Jane Goodall, "The Mind of the Chimpanzee" and "Bridging the Gap," Selections from Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe

Jane Goodall is an internationally renowned primatologist and conservationist who has spent more than twenty-five years living in the jungles of Tanzania studying chimpanzees and now travels the world speaking on behalf of animal rights. Goodall first arrived in Kenya in 1957 and sought out the famous anthropologist Louis Leakey in hopes of getting a job studying animals. Leakey, seeing Goodall's lack of a college education as an advantage, since it meant that her mind was "uncluttered by academia," allowed her to assist him with his work and eventually encouraged her to devote all her energies to studying chimpanzees in the Gombe, a rugged, mountainous region in Tanzania. Although many people at the time doubted that a woman living on her own in the wild could survive, let alone complete a scientifically significant project, Goodall revolutionized the study of primates through her unorthodox approach to observation in the wild and successfully established the longest running field study of animals in their natural habitat.

In her years in the wild, Goodall came to see that chimpanzees are highly intelligent, emotional creatures who live in complex social groups. She also discovered that chimpanzees make and use tools, a skill long assumed to be only possessed by humans. While this research has compelled the scientific community to reassess how primates should be studied, Goodall's larger project has become helping the general public recognize that there are environmental, psychic, and spiritual consequences that follow from treating animals inhumanely and from not living in harmony with the natural world. Thus, while the scientific community continues to rely on chimpanzees to pursue medical research, Goodall insists that we recognize that "it isn't only human beings who have personality, who are capable of rational thought [and] emotions like joy and sorrow." It is Goodall's many years in the Gombe that have shown her the perils of allowing the abuse of animals and the destruction of their natural habitats to continue: "Living under the skies, the forest is for me a temple, a cathedral made of tree canopies and dancing light, especially when it's raining and quiet. That's heaven on earth for me. I can't imagine going through life without being tuned into the mystical side of nature."

Goodall, Jane. "Selections from Through a Window," New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. 12-23 and 206-217.
Digital image drawn from the Jane Goodall Institute.
Biographical information and quotations from the Jane Goodall Institute and PBS Nature series, Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees.

Links to Explore:

The Jane Goodall Institute: includes links to "A Day in the Life of Jane Goodall".

Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees: home page for the PBS Nature series devoted to Jane Goodall's experiences with the chimpanzees in Tanzania.

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine: a report on animal experimentation involving chimpanzees.

The Roslin Institute: home page for the institute where Ian Wilmut and Campbell have been pursuing their research on cloning. The institute is one of "the world's leading centers for research on farm and other animals. It has internationally recognized programs on molecular and quantitative genetics, genomics, early development, reproduction, animal behavior and welfare and has pioneered methods for the genetic modification and cloning of farm animals." Includes links the Institute's position on the ethics of cloning and animal welfare.

Questions for Learning:

• Jane Goodall has been criticized over the years for creating a "cult of personality" around herself, with the result that she receives more attention than the issues she that most concern her. After you've reviewed The Jane Goodall Institute's web site, would you say that these criticisms are warranted? Do you think that interest in the fate of chimpanzees will continue once Goodall is no longer the spokesperson for the Institute?
  
  
• Both The Jane Goodall Institute and the PBS site devoted to Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees contain discussions of the relationship between humans and chimpanzees: Is one explanation more "scientific" than the other? More convincing? What should the relationship between scientific research and advocacy be?
  
  
• Jane Goodall repeatedly refers to chimpanzees as our "closest living relative." She argues against using them for medical experimentation on these grounds. What is Wendy Thatcher's objection to the use of chimpanzees, as stated on the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine's web site? If there are compelling reasons for not using chimpanzees for medical research, how are we to understand their continued use in experiments? How might the researchers who use these animals respond to these criticisms?
  
  
• Current research on cloning, as is being carried out at The Roslin Institute, requires experimenting on animals. Indeed, in defense of this research, Ian Wilmut has said that he and his team have focused on sheep and pigs to generate donor organs for humans in part because of public outcry over using primate organs for humans. Given the options of having all such research and using primates for donor organs or pursuing such research of "lower" animals like pigs and sheep, what is the ethical response? What would you need to know in order to make an informed decision about this?
  

Question for Connecting:

• Jane Goodall describes chimpanzees as "more like us than is any other living creature." But if Ian Wilmut and his colleagues are successful in creating animals who can generate donor organs for humans, will Goodall's statement be true any longer? How is one to decide when using animals to improve the quality of life for humans is acceptable? Is this a spiritual decision, an ethical choice, or something one comes to through reasoned argument?
  

Explore some more:

Search for other links using Google: