WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.960 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. This is where 00:00:01.960 --> 00:00:04.360 we take that huge stack of sources you send our 00:00:04.360 --> 00:00:06.799 way and, well, we try to make sense of it all 00:00:06.799 --> 00:00:09.820 for you, the learner. And today we are talking 00:00:09.820 --> 00:00:14.599 about an absolute icon, a giant, Dame Valerie 00:00:14.599 --> 00:00:17.480 Jane Morris Goodall. It's hard to even know where 00:00:17.480 --> 00:00:19.859 to start. We're talking about the English primatologist 00:00:19.859 --> 00:00:22.320 and anthropologist who was, I mean, there's no 00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:24.100 other way to say it, she was the world's expert 00:00:24.100 --> 00:00:28.329 on chimpanzees. For over six decades. Six decades 00:00:28.329 --> 00:00:31.269 of pioneering field research that just changed 00:00:31.269 --> 00:00:34.649 everything. So our mission for you today is it's 00:00:34.649 --> 00:00:36.509 a bit complicated because her life wasn't just 00:00:36.509 --> 00:00:38.710 one thing. It was a series of transformations. 00:00:38.850 --> 00:00:41.130 It really was. We have to unpack the science, 00:00:41.170 --> 00:00:43.229 of course, these revolutionary discoveries that 00:00:43.229 --> 00:00:45.030 really just shattered our definition of what 00:00:45.030 --> 00:00:47.270 it means to be human. But we also have to get 00:00:47.270 --> 00:00:49.149 into the controversies, right, the challenges 00:00:49.149 --> 00:00:51.450 to her methods. And then there's that huge shift. 00:00:51.530 --> 00:00:53.789 Yeah. The monumental move she makes from being 00:00:53.789 --> 00:00:57.969 this quiet, isolated. observer in the forest 00:00:57.969 --> 00:01:01.469 to a global activist, a founder of institutions. 00:01:01.969 --> 00:01:04.909 It's a huge arc. And the big picture really is 00:01:04.909 --> 00:01:07.829 that Jane Goodall fundamentally redrew the line 00:01:07.829 --> 00:01:09.650 between us and the rest of the animal kingdom. 00:01:09.709 --> 00:01:12.290 Absolutely. Before her, we were pretty comfortable 00:01:12.290 --> 00:01:15.510 with the idea that things like tool use, complex 00:01:15.510 --> 00:01:18.959 emotions, you know, lasting social bonds. Even 00:01:18.959 --> 00:01:21.219 the dark stuff, like organized warfare. That 00:01:21.219 --> 00:01:24.319 was all ours, uniquely human. And her work showed, 00:01:24.439 --> 00:01:27.099 step by step, that chimpanzees share all of it. 00:01:27.400 --> 00:01:29.260 which forces you to ask some pretty profound 00:01:29.260 --> 00:01:31.319 questions about our own place in the world. And 00:01:31.319 --> 00:01:34.120 for this, we are drawing from an incredible wealth 00:01:34.120 --> 00:01:36.340 of material. I mean, it covers her entire life, 00:01:36.400 --> 00:01:38.799 from this really unconventional start to her 00:01:38.799 --> 00:01:41.620 career, all the way through to the Kyoto Prize, 00:01:41.840 --> 00:01:44.640 the Templeton Prize, the Presidential Medal of 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:47.099 Freedom. And her cultural impact, which is just 00:01:47.099 --> 00:01:49.879 massive. So it's a lot to get through. It is. 00:01:49.980 --> 00:01:52.120 So let's jump in. Let's start this journey right 00:01:52.120 --> 00:01:55.459 where it began, with a childhood gift. So Jane 00:01:55.459 --> 00:01:58.540 Goodall was born in London, April 1934. And the 00:01:58.540 --> 00:02:02.140 sources point to this one really pivotal moment 00:02:02.140 --> 00:02:04.799 in her childhood that feels like perfect foreshadowing. 00:02:04.959 --> 00:02:07.060 It really does. It's all about a gift from her 00:02:07.060 --> 00:02:10.340 father. When she was just a little girl, he didn't 00:02:10.340 --> 00:02:11.680 give her a teddy bear, which would have been 00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:13.599 the normal thing to do. Right. He gave her a 00:02:13.599 --> 00:02:16.819 lifelike stuffed toy chimpanzee. She named it 00:02:16.819 --> 00:02:19.199 Jubilee. And this wasn't exactly a hit with everyone, 00:02:19.300 --> 00:02:21.539 was it? Oh, not at all. She said her mother's 00:02:21.539 --> 00:02:25.490 friends were, and I think this is her word, They 00:02:25.490 --> 00:02:27.949 thought it was this monstrous thing that would 00:02:27.949 --> 00:02:30.509 give a child nightmares. A fear of the wild right 00:02:30.509 --> 00:02:33.569 there in the nursery. Exactly. But for her, it 00:02:33.569 --> 00:02:36.849 was the opposite. She credits that specific toy, 00:02:37.090 --> 00:02:40.569 Jubilee, with sparking her deep early love for 00:02:40.569 --> 00:02:42.490 animals. It was the beginning of everything. 00:02:42.770 --> 00:02:45.250 I love that detail. And as a little side note, 00:02:45.330 --> 00:02:47.069 the sources say that even as late as the year 00:02:47.069 --> 00:02:50.909 2000, that same toy, Jubilee, was still sitting 00:02:50.909 --> 00:02:53.819 on her dresser in her London home. Wow. It just 00:02:53.819 --> 00:02:55.939 shows that connection was real and it was lifelong. 00:02:56.180 --> 00:02:59.120 So this early passion starts to focus. It becomes 00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:02.020 this magnetic pull towards one place in particular, 00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:05.659 Africa. She was absolutely determined to get 00:03:05.659 --> 00:03:08.580 there. She worked as a waitress, saved every 00:03:08.580 --> 00:03:11.000 penny she could for the fair. And finally, in 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:13.759 1957, she makes it to Kenya. And she's working 00:03:13.759 --> 00:03:15.639 as a secretary there, just sort of finding her 00:03:15.639 --> 00:03:18.680 feet, when a friend gives her a piece of advice 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:21.280 that changes her entire life. It's this incredible 00:03:21.280 --> 00:03:25.439 moment of serendipity meets sheer nerve. She 00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:27.400 just picks up the phone. She calls the famous 00:03:27.400 --> 00:03:30.560 archaeologist and paleontologist Louis Leakey. 