eyes are in the normal [br]dolphin position, 0:45:33.334,0:45:36.955 which are kind of relatively far down[br]on the side of the head. 0:45:37.299,0:45:39.979 And gradually, [br]as the generations have gone by, 0:45:40.131,0:45:42.935 its eyes have kind of migrated [br]up the side of the head, 0:45:42.935,0:45:45.381 and you see this happening [br]as the foetus develops. 0:45:45.381,0:45:48.857 Because gradually, over the generations, 0:45:49.201,0:45:51.988 its only light is coming [br]directly from up above 0:45:52.136,0:45:54.064 and there is no ambient light and then, 0:45:54.064,0:45:57.762 as that too dies out, so [br]the eyes gradually atrophied. 0:45:58.378,0:46:04.565 And, instead, the sonar abilities [br]take over. 0:46:05.124,0:46:07.609 And these animals developed[br]incredibly sensitive, 0:46:07.609,0:46:11.742 and incredibly precise abilities[br]to navigate themselves around 0:46:12.103,0:46:13.642 in the water just using sonar. 0:46:15.109,0:46:16.457 And all is well and good. 0:46:17.527,0:46:21.101 Until the twentieth century [br]when man invents the diesel engine. 0:46:23.290,0:46:27.390 And suddenly all hell breaks loose [br]beneath the surface of the Yangtze, 0:46:27.549,0:46:29.809 because it’s suddenly full of noise. 0:46:31.436,0:46:37.353 And so, suddenly these animals find [br]themselves trapped by something that they 0:46:37.633,0:46:39.824 —that nobody had any means of foreseeing— 0:46:39.850,0:46:41.529 that the thing they now rely on 0:46:41.677,0:46:43.239 has been completely overwhelmed 0:46:43.261,0:46:47.080 by the noise pollution [br]that we put in the oceans. 0:46:47.239,0:46:50.812 So suddenly these animals 0:46:50.978,0:46:53.290 that used to be so sophisticated 0:46:53.290,0:46:55.275 in their ability to find[br]their way around, 0:46:55.275,0:46:57.823 are sort of bumping into things, [br]bumping into boats, 0:46:57.823,0:46:59.312 bumping into ships’ propellers, 0:46:59.312,0:47:02.825 finding themselves ensnared[br]in fishermen’s nets and so on, 0:47:02.984,0:47:06.229 because we basically screwed up[br]the next of their faculties. 0:47:08.356,0:47:10.379 And it’s a very curious feeling, 0:47:11.303,0:47:18.490 I remember sort of sitting on a boat[br]on the Yangtze River and looking, 0:47:18.648,0:47:19.961 well trying to look into 0:47:19.961,0:47:23.634 —you couldn’t look into cause it’s turbid [br]and you remember what turbid means— 0:47:23.634,0:47:30.312 and realising that all this noise[br]down there means that … 0:47:30.741,0:47:34.275 It’s very curious to think that 0:47:34.285,0:47:36.565 there may have been a [br]dolphin somewhere near me 0:47:36.565,0:47:40.306 —I didn’t know, I mean by this stage,[br]this was ten years ago, 0:47:40.309,0:47:41.846 there were only two hundred left 0:47:41.846,0:47:44.793 in a structure of water of about[br]two hundred miles long, 0:47:44.803,0:47:47.396 so you had no idea if [br]there was one anywhere near you— 0:47:47.396,0:47:51.187 but it’s curious because you[br]think if you and another person, 0:47:51.335,0:47:55.241 another creature, [br]are kind of in the same world, 0:47:55.241,0:47:57.324 then you must be feeling roughly similar. 0:47:58.554,0:48:00.995 But one of the things you begin to [br]realise when you look at different animals 0:48:00.995,0:48:05.541 is that because of their [br]evolutionary history, 0:48:05.750,0:48:09.344 and because of the forms[br]they have developed into, 0:48:09.932,0:48:13.126 and the ways they have developed [br]of perceiving the world, 0:48:13.271,0:48:15.894 they may be inhabiting the same world 0:48:16.241,0:48:18.387 but actually a completely [br]different universe. 0:48:19.347,0:48:22.369 But actually a completely different [br]universe because you create 0:48:22.369,0:48:28.126 your only own universe from what you do [br]with the sensory data coming in. 0:48:28.200,0:48:34.353 So, you realise that you’re here, [br]and there is a dolphin there, 0:48:34.353,0:48:38.022 and you’re comfortable, and the dolphin [br]may be actually in a species of hell. 0:48:38.975,0:48:41.330 But has no means of communicating that [br]with you 0:48:41.400,0:48:44.787 because we’ve kind of taken charge, 0:48:44.981,0:48:48.230 and there is no way of kind of [br]communicating with the management, 0:48:48.393,0:48:50.139 that there’s a problem. 0:48:54.005,0:48:59.883 So, I suddenly became very interested in [br]what it must actually sound like 0:49:00.163,0:49:02.095 in the Yangtze River. 0:49:03.290,0:49:08.035 Now, we’ve gone to record some [br]BBC Radio programmes while we were there, 0:49:08.107,0:49:10.609 so as well as Mark Carwardine [br]the zoologist, 0:49:10.832,0:49:13.016 we also had a sound recordist [br]from the BBC. 0:49:14.064,0:49:14.900 So I said to him, 0:49:16.196,0:49:18.807 “Could we actually drop [br]a microphone into the Yangtze 0:49:18.807,0:49:21.833 so that we can see what [br]it actually sounds like in the river?” 0:49:22.997,0:49:24.211 And he said, 0:49:25.141,0:49:27.775 “Well I wish you'd said that [br]before we left London.” 0:49:28.485,0:49:29.399 And I said, “Why?” 0:49:29.399,0:49:32.029 And he said, “Well, cause I just could [br]have checked out 0:49:32.029,0:49:33.945 a waterproof microphone but, you know, 0:49:33.987,0:49:36.774 you didn’t mention anything [br]about recording under water.” 0:49:37.909,0:49:41.102 And I said, “No, I didn’t. [br]Is there anything we could do about it?” 0:49:41.102,0:49:45.264 And he said, “Well there is, there is[br]actually one technique 0:49:45.281,0:49:49.443 they teach us at the BBC for recording [br]under water in an emergency. 0:49:57.436,0:49:59.457 Do either of you have condoms with you?” 0:50:01.890,0:50:05.082 And we didn’t. Wasn’t that kind of trip. 0:50:08.843,0:50:10.932 But we decided we’d better [br]go and buy some. 0:50:12.154,0:50:15.676 And so we went into the streets of [br]Shanghai trying to buy some condoms, 0:50:16.281,0:50:19.364 and I just want to read you [br]a little passage about this. 0:50:26.597,0:50:30.259 The Friendship Store seemed like [br]a promising place to buy condoms, 0:50:31.482,0:50:34.830 but we had a certain amount of [br]difficulty in getting the idea across. 