Photo by: JoseLuis Baylon
Jane Goodall had to earn a Ph.D. from Cambridge, travel the world and write exhaustively before she was able to convince people that animals had personalities and emotions. She had known all that since she was 8 years old – when her dog told her.
Goodall is a science pioneer, women’s rights icon, environmental warrior and prophet of hope in a world settling into gloom. She is also the defacto CEO of Global Monkey Business. Blessed with a legendary mentor and fueled by blazing curiosity, Goodall was famous by age 26 – even though she had never been to college.
Prior to Goodall’s research, many scientists argued that humankind was not part of the animal kingdom and that primates lacked emotions or intelligence. Goodall flipped the script when she documented clear evidence of personalities, emotions and intelligence in chimpanzees.
“Studying the chimps as I did helped science to come out of its reductionist way of thinking that we humans were isolated,” she told a gathering at the 39th Annual Esri User Conference in San Diego. “The chimps are so like us biologically, as well as behaviorally, that science was forced to start thinking differently. We are part of the animal kingdom and not separated from it.”
Goodall was becoming famous for her prodigious work, but faced criticism for not possessing a college degree back home. She had, in fact, never set foot on a college campus.
“I didn’t even start as a scientist when I went to Gombe, Africa” she said. “ I hadn’t been to college. It was Louis Leaky who made me go do a Ph.D. and I was really nervous. Can you imagine when you hadn’t been to college and you go to Cambridge University and are told that you’ve done everything wrong? I was told I shouldn’t have given the chimpanzees names, that wasn’t at all scientific, they should have had numbers. I couldn’t talk about personality, mind or emotion because those were unique to us.”
To overcome the obstacles she faced at Cambridge, Goodall did what she did in Africa with the chimps – sat quietly and listened.
“If you meet someone who doesn’t agree with you, first listen to them because maybe they might change your mind,” she said. “If you still think you are right, then you must have the courage of conviction. That’s what happened to me when I first arrived at Cambridge. I didn’t believe them when they said animals couldn’t have personalities or emotions because my dog had told me as a child that wasn’t true. I was able to have the courage of my convictions.”
Goodall earned a Ph.D. in ethology (the science of animal behavior), one of only eight people to earn a doctorate at Cambridge University without first completing a Bachelor’s degree. Her work in Gombe reported in her dissertation broke new scientific ground.
“Now a lot of students are studying emotion, personality and animal intellect,” she said.
It was not always so.
“I recalled loving animals as a child and I had a very supportive mother,” she said. “When I was 10, I read Tarzan and Dr. Dolittle and I knew I should turn science into a living. Not so many people worked with animals and wrote books about them.”
Even as a child Goodall was chided by other kids when she told them she wanted to be a scientist and study animal behavior.
“Everybody laughed at me,” she recalled. “They said, ‘How could you do that? You don’t have any money and you’re just a girl!’ But my mother said, ‘If you really want to do this, you have to work really hard and take advantage of every opportunity, but don’t give up!”
Goodall said her mom was right.
“That’s the message I take to young people all around the world and teach in disadvantaged communities,” she said. “So many people have said ‘Jane, I want to thank you. Because you did it, I could do it, too.’ ”
Goodall said she travels the globe 300 days a year with a message of hope as the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation. Her inspiring Roots & Shoots program is now in 60 countries. It empowers young people from kindergarten to university students to help protect their local environments. She also created a community-centered conservation approach called Tacare that helps communities and governments protect chimpanzee populations in forests outside designated national parks. Like other scientists, Goodall is concerned about climate change and how it has been politicized by right-wing populist politicians. A resulting “war on science” needs to be met, she said.
“There’s a very worrying swing to the far right in so many countries with levels of corruption that are very, very hard to fight,” she said. “Climate change, climate crisis is happening. It’s not something in the future. It is not a Chinese hoax. It’s real.”
Goodall encourages people of good will to hang onto hope.
“We’ve got to face the doom and the gloom and the darkness because if we lose hope, then we may as well all give up. None of this is useful if we think there’s no way forward and that we are doomed. We’ve got reason to hope. We have to face up to challenges. One of my reasons for hope is the young people.”
Goodall has a special travel companion who gives her hope and inspiration. Her friend is a plush animal she calls Mr. H. “People cope with seemingly impossible tasks,” she said. “I carry Mr. H because he was given to me by Gary Horne 29 years ago. Gary went blind when he was 21 in the U.S. Marines and decided to become a magician. Everyone said, ‘Gary you’re blind, you can’t be a magician.’ He works with kids and they don’t know he’s blind. He’ll say ‘If things go wrong in your life, you must never give up, there’s always a way forward.’ He does cross-country skiing, scuba diving, sky diving and he’s taught himself to paint, which is incredible.”
Chimpanzees are forward-looking creatures, a trait Goodall said they share with humans, particularly young humans.
“The greatest danger to our future is apathy. Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help shall we all be saved.”