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:32.939 Just to make an appointment, not for a job, but 00:03:32.939 --> 00:03:35.439 just to talk. Just to talk about animals. She 00:03:35.439 --> 00:03:37.439 was curious, she was passionate, and she just 00:03:37.439 --> 00:03:39.960 reached out. But Leakey, as it turns out, he 00:03:39.960 --> 00:03:42.300 had his own agenda. He saw something in her. 00:03:42.460 --> 00:03:44.979 He did. Leakey had this theory, which was pretty 00:03:44.979 --> 00:03:47.219 controversial at the time. He believed that if 00:03:47.219 --> 00:03:49.400 we studied the behavior of living great apes, 00:03:49.400 --> 00:03:53.419 it could give us clues, real insights into how 00:03:53.419 --> 00:03:55.860 our own early human ancestors might have lived. 00:03:56.039 --> 00:03:58.060 So he was looking for someone to study chimps. 00:03:58.120 --> 00:04:01.099 He was actively looking. But he needed someone 00:04:01.099 --> 00:04:04.659 with a very specific set of skills. Canacity, 00:04:04.659 --> 00:04:08.020 patience, an open mind, and maybe most importantly, 00:04:08.219 --> 00:04:11.680 someone who wasn't already indoctrinated by the 00:04:11.680 --> 00:04:13.860 rigid scientific thinking of the time. Someone 00:04:13.860 --> 00:04:16.879 without a formal degree, maybe? Precisely. So 00:04:16.879 --> 00:04:19.019 he doesn't offer her the research gig right away. 00:04:19.339 --> 00:04:22.680 First. He hires her as his secretary. As a test, 00:04:22.759 --> 00:04:25.120 really. A test of her commitment. And she passes. 00:04:25.759 --> 00:04:28.180 And after getting the okay from his wife and 00:04:28.180 --> 00:04:30.279 research partner, the legendary Mary Leakey, 00:04:30.279 --> 00:04:32.459 he starts bringing her into the fold. He sends 00:04:32.459 --> 00:04:34.560 her to Olduvai Gorge. And that's where he finally 00:04:34.560 --> 00:04:36.779 lays out the grand plan. He wants her to go into 00:04:36.779 --> 00:04:40.079 the forest and study chimpanzees. To live with 00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:42.240 them. But first, he sends her to London for a 00:04:42.240 --> 00:04:44.379 bit of a crash course. A very brief one, yes. 00:04:44.829 --> 00:04:47.610 In 1958, she studied primate behavior with Osmond 00:04:47.610 --> 00:04:50.790 Hill and primate anatomy with John Napier, just 00:04:50.790 --> 00:04:52.569 to give her a bit of a scientific framework before 00:04:52.569 --> 00:04:54.470 throwing her into the deep end. Which brings 00:04:54.470 --> 00:04:56.870 us to this, I mean, this just incredible academic 00:04:56.870 --> 00:04:59.610 hurdle she had to clear. It really shows what 00:04:59.610 --> 00:05:03.170 a trailblazer she was. It's astonishing. She's 00:05:03.170 --> 00:05:05.449 out there doing this groundbreaking research, 00:05:05.529 --> 00:05:09.529 but on paper, she has no qualifications, no degree 00:05:09.529 --> 00:05:12.750 at all. So Leakey pulls some strings. He secures 00:05:12.750 --> 00:05:15.329 funding. And in 1962, he sends her to one of 00:05:15.329 --> 00:05:17.970 the most prestigious universities in the world. 00:05:18.230 --> 00:05:21.750 Cambridge. And get this. She was only the eighth 00:05:21.750 --> 00:05:24.209 person in the entire history of the university 00:05:24.209 --> 00:05:27.769 allowed to study for a PhD without having a bachelor's 00:05:27.769 --> 00:05:31.649 degree first. The eighth person. Ever. It just 00:05:31.649 --> 00:05:33.449 tells you how powerful Leakey's recommendation 00:05:33.449 --> 00:05:36.050 was and how much potential he must have seen 00:05:36.050 --> 00:05:38.389 in her. And she's studying ethology. For our 00:05:38.389 --> 00:05:40.829 listeners, what exactly is that? Ethology is 00:05:40.829 --> 00:05:43.230 the scientific study of animal behavior, but 00:05:43.230 --> 00:05:45.290 specifically in their natural environment. And 00:05:45.290 --> 00:05:47.629 it was a very strict, very objective field back 00:05:47.629 --> 00:05:49.589 then. Which, as we'll see, put her on a direct 00:05:49.589 --> 00:05:51.449 collision course with her professors. Absolutely. 00:05:51.750 --> 00:05:54.250 But she succeeded. She got her Ph .D. in 1966. 00:05:54.850 --> 00:05:57.269 Her thesis was called Behavior of Free -Living 00:05:57.269 --> 00:05:59.709 Cumpanses, and it was based on her first five 00:05:59.709 --> 00:06:02.139 years of groundbreaking work at Gombe. And that 00:06:02.139 --> 00:06:04.160 work, the work that would define her legacy, 00:06:04.379 --> 00:06:08.639 started on July 14th, 1960. That's when she first 00:06:08.639 --> 00:06:10.800 arrived at what is now Gombe Stream National 00:06:10.800 --> 00:06:14.160 Park in Tanzania. And her arrival marks the beginning 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:17.360 of the Trimates, as they became known. The three 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:20.259 pioneering women Leakey, sponsored to study great 00:06:20.259 --> 00:06:23.519 apes, Jane with the chimps, Dian Fossey with 00:06:23.519 --> 00:06:26.240 gorillas, and Brute Galdikas with orangutans. 00:06:26.680 --> 00:06:29.000 But there's a crucial detail about her arrival 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:31.290 in Gombe. A condition that was placed on her 00:06:31.290 --> 00:06:34.449 by the chief warden. Yes, David Anstey. He was. 00:06:34.870 --> 00:06:37.529 Well, he was deeply concerned for the safety 00:06:37.529 --> 00:06:39.509 of a young woman going out into this remote, 00:06:39.709 --> 00:06:42.269 potentially dangerous wilderness all by herself. 00:06:42.550 --> 00:06:44.750 So he insisted she couldn't go alone. He did. 00:06:44.850 --> 00:06:46.730 The condition was that she had to have a chaperone. 00:06:46.850 --> 00:06:49.050 Yeah. And so she was accompanied by her mother, 00:06:49.110 --> 00:06:51.230 Margaret. Her mom went with her to the jungle 00:06:51.230 --> 00:06:53.449 to study chimps. And Jane always said how crucial 00:06:53.449 --> 00:06:56.410 that was. She said that in the late 50s and early 00:06:56.410 --> 00:06:59.019 60s, women... just were not accepted in that 00:06:59.019 --> 00:07:01.759 male dominated field. Her mother's presence gave 00:07:01.759 --> 00:07:04.939 her a kind of a social legitimacy that allowed 00:07:04.939 --> 00:07:06.720 the whole project to even get off the ground. 