David Attenborough

[[File:ZooQuestParaguay.jpg|thumb|upright||165px|When TV was still black and white.]]{{film}}
Sir '''David Attenborough''' {{lived|8 May 1926|}} is possibly the greatest living [[England|Englishman]]. He has been the face and voice of natural history programmes on the [[BBC]] since the 1950s.

David Attenborough was born in Isleworth, Middlesex, in 1926. He won a scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge where he read zoology, geology and mineralogy and obtained an Honours Degree in Natural Sciences. He joined the BBC in 1952 as a Talks Producer and was responsible for a number of successful television series. While planning a series of natural history programmes he developed the idea of filming animals in their natural habitats and then showing the same animals in the studio - the collected animals being donated to London Zoo. His first foray in TV presenting came with ''Zoo Quest'', which involved an expedition to Sierra Leone. The popularity of the series resulted in ''Zoo Quest to Guiana'', ''Zoo Quest for a Dragon'' and ''Zoo Quest in Paraguay''.<ref>''Zoo Quest in Paraguay'' (Lutterworth Press, 1959)</ref>

[[File:LifeOnAir.jpg|thumb|upright|165px|The man who introduced colour TV to the UK. So all that snooker was his fault.]]
Attenborough was made controller of the fledgling BBC2 TV channel in March 1965 which was struggling for viewers and later oversaw the introduction of colour broadcasting to the [[United Kingdom|UK]] in 1967. As controller of BBC2 he introduced longer documentaries - 50 minutes rather than the standard 30 minutes - bringing archaeology to the airwaves with ''Chronicle'', general science with ''Horizon'' and biology with ''Life''. At a time when American jazz and swing bands were struggling, BBC2 booked the likes of Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Woody Herman and Ella Fitzgerald to visit Britain as a prelude to national tours. Other landmark series commissioned by Attenborough were Sir Kenneth Clark's ''Civilisation'' and Jacob Bronowski's ''Ascent of Man''.<ref>''Life on Air: Memoirs of a Broadcaster '' (BBC Books, 2002)</ref>

==Creationism, religion, and agnosticism==
In 2012, Attenborough stated he is an agnostic<ref>http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093356/Evolutionist-David-Attenborough-says-God-claims-beliefs-incompatible.html</ref>, and that he has always known a transcendent, moral god makes no sense when viewed through the lens of modern biology.  When believers talk to him about the "beauty of God's creation proving God's existence", he reminds them that such a god would also be responsible for the existence and lifestyle of {{wpl|Dermatobia hominis|a fly in Central and South America}} whose larvae live in the eyes (or other body parts) of young children.<ref>BBC's Attenborough's Journey (2010), and also in many other interviews</ref>  He has stated several times that he has never had any particular religious faith, claiming in an amusing quip "It never even occurred to me to believe in God."

Referring specifically to [[Christianity]], Attenborough argued that [[Genesis]] gives people the presumed "right to dominate nature".  Since 2002, he has been actively working to counter the rise of movements promoting the inclusion of  "[[Intelligent Design]]" in school curricula in the UK.

==Environment==
Attenborough's 2011 series ''Frozen Planet'' was made in 7 episodes. However, the final episode, "On Thin Ice",  which dealt with '[[global warming]]' was not aired by the Discovery Channel in the USA because of 
not wishing to upset climate-change deniers
 "scheduling issues".<ref>[http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/11/16/370407/why-is-discovery-channel-cutting-climate-change-episode-from-groundbreaking-series/ Why is Discovery Channel Cutting Climate Change Episode From Popular, Groundbreaking Series?]</ref>

==Comments on the existence of the Yeti==
On the British chat show ''Friday Night with Jonathan Ross'', Attenborough referred to the existence of the [[Yeti]] as "an unanswered problem." "I am absolutely baffled by the abominable snowman--which is also called the yeti or sasquatch, because very, very convincing footprints have been found...nobody goes up to 19,000 feet just to make a joke."<ref>[http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10184835-71.html Famous naturalist: Evidence of Bigfoot 'convincing'], ''C|Net'', March 1, 2009</ref><ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWC-m_zY2Rw/ Attenborough on Yetis]</ref>

==Aquatic ape hypothesis==
In his 2002 documentary ''The Life of Mammals'', Attenborough presents the highly controversial [[aquatic ape hypothesis]] (the idea that human ancestors adopted bipedal locomotion and other traits by adapting to a semi-aquatic environment) as fact. In fact, the hypothesis is accepted by few in the scientific community, but fortunately, it is under heavy scrutiny.

==Curling monologue==
During the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, Attenborough used his trademark eloquent opening monologue to describe a women's curling event (in this case, Great Britain vs. the United States) as if it was an event in nature, where Attenborough called the curling stones walnuts and talking about how the alpha females were instructing the herd in directing the walnut into the center of the house.<ref>http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=777_1392789840</ref>

==Bibliography==
As companions to his TV series, Attenborough has written several books:
{|class="wikitable"
!Year
!Title
!ISBN
|-
|1956||''Zoo Quest to Guiana''||[[Special:Booksources/9781125311158|ISBN 9781125311158]]
|-
|1957||''Zoo Quest for a Dragon''||[[Special:Booksources/9780718810467|ISBN 9780718810467]]
|-
|1959||''Zoo Quest in Paraguay''||[[Special:Booksources/9780718824655|ISBN 9780718824655]]
|-
|1960||''Quest in Paradise''||[[Special:Booksources/9780718810504|ISBN 9780718810504]]
|-
|1961||''Zoo Quest to Madagascar''||[[Special:Booksources/9780718810498|ISBN 9780718810498]]
|-
|1963||''Quest Under Capricorn''||[[Special:Booksources/9780718810511|ISBN 9780718810511]]
|-
|1975||''Fabulous Animals''||[[Special:Booksources/9780563170068|ISBN 9780563170068]]
|-
|1976||''The Tribal Eye''||[[Special:Booksources/9780393044669|ISBN 9780393044669]]
|-
|1987||''The First Eden''||[[Special:Booksources/9780316057509|ISBN 9780316057509]]
|-
|1979||''Life on Earth''||[[Special:Booksources/9780002190916|ISBN 9780002190916]]
|-
|1984||''The Living Planet''||[[Special:Booksources/9780563467755|ISBN 9780563467755]]
|-
|1990||''The Trials of Life''||[[Special:Booksources/9780002199384|ISBN 9780002199384]]
|-
|1995||''The Private Life of Plants''||[[Special:Booksources/9780691006390|ISBN 9780691006390]]
|-
|1998||''The Life of Birds''||[[Special:Booksources/9780563387923|ISBN 9780563387923]]
|-
|2002||''The Life of Mammals''||[[Special:Booksources/9780563534235|ISBN 9780563534235]]
|-
|2002||''Life on Air'' (autobiography rather than TV tie-in)||[[Special:Booksources/0884237994369|ISBN 0884237994369]]
|-
|2005||''Life in the Undergrowth''||[[Special:Booksources/9780691127033|ISBN 9780691127033]]
|-
|2007||''Life in Cold Blood''||[[Special:Booksources/9780691137186|ISBN 9780691137186]]
|-
|2020||''A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future''||[[Special:Booksources/9781529108279|ISBN 9781529108279]]
|}

==External links==
*[https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0041003/ David Attenborough on IMDb]
*[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/DavidAttenborough David Attenborough] on [[TV Tropes]]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8WHKRzkCOY Wonderful World] ad for BBC on [[YouTube]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Attenborough, David}}
[[Category:Agnostics]]
[[Category:Authors]]
[[Category:British people]]
[[Category:Popular science]]
[[Category:Television]]
[[Category:Zoology]]
[[Category:Living people]]

Categories: Agnostics, Authors, British people, Popular science, Television, Zoology, Living people