Lyall Watson
Lyall Watson
Lyall Watsonwas a South African botanist, zoologist, biologist, anthropologist, ethologist, and author of many new age books, among the most popular of which is the best seller Supernature. Lyall Watson tried to make sense of natural and supernatural phenomena in biological terms. He is credited with coining the "Hundredth Monkey" phenomenonin his 1979 book, Lifetide...
NationalitySouth African
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth12 April 1939
elephants common-sense challenges
If elephants didn't exist, you couldn't invent one. They belong to a small group of living things so unlikely they challenge credulity and common sense.
sight air common-sense
Before sight and sound hijacked our attention, we shared with all life a sort of common sense, a chemical sense that depended on direct contact with matter in the water or the air.
communication air water
The limits of sensory evolution in fish are defined very largely by their habitat. Water is physically supportive, carries some kinds of odour well, and is kind to sound - letting it travel several times faster than air will allow, but it inhibits other more personal kinds of communication.
advance finding lies stretching time
Smell is a long-distance sense, a way of stretching time and finding out in advance what lies ahead.
definitely elephant exactly secretive
Seriously, a smaller, leaner, cleaner, tuskless and more secretive elephant is exactly what is needed. It definitely would live longer.
circuits home literally means nostalgic serves smell wonderful word
Smell is stimulating. It stirs things up and makes us nostalgic - a wonderful word which literally means 'ache for home' - which serves to inspire new circuits in the brain.
air ancestors biggest breathing change easy experience expose freed liberating lives range reach remain sensory staying wet within
Breathing air is a liberating experience. It freed our ancestors from the constraints of staying wet or having to remain within easy reach of water for refuge, respiration or reproduction. But the biggest change it made in our lives was to expose us to a whole new range of sensory experience.
chance close continue encounter enrich life relationships species surprising three
I have had close relationships with three species of wild pigs, each a chance encounter on a different continent, and all continue to enrich my life in surprising ways.
aware begin buoyant ecology heavy imagine might mood naturally permanent planet quite share smell soft
We share our planet quite naturally with a permanent aeroplankton; a buoyant ecology too soft to hear, too small to see, but heavy with mood and meaning. Imagine being aware of all these airy inclusions - and you can begin to understand how it might feel to be able to smell really well.
air almost close filled inorganic life places thick tissue
Air is traditionally 'thin,' but the more we learn about our atmosphere, the more substantial it becomes. In some places it is so filled with inorganic flotsam that it is almost thick enough to plough; in others, it has become so primed with the by-products of life that it comes close to being a living tissue in its own right.