00:07:06.899 --> 00:07:09.810 It's an amazing start to the story. And it's 00:07:09.810 --> 00:07:12.370 so incredible to think that this field, primatology, 00:07:12.629 --> 00:07:15.069 which was so biased against women when she started, 00:07:15.189 --> 00:07:17.550 is now, thanks in large part to her example, 00:07:17.709 --> 00:07:20.370 almost evenly split between men and women. That's 00:07:20.370 --> 00:07:22.350 a legacy in itself, even before you get to the 00:07:22.350 --> 00:07:24.430 science. Okay, so if that was the start, this 00:07:24.430 --> 00:07:27.250 next part is the revolution. This is the research 00:07:27.250 --> 00:07:29.970 at Gumby that, and this isn't an exaggeration, 00:07:30.069 --> 00:07:32.790 it forced humanity to rethink itself. It truly 00:07:32.790 --> 00:07:36.060 did. And the first shot in that revolution was 00:07:36.060 --> 00:07:39.000 a seemingly small decision she made, but it was 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:41.319 a massive breach of scientific protocol in the 00:07:41.319 --> 00:07:44.339 1960s. She refused to give the chimpanzees numbers. 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:47.240 Exactly. The standard practice, the rule, was 00:07:47.240 --> 00:07:50.040 to assign numbers to your subjects. Subject A, 00:07:50.180 --> 00:07:53.100 subject B. It was all about maintaining objectivity, 00:07:53.160 --> 00:07:55.600 this clinical emotional distance. But she looked 00:07:55.600 --> 00:07:57.740 at them and saw individuals. She saw personalities, 00:07:57.939 --> 00:07:59.759 so she named them. And this was just not done. 00:07:59.899 --> 00:08:02.620 It was seen as the first step towards anthropomorphism. 00:08:02.730 --> 00:08:04.230 towards bias. And it wasn't just the naming, 00:08:04.290 --> 00:08:06.410 was it? Her supervisors at Cambridge were also 00:08:06.410 --> 00:08:09.089 highly critical of her language. Oh, deeply critical. 00:08:09.370 --> 00:08:12.250 She would use words like childhood, adolescence, 00:08:12.290 --> 00:08:16.329 motivation, excitement, mood, everyday words 00:08:16.329 --> 00:08:19.230 we use to describe our own inner lives. To the 00:08:19.230 --> 00:08:22.329 scientific community, that was heresy. She said 00:08:22.329 --> 00:08:24.790 herself that even suggesting chimpanzees had 00:08:24.790 --> 00:08:27.779 personalities was considered... The worst of 00:08:27.779 --> 00:08:31.300 ethological sins. It was. Science demanded cold, 00:08:31.540 --> 00:08:35.500 hard, observable facts. She was writing a story, 00:08:35.580 --> 00:08:38.940 a rich, emotional narrative about the lives of 00:08:38.940 --> 00:08:40.899 these individuals. Why did she stick to her guns 00:08:40.899 --> 00:08:43.019 on this? Why was this personal narrative approach 00:08:43.019 --> 00:08:45.679 so important? Because it was the key. It was 00:08:45.679 --> 00:08:48.860 what worked. By breaking down that wall of clinical 00:08:48.860 --> 00:08:51.279 distance, she was able to build a level of trust 00:08:51.279 --> 00:08:53.870 that no one had ever achieved before. The sources 00:08:53.870 --> 00:08:56.509 say she was eventually accepted into chimpanzee 00:08:56.509 --> 00:08:58.909 society. And that intimacy, that acceptance, 00:08:59.049 --> 00:09:00.750 was what allowed her to see what no one else 00:09:00.750 --> 00:09:03.210 had seen. Precisely. It was the necessary first 00:09:03.210 --> 00:09:05.669 step for everything that came next. And this 00:09:05.669 --> 00:09:07.710 is where the story really comes alive, with these 00:09:07.710 --> 00:09:10.169 incredible characters, these chimpanzee personalities 00:09:10.169 --> 00:09:12.529 who became famous around the world. You have 00:09:12.529 --> 00:09:14.909 to talk about them. It all started with David 00:09:14.909 --> 00:09:17.769 Greybeard. He was the male with the distinctive 00:09:17.769 --> 00:09:20.529 grey hair on his chin, and he was the first one, 00:09:20.669 --> 00:09:24.370 the first chimp, to lose his fear of her and 00:09:24.370 --> 00:09:27.090 let her get close. He was the bridge. And then 00:09:27.090 --> 00:09:30.250 there was the alpha, Goliath. Named for his dominance, 00:09:30.470 --> 00:09:34.429 a classic, powerful alpha male. But then he was 00:09:34.429 --> 00:09:36.500 overthrown. Not by brute force, though. This 00:09:36.500 --> 00:09:38.639 is where it gets interesting. He was displaced 00:09:38.639 --> 00:09:41.820 by Mike. And Mike's rise to power was a masterclass 00:09:41.820 --> 00:09:44.379 in strategy. He figured out that if he took empty 00:09:44.379 --> 00:09:47.480 kerosene cans from her camp and charged the other 00:09:47.480 --> 00:09:49.840 males while banging them together, it made a 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:51.940 terrifying noise. It was psychological warfare. 00:09:52.379 --> 00:09:55.100 It was. It was pure cunning. He used a tool, 00:09:55.259 --> 00:09:57.720 an artificial object, to intimidate his rivals 00:09:57.720 --> 00:10:00.379 and become the Alpha, an early sign of just how 00:10:00.379 --> 00:10:02.580 intelligent they were. And of course, you can't 00:10:02.580 --> 00:10:05.080 talk about Gombe without talking about Flo. Flo 00:10:05.080 --> 00:10:07.379 is arguably the most important individual in 00:10:07.379 --> 00:10:09.240 the whole study. A high -ranking, incredibly 00:10:09.240 --> 00:10:11.840 successful mother. You can always recognize her 00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:14.200 by her bulbous nose and ragged ears. Then her 00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:16.460 importance was really her family, right? Yes, 00:10:16.500 --> 00:10:19.539 her lineage. Figen, Faben, Freud, Fifi, and Flint. 