0:50:36.021,0:50:39.918 We passed from one counter to another [br]in the large open-plan department store, 0:50:40.069,0:50:42.515 which consists of many [br]different individual booths, 0:50:42.515,0:50:45.108 stalls and counters, [br]but no one was able to help us. 0:50:45.978,0:50:49.653 We first started at the stalls which [br]looked as if they sold medical supplies, 0:50:49.653,0:50:50.561 but had no luck. 0:50:50.561,0:50:52.865 By the time we had got to the stalls 0:50:52.926,0:50:54.640 which sold bookends and chopsticks 0:50:54.702,0:50:56.139 we knew we were on to a loser, 0:50:56.139,0:50:59.216 but at least we found a young [br]shop assistant who spoke English. 0:51:00.356,0:51:03.011 We tried to explain to her [br]what it was we wanted, 0:51:04.052,0:51:07.071 but seemed to reach the limit [br]of her vocabulary pretty quickly. 0:51:08.665,0:51:11.954 So, I got out my notebook [br]and drew a condom very carefully, 0:51:13.290,0:51:15.498 including the little [br]extra balloon on the end. 0:51:16.488,0:51:18.830 She frowned at it, [br]but still didn’t get the idea. 0:51:19.253,0:51:21.206 She brought us a wooden spoon, 0:51:22.911,0:51:26.960 a candle, a sort of paper knife and, [br]surprisingly enough, 0:51:26.960,0:51:29.628 a small porcelain model[br]of the Eiffel Tower 0:51:37.408,0:51:39.865 and then at last lapsed [br]into a posture of defeat. 0:51:41.235,0:51:43.853 Some other girls from the stall [br]gathered round to help, 0:51:43.853,0:51:46.407 but they were also defeated [br]by our picture. 0:51:46.741,0:51:50.338 At last I plucked up the bravado [br]to perform a delicate little mime, 0:52:03.343,0:52:04.857 and at last the penny dropped. 0:52:08.014,0:52:11.505 “Ah!” the first girl said, suddenly [br]wreathed in smiles. “Ah yes!” 0:52:12.849,0:52:15.454 They all beamed delightedly[br]at us as they got the idea. 0:52:16.142,0:52:17.908 -“You do understand?” l asked. 0:52:17.908,0:52:19.180 -“Yes! Yes, I understand.” 0:52:19.691,0:52:20.554 -“Do you have any?” 0:52:20.906,0:52:22.509 -“No,” she said. “Not have.” 0:52:22.774,0:52:23.502 -“Oh.” 0:52:23.582,0:52:24.564 -“But, but, but …” 0:52:24.687,0:52:25.406 -“Yes?” 0:52:26.666,0:52:28.503 -“I say you where you go, OK?” 0:52:29.567,0:52:31.483 -“Thank you, thank you very much. Yes.” 0:52:31.927,0:52:35.871 -“You go 616 Nanjing Road. OK. [br]They have there. 0:52:36.060,0:52:38.012 You ask ‘rubberover’. OK?” 0:52:38.307,0:52:40.214 -“Rubberover?” 0:52:40.292,0:52:43.072 -“Rubberover. You ask. [br]They have. OK. Have nice day.” 0:52:48.031,0:52:51.450 She giggled happily about this [br]with her hand over her mouth. 0:52:52.638,0:52:56.391 We thanked them again, profusely, [br]and left with much waving and smiling. 0:52:56.391,0:52:59.311 The news seemed to have spread [br]very quickly around the store, 0:52:59.311,0:53:01.429 and everybody waved at us. 0:53:02.615,0:53:05.251 They seemed terribly pleased [br]to have been asked. 0:53:07.551,0:53:11.538 When we reached 616 Nanjing Road, [br]which turned out to be another, 0:53:11.696,0:53:14.057 smaller department store, and not a [br]knocking shop 0:53:14.057,0:53:15.702 as we had been half-suspecting, 0:53:15.867,0:53:18.742 our pronunciation of ‘rubberover’ [br]seemed to let us down 0:53:18.870,0:53:21.374 and produce another wave [br]of baffled incomprehension. 0:53:22.253,0:53:25.963 This time I went straight for the mime [br]that had served us so well before, 0:53:30.563,0:53:33.283 and it seemed to do the trick at once. 0:53:34.103,0:53:38.123 The shop assistant, a slightly more [br]middle-aged lady with severe hair, 0:53:38.624,0:53:40.655 marched straight to a cabinet of drawers, 0:53:40.655,0:53:42.506 brought us back a packet and placed it 0:53:42.589,0:53:45.408 triumphantly on the counter[br]in front of us. 0:53:45.908,0:53:48.431 Success, we thought, opened the packet 0:53:48.733,0:53:51.256 and found it to contain [br]a bubble sheet of pills. 0:53:53.522,0:53:56.727 “Right idea,” said Mark, [br]with a sigh. “Wrong method.” 0:54:06.505,0:54:08.173 We were quickly floundering again 0:54:08.173,0:54:10.926 as we tried to explain to [br]the now slightly affronted lady 0:54:10.926,0:54:13.106 that it wasn’t precisely [br]what we were after. 0:54:13.397,0:54:17.335 By this time a crowd of about fifteen [br]onlookers had gathered round us, 0:54:17.501,0:54:19.449 some of whom, I was convinced, 0:54:19.605,0:54:22.235 had followed us all the way[br]from the Friendship Store. 0:54:22.892,0:54:25.415 One of the things that [br]you quickly discover in China, 0:54:25.415,0:54:27.348 is that we are all at the zoo. 0:54:27.956,0:54:29.844 If you stand still for a moment, 0:54:30.029,0:54:32.170 people will gather round and stare at you. 0:54:33.466,0:54:36.839 The unnerving thing is that they [br]don’t stare intently or inquisitively, 0:54:36.841,0:54:39.470 they just stand there, [br]often right in front of you, 0:54:39.626,0:54:42.611 and watch you as blankly [br]as if you were a dog food commercial. 0:54:48.610,0:54:51.827 At last one young and [br]pasty-faced man with glasses 0:54:51.827,0:54:55.535 pushed through the crowd and said he [br]spoke a little English and could he help? 0:54:56.483,0:54:59.373 We thanked him and said, yes, [br]we wanted to buy some condoms, 0:54:59.764,0:55:03.611 some rubberovers, and we would be very [br]grateful if he could explain that for us. 0:55:04.517,0:55:06.096 He looked puzzled, 0:55:07.565,0:55:10.617 picked up the rejected packet [br]lying on the counter 0:55:10.811,0:55:13.221 in front of the affronted [br]shop assistant and said, 0:55:13.221,0:55:15.288 “Not want rubberover. This better.” 0:55:18.594,0:55:20.175 “No,” Mark said. 0:55:20.247,0:55:23.371 “We definitely want rubberover, [br]not pills.” 0:55:23.871,0:55:25.805 “Why want rubberover? Pill better.” 0:55:29.180,0:55:30.509 “You tell him,” said Mark. 0:55:34.942,0:55:37.425 “It’s to record dolphins,” I said. 0:55:45.073,0:55:47.488 “Or not the actual dolphins in fact. 0:55:47.488,0:55:50.207 What we want to record is [br]the noise in the Yangtze that … 0:55:50.207,0:55:52.478 it’s to go over the microphone, [br]you see, and …” 0:55:53.364,0:55:55.514 “Oh, just tell him you want [br]to fuck someone,” 0:55:55.566,0:55:57.108 said the sound recordist. 0:55:57.465,0:55:58.570 “And you can’t wait.” 0:56:06.698,0:56:09.662 But by now the young man was edging[br]nervously away from us, 0:56:09.662,0:56:12.489 suddenly realising that [br]we were dangerously insane, 0:56:13.177,0:56:15.418 and should simply be humoured [br]and escaped from. 0:56:16.174,0:56:18.542 He said something hurriedly [br]to the shop assistant 0:56:18.542,0:56:21.380 and backed away into the crowd. 0:56:21.562,0:56:23.949 The shop assistant shrugged, [br]scooped up the pills, 0:56:23.949,0:56:26.940 opened another drawer [br]and pulled out a packet of condoms. 0:56:28.351,0:56:30.295 We bought nine, just to be safe. 0:56:41.761,0:56:42.962 So a couple of days later 0:56:42.962,0:56:45.149 we were standing [br]on the banks of the Yangtze, 0:56:46.369,0:56:49.028 on a very desperate drizzly grey day. 0:56:50.066,0:56:53.001 And we put the microphone[br]in this little sort of pink thing, 0:56:55.617,0:56:57.649 and dropped it into the water. 0:56:58.784,0:57:02.620 And, I don’t usually do impressions 0:57:03.005,0:57:05.872 but I’m going to do for you an impression 0:57:06.116,0:57:10.864 of what it sounds like [br]under the surface of the Yangtze River. 0:57:11.231,0:57:12.578 And it’s something like this 0:57:16.240,0:57:18.185 The Yangtze River ladies and gentleman. 0:57:23.192,0:57:27.722 And, I suddenly realised [br]what an appalling thing 0:57:27.730,0:57:30.942 we’ve inflicted on these poor animals, 0:57:31.114,0:57:36.807 that live in a world of super [br]sensitive sound and hearing. 0:57:37.813,0:57:43.375 And this was why these animals [br]were now desperately endangered 0:57:43.667,0:57:47.822 because having removed [br]one way of life from them 0:57:47.822,0:57:49.785 we were now removing a second. 0:57:52.417,0:57:54.647 The problem is [br]we’re about to remove a third, 0:57:55.034,0:57:59.111 I said that when I was [br]there it was ten years ago, 0:57:59.111,0:58:00.939 there were two hundreds of these left, 0:58:00.939,0:58:02.156 today there are twenty. 0:58:03.626,0:58:10.802 And because the Chinese [br]are building these giant dams 0:58:11.340,0:58:14.453 to dam the Yangtze at one 0:58:14.973,0:58:18.090 of the most beautiful and most[br]spectacular sites in all world, 0:58:18.110,0:58:21.775 the Three Gorges, [br]and they’re damming it there 0:58:21.854,0:58:27.573 which means that the Yangtze Dolphin [br]will at that point definitely go extinct. 0:58:30.308,0:58:31.935 And it’s terribly sad. 0:58:33.264,0:58:35.166 The peculiar thing about dams 0:58:37.228,0:58:38.957 is that we keep on building them 0:58:39.206,0:58:40.833 and none of them ever do any good. 0:58:41.315,0:58:42.291 It’s not quite true, 0:58:42.573,0:58:44.307 because unfortunately there are 0:58:44.456,0:58:45.911 —in the history of dam-making— 0:58:45.911,0:58:47.928 two that did work, one is the Hoover 0:58:48.309,0:58:55.092 and the other is the one up in the [br]pacific northwest, the Coulee Dam. 0:58:55.288,0:58:58.360 And every other one doesn’t work. 0:58:59.715,0:59:03.650 And for some reason we never [br]manage to be able to quite stop us … 0:59:03.907,0:59:05.814 we always think we just build one more. 0:59:05.848,0:59:08.916 I think must have some sort [br]of beaver genes deep in our … 0:59:11.080,0:59:14.922 But the sad thing as I say is that [br]the Yangtze River dolphin 0:59:15.137,0:59:19.485 is definitely and without doubt [br]bound for extinction. 0:59:21.120,0:59:25.527 And, it’s very peculiar to me 0:59:27.560,0:59:31.954 that we are living at the moment [br]in an extraordinary age, 0:59:32.579,0:59:34.328 an extraordinary renaissance, 0:59:38.297,0:59:42.633 because we’ve got to the point 0:59:43.039,0:59:45.774 when we suddenly understand[br]the value of information, 0:59:46.262,0:59:47.404 as we never have before. 0:59:47.405,0:59:49.645 We call the age we live in[br]that of information. 0:59:49.771,0:59:51.941 And we’ve discovered that information is 0:59:52.318,0:59:55.932 the most valuable resource we have. 0:59:59.120,1:00:03.117 And as you’d know [br]we’ve just spent billions of dollars 1:00:03.590,1:00:07.036 —quite rightly—in trying to [br]understand the human genome, 1:00:10.739,1:00:14.858 and that’s just one species, [br]that’s just us. 1:00:15.331,1:00:16.888 And we’ve come to understand and 1:00:16.888,1:00:19.424 realise how incredibly valuable[br]this information is. 1:00:21.984,1:00:24.549 And we’ve never understood kind of 1:00:24.781,1:00:26.471 how it all worked together before, 1:00:26.929,1:00:29.509 because before we had … 1:00:29.732,1:00:30.855 let me put it this way. 1:00:31.919,1:00:33.592 In the past we’ve done science 1:00:34.915,1:00:36.309 by taking things apart 1:00:36.548,1:00:37.620 to see how they work. 1:00:38.742,1:00:41.719 And it’s led to extraordinary discoveries, 1:00:42.034,1:00:44.386 extraordinary degrees of understanding, 1:00:45.059,1:00:48.479 but the problem with taking things apart [br]to see how they work 1:00:48.949,1:00:52.198 is even though it gets you[br]down to the sort of fundamental particles, 1:00:52.530,1:00:56.005 the fundamental principles,[br]the fundamental forces at work, 1:00:57.409,1:01:00.147 we still don’t really understand[br]how they work 1:01:00.280,1:01:01.674 until we see them in motion. 1:01:02.517,1:01:04.381 One of the things that came about 1:01:04.591,1:01:08.045 as a result of understanding[br]these fundamental principles, 1:01:08.045,1:01:10.756 is that we came to invent [br]this thing called the computer. 