For November’s Science Sunday, the UNCG Atheists screened an episode of The Life of Mammals (BBC). Hosted by David Attenborough, this ten-part series is a magnificent exploration of the evolution and behavior of that remarkably variegated class of animals… mammals! This class of vertebrate animals is characterized by “endothermy (internal regulation of body temperature, often known as warm-bloodedness), bearing live young (placental), and feeding their young with milk produced by mammary glands.”
Around twenty of us comfortably crammed into Robert Eldredge’s home to watch the ninth episode of the series. Entitled ‘The Social Climbers,’ this episode focused on monkeys, which belong to the order primate. “There are more than 350 species of primates, varying in size from the pygmy mouse lemur (weighing about an ounce) to gorillas (males can weigh up to 600 pounds). Most live in the tropics or subtropics, and most depend on forests for their survival. Primates share characteristics—such as five-fingered hands with opposing thumbs, forward-facing eyes, and color vision—but they do vary greatly, especially from prosimian to monkey to ape.”
Monkeys are differentiated from other primates in the following ways:
- includes more than 200 species, New World in South and Central America, Old World in Africa and Asia, and tarsiers in Southeast Asia
- smaller in size
- arms equal in length to or shorter than legs
- limited shoulder rotation
- diurnal (active during the day)
- chest deeper than broad
- most have visible tails
- nails on all digits (except Callitrichidae—marmosets and tamarins)
- dry nose, lack snout, weak sense of smell (large teeth may extend the snout)
The cinematography of The Social Climbers is truly beautiful and mesmerizing. And David Attenborough’s narration is both poetically informative and highly accessible. Attenborough is perhaps the world’s foremost film-maker of natural history, and has been at it for more than 25 years. He is also a non-theist! In an interview with Radio Times regarding hate mail and death threats from creationists, Attenborough stated that it never even occurred to him to believe in god, that the sermons he heard as a child sounded absurdly unbelievable, and that the cruel indifference of nature is “hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator.”
The film instigated a spirited group discussion regarding the nature of the emotional lives of non-human animals (with ethical implications as to how one should prioritize non-human animal well-being), and whether there’s somehow more than a naturalistic explanation for ‘love.’
Good times!