00:10:20.659 --> 00:10:23.639 By following Flo and her children, and then their 00:10:23.639 --> 00:10:26.580 children, Goodall was able to map these complex 00:10:26.580 --> 00:10:30.129 family trees over decades. She could see how 00:10:30.129 --> 00:10:32.610 social status was passed on, how behaviors were 00:10:32.610 --> 00:10:35.149 learned. It was the first long -term look at 00:10:35.149 --> 00:10:37.929 a non -human family dynasty. And it was these 00:10:37.929 --> 00:10:40.970 individuals, these personalities, who provided 00:10:40.970 --> 00:10:43.470 the stage for what is maybe the single most important 00:10:43.470 --> 00:10:46.070 discovery she ever made. The one that changed 00:10:46.070 --> 00:10:48.850 the textbooks. The toolmaker revelation. You 00:10:48.850 --> 00:10:50.470 have to remember, the definition of humanity 00:10:50.470 --> 00:10:53.789 back then, especially in Leakey's field of paleoanthropology, 00:10:53.909 --> 00:10:56.840 was man the toolmaker. That was the line in the 00:10:56.840 --> 00:10:58.879 sand. That was what separated us from every other 00:10:58.879 --> 00:11:01.519 animal. The ability to make and use tools. So 00:11:01.519 --> 00:11:03.240 walk us through the moment that definition just 00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:05.639 crumbled. She's watching David Greybeard. Yeah. 00:11:05.899 --> 00:11:08.500 He's at a termite mound. And she sees him take 00:11:08.500 --> 00:11:10.740 a long stalk of grass and poke it down into one 00:11:10.740 --> 00:11:12.899 of the holes. Right. He pulls it out and it's 00:11:12.899 --> 00:11:14.919 covered in termites, which he then eats. He's 00:11:14.919 --> 00:11:17.679 fishing for termites. That on its own was a huge 00:11:17.679 --> 00:11:19.879 discovery. But then came the really critical 00:11:19.879 --> 00:11:22.279 part. It wasn't just that he was using the grass. 00:11:22.659 --> 00:11:25.629 It's that he was making the tool. She saw chimps 00:11:25.629 --> 00:11:29.169 take a twig from a tree, a leafy twig, and they 00:11:29.169 --> 00:11:31.610 would systematically strip off the leaves. They 00:11:31.610 --> 00:11:34.129 were modifying it, making it a more effective 00:11:34.129 --> 00:11:36.690 tool to fit into the small holes. They were engineering 00:11:36.690 --> 00:11:39.669 a solution. They were manufacturing a tool for 00:11:39.669 --> 00:11:42.409 a specific purpose. Yeah. And that was the moment 00:11:42.409 --> 00:11:45.269 everything changed. She sent a telegram to Leakey, 00:11:45.289 --> 00:11:47.730 right, to tell him what she'd seen. She did. 00:11:47.970 --> 00:11:50.450 And his response has become one of the most famous 00:11:50.450 --> 00:11:53.330 quotes in the history of science. He cabled back. 00:11:53.690 --> 00:11:57.509 We must now redefine man, redefine tool, or accept 00:11:57.509 --> 00:11:59.929 chimpanzees as human. That's the paradigm shift 00:11:59.929 --> 00:12:02.389 right there. That is it. That one observation, 00:12:02.669 --> 00:12:05.029 made possible by her patient personal methods, 00:12:05.269 --> 00:12:07.730 forced the entire scientific world to redraw 00:12:07.730 --> 00:12:09.309 the boundaries of what it means to be human. 00:12:09.470 --> 00:12:12.070 So the early years at Gombe painted this picture 00:12:12.070 --> 00:12:16.429 of incredible intelligence and a lot of affection. 00:12:16.570 --> 00:12:19.169 It was a very positive, almost romantic view 00:12:19.169 --> 00:12:22.779 of our closest relatives. It was. And she continued 00:12:22.779 --> 00:12:26.480 to document those positive sides, the deep affectionate 00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:29.879 bonds. She saw them hugging, kissing, patting 00:12:29.879 --> 00:12:32.159 each other on the back, tickling. Things we would 00:12:32.159 --> 00:12:34.799 consider very human gestures. Exactly. And she 00:12:34.799 --> 00:12:36.440 insisted these weren't just random actions. They 00:12:36.440 --> 00:12:39.179 were proof of what she called close, supportive, 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:42.139 affectionate bonds within families and the community. 00:12:42.320 --> 00:12:45.000 And these bonds could last a lifetime, you know, 00:12:45.019 --> 00:12:47.620 over 50 years. That's the image most of us have 00:12:47.620 --> 00:12:50.700 of chimps. But as her study went on for decades, 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:54.220 the story she was documenting got, well, it got 00:12:54.220 --> 00:12:56.980 a lot darker. It really did. She herself said 00:12:56.980 --> 00:12:59.200 that for the first 10 years, she honestly believed 00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:01.919 that chimpanzees were, for the most part, rather 00:13:01.919 --> 00:13:04.159 nicer than human beings. But then she saw what 00:13:04.159 --> 00:13:06.580 she called their darker side. And it was a shock 00:13:06.580 --> 00:13:09.120 even to her. She began to observe systematic 00:13:09.120 --> 00:13:12.490 internal violence. For instance, dominant females 00:13:12.490 --> 00:13:14.509 would sometimes deliberately kill the babies 00:13:14.509 --> 00:13:17.049 of other lower -ranking females. Why? To what 00:13:17.049 --> 00:13:19.470 end? To maintain their own dominance. To ensure 00:13:19.470 --> 00:13:21.570 their own offspring had a better chance of survival. 00:13:21.809 --> 00:13:24.669 It was ruthless social strategy, and in some 00:13:24.669 --> 00:13:27.250 cases, it even escalated to cannibalism. That's 00:13:27.250 --> 00:13:30.450 horrifying. But the violence went even beyond 00:13:30.450 --> 00:13:33.450 that, didn't it? It led to this incredible, disturbing 00:13:33.450 --> 00:13:36.149 discovery of organized warfare. This is one of 00:13:36.149 --> 00:13:38.730 the most challenging findings from Gombe, the 00:13:38.730 --> 00:13:41.980 Gombe Chimpanzee War. It was a documented, systematic 00:13:41.980 --> 00:13:45.399 conflict that lasted for four years, from 1974 00:13:45.399 --> 00:13:49.580 to 1978. How did it start? It started when the 00:13:49.580 --> 00:13:51.799 main community, the Kasakela community she was 00:13:51.799 --> 00:13:54.740 studying, split apart. A smaller group broke 00:13:54.740 --> 00:13:56.899 off and formed their own community to the south 00:13:56.899 --> 00:13:58.879 called the Kahama community. So it was like a 00:13:58.879 --> 00:14:02.440 civil war. In a way, yes. The larger Kasakela 00:14:02.440 --> 00:14:04.860 group, led by males like Mike, didn't just let 00:14:04.860 --> 00:14:07.259 them go. They began a campaign to systematically 00:14:07.259 --> 00:14:09.590 eliminate them. How did they? do it? Was it just 00:14:09.590 --> 00:14:11.889 random fighting? No, that's the crucial point. 