Desmond John Morris (b.1928) is an English zoologist and writer. Having investigated animal behavior and the implications for the human condition, he put his findings into such studies of human behavior and evolution as The Naked Ape (1967) and Animal-Watching (1990.)
Born in the village of Purton, near Swindon, Wiltshire, Morris was educated at Birmingham University and at Oxford, where he held a research post 1954–56. He was head of Granada TV and the film unit at the Zoological Society of London (1956–59) and subsequently curator of mammals at the Zoological Society (1959–67.) He then became the director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1967–68) and later a Research Fellow at Wolfson College-Oxford (1973–81.)
Morris carried out vital research on several animals’ etiology, but his interest in primate behavior led to his best-known work, The Naked Ape: A Zoologist’s Study of the Human Animal (1967.) In this book, he outlined the behavior of humans using the approach of ethology.
Morris’s other books include Manwatching: A Field Guide to Human Behaviour (1977; about non-verbal signals,) The Soccer Tribe (1981; about crowd behavior,) Catwatching (1986,) and The Human Animal (1994; made into a television series.) His books and films have popularized sociology and zoology.
The BBC documentary The Secret Surrealist (2017) describes Morris’s artistic career.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Desmond Morris
We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species.
—Desmond Morris
Topics: Curiosity
We are, to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of the century. Our only consolation will have to be that, as a species, we have had an exciting term of office.
—Desmond Morris
Topics: Humanity, Humankind
The city is not a concrete jungle. It is a human zoo.
—Desmond Morris
Topics: Cities, City Life
Artists like cats; soldiers like dogs.
—Desmond Morris
Topics: Soldiers
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