19720104_DS

Source: YouTube

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LsLOcZQheoE

Date: 04/01/1972

Event: David Suzuki on why humans are fruit flies

Credit: CBC

People:

• David Suzuki: Canadian academic and environmental activist

David Suzuki [voice over]: Biologically, those organisms that have the greatest amount of diversity will survive. Those that resemble each other closely are doomed.

Female student: Better used by people [?], and not - and not... [inaudible].

David Suzuki: One thing that I've gotten off on, lately, is that basically I study fruit flies. And I suddenly realised that basically we're all fruit flies. [Laughter.] You know... You're born as an egg, and you live in that egg environment, and your parents kind of cut out all the external crap that comes in, and protect you, and nourish you, and clothe you, and all that. Very nice little egg, and it's comfortable. But at some point, you hatch out and start crawling around and eating stuff on your own. You start reading, you start looking at the tube, you start doing all sorts of things. And you hatch out as a maggot. And a maggot - [laughter] - a maggot can now crawl around. It's got two dimensions, and it can ingest food at its will, and it defecates all over the environment. And some other smaller maggots can even eat your defecation and get some nourishment out of it. And, you know, you grow as you eat more nourishment and you moult. You become a second-level maggot. You know, a bigger maggot. Even looks different. And the bigger you get, the more people you can - the more maggots you can crush with your weight.

Female student: The world... overrun with them.

David Suzuki: Yeah, I mean most people in the world are content to stay as first or second-level maggots. And they establish their own little area. And they crawl around there, and that's fine. And the guys that become tenth-level maggots are really big wheels.