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Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen

2
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It’s a very interesting, and unusual,

3
00:00:53,964 --> 00:00:55,729
and weird experience for me

4
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to be talking in my home town. Which is…

5
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Now, amongst the books

6
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that Constance mentioned 
when she was introducing me,

7
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide, 
Dirk Gently and so on,

8
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it was not my favourite book.

9
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And my favourite book

10
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is what I’m here to talk about tonight.

11
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It's funny how, how often…

12
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Virtually every author I know,

13
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their own favourite book is the one
that sold the least.

14
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It’s somehow the runt of the litter,

15
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it’s the one you’ve always
just loved the most.

16
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And I want to tell you about
how this came about.

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Sometime in about the mid 1980s,

18
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the phone rang.

19
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And the voice said,

20
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“We want you to go to Madagascar.

21
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We want you to look for 
a very rare form of lemur,

22
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called the Aye-aye.

23
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The plane leaves in two weeks,

24
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we would like you to be on it.”

25
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Now I—assuming they’ve got
the wrong number—said “yes!”

26
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before they could discover their mistake.

27
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But in fact it turned out 
that they decided,

28
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“Well, here is somebody who 
doesn’t know anything about lemurs,

29
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anything about the Aye-aye, 
anything about Madagascar,

30
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let’s send him.”

31
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So I started to try 
and find out something about it,

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and it turns out it’s very interesting.

33
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Lemurs used to be 
the dominant primate in all the world.

34
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And they were very, 
very gentle, pleasant creatures.

35
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They were a little bit 
like sort of cat size,

36
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and they used to hang around in the trees

37
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having a nice time.

38
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And then, Gondwanaland split up.

39
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It always sounds like 
some sort of 70’s rock group

40
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going their own way 
for reasons of musical differences.

41
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But as you probably remember

42
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Gondwanaland was that 
vast continental landmass

43
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that consisted of what then became

44
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South America, Africa, India

45
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Southeast Asia, Australasia

46
00:03:19,948 --> 00:03:22,809
—uh, no—Australia, Australia and not

47
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—and this will turn out 
to be significant later—

48
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not New Zealand

49
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which turns out to be just a lot of gunk

50
00:03:28,533 --> 00:03:30,215
that came out from under the ocean.

51
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And as I say,

52
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lemurs were the dominant primate
around the world

53
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and when all these landmasses split up,

54
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and Madagascar was one of them,

55
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Madagascar kind of sailed off

56
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into the middle of what then
suddenly became the Indian Ocean.

57
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And took with it a representative sample

58
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of the livestock of the period,

59
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which included a lot of lemurs.

60
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And they basically sort of sat there

61
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for millions and millions of years

62
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in glorious isolation.

63
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While, in the rest of the world,

64
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a new creature emerged.

65
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A new creature arrived

66
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that was much more intelligent 
than the lemurs

67
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—according to it—

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much more competitive,

69
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much more aggressive,

70
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and incredibly interested

71
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in all of things you could do with twigs.

72
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Twigs were absolutely wonderful.

73
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So much you can do with twigs

74
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you can dig in the ground 
for things with twigs,

75
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you can burrow under 
the bark of trees for grubs,

76
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you can hit each other with twigs.

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If there had been copies of 
TwigUser Magazine around on those days,

78
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these creatures would 
have been lining up for it.

79
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And these creatures

80
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—which, as you have probably guessed, 
are called the monkeys—

81
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because they were more competitive 
and more aggressive,

82
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and they lived in the 
same habitat as the lemurs,

83
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they successfully supplanted the lemurs

84
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everywhere in the world 
other than Madagascar.

85
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Because Madagascar was right out 
in the middle of the Indian Ocean

86
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and they couldn’t get there.

87
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They couldn’t get there until
about 1500 years ago,

88
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when due to startling 
advances in twig technology

89
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they were able to get there in boats,

90
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and eventually planes.

91
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And suddenly the lemurs,
that have had this place for themselves

92
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for millions and millions 
and millions of years,

93
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were suddenly facing 
their old enemy: the monkey.

94
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So, this is Madagascar,

95
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and it turns out that 
the rarest of the lemurs

96
00:05:51,824 --> 00:05:53,778
—and when I say the rarest of the lemurs,

97
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at this particular point in the mid 80’s

98
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they were thought to be 
the rarest of the lemurs;

99
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we’ve now discovered and even rarer lemur 
called the Golden Bamboo Lemur,

100
00:06:02,816 --> 00:06:05,578
which went straight to the number one
of endangered lemurs—

101
00:06:07,219 --> 00:06:10,843
but the Aye-aye is a very 
very peculiar animal.

102
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It looks like an agglomeration

103
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of all sorts of other different animals.

104
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So, for instance, 
it has a sort of fox's ears,

105
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and it has a little sort
of bitty rabbit’s teeth,

106
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and it has a kind of 
ostrich feather as a tail,

107
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and it has very weird eyes,

108
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actually it has Marty Feldman’s eyes.

109
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The kind of sort of looking 
slightly beyond you

110
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into a sort of other dimension 
just over your left shoulder.

111
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But it also has one very very
very peculiar characteristic,

112
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which is its middle finger on both hands
is skeletally thin and very very long.

113
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And it turns out there is
only one other animal

114
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in the entire world that has this feature.

115
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And this is called

116
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—I love zoologists; 
they have such vivid imaginations—

117
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it’s called the Long-Fingered Possum.

118
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And this is a creature 
that lives in New Guinea,

119
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and in fact it's its fourth finger 
that is skeletally thin and elongated.

120
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And this is the thing that tells us

121
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that there is no relationship 
between these animals,

122
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it’s pure convergent evolution,

123
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because the common factor 
between Madagascar and the Aye-aye,

124
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and New Guinea and 
the Long-Fingered Possum

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is that in both habitats 
there are no woodpeckers.

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And you see, the thing is

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—life is very very opportunistic,

128
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and it will take advantage of any 
food source it finds around the place.

129
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And if there are no woodpeckers looking 
under the bark of trees for grubs,

130
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then, in this case, it will be the mammals

131
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that grow the skeletally thin long finger 
to burrow under the bark of the tree,

132
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and get to this source of food 
which is the grubs under the bark.

133
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So, the Aye-aye is this 
very very very strange creature.

134
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And at this time it was thought there 
were only about fifteen of them left.

135
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And they lived actually 
not on Madagascar itself,

136
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but on a tiny little rainforest island

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just off the coast of Madagascar, 
called Nosy Mangabe,

138
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and it’s just off 
the northwest tip of Madagascar.

139
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And now to get there, what you have to do,

140
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is you have to fly in a 747 to Madagascar.

141
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And then in a terrible 
old jalopy of an airplane

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from Madagascar up to the northwest port.

143
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And from there you have to go 
in a kind of decreasingly excellent

144
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series of carts and trucks and so on,

145
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to a little port where 
there was going to be a boat

146
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that was going to take us to Nosy Mangabe.

147
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So we arrived there, 
and arrived at the port,

148
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and we were looking around for the boat
that was going to take us to Nosy Mangabe,

149
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and we couldn’t see it.

150
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And we kept on asking people

151
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–you know–“where is this boat?”,

152
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and they would say 
“It’s there! It’s there!”,

153
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and we couldn’t see 
what they were pointing at

154
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because there was this terrible 
rotting old hulk in the way.

155
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Well as you guessed,

156
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this is the terrible rotting old hulk

157
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that we had to go to Nosy Mangabe in.

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And it didn’t fulfill what to my mind 
was the sort of basic criteria of a boat,

159
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in that it was basically full of ocean.

160
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And it seemed to me 
that the whole point of a boat

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was to keep the ocean on the outside.

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Anyway, so we crossed to Nosy Mangabe.

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And it’s this tiny little, very very 
beautiful little rainforest island.

164
00:10:00,865 --> 00:10:02,126
And we hit a major problem

165
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which of course is that 
this animal not only lives in trees

166
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—nobody has seen it for 
years and years and years—

167
00:10:09,526 --> 00:10:13,176
lives in trees but 
also it's a nocturnal animal.

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And the quality of batteries 
in Madagascar was very very poor.

169
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So, we spent night after night
after night,

170
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traipsing through the rainforest,

171
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in what can only be described as: 
the rain.

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Getting rather ratty,

173
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and basically we’ve just spent
night after night

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sort of huddled under tarpaulins,

175
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looking at us, saying “stop raining.”

176
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And every now and then we would sort of,

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“gah, I’ve been trying 
to find this damn animal.”

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Actually, this is wonderful,

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we found this hut that used 
to be this sort of game warden’s

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—not game warden—a ranger’s hut.

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And it’s a tiny little hut.

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And it was actually full of wild life.

183
00:11:05,538 --> 00:11:06,948
What happened, you see,

184
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is you would open the door,

185
00:11:12,891 --> 00:11:14,801
and you'd hear all this noise…

186
00:11:19,322 --> 00:11:21,657
and you turn on the light 
and it would all stop.

187
00:11:26,979 --> 00:11:30,022
And you would see these little 
giant spiders around the wall,

188
00:11:30,435 --> 00:11:32,942
each with a sort of 
half-eaten bug in their mouth!

189
00:11:35,135 --> 00:11:36,369
And say, “yes?”

190
00:11:41,013 --> 00:11:42,531
And you turn the light out and…

191
00:11:46,032 --> 00:11:48,107
So this is our shelter, you know,

192
00:11:48,107 --> 00:11:49,544
we were having a great time.

193
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And eventually…

194
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But one night, one night,

195
00:11:56,860 --> 00:11:59,872
we were all sort of—as I said—
huddled under our tarpaulins,

196
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and I sort of got out, 
and wandered around,

197
00:12:01,965 --> 00:12:05,474
and suddenly, suddenly, 
I looked up and on a branch

198
00:12:05,887 --> 00:12:07,601
at about that high above my head

199
00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:10,936
this creature came out.

200
00:12:11,896 --> 00:12:15,451
This creature came out along the branch,

201
00:12:17,369 --> 00:12:19,405
looked down on me,

202
00:12:20,050 --> 00:12:23,285
and I looked at it, and as it looked to me

203
00:12:23,539 --> 00:12:26,415
—it obviously didn’t at all like 
to look at what it saw—

204
00:12:26,944 --> 00:12:28,899
it turned around and went away again.

205
00:12:30,612 --> 00:12:32,621
Whole encounter about ten seconds.

206
00:12:34,025 --> 00:12:36,299
And that’s what we’d come for.

207
00:12:38,038 --> 00:12:40,875
I had actually seen, and we saw

208
00:12:40,875 --> 00:12:44,603
—we all just managed to get a quick 
photograph of it when it appeared—

209
00:12:44,603 --> 00:12:47,122
but I suddenly realised 
we’d seen an Aye-aye.

210
00:12:48,186 --> 00:12:51,573
Now, I was absolutely 
transfixed by that moment,

211
00:12:51,573 --> 00:12:54,779
for reasons that I couldn’t entirely 
explain to myself immediately.

212
00:12:55,407 --> 00:12:58,187
Because a month earlier
I’d never even heard of this animal

213
00:12:58,188 --> 00:13:00,851
and now here I was, staring at it,

214
00:13:01,116 --> 00:13:03,908
thinking that something 
extraordinary happening here.

215
00:13:04,195 --> 00:13:06,577
So I began to sort of 
think about it a little bit,

216
00:13:06,577 --> 00:13:08,794
and the thought I put together was this.

217
00:13:12,163 --> 00:13:18,994
In traveling here, 
in traveling on a 747 to Tananarive,

218
00:13:19,272 --> 00:13:21,195
which is the capital of Madagascar,

219
00:13:21,408 --> 00:13:23,432
and this terrible old jalopy
of an airplane

220
00:13:23,432 --> 00:13:26,220
that took us out to the northwest corner,

221
00:13:26,484 --> 00:13:29,611
and then in the decreasingly excellent
series of carts and trucks,

222
00:13:29,615 --> 00:13:34,024
and then in the rotting old hulk
that took us to the rainforest

223
00:13:34,278 --> 00:13:37,452
where we basically walked through
the rainforest night after night,

224
00:13:37,452 --> 00:13:39,881
it was as if we were taking 
a kind of time journey

225
00:13:40,127 --> 00:13:41,355
—a time travel journey—

226
00:13:41,659 --> 00:13:44,275
back through the history
of twig technology.

227
00:13:46,337 --> 00:13:48,591
And what this encounter had been,

228
00:13:48,940 --> 00:13:52,028
what this encounter had been was:

229
00:13:52,155 --> 00:13:53,814
I was a monkey looking at a lemur.

230
00:13:55,083 --> 00:13:56,183
And you suddenly think,

231
00:13:56,185 --> 00:13:58,582
there is a huge amount of history

232
00:13:58,881 --> 00:14:00,857
to this moment that we don’t think

233
00:14:00,857 --> 00:14:03,317
—we don’t realise—we carry around with us.

234
00:14:03,749 --> 00:14:09,175
Our roots in this planet go back 
an awfully awfully awfully long way,

235
00:14:09,608 --> 00:14:12,403
and we don’t tend to 
think about that very much.

236
00:14:12,801 --> 00:14:14,627
And it takes a confrontation like this

237
00:14:14,631 --> 00:14:20,874
suddenly to realise how sort of
broad and deep your family goes.

238
00:14:21,383 --> 00:14:24,181
So I thought, 
well this is terribly interesting.

239
00:14:25,140 --> 00:14:29,629
And I talked to the guy who had been
kind of my guide out there,

240
00:14:29,697 --> 00:14:31,927
who was a zoologist 
who had been sent along

241
00:14:32,173 --> 00:14:35,193
to make sure I didn’t sort of 
fall out of the trees and so on.

242
00:14:35,193 --> 00:14:39,274
And his name was Mark Carwardine,
and I said to him,

243
00:14:41,302 --> 00:14:42,953
“I would love it if we could …,

244
00:14:42,956 --> 00:14:45,573
do you fancy the idea of 
sort of going around the world

245
00:14:45,573 --> 00:14:48,472
and looking for other rare 
and endangered species of animals,

246
00:14:48,472 --> 00:14:49,960
maybe doing a book about this?”

247
00:14:49,960 --> 00:14:52,219
He said, 
“well, that’s what I do for a living!”

248
00:14:53,123 --> 00:14:54,787
“So yeah, OK.”

249
00:14:55,527 --> 00:14:57,546
And so we did.

250
00:14:57,546 --> 00:14:59,453
Now, there was a pause at that moment

251
00:14:59,453 --> 00:15:02,609
because I had a couple of novels
I’d just contracted to write.

252
00:15:02,609 --> 00:15:06,804
So I wrote Dirk Gently’s
Holistic Detective Agency

253
00:15:06,804 --> 00:15:08,719
and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul,

254
00:15:08,719 --> 00:15:10,616
and then it was time to go.

255
00:15:11,556 --> 00:15:15,675
And the first place we went,

256
00:15:15,820 --> 00:15:21,523
we went to look for a particular animal
which is the Komodo Dragon Lizard.

257
00:15:23,514 --> 00:15:26,068
Now you know what 
lizards are like, don’t you?

258
00:15:26,405 --> 00:15:27,543
I mean they’re sort of…

259
00:15:30,589 --> 00:15:34,361
The Komodo Dragon Lizard 
is a little bit bigger than that.