00:14:12.049 --> 00:14:14.769 It was organized. It was tactical. The Kasakila 00:14:14.769 --> 00:14:16.610 males would form these small raiding parties, 00:14:16.710 --> 00:14:18.830 maybe four or five of them, and move silently 00:14:18.830 --> 00:14:20.669 into the other group's territory. Like a patrol. 00:14:21.049 --> 00:14:23.870 Exactly like a patrol. And they would use ambush 00:14:23.870 --> 00:14:27.490 tactics. They'd find a lone Kahama male, isolate 00:14:27.490 --> 00:14:29.610 him, and then the whole group would attack him. 00:14:29.870 --> 00:14:32.129 They'd hold him down, beating and biting him 00:14:32.129 --> 00:14:35.149 until he was dead or dying. It was brutal and 00:14:35.149 --> 00:14:37.769 coordinated. That's chilling. It sounds so much 00:14:37.769 --> 00:14:41.029 like human conflict. It is. Over those four years, 00:14:41.169 --> 00:14:43.470 the Kasakila males hunted down and killed every 00:14:43.470 --> 00:14:45.990 single adult male from the rival group. And once 00:14:45.990 --> 00:14:48.769 they were all gone, the Kasakila community expanded 00:14:48.769 --> 00:14:51.169 their territory into the area the Kahama group 00:14:51.169 --> 00:14:53.730 used to occupy. So this was the first time this 00:14:53.730 --> 00:14:57.129 kind of long -term lethal intergroup violence 00:14:57.129 --> 00:15:00.269 had ever been seen in non -human primates. It 00:15:00.269 --> 00:15:03.230 was unprecedented. And it completely destroyed 00:15:03.230 --> 00:15:05.409 that romantic notion of the peaceful primate. 00:15:05.509 --> 00:15:07.590 It showed that the capacity for this kind of 00:15:07.590 --> 00:15:10.610 organized violence for war is not uniquely human 00:15:10.610 --> 00:15:12.970 either. And their diet also turned out to be 00:15:12.970 --> 00:15:15.309 more aggressive than anyone thought. Yes, they 00:15:15.309 --> 00:15:17.429 weren't just peaceful vegetarians. She discovered 00:15:17.429 --> 00:15:19.529 they are very effective hunters, especially of 00:15:19.529 --> 00:15:22.250 smaller primates like colobus monkeys. And these 00:15:22.250 --> 00:15:24.870 hunts were also cooperative, right? Highly cooperative. 00:15:25.549 --> 00:15:27.610 A hunting party would work together to trap a 00:15:27.610 --> 00:15:29.870 monkey up in a tree. Some chimps would climb 00:15:29.870 --> 00:15:32.429 up, while others would stay on the ground, blocking 00:15:32.429 --> 00:15:35.389 all the escape roads. It was a coordinated strategy, 00:15:35.750 --> 00:15:37.809 and they're incredibly successful predators. 00:15:38.649 --> 00:15:41.549 The sources say the Gombe chimps kill and eat 00:15:41.549 --> 00:15:44.049 as much as a third of the Colobus monkey population 00:15:44.049 --> 00:15:47.440 in the park every year. Wow. So this complex 00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:50.860 picture of both affection and brutality brings 00:15:50.860 --> 00:15:53.279 us right to the big scientific debate about her 00:15:53.279 --> 00:15:55.960 methods. The feeding stations. Right. To get 00:15:55.960 --> 00:15:57.919 the chimps comfortable with her presence early 00:15:57.919 --> 00:16:01.100 on, she used artificial feeding stations, basically 00:16:01.100 --> 00:16:03.960 leaving out bananas to draw them in. It was a 00:16:03.960 --> 00:16:06.600 way to habituate them, to get close enough for 00:16:06.600 --> 00:16:09.259 observation. Very common practice in fieldwork 00:16:09.259 --> 00:16:11.419 at the time. But it came under heavy fire later 00:16:11.419 --> 00:16:14.100 on. What was the core of that criticism? The 00:16:14.100 --> 00:16:16.340 main argument. which was really laid out by Margaret 00:16:16.340 --> 00:16:18.039 Power in the early 90s, was that the feeding 00:16:18.039 --> 00:16:20.320 stations fundamentally changed the chimps' behavior. 00:16:20.639 --> 00:16:23.860 How so? Well, by providing a concentrated, high 00:16:23.860 --> 00:16:26.879 -value food source, you create an unnatural situation. 00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:29.840 You get large numbers of chimps crowding into 00:16:29.840 --> 00:16:32.019 one small area, which they wouldn't do normally. 00:16:32.600 --> 00:16:35.379 This, the critics argued, artificially increased 00:16:35.379 --> 00:16:38.740 competition and stress levels. So the fear was 00:16:38.740 --> 00:16:41.899 that the aggression, the infanticide, even the 00:16:41.899 --> 00:16:44.750 Gombe War, that maybe it wasn't natural behavior 00:16:44.750 --> 00:16:48.190 at all. Exactly. The worry was that she wasn't 00:16:48.190 --> 00:16:51.009 observing natural chimpanzee society. She was 00:16:51.009 --> 00:16:53.470 observing a society that had been distorted by 00:16:53.470 --> 00:16:55.970 her own intervention, that the violence was a 00:16:55.970 --> 00:16:58.610 product of the feeding stations. That's a huge 00:16:58.610 --> 00:17:00.850 challenge to the validity of her entire life's 00:17:00.850 --> 00:17:03.149 work. How does she respond to that? She always 00:17:03.149 --> 00:17:05.150 maintained that the feeding only affected the 00:17:05.150 --> 00:17:07.130 intensity of the conflict, not the fundamental 00:17:07.130 --> 00:17:09.869 nature of it. She argued that the capacity for 00:17:09.869 --> 00:17:12.109 that kind of aggression was always there, inherent 00:17:12.109 --> 00:17:14.069 in their nature, and that the feeding stations 00:17:14.069 --> 00:17:15.970 might have just brought it to the surface more 00:17:15.970 --> 00:17:18.450 frequently. Has other research backed that up? 00:17:18.529 --> 00:17:21.049 Have we seen this kind of warfare in other chimp 00:17:21.049 --> 00:17:23.710 groups without feeding stations? Yes, and that's 00:17:23.710 --> 00:17:26.549 the key point. Other long -term studies in different 00:17:26.549 --> 00:17:30.089 parts of Africa, with completely wild, unprovisioned 00:17:30.089 --> 00:17:32.589 groups, have since documented similar instances 00:17:32.589 --> 00:17:35.599 of lethal intergroup violence. That suggests 00:17:35.599 --> 00:17:38.319 she was right. Provisioning may have exacerbated 00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:40.880 the conflict at Gombe, but it didn't create it 00:17:40.880 --> 00:17:43.400 from scratch. But her own thinking on the feeding 00:17:43.400 --> 00:17:46.160 stations evolved over time, didn't it? It did, 00:17:46.259 --> 00:17:49.099 which is a testament to her as a scientist. Much 00:17:49.099 --> 00:17:51.599 later, in 2017, she said she would never use 00:17:51.599 --> 00:17:54.339 them today. But her reasoning had changed. It 00:17:54.339 --> 00:17:56.619 wasn't about the aggression anymore. No, it was 00:17:56.619 --> 00:17:59.339 about disease. She said there was absolutely 00:17:59.339 --> 00:18:01.700 no knowledge back then that chimpanzees could 00:18:01.700 --> 00:18:04.859 catch human infectious diseases. She realized 00:18:04.859 --> 00:18:06.799 that by bringing them in so close, they were 00:18:06.799 --> 00:18:08.799 putting the chimps at incredible risk of catching 00:18:08.799 --> 00:18:11.480 something from the human researchers. That ethical 00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:13.819 realization, more than anything else, is why 00:18:13.819 --> 00:18:15.920 provisioning was ultimately stopped at Gombe. 00:18:16.059 --> 00:18:18.640 So for decades, Jane Goodall is this field researcher. 00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:21.119 She's in Gombe. She's observing. She's publishing. 00:18:21.420 --> 00:18:24.859 But then we get to 1986, and there's this huge 00:18:24.859 --> 00:18:28.839 pivot, a moment that completely changes her life's 00:18:28.839 --> 00:18:31.339 work. It really is a clear dividing line in her 00:18:31.339 --> 00:18:34.039 career. The Catalyst was a big science conference 00:18:34.039 --> 00:18:37.079 in Chicago called Understanding Chimpanzees. 00:18:37.099 --> 00:18:39.099 And she goes there just expecting to present 00:18:39.099 --> 00:18:41.539 her latest research on chimp behavior. That was 00:18:41.539 --> 00:18:43.740 the plan. But as she's sitting there listening 00:18:43.740 --> 00:18:46.519 to researchers from all over Africa present their 00:18:46.519 --> 00:18:49.980 findings, she has this dawning, horrifying realization. 00:18:50.500 --> 00:18:52.819 What was it? She realized that all across the 00:18:52.819 --> 00:18:56.160 continent, chimpanzee populations were just vanishing. 00:18:56.180 --> 00:18:58.839 They were facing extinction from habitat loss, 00:18:58.980 --> 00:19:02.380 from... poaching from the illegal bushmeat trade. 00:19:02.559 --> 00:19:04.559 And she saw that all these different research 00:19:04.559 --> 00:19:07.740 sites were becoming tiny, isolated islands of 00:19:07.740 --> 00:19:10.420 forest in a sea of human development. So she 00:19:10.420 --> 00:19:12.440 understood that just studying them wasn't enough 00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:14.839 anymore. Not nearly enough. She knew that if 00:19:14.839 --> 00:19:17.000 someone didn't start advocating for them and 00:19:17.000 --> 00:19:19.859 advocating loudly, there would be no chimpanzees 00:19:19.859 --> 00:19:22.559 left to study. And that realization sparks this 00:19:22.559 --> 00:19:25.460 radical change in her life. A total transformation. 00:19:25.900 --> 00:19:28.869 She essentially leaves the forest behind. She 00:19:28.869 --> 00:19:31.089 goes from a quiet life in a remote research camp 00:19:31.089 --> 00:19:34.109 to becoming a full -time, globe -trotting activist. 00:19:34.490 --> 00:19:37.029 By the early 2000s, she was traveling nearly 00:19:37.029 --> 00:19:40.509 300 days a year. Wow, 300 days a year on the 00:19:40.509 --> 00:19:43.890 road. For decades. Swapping the quiet of Gombe. 00:19:44.299 --> 00:19:46.640 for conference halls, boardrooms, and political 00:19:46.640 --> 00:19:48.619 meetings. And she starts building institutions 00:19:48.619 --> 00:19:51.720 to carry this work forward. It starts with the 00:19:51.720 --> 00:19:54.779 Jane Goodall Institute, or JGI. She founded it 00:19:54.779 --> 00:19:58.559 back in 1977, initially just to provide stable, 00:19:58.559 --> 00:20:01.579 long -term funding for the Gombe research. But 00:20:01.579 --> 00:20:04.440 after that 1986 conference, its mission just 00:20:04.440 --> 00:20:06.539 exploded. It became this global conservation 00:20:06.539 --> 00:20:08.960 organization. And today it has offices in 19 00:20:08.960 --> 00:20:11.660 countries. And her focus wasn't just on the top 00:20:11.660 --> 00:20:14.329 -down political level. built something from the 00:20:14.329 --> 00:20:16.849 ground up with young people. Roots & Shoots. 00:20:17.089 --> 00:20:19.150 This is one of her most enduring legacies. It 00:20:19.150 --> 00:20:22.269 started so small in 1991. Just a group of 12 00:20:22.269 --> 00:20:24.329 local teenagers who met with her on her porch 00:20:24.329 --> 00:20:26.769 in Tanzania to talk about the environmental problems 00:20:26.769 --> 00:20:28.950 they saw in their own community. And she empowered 00:20:28.950 --> 00:20:32.349 them to do something about it. She did. She helped 00:20:32.349 --> 00:20:34.730 them design local projects to tackle those problems. 00:20:35.349 --> 00:20:38.210 And that simple model, identify a problem, make 00:20:38.210 --> 00:20:41.670 a plan, take action, it just caught fire. How 00:20:41.670 --> 00:20:43.970 big did it get? It became a global movement. 