1:01:10.756,1:01:13.033 And the great thing [br]about the computer is that, 1:01:13.033,1:01:17.360 unlike every previous analytical tool 1:01:17.751,1:01:18.813 —and there are a bit … 1:01:18.813,1:01:21.331 it’s funny how many of these [br]have to do with glass, 1:01:21.744,1:01:27.813 when we first came across glass,[br]which is a form of sand, 1:01:28.502,1:01:32.656 and we invented lenses,[br]and we looked up into the sky, 1:01:33.136,1:01:36.596 And we discovered, from that, [br]the fundamental… 1:01:36.596,1:01:38.107 by studying the sky 1:01:38.114,1:01:41.223 we began to discover fundamental [br]things about gravity, 1:01:43.653,1:01:48.176 and we also discovered that [br]the universe seems to consist 1:01:48.275,1:01:50.762 —terrifyingly enough—[br]almost entirely of nothing. 1:01:52.707,1:01:57.349 The next thing we did with glass [br]was we put them in microscopes, 1:01:57.843,1:02:03.878 and we looked down into this very [br]very very solid world around us, 1:02:04.676,1:02:08.579 and we see the fundamental [br]particles there, the atoms 1:02:08.787,1:02:14.517 —made up of protons and neutrons [br]with electrons spinning around them— 1:02:14.730,1:02:16.961 and we also discover that [br]they seem to consist 1:02:16.984,1:02:20.352 frighteningly almost entirely of nothing. 1:02:20.931,1:02:22.859 And that even when you do find something 1:02:22.859,1:02:24.862 it turns out that it isn’t actually there, 1:02:24.862,1:02:26.490 it isn’t actually a thing there, 1:02:26.490,1:02:29.546 merely the possibility that [br]there may be something there. 1:02:32.608,1:02:34.585 It kind of doesn’t feel as real as this 1:02:37.746,1:02:41.605 So the next thing [br]we do with sand was silicon, 1:02:41.875,1:02:44.101 as we create the computer. 1:02:44.900,1:02:48.650 And this finally enables us [br]to start putting things together 1:02:49.063,1:02:50.162 to see how they work. 1:02:50.628,1:02:55.087 And it allows us to see [br]actual process at work, 1:02:55.356,1:02:59.286 and we begin to see how very [br]very simple things lead inexorably 1:02:59.516,1:03:01.477 —by iteration after iteration— 1:03:01.918,1:03:06.738 to enormously complex processes[br]emerging and blossoming. 1:03:07.007,1:03:12.120 And to my mind one of the [br]most extraordinary things of our age 1:03:12.487,1:03:14.899 —I mean those of us who [br]were around will remember, 1:03:14.899,1:03:17.759 you know, seeing man walking[br]on the moon for the first time— 1:03:17.759,1:03:22.699 but I think the most dramatic[br]and extraordinary thing 1:03:23.016,1:03:24.691 that we have seen in our time 1:03:25.176,1:03:27.206 is being able to see, on computer screens, 1:03:27.206,1:03:34.026 the process by which enormously [br]simple primitive things, 1:03:34.093,1:03:38.188 processes, instructions, [br]repeated many many times over, 1:03:38.535,1:03:42.955 very very fast, and iterated over[br]generations of instructions, 1:03:43.022,1:03:46.166 produce enormously complex results. 1:03:47.378,1:03:50.953 So that we can suddenly start to create, 1:03:51.192,1:03:55.344 just out of fundamentally [br]simple primitive instructions, 1:03:55.623,1:04:03.146 we can create the way in [br]which wind behaves in a wind tunnel, 1:04:03.353,1:04:04.475 a turbulence of wind, 1:04:04.687,1:04:09.545 we can see how light might dance [br]in an imaginary dinosaur’s eye. 1:04:11.376,1:04:15.008 And we do it all out of [br]fundamentally simple instructions. 1:04:15.531,1:04:17.641 And as a result of that [br]we have finally come 1:04:17.649,1:04:24.729 to an understanding of the way [br]in which life has actually emerged. 1:04:25.400,1:04:28.405 Now, there are an awful lot of things [br]we don’t know about life. 1:04:29.295,1:04:31.309 But any life scientist will tell you that, 1:04:32.749,1:04:35.422 although there is an awful lot [br]we don’t know, 1:04:36.655,1:04:39.734 there is no longer a deep mystery. 1:04:40.163,1:04:41.731 There is no longer a deep mystery 1:04:41.731,1:04:44.505 because we have actually seen [br]with our own eyes 1:04:44.744,1:04:48.675 the way in which simplicity [br]gives rise to complexity. 1:04:49.574,1:04:51.563 When I say there is no mystery 1:04:51.819,1:04:53.461 it is rather as if you imagine 1:04:56.609,1:04:59.802 taking a detective from the 19th century, 1:05:00.396,1:05:03.698 teaming him up with a detective [br]from the late 20th century, 1:05:04.909,1:05:06.984 and giving them this problem to work on: 1:05:07.414,1:05:09.892 that a suspect in a crime 1:05:09.935,1:05:14.357 was seen one day to be [br]walking down the street 1:05:14.578,1:05:15.764 in the middle of London, 1:05:15.774,1:05:16.549 and the next day 1:05:16.760,1:05:18.494 was seen somewhere out in the desert 1:05:18.494,1:05:19.929 in the middle of New Mexico. 1:05:20.007,1:05:21.911 Now the 19th century detective will say, 1:05:21.911,1:05:24.456 “Well, I haven’t the faintest idea. 1:05:24.776,1:05:27.355 I mean it must be some species [br]of magic has happened.” 1:05:28.455,1:05:29.655 And he would have no idea 1:05:29.768,1:05:32.148 about how to begin to solve 1:05:32.354,1:05:33.755 what has happened here. 1:05:34.232,1:05:35.709 For the 20th century detective, 1:05:35.960,1:05:39.220 now he may never know whether the guy 1:05:39.220,1:05:42.338 went on British Airways [br]or United or American 1:05:42.338,1:05:45.110 or where he hired his car from, [br]or all that kind of stuff, 1:05:45.113,1:05:47.353 he may never find those details, 1:05:47.570,1:05:51.078 but there wont be any fundamental mystery [br]about what has happened. 1:05:53.271,1:05:57.714 So for us there is no longer [br]a fundamental mystery about life. 1:05:59.014,1:06:04.454 It is all the process of extraordinary[br]eruptions of information. 1:06:05.821,1:06:07.451 And it's information that gives us 1:06:07.451,1:06:12.357 this fantastically rich [br]complex world in which we live. 1:06:12.357,1:06:14.664 But at the same time [br]that we’ve discovered that, 1:06:14.664,1:06:17.961 we are destroying it at a rate 1:06:18.046,1:06:20.045 that has no precedent in history, 1:06:20.290,1:06:23.502 unless you go back to the point[br]that we’re hit by an asteroid. 1:06:26.470,1:06:30.106 So there is a kind of terrible irony 1:06:30.376,1:06:33.836 that at the point that [br]we are best able to understand, 1:06:34.199,1:06:39.415 and appreciate, and value [br]the richness of life around us, 1:06:39.626,1:06:43.548 we are destroying it at a higher rate[br]that it has even been destroyed before. 1:06:43.809,1:06:49.529 And we are losing species [br]after species after species, 1:06:49.529,1:06:51.764 day after day, just because 1:06:51.764,1:06:54.292 we’re burning the stuff down for firewood. 1:06:55.395,1:06:58.728 And this is a kind of terrible [br]indictment of our understanding. 1:06:59.198,1:07:01.766 But, you see, we make another mistake, 1:07:02.132,1:07:03.404 because we think somehow, 1:07:03.749,1:07:06.851 this is all right in some [br]fundamental kind of way, 1:07:07.866,1:07:12.032 because we think that this is all[br]sort of “meant to happen.” 1:07:12.715,1:07:18.446 Now let me explain how [br]we get into that kind of mindset, 1:07:18.868,1:07:21.024 because it’s exactly [br]the same kind of mindset 1:07:21.024,1:07:22.654 that the Kakapo gets trapped in. 1:07:23.335,1:07:26.214 Because, what has been 1:07:26.417,1:07:28.777 a very successful strategy for the Kakapo 1:07:29.233,1:07:30.913 over generation after generation 1:07:30.983,1:07:32.746 for thousands and thousands of years, 1:07:32.746,1:07:34.372 suddenly is the wrong strategy, 1:07:34.507,1:07:35.942 and he has no means of knowing 1:07:35.942,1:07:38.950 because he is just doing what [br]has been successful up till then. 1:07:40.376,1:07:43.400 And we have always been,[br]because we’re toolmakers, 1:07:43.673,1:07:45.954 because we take from our environment 1:07:46.067,1:07:48.336 the stuff that we need to do [br]what we want to do 1:07:48.346,1:07:50.511 and it’s always been [br]very successful for us … 1:07:50.521,1:07:52.912 I’ll tell you what’s happened. 1:07:53.187,1:07:54.473 It’s as if we’ve actually 1:07:54.593,1:07:56.405 kind of put the sort of “pause” button 1:07:56.405,1:07:58.687 on our own process of evolution, 1:07:58.932,1:08:02.768 because we have put a buffer around us, 1:08:03.006,1:08:08.365 which consists of—you know—[br]medicine and education and buildings, 1:08:08.642,1:08:10.792 and all these kinds of things[br]that protect us 1:08:10.834,1:08:13.016 from the normal environmental pressures. 1:08:14.165,1:08:18.547 And, it’s our ability to make tools[br]that enables us to do this. 1:08:18.790,1:08:21.601 Now, generally speaking, [br]what drives speciation, 1:08:21.900,1:08:23.498 is that a small group of animals 1:08:23.593,1:08:27.014 gets separated out from the main body 1:08:27.230,1:08:30.967 by population pressure, some geographical[br]upheaval or whatever. 1:08:31.195,1:08:35.728 So imagine, a small bunch [br]suddenly finds itself stranded 1:08:35.839,1:08:37.614 in a slightly colder environment. 1:08:38.017,1:08:40.353 Then you know, over a [br]small number of generations 1:08:40.354,1:08:42.778 that those genes [br]that favour a thicker coat 1:08:42.992,1:08:44.230 will come to the fore 1:08:44.418,1:08:46.451 and you come back a few generations later, 1:08:46.458,1:08:48.176 and the animal’s got a thicker coat. 1:08:48.176,1:08:51.736 Man, because we are able to make tools, 1:08:51.909,1:08:55.030 we arrive in a new environment [br]where it’s much colder, 1:08:55.103,1:08:57.377 and we don’t have [br]to wait for that process. 1:08:57.636,1:08:58.815 Because we see an animal 1:08:58.815,1:09:00.419 that’s already got a thicker coat 1:09:00.419,1:09:02.069 and we say we’ll have it off him. 1:09:05.702,1:09:08.279 And so we’ve kind of taken [br]control of our environment, 1:09:08.283,1:09:11.267 and that’s all very well, 1:09:11.497,1:09:16.879 but we need to be able to[br]sort of rise above that process. 1:09:19.001,1:09:21.805 We have to rise above that vision [br]and see a higher vision 1:09:22.033,1:09:26.108 —and understand the effect [br]we’re actually having. 1:09:26.847,1:09:31.916 Now imagine—if you will—an early man, 1:09:33.209,1:09:36.510 and let’s just sort of see [br]how this mindset comes about. 1:09:36.707,1:09:40.581 He’s standing, surveying his world[br]at the end of the day. 1:09:42.737,1:09:44.170 And he looks at it and thinks, 1:09:44.189,1:09:46.784 “This is a very wonderful world [br]that I find myself in. 1:09:46.784,1:09:47.827 This is pretty good. 1:09:48.894,1:09:52.427 I mean, look, here I am, [br]behind me is the mountains, 1:09:52.658,1:09:53.945 and the mountains are great 1:09:53.945,1:09:55.866 because there are caves in the mountains 1:09:55.866,1:09:57.018 where I can shelter, 1:09:57.322,1:10:00.114 either from the weather or from bears 1:10:00.515,1:10:02.620 that occasionally come [br]and try to attack me. 1:10:02.620,1:10:04.607 And I can shelter there, so that’s great. 1:10:04.617,1:10:06.707 And in front of me there is the forest, 1:10:06.936,1:10:09.481 and the forest is full of nuts [br]and berries and trees, 1:10:09.481,1:10:11.393 and they feed me, and they’re delicious 1:10:11.393,1:10:12.890 and they sort of keep me going. 1:10:12.890,1:10:14.804 And here’s a stream going through 1:10:14.834,1:10:16.650 which has got fish running through it, 1:10:16.650,1:10:19.265 and the water is delicious, [br]and I drink the water, 1:10:19.490,1:10:20.787 and everything’s fantastic. 1:10:20.799,1:10:22.092 And there’s my cousin Ug. 1:10:22.825,1:10:25.651 And Ug has caught a mammoth! Yay!! 1:10:26.260,1:10:27.424 Ug has caught a mammoth! 1:10:27.424,1:10:28.872 Mammoths are terrific! 1:10:29.142,1:10:31.328 There’s nothing greater than a mammoth, 1:10:31.583,1:10:32.553 because a mammoth, 1:10:32.613,1:10:35.829 basically you can wrap yourself [br]in the fur from the mammoth, 1:10:36.093,1:10:38.784 you can eat the meat of the mammoth, 1:10:39.049,1:10:42.326 and you can use the bones of the mammoth, [br]to catch other mammoths! 