260
00:15:37,205 --> 00:15:43,359
The biggest one we saw actually
it was about 13 feet long,

261
00:15:44,542 --> 00:15:46,275
and its head came out to about here

262
00:15:48,993 --> 00:15:51,631
fucking huge 
I think is the technical term.

263
00:15:54,945 --> 00:15:57,717
It’s thought they're the origin
of the chinese dragon myth

264
00:15:58,010 --> 00:16:01,922
—because they are well huge, 
giant giant lizards,

265
00:16:02,080 --> 00:16:05,195
they’re scaly, they’re man eaters,

266
00:16:05,361 --> 00:16:06,862
literally they are man eaters,

267
00:16:06,958 --> 00:16:08,754
and they don’t actually breathe fire,

268
00:16:08,754 --> 00:16:12,086
but they do have the worst breath
of any creature known to man.

269
00:16:14,078 --> 00:16:18,212
And they live on this island
called Komodo.

270
00:16:19,146 --> 00:16:22,198
Now, it’s not enough—it turns out—

271
00:16:22,419 --> 00:16:30,674
that this island has fifteen hundred, 
fifteen hundred man-eating dragons on it.

272
00:16:33,344 --> 00:16:37,112
It turns our that actually that 
the most endangered animal on the island

273
00:16:37,462 --> 00:16:39,619
is anything other than the dragons.

274
00:16:45,536 --> 00:16:47,761
In fact—as I said—they’re man eaters.

275
00:16:47,761 --> 00:16:50,268
They don’t actually eat you
sort of straight out,

276
00:16:50,268 --> 00:16:52,834
they don’t sort of lunge at you
and just gobble you up.

277
00:16:52,834 --> 00:16:54,037
They sort of sneak around

278
00:16:54,037 --> 00:16:56,149
and they come 
and give you a bit of a bite.

279
00:16:57,221 --> 00:16:59,872
Because their saliva is so virulent

280
00:17:00,231 --> 00:17:01,854
that your wound would not heal

281
00:17:02,089 --> 00:17:04,679
and after a while you will die.

282
00:17:05,056 --> 00:17:07,171
And so one of the dragons
will get to eat you

283
00:17:07,171 --> 00:17:09,664
—it doesn’t matter if it’s
the same one that bit you—

284
00:17:09,664 --> 00:17:10,953
they just have a strategy

285
00:17:10,953 --> 00:17:14,648
of having as many dead and dying
creatures lying around the island

286
00:17:14,648 --> 00:17:17,567
as they can manage 
and that kind of keeps them going.

287
00:17:20,983 --> 00:17:23,728
But it turns out it’s not enough
that the island

288
00:17:23,728 --> 00:17:26,544
has fifteen hundred 
man-eating dragons on it.

289
00:17:26,544 --> 00:17:28,789
Just to make it a little bit 
more interesting,

290
00:17:28,789 --> 00:17:32,322
it also has more poisonous snakes on it

291
00:17:32,361 --> 00:17:33,641
—per square meter of land—

292
00:17:33,831 --> 00:17:36,414
than any equivalent 
area of land anywhere on earth.

293
00:17:37,331 --> 00:17:39,448
So, we approached Komodo

294
00:17:39,741 --> 00:17:41,979
—I have to say—slightly nervously,

295
00:17:42,411 --> 00:17:44,350
and in a slightly roundabout way.

296
00:17:45,105 --> 00:17:47,317
In fact we approached 
in such a roundabout way

297
00:17:47,317 --> 00:17:49,424
that we went by Melbourne in Australia.

298
00:17:51,454 --> 00:17:53,150
And the reason we went by Melbourne

299
00:17:53,150 --> 00:17:55,406
was somebody who
we wanted to go and see there,

300
00:17:55,406 --> 00:17:57,940
a man called Dr. Struan Sutherland.

301
00:17:58,921 --> 00:18:01,839
Actually I want to read you
a little bit about him,

302
00:18:02,052 --> 00:18:08,034
he was a great expert in snake venom.

303
00:18:10,626 --> 00:18:12,942
I should apologise 
before I read this, actually,

304
00:18:12,962 --> 00:18:16,463
for the fact that 
my australian accent isn’t very good.

305
00:18:16,714 --> 00:18:17,858
But then, what the hell,

306
00:18:17,858 --> 00:18:20,628
you’re all americans 
you won’t know the difference anyway.

307
00:18:33,573 --> 00:18:35,168
There is in Melbourne a man

308
00:18:35,168 --> 00:18:37,346
who probably knows more
about poisonous snakes

309
00:18:37,346 --> 00:18:38,870
than anyone else on earth.

310
00:18:39,925 --> 00:18:41,798
His name is Dr. Struan Sutherland,

311
00:18:41,798 --> 00:18:43,514
and he has devoted his entire life

312
00:18:43,716 --> 00:18:45,431
to a study of venom.

313
00:18:46,211 --> 00:18:47,955
“And I’m bored at talking about it”,

314
00:18:47,955 --> 00:18:50,505
he said when we went along
to see him the next morning

315
00:18:50,505 --> 00:18:52,446
laden with tape recorders and notebooks.

316
00:18:52,446 --> 00:18:54,518
“Can’t stand all these 
poisonous creatures,

317
00:18:54,518 --> 00:18:56,869
all these snakes and 
insects and fish and things.

318
00:18:56,869 --> 00:18:58,496
Wretched things, biting everybody.

319
00:18:58,496 --> 00:19:01,310
And then people expect me 
to tell them what to do about it.

320
00:19:01,310 --> 00:19:04,275
I’ll tell them what to do.
Don’t get bitten in the first place.

321
00:19:04,275 --> 00:19:05,147
That’s the answer.

322
00:19:05,147 --> 00:19:07,390
I’ve had enough of 
telling people all the time.

323
00:19:07,390 --> 00:19:09,125
Hydroponics, now that’s interesting.

324
00:19:09,933 --> 00:19:12,058
Talk to you all you like 
about hydroponics.

325
00:19:12,058 --> 00:19:13,112
Fascinating stuff,

326
00:19:13,267 --> 00:19:15,064
growing plants artificially in water,

327
00:19:15,209 --> 00:19:16,494
very interesting technique.

328
00:19:16,524 --> 00:19:19,955
We’ll need to know all about it 
if we’re going to go to Mars and places.

329
00:19:19,955 --> 00:19:21,587
Where did you say you were going?”

330
00:19:21,587 --> 00:19:22,298
“Komodo.”

331
00:19:23,078 --> 00:19:25,243
“Well don’t get bitten, 
that’s all I can say.

332
00:19:28,830 --> 00:19:32,392
And don’t come running to me if you do 
because you won’t get here in time,

333
00:19:33,458 --> 00:19:35,655
and anyway I’ve got enough on my plate.

334
00:19:36,248 --> 00:19:39,414
Look at this office, full of 
poisonous animals all over the place.

335
00:19:39,414 --> 00:19:42,522
See this tank, it’s full of fire ants. 
Venomous little creatures.

336
00:19:42,522 --> 00:19:44,192
What are we going to do about them?

337
00:19:44,192 --> 00:19:47,404
Anyway, I got some little fairy cakes
in case you were hungry.

338
00:19:47,404 --> 00:19:48,987
Would you like some little cakes?

339
00:19:48,987 --> 00:19:50,617
I can’t remember where I put them.

340
00:19:50,628 --> 00:19:52,557
There’s some tea but it’s not very good.

341
00:19:52,557 --> 00:19:54,241
Anyway, sit down for heaven’s sake.

342
00:19:55,201 --> 00:19:56,703
So, you’re going to Komodo.

343
00:19:56,703 --> 00:19:58,725
Well, I don’t know why you want to do that

344
00:19:58,725 --> 00:20:00,437
but I suppose you have your reasons.

345
00:20:01,212 --> 00:20:03,891
There are fifteen different 
types of snake on Komodo,

346
00:20:03,891 --> 00:20:05,457
and half of them are poisonous.

347
00:20:06,354 --> 00:20:07,877
The only potentially deadly ones

348
00:20:08,017 --> 00:20:09,302
are the Russell’s Viper,

349
00:20:09,463 --> 00:20:11,986
the Bamboo Viper and the Indian Cobra.

350
00:20:13,190 --> 00:20:16,780
The Indian cobra is the fifteenth
deadliest snake in the world,

351
00:20:17,474 --> 00:20:20,425
and all the other fourteen
are here in Australia.

352
00:20:22,194 --> 00:20:24,239
That’s why it’s so hard 
for me to find time

353
00:20:24,239 --> 00:20:27,661
to get on with my hydroponics, 
with all these snakes all over the place.

354
00:20:28,264 --> 00:20:32,155
And spiders. The most poisonous spider 
is the Sydney funnel-web,

355
00:20:32,360 --> 00:20:35,650
we get about five hundred people
a year bitten by spiders.

356
00:20:36,106 --> 00:20:37,373
A lot of them used to die,

357
00:20:37,373 --> 00:20:41,233
so I had to develop an antidote to stop 
people bothering me with it all the time.

358
00:20:42,378 --> 00:20:46,336
Took us years. Then we developed
this snake bite detector kit.

359
00:20:47,521 --> 00:20:50,874
Not that you need a kit to tell you
when you’ve been bitten by a snake,

360
00:20:50,886 --> 00:20:53,743
you usually know, but the kit is 
something that will detect

361
00:20:53,743 --> 00:20:56,608
what type you’ve been bitten by
so you can treat it properly.

362
00:20:57,056 --> 00:21:00,456
Would you like to see a kit? I’ve got a
couple here in the venom fridge.

363
00:21:00,471 --> 00:21:03,111
Let’s have a look. Ah look, 
the cakes are in here too.

364
00:21:03,131 --> 00:21:05,998
Quick, have one while they’re still fresh.

365
00:21:05,998 --> 00:21:07,579
Fairy cakes, I baked ’em myself”

366
00:21:09,093 --> 00:21:11,850
He handed round the snake venom
detection kits

367
00:21:12,160 --> 00:21:15,744
and these home baked fairy cakes
and retreated back to his desk,

368
00:21:15,749 --> 00:21:17,709
where he beamed at us cheerfully

369
00:21:17,737 --> 00:21:19,739
from behind his curly beard and bow tie.

370
00:21:20,760 --> 00:21:23,239
We admired the kits 
which were small efficient boxes

371
00:21:23,239 --> 00:21:26,261
neatly packed with tiny bottles, 
a pipette, a syringe,

372
00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:28,296
and a complicated set of instructions

373
00:21:28,299 --> 00:21:31,554
that I wouldn’t want to have 
to read for the first time in a panic.

374
00:21:33,432 --> 00:21:36,979
And then we asked him how many of
the snakes he had been bitten by himself.

375
00:21:37,709 --> 00:21:38,900
“None of ’em,” he said.

376
00:21:39,047 --> 00:21:41,972
“Another area of expertise I’ve developed

377
00:21:41,972 --> 00:21:45,111
is that of getting other people 
to handle the dangerous animals.

378
00:21:48,384 --> 00:21:50,995
Won’t do it myself. 
Don’t want to get bitten, do I?

379
00:21:51,466 --> 00:21:53,427
You know what it says on my book jackets?

380
00:21:53,427 --> 00:21:55,480
‘Hobbies: gardening, with gloves;

381
00:21:56,300 --> 00:21:57,831
fishing, with boots;

382
00:21:58,168 --> 00:21:59,497
travelling, with care.’

383
00:21:59,768 --> 00:22:01,172
That’s the answer. What else?

384
00:22:01,172 --> 00:22:04,305
Well in addition to the boots 
wear thick baggy trousers.

385
00:22:04,585 --> 00:22:07,949
And preferably have half a dozen people
trampling along in front of you

386
00:22:08,115 --> 00:22:09,818
making as much noise as possible.

387
00:22:11,237 --> 00:22:14,022
The snakes pick up the vibrations 
and get out of your way.

388
00:22:14,022 --> 00:22:15,718
Unless it’s a Death Adder,

389
00:22:16,699 --> 00:22:18,426
otherwise known as the Deaf Adder,

390
00:22:20,339 --> 00:22:21,783
which just lies there.

391
00:22:22,874 --> 00:22:25,779
People can walk right past it
and over it and nothing happens.

392
00:22:25,779 --> 00:22:28,783
I’ve heard of twelve people in a line
walking over a Death Adder

393
00:22:28,783 --> 00:22:31,769
and the twelfth person 
accidentally trod on it and got bitten.

394
00:22:32,331 --> 00:22:34,657
Normally it’s quite safe 
to get twelfth in line.

395
00:22:34,970 --> 00:22:36,361
You’re not eating your cakes.

396
00:22:36,361 --> 00:22:37,664
Come on, get them down you,

397
00:22:37,664 --> 00:22:39,633
there’s plenty more in the venom fridge.”

398
00:22:42,669 --> 00:22:44,794
We asked, tentatively, if we could perhaps

399
00:22:44,948 --> 00:22:47,714
take a snake bite detector kit 
with us to Komodo.

400
00:22:48,026 --> 00:22:49,659
“Course you can, course you can.

401
00:22:49,659 --> 00:22:51,337
Take as many as you like.

402
00:22:51,337 --> 00:22:55,042
Won’t do you a blind bit of good because 
they’re only for Australian snakes.”

403
00:23:03,357 --> 00:23:07,679
“So what do we do if we get bitten by 
something deadly, then?” I asked.

404
00:23:08,934 --> 00:23:10,898
He blinked at me as if I were stupid.

405
00:23:12,858 --> 00:23:14,829
"Well what do you think you do?” he said.

406
00:23:14,829 --> 00:23:17,322
“You die of course. 
That’s what deadly means.”

407
00:23:24,828 --> 00:23:29,475
“But what about cutting open the wound 
and sucking out the poison?” I asked.

408
00:23:30,795 --> 00:23:32,655
“Rather you than me,” he said.

409
00:23:32,869 --> 00:23:34,698
“I wouldn’t want a mouthful of poison.

410
00:23:34,698 --> 00:23:36,339
Shouldn’t do you any harm, though,

411
00:23:36,339 --> 00:23:38,325
snake toxins are of high molecular weight

412
00:23:38,325 --> 00:23:40,844
so they wont penetrate 
the blood vessels in the mouth

413
00:23:40,844 --> 00:23:42,816
the way that alcohol or some drugs do.

414
00:23:42,897 --> 00:23:45,904
And then the poison gets destroyed
by the acids in your stomach.

415
00:23:46,112 --> 00:23:48,691
But it’s not necessarily going 
to do much good either.

416
00:23:48,691 --> 00:23:51,846
I mean, you’re not likely to be able
to get much of the poison out,

417
00:23:51,846 --> 00:23:54,819
but you’re probably going to make
the wound a lot worse trying.

418
00:23:54,819 --> 00:23:58,687
And in a place like Komodo it means you’d 
quickly have a seriously infected wound

419
00:23:58,687 --> 00:24:00,949
to contend with as well as
a leg full of poison.

420
00:24:00,980 --> 00:24:03,828
Septicaemia, gangrene, 
you name it, it’ll kill you.”

421
00:24:04,923 --> 00:24:07,190
“What about a tourniquet?” I asked.

422
00:24:07,467 --> 00:24:10,675
“Well, fine if you don’t mind having
your leg cut off afterwards.

423
00:24:11,342 --> 00:24:13,069
You’d have to because if you cut off

424
00:24:13,069 --> 00:24:15,471
the blood supply to it completely
it will just die.

425
00:24:15,890 --> 00:24:18,376
And if you can find anyone 
in that part of Indonesia

426
00:24:18,376 --> 00:24:20,100
who you’d trust to take your leg off

427
00:24:20,100 --> 00:24:21,694
then you’re a braver man than me.

428
00:24:23,207 --> 00:24:25,305
No, I’ll tell you, 
the only thing you can do

429
00:24:25,305 --> 00:24:27,584
is apply a pressure bandage 
direct to the wound

430
00:24:27,727 --> 00:24:30,450
and wrap the whole leg up tightly, 
but not too tightly.

431
00:24:30,824 --> 00:24:34,417
Slow the blood flow but don’t cut it off 
or you’ll lose the leg.

432
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:37,603
Hold your leg, 
or whatever bit you’ve been bitten in,

433
00:24:37,840 --> 00:24:40,092
lower than your heart and your head.

434
00:24:40,485 --> 00:24:48,920
Keep very, very still, breathe slowly 
and get to a doctor immediately.

435
00:24:51,123 --> 00:24:53,414
If you’re on Komodo 
that means a couple of days,

436
00:24:53,419 --> 00:24:55,079
by which time you’ll be well dead.

437
00:24:56,627 --> 00:24:59,269
Now, the only answer, 
and I mean this quite seriously,

438
00:24:59,269 --> 00:25:01,395
is don’t get bitten.

439
00:25:02,718 --> 00:25:04,331
There’s no reason why you should.

440
00:25:04,332 --> 00:25:06,650
Any of the snakes there 
will get out of your way

441
00:25:06,650 --> 00:25:08,379
well before you even see them.

442
00:25:08,379 --> 00:25:11,533
You don’t really need to worry 
about the snakes if you’re careful.

443
00:25:11,767 --> 00:25:15,208
No, the things you really need to 
worry about are the marine creatures.”

444
00:25:15,208 --> 00:25:16,217
“What?”

445
00:25:18,465 --> 00:25:20,757
“Scorpion fish, stonefish, sea snakes.

446
00:25:20,757 --> 00:25:23,038
Much more poisonous than anything on land.

447
00:25:23,038 --> 00:25:25,909
Get stung by a stonefish 
and the pain alone will kill you.

448
00:25:26,742 --> 00:25:29,062
People drown themselves
just to stop the pain.”

449
00:25:36,436 --> 00:25:38,980
“Where are all these things?”

450
00:25:39,241 --> 00:25:40,917
“Oh, just in the sea. Tons of them.

451
00:25:40,919 --> 00:25:42,649
I wouldn’t go near it if I were you.

452
00:25:42,649 --> 00:25:44,482
Full of poisonous animals. Hate them.”

453
00:25:45,786 --> 00:25:47,338
“Is there anything you do like?”

454
00:25:47,338 --> 00:25:48,823
“Yeah", he said, "Hydroponics.”

455
00:25:54,198 --> 00:25:57,658
“No”, I said, “I mean are there any 
poisonous creatures

456
00:25:57,662 --> 00:25:59,088
you’re particularly fond of?”

457
00:25:59,524 --> 00:26:01,498
He looked out of the window for a moment.

458
00:26:01,505 --> 00:26:03,435
“There was,” he said, “but she left me.”

459
00:26:20,539 --> 00:26:24,564
Anyway, in fact my favourite 
of all the animals we went to see,

460
00:26:24,799 --> 00:26:27,805
my favourite, was an animal 
called the Kakapo.

461
00:26:29,933 --> 00:26:32,063
And the Kakapo is a kind of parrot.

462
00:26:33,828 --> 00:26:35,263
It lives in New Zealand.

463
00:26:36,307 --> 00:26:40,981
It’s a flightless parrot, 
it's forgotten how to fly.

464
00:26:43,592 --> 00:26:48,582
Sadly, it has also forgotten 
that it has forgotten how to fly.

465
00:26:55,660 --> 00:27:04,633
So a seriously worried Kakapo has been 
known to run up a tree and jump out of it.

466
00:27:10,226 --> 00:27:12,708
Opinion divides as to what next happens:

467
00:27:14,484 --> 00:27:18,103
some people said it has developed 
a kind of rudimentary parachuting ability,

468
00:27:19,978 --> 00:27:22,137
other people say 
it flies a bit like a brick.

469
00:27:24,955 --> 00:27:25,857
But the thing is

470
00:27:26,046 --> 00:27:28,365
—I might talk about a 
seriously worried Kakapo—

471
00:27:28,568 --> 00:27:31,807
the fact is you’re not likely to find 
a seriously worried Kakapo

472
00:27:31,973 --> 00:27:34,742
because Kakapos have not learned to worry.

473
00:27:36,617 --> 00:27:38,681
It seems an extraordinary thing to say

474
00:27:38,838 --> 00:27:42,189
because worrying is something 
we’re all so terribly good at,

475
00:27:42,962 --> 00:27:45,196
and which comes so 
absolutely naturally to us,

476
00:27:45,466 --> 00:27:47,585
we think it must be 
as natural as breathing.

477
00:27:47,948 --> 00:27:50,275
But it turns out that worrying

478
00:27:50,575 --> 00:27:53,834
is simply an acquired 
habit like anything else.

479
00:27:57,385 --> 00:28:01,399
It’s something you’re genetically 
disposed to do or not to do.

480
00:28:02,266 --> 00:28:06,253
And the thing is that the Kakapo
grew up in New Zealand

481
00:28:06,629 --> 00:28:14,470
which was, until man arrived, 
a country which had no predators.

482
00:28:14,665 --> 00:28:17,241
And it’s predators that, 
over a series of generations,

483
00:28:17,241 --> 00:28:19,847
will teach you to worry.

484
00:28:21,483 --> 00:28:26,140
And if you don’t have predators then the 
need to worry will never occur to you.

485
00:28:27,763 --> 00:28:31,341
Now I said earlier, that New Zealand
turns out to be

486
00:28:31,488 --> 00:28:34,137
just a load of gunk that 
came out from under the ocean.

487
00:28:34,551 --> 00:28:36,157
And this is why, when it emerged,

488
00:28:36,236 --> 00:28:39,406
it didn’t have any life on it at all
—maybe a few dead fish.

489
00:28:44,987 --> 00:28:48,559
So the only animals that 
inhabited New Zealand

490
00:28:48,624 --> 00:28:51,886
were the animals 
that could fly there, i.e. birds.

491
00:28:51,886 --> 00:28:54,154
There were also 
a couple of species of bats

492
00:28:54,164 --> 00:28:56,170
which are mammals, but you get the point.

493
00:28:56,170 --> 00:28:59,248
So it was only birds 
that lived on New Zealand.

494
00:28:59,555 --> 00:29:02,259
And, in an absence of predators,

495
00:29:02,679 --> 00:29:05,914
there was nothing 
for them to worry about.

496
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:09,446
Now it’s very very peculiar for us
to try and understand this

497
00:29:09,577 --> 00:29:16,809
because we have never ever encountered 
an environment with no predators in it.

498
00:29:17,447 --> 00:29:18,514
Why not?

499
00:29:18,514 --> 00:29:20,306
Because we are predators and because,

500
00:29:20,306 --> 00:29:23,719
therefore, if we are in that environment
it is a predated environment.

501
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:30,771
For the europeans who 
originally arrived in New Zealand,

502
00:29:34,741 --> 00:29:38,439
… sorry, that was 
an extraordinary thing to say.

503
00:29:38,649 --> 00:29:41,781
Of course there were 
the Māoris before them

504
00:29:41,933 --> 00:29:48,419
and before them the Morioris, 
the Māoris ate the Morioris

505
00:29:49,695 --> 00:29:52,538
and then the europeans came along.

506
00:29:54,359 --> 00:29:57,620
But before all of that happened—as I said—

507
00:29:57,781 --> 00:30:05,035
the island had no predators, and the 
birds basically led a worry-free life.

508
00:30:05,035 --> 00:30:08,605
Now you can actually see another example
of this if you go to the Galápagos,

509
00:30:08,605 --> 00:30:12,363
there is a type of animal, 
there is a bird on the Galápagos Islands

510
00:30:12,519 --> 00:30:13,992
called the Blue-footed Booby.

511
00:30:14,845 --> 00:30:18,228
And the Blue-footed Booby is so called
—I believe—for two reasons:

512
00:30:19,036 --> 00:30:21,586
one of which has to do 
with the colour of its feet,

513
00:30:22,756 --> 00:30:26,322
and the other has to do with this 
piece of behaviour I’m about to describe.

514
00:30:26,322 --> 00:30:29,276
Because, apparently you can 
walk up to a Blue-footed Booby

515
00:30:29,276 --> 00:30:31,885
—it will be sitting there on 
the beach or on a branch—

516
00:30:31,885 --> 00:30:35,911
and you can walk up and
you can sort of pick him up.

517
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:38,860
And what the Booby will be thinking

518
00:30:39,780 --> 00:30:42,203
is that once you finish with him
you’ll put him back.

519
00:30:53,853 --> 00:30:55,039
And if you haven’t lived

520
00:30:55,042 --> 00:30:58,086
through generation after generation
of people trying to eat you,

521
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:00,398
it’s very easy to come to that conclusion.

522
00:31:02,405 --> 00:31:04,626
So the Kakapo, as I say,

523
00:31:05,069 --> 00:31:08,560
had grown up in an environment 
without predators.

524
00:31:08,975 --> 00:31:10,991
And because they were all birds,

525
00:31:11,141 --> 00:31:16,563
and because nature has a way—as I say—
very opportunistic

526
00:31:16,912 --> 00:31:20,634
and life will flow into any niche 
where it’s possible to make a living,

527
00:31:21,729 --> 00:31:25,365
so—if I can be very naughty and 
anthropomorphise for a moment—

528
00:31:25,365 --> 00:31:27,333
it’s as if some of the birds figured out,

529
00:31:27,333 --> 00:31:31,556
“Well, this flying stuff 
is very very expensive.

530
00:31:31,790 --> 00:31:32,993
It takes a lot of energy,

531
00:31:32,993 --> 00:31:34,588
you have to eat a bit, fly a bit,

532
00:31:34,588 --> 00:31:35,628
eat a bit, fly a bit,

533
00:31:35,628 --> 00:31:37,824
because every time you 
eat something—you know—

534
00:31:37,824 --> 00:31:39,739
you weight down and it’s heavier to fly,

535
00:31:39,739 --> 00:31:41,276
so eat a bit, fly a bit—I mean—

536
00:31:41,276 --> 00:31:43,188
there are other ways of life available.”

537
00:31:43,188 --> 00:31:45,177
And so it’s as if some of the birds said,

538
00:31:45,177 --> 00:31:49,005
“Well, actually what we could do is we 
could settle in for a rather larger meal,

539
00:31:49,005 --> 00:31:50,583
and go for a waddle afterwards!”

540
00:31:56,485 --> 00:31:58,545
And so gradually over many 
many generations

541
00:31:58,546 --> 00:32:01,560
a lot of the birds lost 
the ability to fly,

542
00:32:01,710 --> 00:32:03,253
they took up life on the ground.

543
00:32:03,755 --> 00:32:06,625
The Kiwi, the most famous bird
—I guess—of New Zealand,

544
00:32:06,778 --> 00:32:13,169
and the Weka, and the old night parrot
—as it was called—the Kakapo.

545
00:32:13,968 --> 00:32:19,638
Which is this sort of big, fat, 
soft, fluffy, lugubrious bird.

546
00:32:21,236 --> 00:32:24,909
And because it has never learned to worry,

547
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:27,737
when man arrived and brought with him

548
00:32:27,890 --> 00:32:33,218
his deadly menagerie of 
dogs, and cats, and stoats,

549
00:32:33,481 --> 00:32:37,181
and that most destructive of all animals

550
00:32:37,468 --> 00:32:40,529
–other than man—which is 
Rattus rattus, the ship’s rat.

551
00:32:42,308 --> 00:32:47,207
Suddenly, suddenly these birds 
were waddling for their lives.

552
00:32:48,505 --> 00:32:50,709
Except in fact they 
didn’t know how to do that

553
00:32:50,709 --> 00:32:53,845
because they were confronted 
with an animal which was a predator,

554
00:32:53,845 --> 00:32:55,187
they didn’t know what to do,

555
00:32:55,187 --> 00:32:57,185
they didn’t know what the social form was,

556
00:32:57,185 --> 00:33:00,049
they just waited for the other 
animal to make the next move,

557
00:33:00,049 --> 00:33:02,832
and of course—as usually—
a fairly swift and deadly one.

558
00:33:04,614 --> 00:33:10,368
So, suddenly from there 
being a population of

559
00:33:10,534 --> 00:33:12,918
—we don’t know exactly of how many—

560
00:33:12,918 --> 00:33:14,577
probably not as many as a million,

561
00:33:14,577 --> 00:33:16,785
but hundreds of thousands of these birds,

562
00:33:17,147 --> 00:33:22,286
their population plunged at an incredible
rate down into the low forties.

563
00:33:22,446 --> 00:33:26,574
Which is roughly where it is
at the moment.

564
00:33:27,790 --> 00:33:33,804
And, so there are groups of people 
who dedicated their entire lives

565
00:33:34,554 --> 00:33:37,770
to try to save these animals, 
trying to conserve them.

566
00:33:39,401 --> 00:33:41,951
And one of the problems 
they’ve come across

567
00:33:42,025 --> 00:33:45,079
is that it’s all very well 
just to protect them

568
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:48,887
—from predators—which is 
very very very hard to do.

569
00:33:49,035 --> 00:33:51,780
But the next problem they come across

570
00:33:52,006 --> 00:33:55,757
is the mating habits of the Kakapo.

571
00:33:55,930 --> 00:33:58,668
Because it turns out that 
the mating habits of the Kakapo

572
00:33:58,668 --> 00:34:00,667
are incredibly long drawn-out,

573
00:34:01,167 --> 00:34:02,484
fantastically complicated,

574
00:34:02,596 --> 00:34:04,770
and almost entirely ineffective.

575
00:34:08,578 --> 00:34:11,723
Some people would tell you 
that the mating call of the male Kakapo

576
00:34:11,723 --> 00:34:14,870
actively repels the female Kakapo,

577
00:34:15,227 --> 00:34:16,660
which is the sort of behaviour

578
00:34:16,660 --> 00:34:19,200
you would otherwise only find 
really in discotheques.

579
00:34:26,312 --> 00:34:30,385
The people who’ve heard the 
mating call of the male Kakapo

580
00:34:31,304 --> 00:34:35,804
will tell you, you can hardly 
even hear it,

581
00:34:35,968 --> 00:34:40,810
it’s like a sort of …
I’ll tell you what they do.

582
00:34:42,188 --> 00:34:47,138
This animal every—for about a hundred 
nights of the year—

583
00:34:48,158 --> 00:34:49,992
it goes through its mating ritual.

584
00:34:49,992 --> 00:34:54,163
And what it does is it finds 
some great rocky outcrop

585
00:34:56,346 --> 00:34:59,573
looking out over the great 
rolling valleys of New Zealand,

586
00:34:59,974 --> 00:35:03,042
because acoustics are very important 
for what's about to happen.

