Jane Goodall: Of the Earth

Dr. Jane Goodall is gone at 91. Like so many, I became aware of her while in elementary school. She was the friendly lady with the chimps in some National Geographic special. As a child, it took me a while to understand ethology as a science – after all, it didn’t involve collecting and didn’t seem to require mathematical calculation. Goodall, however, was a first-rate scientist and I very much admire her ability to not imprint her bias on her data. She was surprised, for example, to find that chimps weren’t necessarily nicer than humans: she witnessed super-aggressive behavior from them, particularly females who would murder rival females’ offspring.

I can’t imagine the determination it took to live and work, alone, in the wilds of Africa, just she and her mother, subject to the dangers of both nature and the creatures (including humans) who lived there. But she widened our understanding of ourselves, demonstrating critical behavioral links that bind our emotional and cognitive evolutionary development to that of other species.

Humans are deeply a part of Nature, not separate from it and certainly not above it.

I would weekly introduce a variety of scientists to my high school students – the idea being they didn’t have to be like Einstein or Curie to carve out a place for themselves in the adventure of science, even as a non-professional. Goodall, of course, was one of the scientists I selected. With each scientist, I attached a quote of theirs. The quote I chose for Goodall demonstrated that the immersion into her passions became an essential outlook for her. Her quote:

We seem to have lost the wisdom of the indigenous people, which dictated that in any major decision, the first consideration was “How will this decision we’re making today affect our people in the future?” These days, decisions are made based on the bottom line.

I’m glad Dr. Goodall received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in January this year from Biden because Trump – and his Republican compatriots – only understand decisions based on the bottom line.