00:20:44.109 --> 00:20:47.410 By 2010, that little group of 12 had grown into 00:20:47.410 --> 00:20:49.809 more than 10 ,000 Roots and Shoots groups in 00:20:49.809 --> 00:20:53.250 over 100 countries. It's this incredible youth 00:20:53.250 --> 00:20:56.549 -driven network focused on helping people, animals, 00:20:56.690 --> 00:20:59.329 and the environment. Her work also created these 00:20:59.329 --> 00:21:02.569 very real physical projects in Africa, like the 00:21:02.569 --> 00:21:05.230 Chimpunga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center. Yes, 00:21:05.269 --> 00:21:07.950 in the Republic of Congo. This was a direct response 00:21:07.950 --> 00:21:10.890 to the horrors of the bushmeat trade. The center 00:21:10.890 --> 00:21:12.950 was created to care for the orphans, the baby 00:21:12.950 --> 00:21:15.309 chimps left behind after their mothers were killed 00:21:15.309 --> 00:21:17.730 for meat. So it's a sanctuary. A huge sanctuary, 00:21:17.869 --> 00:21:20.670 caring for over 100 orphan chimps across three 00:21:20.670 --> 00:21:22.890 protected islands, giving them a second chance 00:21:22.890 --> 00:21:25.490 at life. And then there's the Taker Project in 00:21:25.490 --> 00:21:27.789 Tanzania, which is a really fascinating model 00:21:27.789 --> 00:21:30.309 for conservation. Their care is brilliant because 00:21:30.309 --> 00:21:33.460 it's holistic. It's based on this very simple 00:21:33.460 --> 00:21:36.920 but profound idea. You can't save the chimpanzees 00:21:36.920 --> 00:21:38.740 if you don't help the people who live alongside 00:21:38.740 --> 00:21:40.940 them. So it's not just about protecting the park. 00:21:41.160 --> 00:21:43.180 It's about supporting the surrounding communities. 00:21:43.400 --> 00:21:45.819 Its main goal is to reduce the pressure on the 00:21:45.819 --> 00:21:48.700 forest. So they do reforestation projects. They 00:21:48.700 --> 00:21:51.599 teach sustainable farming methods. But they also 00:21:51.599 --> 00:21:53.720 do something else. This is the really interesting 00:21:53.720 --> 00:21:56.839 part. They invest in people. Specifically... 00:21:57.039 --> 00:21:59.099 Take Care provides reproductive health education 00:21:59.099 --> 00:22:02.319 and college scholarships for young girls in the 00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:04.539 local villages. And I want to be clear on the 00:22:04.539 --> 00:22:07.359 connection here. How does sending a girl to college 00:22:07.359 --> 00:22:10.599 help save chimpanzees? It's a powerful long -term 00:22:10.599 --> 00:22:13.359 strategy. When you educate girls and empower 00:22:13.359 --> 00:22:15.579 women, you see a number of positive outcomes. 00:22:15.859 --> 00:22:18.640 Family sizes tend to get smaller. Poverty rates 00:22:18.640 --> 00:22:21.099 go down. And when you have smaller, more prosperous 00:22:21.099 --> 00:22:23.460 communities, there's less pressure to cut down 00:22:23.460 --> 00:22:25.980 the forest for firewood or to clear more land 00:22:25.980 --> 00:22:28.539 for unsustainable farming. So by improving human 00:22:28.539 --> 00:22:30.720 well -being, you directly reduce the threat to 00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:33.039 the chimps' habitat. It's a perfect example of 00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:36.259 integrated conservation. A win -win. And her 00:22:36.259 --> 00:22:38.880 foundation even teamed up with NASA, which sounds 00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:41.220 like something out of a movie. It does, but it's 00:22:41.220 --> 00:22:44.319 very practical. They used Landsat satellite imagery 00:22:44.319 --> 00:22:47.640 to get this high -resolution, bird's -eye view 00:22:47.640 --> 00:22:50.480 of deforestation in Western Africa. And they 00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:53.059 gave that data to the local communities. Yes. 00:22:53.359 --> 00:22:55.960 They could show villagers exactly where the forest 00:22:55.960 --> 00:22:58.339 was disappearing and help them develop strategies 00:22:58.339 --> 00:23:00.900 to protect their own local resources. It was 00:23:00.900 --> 00:23:02.660 putting high -tech tools in the hands of the 00:23:02.660 --> 00:23:04.799 people on the ground. As she became more of an 00:23:04.799 --> 00:23:07.460 activist, her focus expanded beyond just primates. 00:23:07.559 --> 00:23:10.160 She became a really powerful voice for all animals, 00:23:10.380 --> 00:23:12.740 eventually becoming a vegan. Right. She was a 00:23:12.740 --> 00:23:15.180 vegetarian for a long time and then went fully 00:23:15.180 --> 00:23:18.319 vegan in 2021. She even wrote a book called Eat 00:23:18.319 --> 00:23:21.740 Meat Less. And for her, this was a direct extension 00:23:21.740 --> 00:23:24.579 of her scientific work. How so? She argued that 00:23:24.579 --> 00:23:27.619 farm animals are, in her words, far more aware 00:23:27.619 --> 00:23:30.579 and intelligent than we ever imagined. and that 00:23:30.579 --> 00:23:33.339 they deserve our respect. She really challenged 00:23:33.339 --> 00:23:35.220 people on this, questioning how someone could 00:23:35.220 --> 00:23:37.599 say they love animals and then eat meat from 00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:39.980 creatures that were treated so cruelly. And she 00:23:39.980 --> 00:23:42.500 took that fight to the political level, campaigning 00:23:42.500 --> 00:23:46.019 for systemic change. Oh, absolutely. She lobbied 00:23:46.019 --> 00:23:48.700 the European Union to ban the caging of farm 00:23:48.700 --> 00:23:51.480 animals. She was a vocal critic of using animals 00:23:51.480 --> 00:23:54.380 in medical research. She co -founded groups like 00:23:54.380 --> 00:23:56.940 ethologists for the ethical treatment of animals. 00:23:57.119 --> 00:23:59.589 And she had a huge victory for change. Right 00:23:59.589 --> 00:24:02.630 here in the United States. A massive one. For 00:24:02.630 --> 00:24:04.950 a long time, wild chimpanzees were listed as 00:24:04.950 --> 00:24:08.390 endangered, but captive chimps were not. She 00:24:08.390 --> 00:24:10.269 petitioned the U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service 00:24:10.269 --> 00:24:13.329 to list all chimpanzees, including captive ones, 00:24:13.470 --> 00:24:16.190 as endangered. Why was that distinction so important? 00:24:16.589 --> 00:24:18.490 Because it offered them much greater legal protection. 00:24:18.829 --> 00:24:20.990 It made it much harder to use them in research 00:24:20.990 --> 00:24:24.930 or trade them. And in 2015, she won. The government 00:24:24.930 --> 00:24:27.880 classified all chimpanzees as endangered. A huge 00:24:27.880 --> 00:24:30.119 win for animal welfare. And her focus just kept 00:24:30.119 --> 00:24:32.740 getting bigger. Most recently, she was advocating 00:24:32.740 --> 00:24:35.140 for something called ecocide to be recognized 00:24:35.140 --> 00:24:38.140 as an international crime. Ecocide. It's a radical 00:24:38.140 --> 00:24:41.079 idea. The argument is that mass damage and destruction 00:24:41.079 --> 00:24:43.299 of the environment should be treated as a crime 00:24:43.299 --> 00:24:46.299 on the same level as genocide or war crimes. 