1:10:44.958,1:10:47.717 Now this world is a fantastically [br]good world for me.” 1:10:50.015,1:10:55.394 And, part of how we come to [br]take command of our world, 1:10:55.454,1:10:57.191 to take command of our environment, 1:10:57.404,1:11:00.005 to make these tools that are[br]actually able to do this, 1:11:00.166,1:11:02.710 is we ask ourselves questions[br]about it the whole time. 1:11:02.720,1:11:05.153 So this man starts to [br]ask himself questions. 1:11:05.396,1:11:11.797 “This world,” he says, [br]“well, who … so, so who made it?” 1:11:13.767,1:11:17.324 Now, of course he thinks that,[br]because he makes things himself, 1:11:17.642,1:11:21.434 so he’s looking for someone [br]who will have made this world. 1:11:22.632,1:11:25.808 He says, “So, who would [br]have made this world? 1:11:25.847,1:11:28.341 Well, it must be something[br]a little bit like me. 1:11:28.925,1:11:31.615 Obviously much much bigger, 1:11:33.188,1:11:36.942 and necessarily invisible, 1:11:40.127,1:11:45.399 but he would have made it. [br]Now, why did he make it?” 1:11:47.100,1:11:49.905 Now, we always ask ourselves “why” 1:11:50.106,1:11:52.026 because we look for intention around us, 1:11:52.803,1:11:56.326 because we always do [br]something with intention. 1:11:56.516,1:12:01.009 You know, we boil an egg [br]in order to eat it. 1:12:02.290,1:12:05.867 So, we look at the rocks [br]and we look at the trees, 1:12:06.247,1:12:08.216 and we wonder what intention is here, 1:12:08.558,1:12:10.389 even though it doesn’t have intention. 1:12:12.010,1:12:17.759 So we think, what did this person [br]who made this world intend it for. 1:12:18.082,1:12:19.951 And this is the point where you think, 1:12:19.952,1:12:22.440 “Well, it fits me very well. 1:12:24.523,1:12:26.250 You know, the caves and the forests, 1:12:26.250,1:12:28.925 and the stream, and the mammoths. 1:12:29.644,1:12:31.573 He must have made it for me! 1:12:32.643,1:12:35.538 I mean, there’s no other conclusion [br]you can come to.” 1:12:35.544,1:12:41.423 And it’s rather like a puddle [br]waking up one morning 1:12:41.498,1:12:43.225 —I know they don’t normally do this, 1:12:43.229,1:12:45.330 but allow me, I’m a [br]science fiction writer. 1:12:47.668,1:12:50.826 A puddle wakes up one morning and thinks, 1:12:51.379,1:12:54.666 “This is a very interesting [br]world I find myself in. 1:12:55.790,1:12:57.459 It fits me very neatly. 1:12:58.969,1:13:01.555 In fact, it fits me so neatly, 1:13:02.024,1:13:03.868 I mean, really precise, isn’t it? 1:13:11.450,1:13:13.803 It must have been made to have me in it!” 1:13:15.144,1:13:18.279 And the sun rises, and [br]he’s continuing to narrate 1:13:18.661,1:13:21.517 the story about this hole being[br]made to have him in it. 1:13:22.112,1:13:24.406 And the sun rises, and [br]gradually the puddle 1:13:24.618,1:13:26.607 is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, 1:13:27.065,1:13:29.102 and by the time the puddle[br]ceases to exist, 1:13:29.153,1:13:32.183 it’s still thinking, [br]it’s still trapped in this idea, 1:13:32.437,1:13:34.471 that the hole was there for it. 1:13:35.669,1:13:38.197 And if we think that [br]the world is here for us, 1:13:38.481,1:13:41.108 we will continue to destroy it 1:13:41.113,1:13:43.163 in the way that we’ve been destroying it, 1:13:43.164,1:13:44.951 because we think we can do no harm. 1:13:46.957,1:13:50.503 There’s an awful lot of speculation 1:13:50.706,1:13:52.370 one way or another at the moment, 1:13:52.563,1:13:55.146 about whether there’s life [br]on other planets or not. 1:13:56.274,1:13:58.463 Carl Sagan, as you know, 1:13:58.666,1:14:01.494 was very keen on the idea[br]that there must be. 1:14:02.084,1:14:03.349 The sheer numbers dictate, 1:14:03.349,1:14:05.827 because there are billions [br]and billions and billions 1:14:05.827,1:14:07.599 —as he famously did not say, in fact— 1:14:08.364,1:14:10.613 of worlds out there, 1:14:10.853,1:14:11.905 so the chance must be 1:14:11.922,1:14:16.024 that there’s other [br]intelligent life out there. 1:14:16.463,1:14:19.141 There are other voices at [br]the moment you’ll hear saying, 1:14:19.141,1:14:20.514 well actually if you look at 1:14:20.514,1:14:25.326 the set of circumstances here on Earth, 1:14:25.620,1:14:28.501 they are so extraordinarily specific 1:14:28.705,1:14:31.652 that the chances of there being[br]something like this out there, 1:14:31.846,1:14:33.640 are actually pretty remote. 1:14:34.650,1:14:36.222 Now, in a way it doesn’t matter. 1:14:36.222,1:14:38.867 Because think of this 1:14:38.887,1:14:41.130 —I mean Carl Sagan, I think,[br]himself, said this. 1:14:41.130,1:14:45.363 There are two possibilities: [br]either there is life 1:14:45.596,1:14:47.000 out there on other planets, 1:14:48.364,1:14:50.677 or there is no life out[br]there on other planets. 1:14:52.097,1:14:54.353 They are both utterly extraordinary ideas! 1:14:58.703,1:15:05.667 But, there is a strong possibility 1:15:05.748,1:15:08.386 that there isn’t anything [br]out there remotely like us. 1:15:10.987,1:15:14.949 And we are behaving as if this planet, 1:15:15.025,1:15:18.990 this extraordinary, utterly, utterly [br]extraordinary little ball of life, 1:15:20.522,1:15:23.526 is something we can just screw [br]about with any way we like. 1:15:25.472,1:15:28.423 And maybe we can’t. 1:15:30.561,1:15:33.571 Maybe we should be looking after it [br]just a little bit better. 1:15:34.379,1:15:36.688 Not for the world’s sake 1:15:37.899,1:15:40.257 —we talk rather grandly about[br]“saving the world.” 1:15:40.467,1:15:42.895 We don’t have to save the world[br]–the world’s fine! 1:15:43.231,1:15:46.689 The world has been through [br]five periods of mass extinction. 1:15:47.458,1:15:52.225 Sixty-five million years ago when, [br]as it seems, a comet hit the Earth 1:15:52.468,1:15:55.843 at the same time that there [br]were vast volcanic eruptions in India, 1:15:56.664,1:15:58.221 which saw off the dinosaurs, 1:15:58.617,1:16:01.501 and something like 90%[br]of the life on the planet at the time. 1:16:01.509,1:16:04.906 Go back another, I think is 150 million[br]years earlier than that, 1:16:05.115,1:16:08.240 to the Permian-Triassic [br]boundary, another giant, 1:16:08.570,1:16:10.520 giant, giant extinction. 