Talk:Desmond Morris

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or if there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's quality scale. [FAQ] Please rate the article and, if you wish, leave comments here regarding your assessment or the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

It is requested that a picture or pictures of this person be included in this article to improve its quality. Note: Wikipedia's non-free content use policy almost never permits the use of non-free images (such as promotional photos, press photos, screenshots, book covers and similar) to merely show what a living person looks like. Efforts should be made to take a free licensed photo during a public appearance, or obtaining a free content release of an existing photo instead.

Somewhere in one of Desmond Morris' early books he had an illustration of a tattoo - a fox hunt which started on the chest, went down the back and the fox's brush could be seen disappearing down 'the hole'. Does anyone know where this illustration appeared?

Yes, I do. It appeared in "Bodywatching" 1985, p. 179. The picturelist gives Ian Yeomans (Susan Griggs Agency, London) as photographer. Actually, the tattoo is on the back!

Desmond Morris has written more books than listed. Off the top of my head I can think of his early autobiography "Animal Days". Someone might want to add them; they are I believe on his website. For the moment I changed the section title from Books to Selected Books to avoid giving the impression that the current list is complete. Martinp 20:11, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 "'man's other former best friend.'" 2 Aquatic Ape stuff 3 Criticism 4 Congo's painting

[edit] "'man's other former best friend.'"

Uh, what is this supposed to mean? gohlkus (talk) 09:36, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Since no one has taken responsibility for this strange phrase, or attempted to define it, I changed the description of Horsewatching to the actual subtitle of the book. gohlkus (talk) 07:21, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Aquatic Ape stuff

I removed the following text from the article: "His Savanna Theory has been challenged by Elaine Morgan's aquatic ape hypothesis." I believe it is wrong - in the books of his I've read, he is actually a proponent of the AAH. If his position has changed, that needs to be referenced. The paragraph also gave the impression that he was a pseudoscientist because he supported the savanna theory, which is further incorrect in that savanna theory is the generally accepted theory and the AAH is seen by some in anthropology as being untestable pseudoscience. In any case, neither hypothesis is "his". Matt Deres 02:52, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

We're currently very sketchy on what is or was controversial about Morris' writing on humans. I'd like to write something like the following paragraph, but I don't have sources and it would therefore be OR. Besides, it is not NPOV either. Can someone find something comparable or better that is not OR and is NPOV?

Since their publication, some of Morris' theories explaining elements of human behavior via a zoological lens, in particular via naturak evolutionary mechanisms, have been attacked as incomplete, incorrect, or overly simplistic. Some explanations have also been critized for being male-centered or supporting a sexist view of sexual behavior. (Now the heavily OR and POV part:) Nevertheless, they are valued for starting, or at least bringing into mainstream discussion, the approach of applying principles of animal behaviorism to explaining human behavior.

Suggestions? Martinp 23:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Not bad. I would suggest that there have also been criticisms that his comments are often untestable, and as a result unscientific (Steven Jay Gould might have called them "just so" stories) -- and that the religious objectors to Darwinism take strong objection to the musings of Morris and those like him, finding it insulting and even immoral to think of humans as dominated by strictly animal instincts.

I would have to think, however, that trying to debate the validity of *that* criticism is asking for trouble! Still, even a neutral POV article on Morris has to acknowledge that his works are controversial, not only outside of the scientific community but within it as well.

Incidentally, the final comment above: "Nevertheless, they are valued for ... " -- can be easily converted to an NPOV statement with a simple change: "His defenders assert that his work is valuable for ... "

MrG

[edit] Congo's painting

Nice as it is, I am not sure why we have Congo's painting here. -- Beardo 17:52, 10 August 2007 (UTC)