587
00:35:06,810 --> 00:35:10,616
It carves out this kind 
of bowl that it sits in.

588
00:35:12,067 --> 00:35:13,001
And it sits there,

589
00:35:13,819 --> 00:35:18,571
and it puffs out this great sort 
of air-sacks around its chest.

590
00:35:19,596 --> 00:35:21,355
And it sits there

591
00:35:21,723 --> 00:35:25,531
—and these are reverberation chambers, 
this is a kind of reverberation chamber—

592
00:35:25,531 --> 00:35:29,565
and it sits there and for 
night after night after night

593
00:35:29,565 --> 00:35:31,140
for a hundred nights of the year,

594
00:35:31,140 --> 00:35:32,902
for eight hours of the night,

595
00:35:33,366 --> 00:35:37,292
it performs the opening bars 
of Dark Side of the Moon.

596
00:35:45,278 --> 00:35:50,907
Now, I see some grey hairs here 
so you’ll know the album I’m referring to.

597
00:35:52,927 --> 00:35:55,561
Which as you remember starts with

598
00:35:55,561 --> 00:35:59,254
this great sort of boom, boom, boom,

599
00:35:59,583 --> 00:36:01,738
it’s a heartbeat sound.

600
00:36:02,056 --> 00:36:05,404
And this is the noise, 
that the Kakapo makes.

601
00:36:05,591 --> 00:36:07,911
But it’s so, it’s so deep,

602
00:36:08,081 --> 00:36:11,465
that you more kind of feel it like a 
wobble in the pit of your stomach.

603
00:36:11,465 --> 00:36:14,669
You can only just sort of 
tune your hearing in to it.

604
00:36:15,035 --> 00:36:17,052
Now I never managed to get to hear it,

605
00:36:17,285 --> 00:36:23,202
but those who do, say they feel
it’s a very eerie sound

606
00:36:23,259 --> 00:36:26,546
because you don’t really hear it, 
you more kind of feel it.

607
00:36:26,703 --> 00:36:32,224
And, it’s bass sound.

608
00:36:32,696 --> 00:36:34,535
It’s very very deep bass sound,

609
00:36:34,881 --> 00:36:36,677
just below our level of our hearing.

610
00:36:36,685 --> 00:36:40,452
Now it turns out that bass sound 
has two important characteristics to it.

611
00:36:41,070 --> 00:36:46,539
One of which is that 
these great long waves,

612
00:36:46,905 --> 00:36:49,949
these great long sound waves 
travel great distances,

613
00:36:50,033 --> 00:36:53,844
and they fill these great valleys 
of the south island of New Zealand.

614
00:36:53,921 --> 00:36:57,382
And that’s good. That’s good.

615
00:36:58,333 --> 00:37:03,371
But there is another characteristic 
of bass sounds,

616
00:37:03,371 --> 00:37:04,858
which you may be familiar with,

617
00:37:04,858 --> 00:37:08,481
if you’ve got this kind of—you know—
the kind of stereo speakers you can get.

618
00:37:08,902 --> 00:37:12,372
Where you have two tiny little ones 
that give you your treble sound,

619
00:37:12,381 --> 00:37:16,106
and you have to put them 
very carefully in the room,

620
00:37:16,106 --> 00:37:18,469
because they’re going to 
define the stereo image.

621
00:37:19,298 --> 00:37:21,459
And then you have 
what’s known as a subwoofer

622
00:37:21,459 --> 00:37:25,247
which is the bass box, 
and that’s going to produce

623
00:37:25,247 --> 00:37:29,036
just the bass sound and you can 
put that anywhere in the room you like.

624
00:37:29,575 --> 00:37:31,691
You can put it behind the sofa 
if you like,

625
00:37:31,897 --> 00:37:34,083
because the other
characteristic of bass sound

626
00:37:34,083 --> 00:37:37,369
—and remember we’re talking about 
the mating call of the male Kakapo—

627
00:37:37,369 --> 00:37:39,737
is that you can’t tell 
where it’s coming from!

628
00:37:53,590 --> 00:37:55,269
So just imagine if you will,

629
00:37:57,012 --> 00:38:00,146
this male Kakapo sitting up here,

630
00:38:00,768 --> 00:38:05,545
making all this booming noise which,

631
00:38:05,884 --> 00:38:11,542
if there’s a female out there
—which there probably isn’t—

632
00:38:12,056 --> 00:38:15,530
and if she likes the sound of this booming
—which she probably doesn’t—

633
00:38:18,181 --> 00:38:21,389
then she can’t find the 
person who’s making it!

634
00:38:24,119 --> 00:38:25,265
But supposing she does,

635
00:38:25,265 --> 00:38:27,628
supposing she’s out there
—but she probably isn’t—

636
00:38:27,628 --> 00:38:30,342
she likes the sound of this booming
—she probably doesn’t—

637
00:38:30,342 --> 00:38:33,071
supposing that she can find him
—which she probably can’t—

638
00:38:33,797 --> 00:38:39,064
she will then only consent to mate 
if the Podocarp tree is in fruit!

639
00:38:47,019 --> 00:38:49,101
Now we’ve all had 
relationships like that …

640
00:39:01,483 --> 00:39:05,631
But supposing they get through
all those obstacles,

641
00:39:05,850 --> 00:39:07,847
supposing she manages to find him,

642
00:39:09,050 --> 00:39:13,393
she will then lay one egg 
every two or three years

643
00:39:13,559 --> 00:39:15,857
which will promptly get eaten 
by a stoat or rat.

644
00:39:17,605 --> 00:39:19,044
And you think, well so far

645
00:39:19,044 --> 00:39:21,642
—before trying to sort of 
save them and conserve them—

646
00:39:21,642 --> 00:39:24,700
how on earth has it managed
to survive for this long!

647
00:39:27,172 --> 00:39:32,617
And the answer is terribly interesting, 
which is this:

648
00:39:34,132 --> 00:39:37,380
it seems like absurd behaviour to us,

649
00:39:38,687 --> 00:39:43,297
but it’s only because its environment has 
changed in one particular and dramatic way

650
00:39:44,951 --> 00:39:47,005
that is completely invisible to us.

651
00:39:48,271 --> 00:39:53,597
And its behaviour is perfectly attuned 
to the environment it developed in,

652
00:39:54,127 --> 00:39:58,343
and completely out of tune with 
the environment it now finds itself in.

653
00:39:59,456 --> 00:40:03,888
Because in an environment 
when nothing is trying to predate you,

654
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:07,464
you don’t want to reproduce too fast.

655
00:40:10,042 --> 00:40:13,319
And it turns out you can actually 
sort of graph this on a computer.

656
00:40:14,169 --> 00:40:18,333
That if you take a given 
reproduction rate,

657
00:40:19,225 --> 00:40:23,920
and you take the ability of 
any given environment

658
00:40:24,044 --> 00:40:26,466
to sustain any particular
level of population.

659
00:40:27,523 --> 00:40:30,526
And you start say with 
a fairly low reproduction rate,

660
00:40:30,893 --> 00:40:33,077
and you just plot it
over several generations

661
00:40:33,417 --> 00:40:36,392
and you find that the population 
goes up and up and up

662
00:40:36,392 --> 00:40:39,149
and then sort of steadies out 
and achieves a nice plateau.

663
00:40:39,149 --> 00:40:40,961
Tweak the reproduction rate up a bit,

664
00:40:41,223 --> 00:40:43,175
and it goes up a little bit higher,

665
00:40:43,347 --> 00:40:46,234
and then maybe settles down, 
and levels out.

666
00:40:46,659 --> 00:40:49,153
Tweak the reproduction rate 
a little bit higher yet,

667
00:40:49,153 --> 00:40:51,610
and it goes up, and it goes too high,

668
00:40:51,668 --> 00:40:53,621
and it drops down, it goes too low,

669
00:40:53,702 --> 00:40:57,120
goes up, too high, and settles 
into an oscillating sine wave.

670
00:40:58,284 --> 00:41:02,007
Tweak it a bit more, and it starts to 
oscillate between four different values.

671
00:41:02,186 --> 00:41:03,678
Tweak it more and more and more

672
00:41:03,678 --> 00:41:07,032
and you suddenly hit this terribly 
fashionable condition called chaos.

673
00:41:07,728 --> 00:41:16,091
Where the population of the animal just 
swings wildly from one year to another,

674
00:41:17,562 --> 00:41:19,266
and will just hit zero at one point

675
00:41:19,266 --> 00:41:21,719
just out of the sheer mathematics 
of the situation.

676
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:24,507
And once you’ve hit zero, 
there is kind of no coming back.

677
00:41:26,795 --> 00:41:29,746
And so, because nature 
tends to be very parsimonious

678
00:41:30,615 --> 00:41:34,906
and is not going to expend
energy and resources

679
00:41:34,906 --> 00:41:36,986
on something for which there is no return.

680
00:41:37,206 --> 00:41:45,664
So the reproduction rate of an animal 
in an environment with no predators

681
00:41:46,002 --> 00:41:50,748
will tune itself to an 
appropriate level of reproduction.

682
00:41:51,081 --> 00:41:53,914
Now, if there is nothing trying
to eat you—particularly—

683
00:41:53,914 --> 00:41:56,138
then that reproduction rate 
will be very low.

684
00:41:56,803 --> 00:42:00,360
And that is the rate at which 
the Kakapo used to reproduce,

685
00:42:00,775 --> 00:42:04,066
and continues to reproduce 
despite the fact that it’s being predated,

686
00:42:04,084 --> 00:42:05,796
because it doesn’t know any better.

687
00:42:05,842 --> 00:42:09,672
Because nothing has managed to teach it
anything different along the way,

688
00:42:10,250 --> 00:42:13,190
because the change that occurred 
happened so suddenly,

689
00:42:13,432 --> 00:42:14,952
that there is no kind of slope,

690
00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:19,388
there is no slope of gradual
evolutionary pressure,

691
00:42:19,573 --> 00:42:21,998
which is the thing that tends
to bring about change.

692
00:42:22,003 --> 00:42:23,847
If you have a sudden dramatic change

693
00:42:24,023 --> 00:42:27,734
then there is no direction to go 
and you just have disaster.

694
00:42:27,888 --> 00:42:32,078
So, again if I can anthropomorphize
for a moment,

695
00:42:32,231 --> 00:42:39,375
what seems to have happened
is that the animal

696
00:42:39,538 --> 00:42:42,290
suddenly reaching a crisis 
in his population thinks,

697
00:42:42,306 --> 00:42:43,975
“Whoa, whoa! I better just do, do,

698
00:42:43,978 --> 00:42:46,619
what I do fantastically well, 
do what is my main thing,

699
00:42:46,619 --> 00:42:48,666
which is I reproduce 
really really slowly!”

700
00:42:50,064 --> 00:42:51,460
And its population goes down.

701
00:42:51,460 --> 00:42:53,276
“Well, I’d better really do what I do,

702
00:42:53,276 --> 00:42:55,682
and reproduce really really really 
really slowly!”

703
00:42:56,014 --> 00:43:03,431
And it seems absurd to us because 
we can see a larger picture than they can.

704
00:43:03,582 --> 00:43:10,565
But if that is the type of behaviour that 
you’ve evolved successfully to produce,

705
00:43:10,720 --> 00:43:14,203
then to do anything else would be 
against kakapo-nature,

706
00:43:14,339 --> 00:43:16,717
would be an inkakapo thing to do.

707
00:43:19,050 --> 00:43:25,800
And it has nothing to teach it any other 
than to just do what it’s always done,

708
00:43:25,978 --> 00:43:27,622
to follow its successful strategy,

709
00:43:28,275 --> 00:43:30,280
and because times have changed around it,

710
00:43:30,294 --> 00:43:34,461
it’s no longer a successful strategy, 
and the animal is in terrible trouble.

711
00:43:38,013 --> 00:43:39,918
There is another animal we went to find,

712
00:43:39,918 --> 00:43:42,979
it is in even worse trouble now.

713
00:43:44,416 --> 00:43:50,284
And this is the Baiji, 
the Yangtze River Dolphin,

714
00:43:50,720 --> 00:43:54,685
which is an almost blind river dolphin.

715
00:43:56,455 --> 00:43:57,875
The reason it’s almost blind,

716
00:43:57,875 --> 00:44:00,770
is that there is nothing to see
in the Yangtze River.

717
00:44:03,688 --> 00:44:07,352
Thousands and thousands 
of years of agriculture

718
00:44:07,501 --> 00:44:09,222
along the banks of the Yangtze River

719
00:44:09,253 --> 00:44:13,235
have washed so much mud 
and silt and so on into it,

720
00:44:13,578 --> 00:44:16,360
that the river has become 
completely turbid.

721
00:44:16,733 --> 00:44:19,068
Which is a word I didn’t even 
know the meaning of

722
00:44:19,075 --> 00:44:20,510
until I saw the Yangtze River,

723
00:44:20,675 --> 00:44:23,128
and basically 
you can’t see anything in it.

724
00:44:24,642 --> 00:44:29,340
So these animals, dolphins as I said,

725
00:44:29,388 --> 00:44:33,964
gradually they abandoned the use of sight.

726
00:44:34,281 --> 00:44:41,833
Now—as we all know—marine mammals also 
have this other faculty available to them,

727
00:44:42,333 --> 00:44:44,630
which they can develop, 
which is that of sound.

728
00:44:45,245 --> 00:44:50,858
And so what the Yangtze River Dolphins did
was over thousands of years,

729
00:44:51,419 --> 00:44:54,232
as their eye sight deteriorated,

730
00:44:54,232 --> 00:45:00,615
so their sonar abilities became 
more and more and more sophisticated,

731
00:45:00,615 --> 00:45:02,690
and more powerful and more complex.

732
00:45:02,690 --> 00:45:06,805
And it’s very interesting, you can 
actually watch—if you feel like it—

733
00:45:08,416 --> 00:45:10,862
the development of a Baiji foetus,

734
00:45:12,531 --> 00:45:17,320
and you’ll see that right at
—as you may or may not know—

735
00:45:17,388 --> 00:45:20,371
there is a certain amount
of truth in the idea

736
00:45:20,558 --> 00:45:25,699
that the development of the foetus 
recapitulates stages

737
00:45:25,810 --> 00:45:27,921
in the evolutionary development
of an animal.

738
00:45:27,921 --> 00:45:31,232
And you see, right at the beginning of 
the development of the foetus,

739
00:45:31,232 --> 00:45:33,334
its eyes are in the normal 
dolphin position,

740
00:45:33,334 --> 00:45:36,955
which are kind of relatively far down
on the side of the head.

741
00:45:37,299 --> 00:45:39,979
And gradually, 
as the generations have gone by,

742
00:45:40,131 --> 00:45:42,935
its eyes have kind of migrated 
up the side of the head,

743
00:45:42,935 --> 00:45:45,381
and you see this happening 
as the foetus develops.

744
00:45:45,381 --> 00:45:48,857
Because gradually, over the generations,

745
00:45:49,201 --> 00:45:51,988
its only light is coming 
directly from up above

746
00:45:52,136 --> 00:45:54,064
and there is no ambient light and then,

747
00:45:54,064 --> 00:45:57,762
as that too dies out, so 
the eyes gradually atrophied.

748
00:45:58,378 --> 00:46:04,565
And, instead, the sonar abilities 
take over.

749
00:46:05,124 --> 00:46:07,609
And these animals developed
incredibly sensitive,

750
00:46:07,609 --> 00:46:11,742
and incredibly precise abilities
to navigate themselves around

751
00:46:12,103 --> 00:46:13,642
in the water just using sonar.

752
00:46:15,109 --> 00:46:16,457
And all is well and good.

753
00:46:17,527 --> 00:46:21,101
Until the twentieth century 
when man invents the diesel engine.

754
00:46:23,290 --> 00:46:27,390
And suddenly all hell breaks loose 
beneath the surface of the Yangtze,

755
00:46:27,549 --> 00:46:29,809
because it’s suddenly full of noise.

756
00:46:31,436 --> 00:46:37,353
And so, suddenly these animals find 
themselves trapped by something that they

757
00:46:37,633 --> 00:46:39,824
—that nobody had any means of foreseeing—

758
00:46:39,850 --> 00:46:41,529
that the thing they now rely on

759
00:46:41,677 --> 00:46:43,239
has been completely overwhelmed

760
00:46:43,261 --> 00:46:47,080
by the noise pollution 
that we put in the oceans.

761
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:50,812
So suddenly these animals

762
00:46:50,978 --> 00:46:53,290
that used to be so sophisticated

763
00:46:53,290 --> 00:46:55,275
in their ability to find
their way around,

764
00:46:55,275 --> 00:46:57,823
are sort of bumping into things, 
bumping into boats,

765
00:46:57,823 --> 00:46:59,312
bumping into ships’ propellers,

766
00:46:59,312 --> 00:47:02,825
finding themselves ensnared
in fishermen’s nets and so on,

767
00:47:02,984 --> 00:47:06,229
because we basically screwed up
the next of their faculties.

768
00:47:08,356 --> 00:47:10,379
And it’s a very curious feeling,

769
00:47:11,303 --> 00:47:18,490
I remember sort of sitting on a boat
on the Yangtze River and looking,

770
00:47:18,648 --> 00:47:19,961
well trying to look into

771
00:47:19,961 --> 00:47:23,634
—you couldn’t look into cause it’s turbid 
and you remember what turbid means—

772
00:47:23,634 --> 00:47:30,312
and realising that all this noise
down there means that …

773
00:47:30,741 --> 00:47:34,275
It’s very curious to think that

774
00:47:34,285 --> 00:47:36,565
there may have been a 
dolphin somewhere near me

775
00:47:36,565 --> 00:47:40,306
—I didn’t know, I mean by this stage,
this was ten years ago,

776
00:47:40,309 --> 00:47:41,846
there were only two hundred left

777
00:47:41,846 --> 00:47:44,793
in a structure of water of about
two hundred miles long,

778
00:47:44,803 --> 00:47:47,396
so you had no idea if 
there was one anywhere near you—

779
00:47:47,396 --> 00:47:51,187
but it’s curious because you
think if you and another person,

780
00:47:51,335 --> 00:47:55,241
another creature, 
are kind of in the same world,

781
00:47:55,241 --> 00:47:57,324
then you must be feeling roughly similar.

782
00:47:58,554 --> 00:48:00,995
But one of the things you begin to 
realise when you look at different animals

783
00:48:00,995 --> 00:48:05,541
is that because of their 
evolutionary history,

784
00:48:05,750 --> 00:48:09,344
and because of the forms
they have developed into,

785
00:48:09,932 --> 00:48:13,126
and the ways they have developed 
of perceiving the world,

786
00:48:13,271 --> 00:48:15,894
they may be inhabiting the same world

787
00:48:16,241 --> 00:48:18,387
but actually a completely 
different universe.

788
00:48:19,347 --> 00:48:22,369
But actually a completely different 
universe because you create

789
00:48:22,369 --> 00:48:28,126
your only own universe from what you do 
with the sensory data coming in.

790
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:34,353
So, you realise that you’re here, 
and there is a dolphin there,

791
00:48:34,353 --> 00:48:38,022
and you’re comfortable, and the dolphin 
may be actually in a species of hell.

792
00:48:38,975 --> 00:48:41,330
But has no means of communicating that 
with you

793
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:44,787
because we’ve kind of taken charge,

794
00:48:44,981 --> 00:48:48,230
and there is no way of kind of 
communicating with the management,

795
00:48:48,393 --> 00:48:50,139
that there’s a problem.

796
00:48:54,005 --> 00:48:59,883
So, I suddenly became very interested in 
what it must actually sound like

797
00:49:00,163 --> 00:49:02,095
in the Yangtze River.

798
00:49:03,290 --> 00:49:08,035
Now, we’ve gone to record some 
BBC Radio programmes while we were there,

799
00:49:08,107 --> 00:49:10,609
so as well as Mark Carwardine 
the zoologist,

800
00:49:10,832 --> 00:49:13,016
we also had a sound recordist 
from the BBC.

801
00:49:14,064 --> 00:49:14,900
So I said to him,

802
00:49:16,196 --> 00:49:18,807
“Could we actually drop 
a microphone into the Yangtze

803
00:49:18,807 --> 00:49:21,833
so that we can see what 
it actually sounds like in the river?”

804
00:49:22,997 --> 00:49:24,211
And he said,

805
00:49:25,141 --> 00:49:27,775
“Well I wish you'd said that 
before we left London.”

806
00:49:28,485 --> 00:49:29,399
And I said, “Why?”

807
00:49:29,399 --> 00:49:32,029
And he said, “Well, cause I just could 
have checked out

808
00:49:32,029 --> 00:49:33,945
a waterproof microphone but, you know,

809
00:49:33,987 --> 00:49:36,774
you didn’t mention anything 
about recording under water.”

810
00:49:37,909 --> 00:49:41,102
And I said, “No, I didn’t. 
Is there anything we could do about it?”

811
00:49:41,102 --> 00:49:45,264
And he said, “Well there is, there is
actually one technique

812
00:49:45,281 --> 00:49:49,443
they teach us at the BBC for recording 
under water in an emergency.

813
00:49:57,436 --> 00:49:59,457
Do either of you have condoms with you?”

814
00:50:01,890 --> 00:50:05,082
And we didn’t. Wasn’t that kind of trip.

815
00:50:08,843 --> 00:50:10,932
But we decided we’d better 
go and buy some.

816
00:50:12,154 --> 00:50:15,676
And so we went into the streets of 
Shanghai trying to buy some condoms,

817
00:50:16,281 --> 00:50:19,364
and I just want to read you 
a little passage about this.

818
00:50:26,597 --> 00:50:30,259
The Friendship Store seemed like 
a promising place to buy condoms,

819
00:50:31,482 --> 00:50:34,830
but we had a certain amount of 
difficulty in getting the idea across.

820
00:50:36,021 --> 00:50:39,918
We passed from one counter to another 
in the large open-plan department store,

821
00:50:40,069 --> 00:50:42,515
which consists of many 
different individual booths,

822
00:50:42,515 --> 00:50:45,108
stalls and counters, 
but no one was able to help us.

823
00:50:45,978 --> 00:50:49,653
We first started at the stalls which 
looked as if they sold medical supplies,

824
00:50:49,653 --> 00:50:50,561
but had no luck.

825
00:50:50,561 --> 00:50:52,865
By the time we had got to the stalls

826
00:50:52,926 --> 00:50:54,640
which sold bookends and chopsticks

827
00:50:54,702 --> 00:50:56,139
we knew we were on to a loser,

828
00:50:56,139 --> 00:50:59,216
but at least we found a young 
shop assistant who spoke English.

829
00:51:00,356 --> 00:51:03,011
We tried to explain to her 
what it was we wanted,

830
00:51:04,052 --> 00:51:07,071
but seemed to reach the limit 
of her vocabulary pretty quickly.

831
00:51:08,665 --> 00:51:11,954
So, I got out my notebook 
and drew a condom very carefully,

832
00:51:13,290 --> 00:51:15,498
including the little 
extra balloon on the end.

833
00:51:16,488 --> 00:51:18,830
She frowned at it, 
but still didn’t get the idea.

834
00:51:19,253 --> 00:51:21,206
She brought us a wooden spoon,

835
00:51:22,911 --> 00:51:26,960
a candle, a sort of paper knife and, 
surprisingly enough,

836
00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:29,628
a small porcelain model
of the Eiffel Tower

837
00:51:37,408 --> 00:51:39,865
and then at last lapsed 
into a posture of defeat.

838
00:51:41,235 --> 00:51:43,853
Some other girls from the stall 
gathered round to help,

839
00:51:43,853 --> 00:51:46,407
but they were also defeated 
by our picture.

840
00:51:46,741 --> 00:51:50,338
At last I plucked up the bravado 
to perform a delicate little mime,

841
00:52:03,343 --> 00:52:04,857
and at last the penny dropped.

842
00:52:08,014 --> 00:52:11,505
“Ah!” the first girl said, suddenly 
wreathed in smiles. “Ah yes!”

843
00:52:12,849 --> 00:52:15,454
They all beamed delightedly
at us as they got the idea.

844
00:52:16,142 --> 00:52:17,908
-“You do understand?” l asked.

845
00:52:17,908 --> 00:52:19,180
-“Yes! Yes, I understand.”

846
00:52:19,691 --> 00:52:20,554
-“Do you have any?”

847
00:52:20,906 --> 00:52:22,509
-“No,” she said. “Not have.”

848
00:52:22,774 --> 00:52:23,502
-“Oh.”

849
00:52:23,582 --> 00:52:24,564
-“But, but, but …”

850
00:52:24,687 --> 00:52:25,406
-“Yes?”

851
00:52:26,666 --> 00:52:28,503
-“I say you where you go, OK?”

852
00:52:29,567 --> 00:52:31,483
-“Thank you, thank you very much. Yes.”

853
00:52:31,927 --> 00:52:35,871
-“You go 616 Nanjing Road. OK. 
They have there.

854
00:52:36,060 --> 00:52:38,012
You ask ‘rubberover’. OK?”

855
00:52:38,307 --> 00:52:40,214
-“Rubberover?”

856
00:52:40,292 --> 00:52:43,072
-“Rubberover. You ask. 
They have. OK. Have nice day.”

857
00:52:48,031 --> 00:52:51,450
She giggled happily about this 
with her hand over her mouth.

858
00:52:52,638 --> 00:52:56,391
We thanked them again, profusely, 
and left with much waving and smiling.

859
00:52:56,391 --> 00:52:59,311
The news seemed to have spread 
very quickly around the store,

860
00:52:59,311 --> 00:53:01,429
and everybody waved at us.

861
00:53:02,615 --> 00:53:05,251
They seemed terribly pleased 
to have been asked.

862
00:53:07,551 --> 00:53:11,538
When we reached 616 Nanjing Road, 
which turned out to be another,

863
00:53:11,696 --> 00:53:14,057
smaller department store, and not a 
knocking shop

864
00:53:14,057 --> 00:53:15,702
as we had been half-suspecting,

865
00:53:15,867 --> 00:53:18,742
our pronunciation of ‘rubberover’ 
seemed to let us down

866
00:53:18,870 --> 00:53:21,374
and produce another wave 
of baffled incomprehension.

867
00:53:22,253 --> 00:53:25,963
This time I went straight for the mime 
that had served us so well before,

868
00:53:30,563 --> 00:53:33,283
and it seemed to do the trick at once.

869
00:53:34,103 --> 00:53:38,123
The shop assistant, a slightly more 
middle-aged lady with severe hair,

870
00:53:38,624 --> 00:53:40,655
marched straight to a cabinet of drawers,

871
00:53:40,655 --> 00:53:42,506
brought us back a packet and placed it

872
00:53:42,589 --> 00:53:45,408
triumphantly on the counter
in front of us.

873
00:53:45,908 --> 00:53:48,431
Success, we thought, opened the packet

874
00:53:48,733 --> 00:53:51,256
and found it to contain 
a bubble sheet of pills.

875
00:53:53,522 --> 00:53:56,727
“Right idea,” said Mark, 
with a sigh. “Wrong method.”

876
00:54:06,505 --> 00:54:08,173
We were quickly floundering again

877
00:54:08,173 --> 00:54:10,926
as we tried to explain to 
the now slightly affronted lady

878
00:54:10,926 --> 00:54:13,106
that it wasn’t precisely 
what we were after.

879
00:54:13,397 --> 00:54:17,335
By this time a crowd of about fifteen 
onlookers had gathered round us,

880
00:54:17,501 --> 00:54:19,449
some of whom, I was convinced,

881
00:54:19,605 --> 00:54:22,235
had followed us all the way
from the Friendship Store.

882
00:54:22,892 --> 00:54:25,415
One of the things that 
you quickly discover in China,

883
00:54:25,415 --> 00:54:27,348
is that we are all at the zoo.

884
00:54:27,956 --> 00:54:29,844
If you stand still for a moment,

885
00:54:30,029 --> 00:54:32,170
people will gather round and stare at you.

886
00:54:33,466 --> 00:54:36,839
The unnerving thing is that they 
don’t stare intently or inquisitively,

887
00:54:36,841 --> 00:54:39,470
they just stand there, 
often right in front of you,

888
00:54:39,626 --> 00:54:42,611
and watch you as blankly 
as if you were a dog food commercial.

889
00:54:48,610 --> 00:54:51,827
At last one young and 
pasty-faced man with glasses

890
00:54:51,827 --> 00:54:55,535
pushed through the crowd and said he 
spoke a little English and could he help?

891
00:54:56,483 --> 00:54:59,373
We thanked him and said, yes, 
we wanted to buy some condoms,

892
00:54:59,764 --> 00:55:03,611
some rubberovers, and we would be very 
grateful if he could explain that for us.

893
00:55:04,517 --> 00:55:06,096
He looked puzzled,

894
00:55:07,565 --> 00:55:10,617
picked up the rejected packet 
lying on the counter

895
00:55:10,811 --> 00:55:13,221
in front of the affronted 
shop assistant and said,

896
00:55:13,221 --> 00:55:15,288
“Not want rubberover. This better.”

897
00:55:18,594 --> 00:55:20,175
“No,” Mark said.

898
00:55:20,247 --> 00:55:23,371
“We definitely want rubberover, 
not pills.”

899
00:55:23,871 --> 00:55:25,805
“Why want rubberover? Pill better.”

900
00:55:29,180 --> 00:55:30,509
“You tell him,” said Mark.

901
00:55:34,942 --> 00:55:37,425
“It’s to record dolphins,” I said.

902
00:55:45,073 --> 00:55:47,488
“Or not the actual dolphins in fact.

903
00:55:47,488 --> 00:55:50,207
What we want to record is 
the noise in the Yangtze that …

904
00:55:50,207 --> 00:55:52,478
it’s to go over the microphone, 
you see, and …”

905
00:55:53,364 --> 00:55:55,514
“Oh, just tell him you want 
to fuck someone,”

906
00:55:55,566 --> 00:55:57,108
said the sound recordist.

907
00:55:57,465 --> 00:55:58,570
“And you can’t wait.”

908
00:56:06,698 --> 00:56:09,662
But by now the young man was edging
nervously away from us,

909
00:56:09,662 --> 00:56:12,489
suddenly realising that 
we were dangerously insane,

910
00:56:13,177 --> 00:56:15,418
and should simply be humoured 
and escaped from.