1:16:10.804,1:16:13.456 The world has been through it [br]many many times before. 1:16:14.181,1:16:15.601 And what tends to happen, 1:16:15.941,1:16:18.679 what happens invariably[br]after each mass extinction, 1:16:19.042,1:16:23.574 is that there’s a huge [br]amount of space available, 1:16:23.808,1:16:27.249 or new forms of life suddenly [br]to emerge and flourish into. 1:16:27.783,1:16:34.363 Just as the extinction of [br]the dinosaurs made way for us. 1:16:35.058,1:16:37.381 Without that extinction, [br]we would not be here. 1:16:37.996,1:16:39.154 So, the world is fine. 1:16:39.164,1:16:40.788 We don’t have to save the world 1:16:41.010,1:16:43.226 —the world is big enough [br]to look after itself. 1:16:44.205,1:16:45.988 What we have to be concerned about, 1:16:45.989,1:16:49.390 is whether or not the world we live in, 1:16:49.599,1:16:53.604 will be capable of sustaining us in it. 1:16:54.817,1:16:56.494 That’s what we need to think about. 1:16:56.515,1:16:58.576 Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. 1:17:29.500,1:17:31.280 And now if anybody has any questions, 1:17:31.291,1:17:32.954 I’m very happy to take questions, 1:17:32.954,1:17:37.432 and there are microphones down here [br]at the front so I suggest you use them. 1:17:37.721,1:17:39.244 Yeah, hi. 1:17:39.948,1:17:41.423 Thank you. Wonderful talk. 1:17:41.844,1:17:46.773 You say we should take care[br]to not destroy the planet. 1:17:47.017,1:17:49.721 There is one suggestion[br]that has been made is that, 1:17:49.953,1:17:52.023 the reason why we destroy the planet 1:17:52.240,1:17:54.549 is that we don’t pay [br]the true cost of things 1:17:54.611,1:17:55.830 when we consume them. 1:17:56.848,1:17:58.864 The price of gasoline has been falling 1:17:59.238,1:18:02.814 in real dollars and the vehicles[br]get bigger and bigger, 1:18:03.054,1:18:04.842 we have the Selfish Useless Vehicles 1:18:04.842,1:18:06.495 —I think they’re called—the SUV’s. 1:18:12.073,1:18:14.676 You know, I have to say as a brit, 1:18:15.701,1:18:16.988 you know we sit and think, 1:18:16.988,1:18:19.841 “the americans are complaining again[br]because their gas prices 1:18:19.841,1:18:22.357 have reached now nearly [br]a quarter of what we pay.” 1:18:24.955,1:18:28.470 So, I just wonder whether you think 1:18:28.640,1:18:33.598 that a good solution is that if [br]we would pay the true cost of things, 1:18:33.856,1:18:35.910 if we would pay the ten dollars a gallon 1:18:36.307,1:18:39.745 or whatever it really costs in terms [br]of the impact on the environment, 1:18:39.745,1:18:41.903 that that might make a difference? 1:18:43.342,1:18:48.998 Umm. It may be …, I …, it … 1:18:52.456,1:18:56.216 There is a problem I’m very [br]very conscious of here. 1:18:57.491,1:19:04.453 Which is that, even though I’m talking [br]from a conservationist point of view, 1:19:04.996,1:19:08.316 very very strongly, you’d look back[br]over the history 1:19:08.570,1:19:11.753 of what we and the conservation [br]movement have said 1:19:11.753,1:19:14.147 in the last ten years, [br]and the previous ten years, 1:19:14.147,1:19:15.646 and previous ten years of that. 1:19:15.656,1:19:19.561 And most of what we’ve said [br]we have to do about it, 1:19:20.239,1:19:23.629 or the way to have gone about it, [br]have actually turned out to be wrong. 1:19:24.045,1:19:30.452 So, it’s very hard for me to pretend 1:19:30.710,1:19:32.781 I can stand up and say we have to do this, 1:19:32.790,1:19:34.199 and we have to do that. 1:19:34.601,1:19:36.725 Because they may not be [br]the right solution. 1:19:37.457,1:19:40.824 I’m terribly aware of this as far as, 1:19:41.190,1:19:43.472 I mean just going back again, 1:19:43.723,1:19:49.016 I mean thinking about sort of protection[br]of animals in Africa, for instance. 1:19:49.683,1:19:52.535 That time after time, we’ve gone[br]about it the wrong way. 1:19:53.476,1:19:56.608 And, yeah, the conservation efforts 1:19:56.825,1:20:00.821 of once every ten years [br]will be as much as anything else, 1:20:01.051,1:20:03.512 undoing the problems caused [br]by the last ten years. 1:20:03.942,1:20:08.926 So it is a question of constant[br]sort of self-education, 1:20:09.369,1:20:11.138 trying to assimilate the information, 1:20:11.168,1:20:14.533 trying to see what the consequence [br]of what we’ve done so far has been, 1:20:15.967,1:20:17.361 what we can learn from that. 1:20:17.361,1:20:24.623 Now it may well be that if we say[br]we’re going to multiply the cost of gas 1:20:25.009,1:20:31.008 by ten times or whatever, that may have [br]effects that we would put into … 1:20:31.234,1:20:35.751 they would be the lure of unintended [br]consequences, which comes into play. 1:20:36.989,1:20:41.619 I think the best thing we can do is [br]continually inform ourselves, 1:20:41.967,1:20:46.079 be as aware as possible of what [br]is actually happening, 1:20:46.429,1:20:51.169 how if that kind of feedback loop[br]saying now we’re going to make 1:20:51.398,1:20:55.941 the true cost of the damage we’re causing [br]be part of what you have to pay, 1:20:56.169,1:20:59.604 then that may be very well [br]be a very good answer; 1:20:59.953,1:21:02.389 but I’m also worried that[br]it may not be the answer. 1:21:02.402,1:21:05.599 Which is a complicated way of saying[br]“I don’t know.” 1:21:14.158,1:21:16.828 Two questions. First. [br]Do you know where your towel is? 1:21:18.461,1:21:19.695 No. 1:21:20.544,1:21:21.614 OK. 1:21:22.388,1:21:23.756 That was always my problem. 1:21:25.021,1:21:27.063 It’s very funny the thing [br]about the towel because, … 1:21:28.360,1:21:30.404 I’ll tell you where it came from. 1:21:30.892,1:21:32.938 I was on a holiday with a bunch of people, 1:21:33.275,1:21:35.300 and we were on a Villa in Corfu. 