Searching For Atlantis

The other day I watched the IMAX film “Dolphins.” It’s a great movie, by the way, filled with incredibly clear and beautiful photography, interesting information, and a wonderful soundtrack. I absolutely recommend it. There was one part, though, that really got me thinking.

One segment of the film tells the story of a man who befriends a wild dolphin somewhere near the Providenciales Islands in the Turks and Caicos. Each day the man swims out to a local reef and swims around with “Jo Jo.” They blow bubbles together, play with a little rubber chew toy, and swim in these beautiful slow circles around one another. It’s a touching story, but the thing that really struck me was how great of a swimmer this man was. They showed him just spending so much time underwater, swimming inverted half the time. It was pretty amazing. The narrator of the film even commented on what a phenomenal diver this man was, mentioning that at times he was holding his breath for nearly three to four minutes. That’s pretty long. The world record is something like fourteen minutes. As a former swimmer who swam competitively for fourteen years, it was quite a challenge for me to swim fifty meters under the water, which would probably translate into something under one minute. One minute! And this guy in the movie was under for three or four times that?!? I was amazed.

The film also mentioned that Dolphins are mammals, just like humans are. So essentially, we’re a related species in some way. One very basic view of this is to say that Dolphins, along with a number of other mammals who live in water, are just living creatures who can hold their breath for really long periods of time. Now I realize that man never evolved from a dolphin, but is there some genetic evolution that occurred because dolphins and some other mammals ended up living in the sea and humans found themselves on land?

Darwin’s theories on evolution are completely believable. His awesome drawings of birds and the specialized attributes they developed in accordance to their surroundings and living situations make perfect sense. So going back to the diver in the movie… if humans spent increasing amounts of time in the water, would we eventually evolve some sort of greater lung capacity, different eyes, and an altered skeleton to help us survive those conditions? Does that diver in the movie have lungs that are now different than the ones I have, simply because of the life he has chosen to live? It makes you wonder exactly what we could do… what we’re capable of doing in different circumstances?

Here’s a final and related thought: Aren’t there tons of people still born with webbed fingers? What's that all about?