911
00:56:16,174 --> 00:56:18,542
He said something hurriedly 
to the shop assistant

912
00:56:18,542 --> 00:56:21,380
and backed away into the crowd.

913
00:56:21,562 --> 00:56:23,949
The shop assistant shrugged, 
scooped up the pills,

914
00:56:23,949 --> 00:56:26,940
opened another drawer 
and pulled out a packet of condoms.

915
00:56:28,351 --> 00:56:30,295
We bought nine, just to be safe.

916
00:56:41,761 --> 00:56:42,962
So a couple of days later

917
00:56:42,962 --> 00:56:45,149
we were standing 
on the banks of the Yangtze,

918
00:56:46,369 --> 00:56:49,028
on a very desperate drizzly grey day.

919
00:56:50,066 --> 00:56:53,001
And we put the microphone
in this little sort of pink thing,

920
00:56:55,617 --> 00:56:57,649
and dropped it into the water.

921
00:56:58,784 --> 00:57:02,620
And, I don’t usually do impressions

922
00:57:03,005 --> 00:57:05,872
but I’m going to do for you an impression

923
00:57:06,116 --> 00:57:10,864
of what it sounds like 
under the surface of the Yangtze River.

924
00:57:11,231 --> 00:57:12,578
And it’s something like this

925
00:57:16,240 --> 00:57:18,185
The Yangtze River ladies and gentleman.

926
00:57:23,192 --> 00:57:27,722
And, I suddenly realised 
what an appalling thing

927
00:57:27,730 --> 00:57:30,942
we’ve inflicted on these poor animals,

928
00:57:31,114 --> 00:57:36,807
that live in a world of super 
sensitive sound and hearing.

929
00:57:37,813 --> 00:57:43,375
And this was why these animals 
were now desperately endangered

930
00:57:43,667 --> 00:57:47,822
because having removed 
one way of life from them

931
00:57:47,822 --> 00:57:49,785
we were now removing a second.

932
00:57:52,417 --> 00:57:54,647
The problem is 
we’re about to remove a third,

933
00:57:55,034 --> 00:57:59,111
I said that when I was 
there it was ten years ago,

934
00:57:59,111 --> 00:58:00,939
there were two hundreds of these left,

935
00:58:00,939 --> 00:58:02,156
today there are twenty.

936
00:58:03,626 --> 00:58:10,802
And because the Chinese 
are building these giant dams

937
00:58:11,340 --> 00:58:14,453
to dam the Yangtze at one

938
00:58:14,973 --> 00:58:18,090
of the most beautiful and most
spectacular sites in all world,

939
00:58:18,110 --> 00:58:21,775
the Three Gorges, 
and they’re damming it there

940
00:58:21,854 --> 00:58:27,573
which means that the Yangtze Dolphin 
will at that point definitely go extinct.

941
00:58:30,308 --> 00:58:31,935
And it’s terribly sad.

942
00:58:33,264 --> 00:58:35,166
The peculiar thing about dams

943
00:58:37,228 --> 00:58:38,957
is that we keep on building them

944
00:58:39,206 --> 00:58:40,833
and none of them ever do any good.

945
00:58:41,315 --> 00:58:42,291
It’s not quite true,

946
00:58:42,573 --> 00:58:44,307
because unfortunately there are

947
00:58:44,456 --> 00:58:45,911
—in the history of dam-making—

948
00:58:45,911 --> 00:58:47,928
two that did work, one is the Hoover

949
00:58:48,309 --> 00:58:55,092
and the other is the one up in the 
pacific northwest, the Coulee Dam.

950
00:58:55,288 --> 00:58:58,360
And every other one doesn’t work.

951
00:58:59,715 --> 00:59:03,650
And for some reason we never 
manage to be able to quite stop us …

952
00:59:03,907 --> 00:59:05,814
we always think we just build one more.

953
00:59:05,848 --> 00:59:08,916
I think must have some sort 
of beaver genes deep in our …

954
00:59:11,080 --> 00:59:14,922
But the sad thing as I say is that 
the Yangtze River dolphin

955
00:59:15,137 --> 00:59:19,485
is definitely and without doubt 
bound for extinction.

956
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:25,527
And, it’s very peculiar to me

957
00:59:27,560 --> 00:59:31,954
that we are living at the moment 
in an extraordinary age,

958
00:59:32,579 --> 00:59:34,328
an extraordinary renaissance,

959
00:59:38,297 --> 00:59:42,633
because we’ve got to the point

960
00:59:43,039 --> 00:59:45,774
when we suddenly understand
the value of information,

961
00:59:46,262 --> 00:59:47,404
as we never have before.

962
00:59:47,405 --> 00:59:49,645
We call the age we live in
that of information.

963
00:59:49,771 --> 00:59:51,941
And we’ve discovered that information is

964
00:59:52,318 --> 00:59:55,932
the most valuable resource we have.

965
00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:03,117
And as you’d know 
we’ve just spent billions of dollars

966
01:00:03,590 --> 01:00:07,036
—quite rightly—in trying to 
understand the human genome,

967
01:00:10,739 --> 01:00:14,858
and that’s just one species, 
that’s just us.

968
01:00:15,331 --> 01:00:16,888
And we’ve come to understand and

969
01:00:16,888 --> 01:00:19,424
realise how incredibly valuable
this information is.

970
01:00:21,984 --> 01:00:24,549
And we’ve never understood kind of

971
01:00:24,781 --> 01:00:26,471
how it all worked together before,

972
01:00:26,929 --> 01:00:29,509
because before we had …

973
01:00:29,732 --> 01:00:30,855
let me put it this way.

974
01:00:31,919 --> 01:00:33,592
In the past we’ve done science

975
01:00:34,915 --> 01:00:36,309
by taking things apart

976
01:00:36,548 --> 01:00:37,620
to see how they work.

977
01:00:38,742 --> 01:00:41,719
And it’s led to extraordinary discoveries,

978
01:00:42,034 --> 01:00:44,386
extraordinary degrees of understanding,

979
01:00:45,059 --> 01:00:48,479
but the problem with taking things apart 
to see how they work

980
01:00:48,949 --> 01:00:52,198
is even though it gets you
down to the sort of fundamental particles,

981
01:00:52,530 --> 01:00:56,005
the fundamental principles,
the fundamental forces at work,

982
01:00:57,409 --> 01:01:00,147
we still don’t really understand
how they work

983
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:01,674
until we see them in motion.

984
01:01:02,517 --> 01:01:04,381
One of the things that came about

985
01:01:04,591 --> 01:01:08,045
as a result of understanding
these fundamental principles,

986
01:01:08,045 --> 01:01:10,756
is that we came to invent 
this thing called the computer.

987
01:01:10,756 --> 01:01:13,033
And the great thing 
about the computer is that,

988
01:01:13,033 --> 01:01:17,360
unlike every previous analytical tool

989
01:01:17,751 --> 01:01:18,813
—and there are a bit …

990
01:01:18,813 --> 01:01:21,331
it’s funny how many of these 
have to do with glass,

991
01:01:21,744 --> 01:01:27,813
when we first came across glass,
which is a form of sand,

992
01:01:28,502 --> 01:01:32,656
and we invented lenses,
and we looked up into the sky,

993
01:01:33,136 --> 01:01:36,596
And we discovered, from that, 
the fundamental…

994
01:01:36,596 --> 01:01:38,107
by studying the sky

995
01:01:38,114 --> 01:01:41,223
we began to discover fundamental 
things about gravity,

996
01:01:43,653 --> 01:01:48,176
and we also discovered that 
the universe seems to consist

997
01:01:48,275 --> 01:01:50,762
—terrifyingly enough—
almost entirely of nothing.

998
01:01:52,707 --> 01:01:57,349
The next thing we did with glass 
was we put them in microscopes,

999
01:01:57,843 --> 01:02:03,878
and we looked down into this very 
very very solid world around us,

1000
01:02:04,676 --> 01:02:08,579
and we see the fundamental 
particles there, the atoms

1001
01:02:08,787 --> 01:02:14,517
—made up of protons and neutrons 
with electrons spinning around them—

1002
01:02:14,730 --> 01:02:16,961
and we also discover that 
they seem to consist

1003
01:02:16,984 --> 01:02:20,352
frighteningly almost entirely of nothing.

1004
01:02:20,931 --> 01:02:22,859
And that even when you do find something

1005
01:02:22,859 --> 01:02:24,862
it turns out that it isn’t actually there,

1006
01:02:24,862 --> 01:02:26,490
it isn’t actually a thing there,

1007
01:02:26,490 --> 01:02:29,546
merely the possibility that 
there may be something there.

1008
01:02:32,608 --> 01:02:34,585
It kind of doesn’t feel as real as this

1009
01:02:37,746 --> 01:02:41,605
So the next thing 
we do with sand was silicon,

1010
01:02:41,875 --> 01:02:44,101
as we create the computer.

1011
01:02:44,900 --> 01:02:48,650
And this finally enables us 
to start putting things together

1012
01:02:49,063 --> 01:02:50,162
to see how they work.

1013
01:02:50,628 --> 01:02:55,087
And it allows us to see 
actual process at work,

1014
01:02:55,356 --> 01:02:59,286
and we begin to see how very 
very simple things lead inexorably

1015
01:02:59,516 --> 01:03:01,477
—by iteration after iteration—

1016
01:03:01,918 --> 01:03:06,738
to enormously complex processes
emerging and blossoming.

1017
01:03:07,007 --> 01:03:12,120
And to my mind one of the 
most extraordinary things of our age

1018
01:03:12,487 --> 01:03:14,899
—I mean those of us who 
were around will remember,

1019
01:03:14,899 --> 01:03:17,759
you know, seeing man walking
on the moon for the first time—

1020
01:03:17,759 --> 01:03:22,699
but I think the most dramatic
and extraordinary thing

1021
01:03:23,016 --> 01:03:24,691
that we have seen in our time

1022
01:03:25,176 --> 01:03:27,206
is being able to see, on computer screens,

1023
01:03:27,206 --> 01:03:34,026
the process by which enormously 
simple primitive things,

1024
01:03:34,093 --> 01:03:38,188
processes, instructions, 
repeated many many times over,

1025
01:03:38,535 --> 01:03:42,955
very very fast, and iterated over
generations of instructions,

1026
01:03:43,022 --> 01:03:46,166
produce enormously complex results.

1027
01:03:47,378 --> 01:03:50,953
So that we can suddenly start to create,

1028
01:03:51,192 --> 01:03:55,344
just out of fundamentally 
simple primitive instructions,

1029
01:03:55,623 --> 01:04:03,146
we can create the way in 
which wind behaves in a wind tunnel,

1030
01:04:03,353 --> 01:04:04,475
a turbulence of wind,

1031
01:04:04,687 --> 01:04:09,545
we can see how light might dance 
in an imaginary dinosaur’s eye.

1032
01:04:11,376 --> 01:04:15,008
And we do it all out of 
fundamentally simple instructions.

1033
01:04:15,531 --> 01:04:17,641
And as a result of that 
we have finally come

1034
01:04:17,649 --> 01:04:24,729
to an understanding of the way 
in which life has actually emerged.

1035
01:04:25,400 --> 01:04:28,405
Now, there are an awful lot of things 
we don’t know about life.

1036
01:04:29,295 --> 01:04:31,309
But any life scientist will tell you that,

1037
01:04:32,749 --> 01:04:35,422
although there is an awful lot 
we don’t know,

1038
01:04:36,655 --> 01:04:39,734
there is no longer a deep mystery.

1039
01:04:40,163 --> 01:04:41,731
There is no longer a deep mystery

1040
01:04:41,731 --> 01:04:44,505
because we have actually seen 
with our own eyes

1041
01:04:44,744 --> 01:04:48,675
the way in which simplicity 
gives rise to complexity.

1042
01:04:49,574 --> 01:04:51,563
When I say there is no mystery

1043
01:04:51,819 --> 01:04:53,461
it is rather as if you imagine

1044
01:04:56,609 --> 01:04:59,802
taking a detective from the 19th century,

1045
01:05:00,396 --> 01:05:03,698
teaming him up with a detective 
from the late 20th century,

1046
01:05:04,909 --> 01:05:06,984
and giving them this problem to work on:

1047
01:05:07,414 --> 01:05:09,892
that a suspect in a crime

1048
01:05:09,935 --> 01:05:14,357
was seen one day to be 
walking down the street

1049
01:05:14,578 --> 01:05:15,764
in the middle of London,

1050
01:05:15,774 --> 01:05:16,549
and the next day

1051
01:05:16,760 --> 01:05:18,494
was seen somewhere out in the desert

1052
01:05:18,494 --> 01:05:19,929
in the middle of New Mexico.

1053
01:05:20,007 --> 01:05:21,911
Now the 19th century detective will say,

1054
01:05:21,911 --> 01:05:24,456
“Well, I haven’t the faintest idea.

1055
01:05:24,776 --> 01:05:27,355
I mean it must be some species 
of magic has happened.”

1056
01:05:28,455 --> 01:05:29,655
And he would have no idea

1057
01:05:29,768 --> 01:05:32,148
about how to begin to solve

1058
01:05:32,354 --> 01:05:33,755
what has happened here.

1059
01:05:34,232 --> 01:05:35,709
For the 20th century detective,

1060
01:05:35,960 --> 01:05:39,220
now he may never know whether the guy

1061
01:05:39,220 --> 01:05:42,338
went on British Airways 
or United or American

1062
01:05:42,338 --> 01:05:45,110
or where he hired his car from, 
or all that kind of stuff,

1063
01:05:45,113 --> 01:05:47,353
he may never find those details,

1064
01:05:47,570 --> 01:05:51,078
but there wont be any fundamental mystery 
about what has happened.

1065
01:05:53,271 --> 01:05:57,714
So for us there is no longer 
a fundamental mystery about life.

1066
01:05:59,014 --> 01:06:04,454
It is all the process of extraordinary
eruptions of information.

1067
01:06:05,821 --> 01:06:07,451
And it's information that gives us

1068
01:06:07,451 --> 01:06:12,357
this fantastically rich 
complex world in which we live.

1069
01:06:12,357 --> 01:06:14,664
But at the same time 
that we’ve discovered that,

1070
01:06:14,664 --> 01:06:17,961
we are destroying it at a rate

1071
01:06:18,046 --> 01:06:20,045
that has no precedent in history,

1072
01:06:20,290 --> 01:06:23,502
unless you go back to the point
that we’re hit by an asteroid.

1073
01:06:26,470 --> 01:06:30,106
So there is a kind of terrible irony

1074
01:06:30,376 --> 01:06:33,836
that at the point that 
we are best able to understand,

1075
01:06:34,199 --> 01:06:39,415
and appreciate, and value 
the richness of life around us,

1076
01:06:39,626 --> 01:06:43,548
we are destroying it at a higher rate
that it has even been destroyed before.

1077
01:06:43,809 --> 01:06:49,529
And we are losing species 
after species after species,

1078
01:06:49,529 --> 01:06:51,764
day after day, just because

1079
01:06:51,764 --> 01:06:54,292
we’re burning the stuff down for firewood.

1080
01:06:55,395 --> 01:06:58,728
And this is a kind of terrible 
indictment of our understanding.