1:21:35.558,1:21:38.001 And every day we would [br]set out to the beach, 1:21:38.256,1:21:40.699 and just as we were [br]setting out for the beach 1:21:40.828,1:21:42.433 there would a problem, 1:21:43.459,1:21:47.480 and the problem would be [br]that Douglas could not find his towel! 1:21:49.727,1:21:52.664 Where was my towel? Was it under the bed? 1:21:52.664,1:21:54.808 Was it on the end of bed? [br]Was it in the bed? 1:21:54.814,1:21:57.557 Was it the bathroom? [br]Was it hanging on the line outside? 1:21:57.998,1:21:59.713 Was it in the washing …? Was it …? 1:21:59.742,1:22:02.948 I had no idea, day after day, [br]where the fuck my towel was. 1:22:04.153,1:22:06.047 And after a while I just began to think 1:22:06.047,1:22:07.926 this must be symptomatic of somebody 1:22:08.000,1:22:11.160 who is so sort of deeply chaotic. 1:22:11.916,1:22:14.203 But I then … 1:22:14.605,1:22:17.589 I don’t even know whether [br]I even came up with it first, 1:22:17.977,1:22:19.623 or somebody on the hold of it 1:22:19.971,1:22:21.995 came with the idea that somebody 1:22:22.220,1:22:24.170 who was rather more together than I, 1:22:24.347,1:22:27.249 would be someone who would [br]really know where their towel was. 1:22:27.269,1:22:35.256 And so then, when I was writing [br]the Hitchhiker, I sort of put … 1:22:35.557,1:22:38.610 You very often put things in because [br]you know what they mean. 1:22:39.116,1:22:42.511 And it’s really kind of a flag to yourself 1:22:42.875,1:22:46.966 that in the next draft through [br]you would put something in 1:22:47.136,1:22:50.157 that means to everybody else[br]what this thing means to you. 1:22:51.250,1:22:53.247 You know. And then it kind of stays there, 1:22:53.268,1:22:56.654 and it turns out that it does mean [br]something to everybody else as well. 1:22:58.045,1:22:59.569 Does that answer your question? 1:23:00.093,1:23:04.941 OK. And also, do we behave like people [br]descended from stick-using monkeys 1:23:05.415,1:23:07.668 or people descended [br]from telephone cleaners. 1:23:10.939,1:23:13.856 I think we have both lots there[br]in our genes, I’m afraid. 1:23:21.864,1:23:25.550 I’m absolutely going to kill myself [br]if I get out of here without asking this. 1:23:25.556,1:23:27.587 This question occurred to me[br]when my friend 1:23:27.587,1:23:29.920 bodily forced me to pick up the first book 1:23:29.973,1:23:32.825 n The Hitchhiker’s Guide and I read the [br]very first sentences 1:23:32.831,1:23:34.573 on the very first paragraph, 1:23:34.899,1:23:38.330 “What on God’s green earth does [br]this man have against digital watches!?” 1:23:45.734,1:23:47.915 Well I have to admit[br]they’ve improved since 1:23:47.976,1:23:52.420 I actually wrote that bit. 1:23:53.205,1:23:55.955 But if you think about it, 1:23:56.451,1:23:58.656 I mean the first digital [br]watches which were …, 1:24:00.901,1:24:06.233 you look at a regular watch with hands[br]and you got a pie chart. 1:24:07.310,1:24:09.658 Remember the time when[br]we used to get very excited 1:24:09.658,1:24:13.245 about pie charts being the [br]thing that computer did for us? 1:24:13.440,1:24:15.131 “Uhhh! Pie charts!” 1:24:19.019,1:24:22.609 But at the same time when we were [br]getting terribly excited about pie charts 1:24:22.609,1:24:25.379 and what they could do for [br]our understanding of the world, 1:24:25.379,1:24:28.045 we were saying, [br]“We don’t want pie charts on our wrists. 1:24:28.598,1:24:30.182 That’s old fashioned technology. 1:24:30.521,1:24:34.189 No what we want is not something you [br]just glance at and see what the time is. 1:24:34.189,1:24:36.049 We want something that you’ve got to go 1:24:36.049,1:24:38.930 into a dark corner and [br]put down your suitcase 1:24:39.151,1:24:41.236 and press a button in order to read, 1:24:41.489,1:24:43.740 ‘Oh it’s 11:43, now what is …? uhm …? 1:24:43.915,1:24:46.148 How long is that before twelve o’clock?’ ” 1:24:47.430,1:24:49.211 And this was progress. 1:24:50.629,1:24:54.357 But you see, I mean the great [br]thing about human beings, 1:24:55.093,1:24:57.059 I mean—while we make fun of it— 1:24:57.305,1:25:01.246 is not only that we invent [br]stuff that’s new, 1:25:01.547,1:25:04.678 and better, and does things better. 1:25:04.950,1:25:09.306 But even stuff that works perfectly well [br]we can’t leave well enough alone, 1:25:09.702,1:25:14.282 and it’s really the most sort of charming[br]and delightful aspect of human beings, 1:25:14.469,1:25:17.653 that we keep on inventing things [br]that we’ve already got right once. 1:25:17.653,1:25:23.154 I mean like bathroom faucets, [br]I mean it’s very very simple, 1:25:23.185,1:25:26.431 you turn it on the water comes out, [br]you turn it off the water stops. 1:25:26.431,1:25:28.198 And we kind of got the hang of that. 1:25:28.207,1:25:30.201 That works. But it’s amazing you go into, 1:25:30.597,1:25:33.584 you know, a hotel lobby or an airport, 1:25:33.775,1:25:35.680 and you approach the basin 1:25:35.934,1:25:38.654 with a certain amount of [br]sort of anxiety, you know. 1:25:45.221,1:25:47.014 “What do I do? Do I turn something? 1:25:47.014,1:25:48.989 Do I push something? Do I pull something? 1:25:48.989,1:25:49.762 Do I knee it!? 1:25:53.042,1:25:55.018 Do I just have to sort of be in near it?” 1:25:58.908,1:26:01.202 And once the water started to flow 1:26:01.462,1:26:04.009 because it has picked up some sort 1:26:04.017,1:26:05.953 of brainwave energy from me or whatever. 1:26:06.622,1:26:09.956 “So, now how do I stop it? [br]Is it my job to stop it? 1:26:11.229,1:26:12.730 Would it stop itself?” 1:26:13.562,1:26:19.950 I mean, I think we’ve got[br]the faucet down OK. 1:26:20.586,1:26:24.664 But, I just think it’s wonderful[br]we just sort of 1:26:24.923,1:26:27.394 keep on inventing it even though it works, 1:26:27.611,1:26:32.473 because it’s the way of getting ourselves[br]off local maximums isn’t it? 1:26:37.940,1:26:40.885 I think that’s all I have [br]to say there. Thanks.