1081
01:06:59,198 --> 01:07:01,766
But, you see, we make another mistake,

1082
01:07:02,132 --> 01:07:03,404
because we think somehow,

1083
01:07:03,749 --> 01:07:06,851
this is all right in some 
fundamental kind of way,

1084
01:07:07,866 --> 01:07:12,032
because we think that this is all
sort of “meant to happen.”

1085
01:07:12,715 --> 01:07:18,446
Now let me explain how 
we get into that kind of mindset,

1086
01:07:18,868 --> 01:07:21,024
because it’s exactly 
the same kind of mindset

1087
01:07:21,024 --> 01:07:22,654
that the Kakapo gets trapped in.

1088
01:07:23,335 --> 01:07:26,214
Because, what has been

1089
01:07:26,417 --> 01:07:28,777
a very successful strategy for the Kakapo

1090
01:07:29,233 --> 01:07:30,913
over generation after generation

1091
01:07:30,983 --> 01:07:32,746
for thousands and thousands of years,

1092
01:07:32,746 --> 01:07:34,372
suddenly is the wrong strategy,

1093
01:07:34,507 --> 01:07:35,942
and he has no means of knowing

1094
01:07:35,942 --> 01:07:38,950
because he is just doing what 
has been successful up till then.

1095
01:07:40,376 --> 01:07:43,400
And we have always been,
because we’re toolmakers,

1096
01:07:43,673 --> 01:07:45,954
because we take from our environment

1097
01:07:46,067 --> 01:07:48,336
the stuff that we need to do 
what we want to do

1098
01:07:48,346 --> 01:07:50,511
and it’s always been 
very successful for us …

1099
01:07:50,521 --> 01:07:52,912
I’ll tell you what’s happened.

1100
01:07:53,187 --> 01:07:54,473
It’s as if we’ve actually

1101
01:07:54,593 --> 01:07:56,405
kind of put the sort of “pause” button

1102
01:07:56,405 --> 01:07:58,687
on our own process of evolution,

1103
01:07:58,932 --> 01:08:02,768
because we have put a buffer around us,

1104
01:08:03,006 --> 01:08:08,365
which consists of—you know—
medicine and education and buildings,

1105
01:08:08,642 --> 01:08:10,792
and all these kinds of things
that protect us

1106
01:08:10,834 --> 01:08:13,016
from the normal environmental pressures.

1107
01:08:14,165 --> 01:08:18,547
And, it’s our ability to make tools
that enables us to do this.

1108
01:08:18,790 --> 01:08:21,601
Now, generally speaking, 
what drives speciation,

1109
01:08:21,900 --> 01:08:23,498
is that a small group of animals

1110
01:08:23,593 --> 01:08:27,014
gets separated out from the main body

1111
01:08:27,230 --> 01:08:30,967
by population pressure, some geographical
upheaval or whatever.

1112
01:08:31,195 --> 01:08:35,728
So imagine, a small bunch 
suddenly finds itself stranded

1113
01:08:35,839 --> 01:08:37,614
in a slightly colder environment.

1114
01:08:38,017 --> 01:08:40,353
Then you know, over a 
small number of generations

1115
01:08:40,354 --> 01:08:42,778
that those genes 
that favour a thicker coat

1116
01:08:42,992 --> 01:08:44,230
will come to the fore

1117
01:08:44,418 --> 01:08:46,451
and you come back a few generations later,

1118
01:08:46,458 --> 01:08:48,176
and the animal’s got a thicker coat.

1119
01:08:48,176 --> 01:08:51,736
Man, because we are able to make tools,

1120
01:08:51,909 --> 01:08:55,030
we arrive in a new environment 
where it’s much colder,

1121
01:08:55,103 --> 01:08:57,377
and we don’t have 
to wait for that process.

1122
01:08:57,636 --> 01:08:58,815
Because we see an animal

1123
01:08:58,815 --> 01:09:00,419
that’s already got a thicker coat

1124
01:09:00,419 --> 01:09:02,069
and we say we’ll have it off him.

1125
01:09:05,702 --> 01:09:08,279
And so we’ve kind of taken 
control of our environment,

1126
01:09:08,283 --> 01:09:11,267
and that’s all very well,

1127
01:09:11,497 --> 01:09:16,879
but we need to be able to
sort of rise above that process.

1128
01:09:19,001 --> 01:09:21,805
We have to rise above that vision 
and see a higher vision

1129
01:09:22,033 --> 01:09:26,108
—and understand the effect 
we’re actually having.

1130
01:09:26,847 --> 01:09:31,916
Now imagine—if you will—an early man,

1131
01:09:33,209 --> 01:09:36,510
and let’s just sort of see 
how this mindset comes about.

1132
01:09:36,707 --> 01:09:40,581
He’s standing, surveying his world
at the end of the day.

1133
01:09:42,737 --> 01:09:44,170
And he looks at it and thinks,

1134
01:09:44,189 --> 01:09:46,784
“This is a very wonderful world 
that I find myself in.

1135
01:09:46,784 --> 01:09:47,827
This is pretty good.

1136
01:09:48,894 --> 01:09:52,427
I mean, look, here I am, 
behind me is the mountains,

1137
01:09:52,658 --> 01:09:53,945
and the mountains are great

1138
01:09:53,945 --> 01:09:55,866
because there are caves in the mountains

1139
01:09:55,866 --> 01:09:57,018
where I can shelter,

1140
01:09:57,322 --> 01:10:00,114
either from the weather or from bears

1141
01:10:00,515 --> 01:10:02,620
that occasionally come 
and try to attack me.

1142
01:10:02,620 --> 01:10:04,607
And I can shelter there, so that’s great.

1143
01:10:04,617 --> 01:10:06,707
And in front of me there is the forest,

1144
01:10:06,936 --> 01:10:09,481
and the forest is full of nuts 
and berries and trees,

1145
01:10:09,481 --> 01:10:11,393
and they feed me, and they’re delicious

1146
01:10:11,393 --> 01:10:12,890
and they sort of keep me going.

1147
01:10:12,890 --> 01:10:14,804
And here’s a stream going through

1148
01:10:14,834 --> 01:10:16,650
which has got fish running through it,

1149
01:10:16,650 --> 01:10:19,265
and the water is delicious, 
and I drink the water,

1150
01:10:19,490 --> 01:10:20,787
and everything’s fantastic.

1151
01:10:20,799 --> 01:10:22,092
And there’s my cousin Ug.

1152
01:10:22,825 --> 01:10:25,651
And Ug has caught a mammoth! Yay!!

1153
01:10:26,260 --> 01:10:27,424
Ug has caught a mammoth!

1154
01:10:27,424 --> 01:10:28,872
Mammoths are terrific!

1155
01:10:29,142 --> 01:10:31,328
There’s nothing greater than a mammoth,

1156
01:10:31,583 --> 01:10:32,553
because a mammoth,

1157
01:10:32,613 --> 01:10:35,829
basically you can wrap yourself 
in the fur from the mammoth,

1158
01:10:36,093 --> 01:10:38,784
you can eat the meat of the mammoth,

1159
01:10:39,049 --> 01:10:42,326
and you can use the bones of the mammoth, 
to catch other mammoths!

1160
01:10:44,958 --> 01:10:47,717
Now this world is a fantastically 
good world for me.”

1161
01:10:50,015 --> 01:10:55,394
And, part of how we come to 
take command of our world,

1162
01:10:55,454 --> 01:10:57,191
to take command of our environment,

1163
01:10:57,404 --> 01:11:00,005
to make these tools that are
actually able to do this,

1164
01:11:00,166 --> 01:11:02,710
is we ask ourselves questions
about it the whole time.

1165
01:11:02,720 --> 01:11:05,153
So this man starts to 
ask himself questions.

1166
01:11:05,396 --> 01:11:11,797
“This world,” he says, 
“well, who … so, so who made it?”

1167
01:11:13,767 --> 01:11:17,324
Now, of course he thinks that,
because he makes things himself,

1168
01:11:17,642 --> 01:11:21,434
so he’s looking for someone 
who will have made this world.

1169
01:11:22,632 --> 01:11:25,808
He says, “So, who would 
have made this world?

1170
01:11:25,847 --> 01:11:28,341
Well, it must be something
a little bit like me.

1171
01:11:28,925 --> 01:11:31,615
Obviously much much bigger,

1172
01:11:33,188 --> 01:11:36,942
and necessarily invisible,

1173
01:11:40,127 --> 01:11:45,399
but he would have made it. 
Now, why did he make it?”

1174
01:11:47,100 --> 01:11:49,905
Now, we always ask ourselves “why”

1175
01:11:50,106 --> 01:11:52,026
because we look for intention around us,

1176
01:11:52,803 --> 01:11:56,326
because we always do 
something with intention.

1177
01:11:56,516 --> 01:12:01,009
You know, we boil an egg 
in order to eat it.

1178
01:12:02,290 --> 01:12:05,867
So, we look at the rocks 
and we look at the trees,

1179
01:12:06,247 --> 01:12:08,216
and we wonder what intention is here,

1180
01:12:08,558 --> 01:12:10,389
even though it doesn’t have intention.

1181
01:12:12,010 --> 01:12:17,759
So we think, what did this person 
who made this world intend it for.

1182
01:12:18,082 --> 01:12:19,951
And this is the point where you think,

1183
01:12:19,952 --> 01:12:22,440
“Well, it fits me very well.

1184
01:12:24,523 --> 01:12:26,250
You know, the caves and the forests,

1185
01:12:26,250 --> 01:12:28,925
and the stream, and the mammoths.

1186
01:12:29,644 --> 01:12:31,573
He must have made it for me!

1187
01:12:32,643 --> 01:12:35,538
I mean, there’s no other conclusion 
you can come to.”

1188
01:12:35,544 --> 01:12:41,423
And it’s rather like a puddle 
waking up one morning

1189
01:12:41,498 --> 01:12:43,225
—I know they don’t normally do this,

1190
01:12:43,229 --> 01:12:45,330
but allow me, I’m a 
science fiction writer.

1191
01:12:47,668 --> 01:12:50,826
A puddle wakes up one morning and thinks,

1192
01:12:51,379 --> 01:12:54,666
“This is a very interesting 
world I find myself in.

1193
01:12:55,790 --> 01:12:57,459
It fits me very neatly.

1194
01:12:58,969 --> 01:13:01,555
In fact, it fits me so neatly,

1195
01:13:02,024 --> 01:13:03,868
I mean, really precise, isn’t it?

1196
01:13:11,450 --> 01:13:13,803
It must have been made to have me in it!”

1197
01:13:15,144 --> 01:13:18,279
And the sun rises, and 
he’s continuing to narrate

1198
01:13:18,661 --> 01:13:21,517
the story about this hole being
made to have him in it.

1199
01:13:22,112 --> 01:13:24,406
And the sun rises, and 
gradually the puddle

1200
01:13:24,618 --> 01:13:26,607
is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking,

1201
01:13:27,065 --> 01:13:29,102
and by the time the puddle
ceases to exist,

1202
01:13:29,153 --> 01:13:32,183
it’s still thinking, 
it’s still trapped in this idea,

1203
01:13:32,437 --> 01:13:34,471
that the hole was there for it.

1204
01:13:35,669 --> 01:13:38,197
And if we think that 
the world is here for us,

1205
01:13:38,481 --> 01:13:41,108
we will continue to destroy it

1206
01:13:41,113 --> 01:13:43,163
in the way that we’ve been destroying it,

1207
01:13:43,164 --> 01:13:44,951
because we think we can do no harm.

1208
01:13:46,957 --> 01:13:50,503
There’s an awful lot of speculation

1209
01:13:50,706 --> 01:13:52,370
one way or another at the moment,

1210
01:13:52,563 --> 01:13:55,146
about whether there’s life 
on other planets or not.

1211
01:13:56,274 --> 01:13:58,463
Carl Sagan, as you know,

1212
01:13:58,666 --> 01:14:01,494
was very keen on the idea
that there must be.

1213
01:14:02,084 --> 01:14:03,349
The sheer numbers dictate,

1214
01:14:03,349 --> 01:14:05,827
because there are billions 
and billions and billions

1215
01:14:05,827 --> 01:14:07,599
—as he famously did not say, in fact—

1216
01:14:08,364 --> 01:14:10,613
of worlds out there,

1217
01:14:10,853 --> 01:14:11,905
so the chance must be

1218
01:14:11,922 --> 01:14:16,024
that there’s other 
intelligent life out there.

1219
01:14:16,463 --> 01:14:19,141
There are other voices at 
the moment you’ll hear saying,

1220
01:14:19,141 --> 01:14:20,514
well actually if you look at

1221
01:14:20,514 --> 01:14:25,326
the set of circumstances here on Earth,

1222
01:14:25,620 --> 01:14:28,501
they are so extraordinarily specific

1223
01:14:28,705 --> 01:14:31,652
that the chances of there being
something like this out there,

1224
01:14:31,846 --> 01:14:33,640
are actually pretty remote.

1225
01:14:34,650 --> 01:14:36,222
Now, in a way it doesn’t matter.

1226
01:14:36,222 --> 01:14:38,867
Because think of this

1227
01:14:38,887 --> 01:14:41,130
—I mean Carl Sagan, I think,
himself, said this.

1228
01:14:41,130 --> 01:14:45,363
There are two possibilities: 
either there is life

1229
01:14:45,596 --> 01:14:47,000
out there on other planets,

1230
01:14:48,364 --> 01:14:50,677
or there is no life out
there on other planets.

1231
01:14:52,097 --> 01:14:54,353
They are both utterly extraordinary ideas!

1232
01:14:58,703 --> 01:15:05,667
But, there is a strong possibility

1233
01:15:05,748 --> 01:15:08,386
that there isn’t anything 
out there remotely like us.

1234
01:15:10,987 --> 01:15:14,949
And we are behaving as if this planet,

1235
01:15:15,025 --> 01:15:18,990
this extraordinary, utterly, utterly 
extraordinary little ball of life,

1236
01:15:20,522 --> 01:15:23,526
is something we can just screw 
about with any way we like.

1237
01:15:25,472 --> 01:15:28,423
And maybe we can’t.

1238
01:15:30,561 --> 01:15:33,571
Maybe we should be looking after it 
just a little bit better.

1239
01:15:34,379 --> 01:15:36,688
Not for the world’s sake

1240
01:15:37,899 --> 01:15:40,257
—we talk rather grandly about
“saving the world.”

1241
01:15:40,467 --> 01:15:42,895
We don’t have to save the world
–the world’s fine!

1242
01:15:43,231 --> 01:15:46,689
The world has been through 
five periods of mass extinction.

1243
01:15:47,458 --> 01:15:52,225
Sixty-five million years ago when, 
as it seems, a comet hit the Earth

1244
01:15:52,468 --> 01:15:55,843
at the same time that there 
were vast volcanic eruptions in India,

1245
01:15:56,664 --> 01:15:58,221
which saw off the dinosaurs,

1246
01:15:58,617 --> 01:16:01,501
and something like 90%
of the life on the planet at the time.

1247
01:16:01,509 --> 01:16:04,906
Go back another, I think is 150 million
years earlier than that,

1248
01:16:05,115 --> 01:16:08,240
to the Permian-Triassic 
boundary, another giant,

1249
01:16:08,570 --> 01:16:10,520
giant, giant extinction.

1250
01:16:10,804 --> 01:16:13,456
The world has been through it 
many many times before.

1251
01:16:14,181 --> 01:16:15,601
And what tends to happen,

1252
01:16:15,941 --> 01:16:18,679
what happens invariably
after each mass extinction,

1253
01:16:19,042 --> 01:16:23,574
is that there’s a huge 
amount of space available,

1254
01:16:23,808 --> 01:16:27,249
or new forms of life suddenly 
to emerge and flourish into.

1255
01:16:27,783 --> 01:16:34,363
Just as the extinction of 
the dinosaurs made way for us.

1256
01:16:35,058 --> 01:16:37,381
Without that extinction, 
we would not be here.

1257
01:16:37,996 --> 01:16:39,154
So, the world is fine.

1258
01:16:39,164 --> 01:16:40,788
We don’t have to save the world

1259
01:16:41,010 --> 01:16:43,226
—the world is big enough 
to look after itself.

1260
01:16:44,205 --> 01:16:45,988
What we have to be concerned about,

1261
01:16:45,989 --> 01:16:49,390
is whether or not the world we live in,

1262
01:16:49,599 --> 01:16:53,604
will be capable of sustaining us in it.

1263
01:16:54,817 --> 01:16:56,494
That’s what we need to think about.

1264
01:16:56,515 --> 01:16:58,576
Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.

1265
01:17:29,500 --> 01:17:31,280
And now if anybody has any questions,

1266
01:17:31,291 --> 01:17:32,954
I’m very happy to take questions,

1267
01:17:32,954 --> 01:17:37,432
and there are microphones down here 
at the front so I suggest you use them.

1268
01:17:37,721 --> 01:17:39,244
Yeah, hi.

1269
01:17:39,948 --> 01:17:41,423
Thank you. Wonderful talk.

1270
01:17:41,844 --> 01:17:46,773
You say we should take care
to not destroy the planet.

1271
01:17:47,017 --> 01:17:49,721
There is one suggestion
that has been made is that,

1272
01:17:49,953 --> 01:17:52,023
the reason why we destroy the planet

1273
01:17:52,240 --> 01:17:54,549
is that we don’t pay 
the true cost of things

1274
01:17:54,611 --> 01:17:55,830
when we consume them.

1275
01:17:56,848 --> 01:17:58,864
The price of gasoline has been falling

1276
01:17:59,238 --> 01:18:02,814
in real dollars and the vehicles
get bigger and bigger,

1277
01:18:03,054 --> 01:18:04,842
we have the Selfish Useless Vehicles

1278
01:18:04,842 --> 01:18:06,495
—I think they’re called—the SUV’s.

1279
01:18:12,073 --> 01:18:14,676
You know, I have to say as a brit,

1280
01:18:15,701 --> 01:18:16,988
you know we sit and think,

1281
01:18:16,988 --> 01:18:19,841
“the americans are complaining again
because their gas prices

1282
01:18:19,841 --> 01:18:22,357
have reached now nearly 
a quarter of what we pay.”

1283
01:18:24,955 --> 01:18:28,470
So, I just wonder whether you think

1284
01:18:28,640 --> 01:18:33,598
that a good solution is that if 
we would pay the true cost of things,

1285
01:18:33,856 --> 01:18:35,910
if we would pay the ten dollars a gallon

1286
01:18:36,307 --> 01:18:39,745
or whatever it really costs in terms 
of the impact on the environment,

1287
01:18:39,745 --> 01:18:41,903
that that might make a difference?

1288
01:18:43,342 --> 01:18:48,998
Umm. It may be …, I …, it …

1289
01:18:52,456 --> 01:18:56,216
There is a problem I’m very 
very conscious of here.

1290
01:18:57,491 --> 01:19:04,453
Which is that, even though I’m talking 
from a conservationist point of view,

1291
01:19:04,996 --> 01:19:08,316
very very strongly, you’d look back
over the history

1292
01:19:08,570 --> 01:19:11,753
of what we and the conservation 
movement have said

1293
01:19:11,753 --> 01:19:14,147
in the last ten years, 
and the previous ten years,

1294
01:19:14,147 --> 01:19:15,646
and previous ten years of that.

1295
01:19:15,656 --> 01:19:19,561
And most of what we’ve said 
we have to do about it,

1296
01:19:20,239 --> 01:19:23,629
or the way to have gone about it, 
have actually turned out to be wrong.

1297
01:19:24,045 --> 01:19:30,452
So, it’s very hard for me to pretend

1298
01:19:30,710 --> 01:19:32,781
I can stand up and say we have to do this,

1299
01:19:32,790 --> 01:19:34,199
and we have to do that.

1300
01:19:34,601 --> 01:19:36,725
Because they may not be 
the right solution.

1301
01:19:37,457 --> 01:19:40,824
I’m terribly aware of this as far as,

1302
01:19:41,190 --> 01:19:43,472
I mean just going back again,

1303
01:19:43,723 --> 01:19:49,016
I mean thinking about sort of protection
of animals in Africa, for instance.

1304
01:19:49,683 --> 01:19:52,535
That time after time, we’ve gone
about it the wrong way.

1305
01:19:53,476 --> 01:19:56,608
And, yeah, the conservation efforts

1306
01:19:56,825 --> 01:20:00,821
of once every ten years 
will be as much as anything else,

1307
01:20:01,051 --> 01:20:03,512
undoing the problems caused 
by the last ten years.

1308
01:20:03,942 --> 01:20:08,926
So it is a question of constant
sort of self-education,

1309
01:20:09,369 --> 01:20:11,138
trying to assimilate the information,

1310
01:20:11,168 --> 01:20:14,533
trying to see what the consequence 
of what we’ve done so far has been,

1311
01:20:15,967 --> 01:20:17,361
what we can learn from that.

1312
01:20:17,361 --> 01:20:24,623
Now it may well be that if we say
we’re going to multiply the cost of gas

1313
01:20:25,009 --> 01:20:31,008
by ten times or whatever, that may have 
effects that we would put into …

1314
01:20:31,234 --> 01:20:35,751
they would be the lure of unintended 
consequences, which comes into play.

1315
01:20:36,989 --> 01:20:41,619
I think the best thing we can do is 
continually inform ourselves,

1316
01:20:41,967 --> 01:20:46,079
be as aware as possible of what 
is actually happening,

1317
01:20:46,429 --> 01:20:51,169
how if that kind of feedback loop
saying now we’re going to make

1318
01:20:51,398 --> 01:20:55,941
the true cost of the damage we’re causing 
be part of what you have to pay,

1319
01:20:56,169 --> 01:20:59,604
then that may be very well 
be a very good answer;

1320
01:20:59,953 --> 01:21:02,389
but I’m also worried that
it may not be the answer.

1321
01:21:02,402 --> 01:21:05,599
Which is a complicated way of saying
“I don’t know.”

1322
01:21:14,158 --> 01:21:16,828
Two questions. First. 
Do you know where your towel is?

1323
01:21:18,461 --> 01:21:19,695
No.

1324
01:21:20,544 --> 01:21:21,614
OK.

1325
01:21:22,388 --> 01:21:23,756
That was always my problem.

1326
01:21:25,021 --> 01:21:27,063
It’s very funny the thing 
about the towel because, …

1327
01:21:28,360 --> 01:21:30,404
I’ll tell you where it came from.

1328
01:21:30,892 --> 01:21:32,938
I was on a holiday with a bunch of people,

1329
01:21:33,275 --> 01:21:35,300
and we were on a Villa in Corfu.

1330
01:21:35,558 --> 01:21:38,001
And every day we would 
set out to the beach,

1331
01:21:38,256 --> 01:21:40,699
and just as we were 
setting out for the beach

1332
01:21:40,828 --> 01:21:42,433
there would a problem,

1333
01:21:43,459 --> 01:21:47,480
and the problem would be 
that Douglas could not find his towel!

1334
01:21:49,727 --> 01:21:52,664
Where was my towel? Was it under the bed?

1335
01:21:52,664 --> 01:21:54,808
Was it on the end of bed? 
Was it in the bed?

1336
01:21:54,814 --> 01:21:57,557
Was it the bathroom? 
Was it hanging on the line outside?

1337
01:21:57,998 --> 01:21:59,713
Was it in the washing …? Was it …?

1338
01:21:59,742 --> 01:22:02,948
I had no idea, day after day, 
where the fuck my towel was.

1339
01:22:04,153 --> 01:22:06,047
And after a while I just began to think

1340
01:22:06,047 --> 01:22:07,926
this must be symptomatic of somebody

1341
01:22:08,000 --> 01:22:11,160
who is so sort of deeply chaotic.

1342
01:22:11,916 --> 01:22:14,203
But I then …

1343
01:22:14,605 --> 01:22:17,589
I don’t even know whether 
I even came up with it first,

1344
01:22:17,977 --> 01:22:19,623
or somebody on the hold of it

1345
01:22:19,971 --> 01:22:21,995
came with the idea that somebody

1346
01:22:22,220 --> 01:22:24,170
who was rather more together than I,

1347
01:22:24,347 --> 01:22:27,249
would be someone who would 
really know where their towel was.

1348
01:22:27,269 --> 01:22:35,256
And so then, when I was writing 
the Hitchhiker, I sort of put …

1349
01:22:35,557 --> 01:22:38,610
You very often put things in because 
you know what they mean.

1350
01:22:39,116 --> 01:22:42,511
And it’s really kind of a flag to yourself

1351
01:22:42,875 --> 01:22:46,966
that in the next draft through 
you would put something in

1352
01:22:47,136 --> 01:22:50,157
that means to everybody else
what this thing means to you.

1353
01:22:51,250 --> 01:22:53,247
You know. And then it kind of stays there,

1354
01:22:53,268 --> 01:22:56,654
and it turns out that it does mean 
something to everybody else as well.

1355
01:22:58,045 --> 01:22:59,569
Does that answer your question?

1356
01:23:00,093 --> 01:23:04,941
OK. And also, do we behave like people 
descended from stick-using monkeys

1357
01:23:05,415 --> 01:23:07,668
or people descended 
from telephone cleaners.

1358
01:23:10,939 --> 01:23:13,856
I think we have both lots there
in our genes, I’m afraid.

1359
01:23:21,864 --> 01:23:25,550
I’m absolutely going to kill myself 
if I get out of here without asking this.

1360
01:23:25,556 --> 01:23:27,587
This question occurred to me
when my friend

1361
01:23:27,587 --> 01:23:29,920
bodily forced me to pick up the first book

1362
01:23:29,973 --> 01:23:32,825
n The Hitchhiker’s Guide and I read the 
very first sentences

1363
01:23:32,831 --> 01:23:34,573
on the very first paragraph,

1364
01:23:34,899 --> 01:23:38,330
“What on God’s green earth does 
this man have against digital watches!?”

1365
01:23:45,734 --> 01:23:47,915
Well I have to admit
they’ve improved since

1366
01:23:47,976 --> 01:23:52,420
I actually wrote that bit.

1367
01:23:53,205 --> 01:23:55,955
But if you think about it,

1368
01:23:56,451 --> 01:23:58,656
I mean the first digital 
watches which were …,

1369
01:24:00,901 --> 01:24:06,233
you look at a regular watch with hands
and you got a pie chart.

1370
01:24:07,310 --> 01:24:09,658
Remember the time when
we used to get very excited

1371
01:24:09,658 --> 01:24:13,245
about pie charts being the 
thing that computer did for us?

1372
01:24:13,440 --> 01:24:15,131
“Uhhh! Pie charts!”

1373
01:24:19,019 --> 01:24:22,609
But at the same time when we were 
getting terribly excited about pie charts

1374
01:24:22,609 --> 01:24:25,379
and what they could do for 
our understanding of the world,

1375
01:24:25,379 --> 01:24:28,045
we were saying, 
“We don’t want pie charts on our wrists.

1376
01:24:28,598 --> 01:24:30,182
That’s old fashioned technology.

1377
01:24:30,521 --> 01:24:34,189
No what we want is not something you 
just glance at and see what the time is.

1378
01:24:34,189 --> 01:24:36,049
We want something that you’ve got to go

1379
01:24:36,049 --> 01:24:38,930
into a dark corner and 
put down your suitcase

1380
01:24:39,151 --> 01:24:41,236
and press a button in order to read,

1381
01:24:41,489 --> 01:24:43,740
‘Oh it’s 11:43, now what is …? uhm …?

1382
01:24:43,915 --> 01:24:46,148
How long is that before twelve o’clock?’ ”

1383
01:24:47,430 --> 01:24:49,211
And this was progress.

1384
01:24:50,629 --> 01:24:54,357
But you see, I mean the great 
thing about human beings,

1385
01:24:55,093 --> 01:24:57,059
I mean—while we make fun of it—

1386
01:24:57,305 --> 01:25:01,246
is not only that we invent 
stuff that’s new,

1387
01:25:01,547 --> 01:25:04,678
and better, and does things better.

1388
01:25:04,950 --> 01:25:09,306
But even stuff that works perfectly well 
we can’t leave well enough alone,

1389
01:25:09,702 --> 01:25:14,282
and it’s really the most sort of charming
and delightful aspect of human beings,

1390
01:25:14,469 --> 01:25:17,653
that we keep on inventing things 
that we’ve already got right once.

1391
01:25:17,653 --> 01:25:23,154
I mean like bathroom faucets, 
I mean it’s very very simple,

1392
01:25:23,185 --> 01:25:26,431
you turn it on the water comes out, 
you turn it off the water stops.

1393
01:25:26,431 --> 01:25:28,198
And we kind of got the hang of that.

1394
01:25:28,207 --> 01:25:30,201
That works. But it’s amazing you go into,

1395
01:25:30,597 --> 01:25:33,584
you know, a hotel lobby or an airport,

1396
01:25:33,775 --> 01:25:35,680
and you approach the basin

1397
01:25:35,934 --> 01:25:38,654
with a certain amount of 
sort of anxiety, you know.

1398
01:25:45,221 --> 01:25:47,014
“What do I do? Do I turn something?

1399
01:25:47,014 --> 01:25:48,989
Do I push something? Do I pull something?

1400
01:25:48,989 --> 01:25:49,762
Do I knee it!?

1401
01:25:53,042 --> 01:25:55,018
Do I just have to sort of be in near it?”

1402
01:25:58,908 --> 01:26:01,202
And once the water started to flow

1403
01:26:01,462 --> 01:26:04,009
because it has picked up some sort

1404
01:26:04,017 --> 01:26:05,953
of brainwave energy from me or whatever.

1405
01:26:06,622 --> 01:26:09,956
“So, now how do I stop it? 
Is it my job to stop it?

1406
01:26:11,229 --> 01:26:12,730
Would it stop itself?”

1407
01:26:13,562 --> 01:26:19,950
I mean, I think we’ve got
the faucet down OK.

1408
01:26:20,586 --> 01:26:24,664
But, I just think it’s wonderful
we just sort of

1409
01:26:24,923 --> 01:26:27,394
keep on inventing it even though it works,

1410
01:26:27,611 --> 01:26:32,473
because it’s the way of getting ourselves
off local maximums isn’t it?

1411
01:26:37,940 --> 01:26:40,885
I think that’s all I have 
to say there. Thanks.