00:24:46.500 --> 00:24:49.700 And she said the idea was long overdue. She did. 00:24:49.980 --> 00:24:53.069 It shows how her thinking evolved. From studying 00:24:53.069 --> 00:24:56.069 one group of chimps in one forest to advocating 00:24:56.069 --> 00:24:58.809 for a legal framework to protect the entire planet. 00:24:58.990 --> 00:25:01.289 You know, for all the serious science and the 00:25:01.289 --> 00:25:04.329 global activism, Jane Goodall also had this really 00:25:04.329 --> 00:25:07.369 unique public persona. She was a rigorous scientist 00:25:07.369 --> 00:25:10.869 who was also surprisingly open to things that 00:25:10.869 --> 00:25:12.430 were a little bit out there. You're talking about 00:25:12.430 --> 00:25:14.670 Bigfoot. I am talking about Bigfoot. It's fascinating. 00:25:14.890 --> 00:25:17.730 She was openly receptive to the idea that there 00:25:17.730 --> 00:25:20.710 could be undiscovered large primates out there. 00:25:20.990 --> 00:25:23.329 things like Sasquatch or the Yarin in China. 00:25:23.529 --> 00:25:25.430 What did she actually say about it? She said 00:25:25.430 --> 00:25:27.970 she was fascinated by the idea and would actually 00:25:27.970 --> 00:25:31.029 love them to exist. She did admit it was strange 00:25:31.029 --> 00:25:34.230 that no one had ever found a body or even a single 00:25:34.230 --> 00:25:37.420 authentic hair. But she kept an open mind. Which 00:25:37.420 --> 00:25:39.940 I guess makes sense for someone who spent her 00:25:39.940 --> 00:25:42.220 early career being told by experts that what 00:25:42.220 --> 00:25:44.279 she was seeing was impossible. I think that's 00:25:44.279 --> 00:25:46.799 exactly it. She knew what it was like to challenge 00:25:46.799 --> 00:25:49.140 the established dogma. And she also had a very 00:25:49.140 --> 00:25:51.420 deep and personal spiritual side that she wasn't 00:25:51.420 --> 00:25:54.299 afraid to talk about. No, she wasn't. She was 00:25:54.299 --> 00:25:56.920 raised in a Christian home. And even as a young 00:25:56.920 --> 00:25:59.019 woman, she was exploring other ideas, taking 00:25:59.019 --> 00:26:01.720 classes in theosophy. She said that when she 00:26:01.720 --> 00:26:04.380 got to Cambridge, she found that atheism was 00:26:04.380 --> 00:26:06.380 very common among her scientific colleagues. 00:26:06.680 --> 00:26:09.039 But it didn't sway her. She said her own beliefs 00:26:09.039 --> 00:26:12.579 were already pretty well formed by then. But 00:26:12.579 --> 00:26:14.920 the real turning point for her spiritually came 00:26:14.920 --> 00:26:18.710 later. in 1977 when she had what she described 00:26:18.710 --> 00:26:21.190 as a mystical experience in the Notre Dame Cathedral 00:26:21.190 --> 00:26:24.509 in Paris. What came out of that experience? She 00:26:24.509 --> 00:26:27.529 wrote that after that, she knew she had to believe 00:26:27.529 --> 00:26:29.789 in a guiding power in the universe. In other 00:26:29.789 --> 00:26:32.529 words, I must believe in God. Did she ever define 00:26:32.529 --> 00:26:34.609 what that meant for her? She was always clear 00:26:34.609 --> 00:26:37.410 that it wasn't a rigid dogmatic belief. She described 00:26:37.410 --> 00:26:40.289 it as a great spiritual power that she felt most 00:26:40.289 --> 00:26:42.819 strongly when she was out in nature. And for 00:26:42.819 --> 00:26:44.559 her, there was never a conflict between that 00:26:44.559 --> 00:26:46.880 and science. Right. She saw no contradiction 00:26:46.880 --> 00:26:49.119 between believing in God and understanding evolution. 00:26:49.519 --> 00:26:52.059 Not at all. For her, they were two complementary 00:26:52.059 --> 00:26:54.259 ways of appreciating the wonder of the natural 00:26:54.259 --> 00:26:57.200 world. Now, we also have to touch on a difficult 00:26:57.200 --> 00:27:00.220 moment in her career, a real academic stumble 00:27:00.220 --> 00:27:02.960 that happened in 2013 with her book, Seeds of 00:27:02.960 --> 00:27:06.319 Hope. Yes, this was a serious controversy. The 00:27:06.319 --> 00:27:08.200 book was all about the importance of plants. 00:27:09.099 --> 00:27:12.220 But just before it was released, a reviewer for 00:27:12.220 --> 00:27:15.259 the Washington Post discovered a major problem. 00:27:15.420 --> 00:27:18.359 Plagiarism. Yes. Multiple passages were found 00:27:18.359 --> 00:27:20.799 to have been listed, without attribution, directly 00:27:20.799 --> 00:27:23.519 from various websites. And the sources were just... 00:27:23.740 --> 00:27:25.720 Kind of random, weren't they? Incredibly random. 00:27:25.900 --> 00:27:28.299 There was text from a website about organic tea, 00:27:28.440 --> 00:27:30.759 another one on tobacco, an astrology website 00:27:30.759 --> 00:27:33.359 of all things, and several passages taken straight 00:27:33.359 --> 00:27:35.359 from Wikipedia. That's not a good look. How did 00:27:35.359 --> 00:27:37.720 she explain it? She apologized immediately and 00:27:37.720 --> 00:27:40.720 took full responsibility. Her explanation was 00:27:40.720 --> 00:27:43.500 that it was an unintentional result of her chaotic 00:27:43.500 --> 00:27:46.039 note -taking while traveling constantly. And 00:27:46.039 --> 00:27:47.779 the publisher had to pull the book. They did. 00:27:48.019 --> 00:27:50.259 They delayed the release, and she and her team 00:27:50.259 --> 00:27:52.539 went through a massive review process, adding 00:27:52.539 --> 00:27:55.400 all the proper citations and credits. The book 00:27:55.400 --> 00:27:57.980 was eventually re -released in 2014, but with 00:27:57.980 --> 00:28:00.819 57 pages of endnotes added to fix the errors. 00:28:01.160 --> 00:28:04.140 It's a real mark on an otherwise stellar record. 00:28:04.920 --> 00:28:07.440 Before we wrap up, there are a couple of fun 00:28:07.440 --> 00:28:09.599 humanizing details I think we should mention. 00:28:09.799 --> 00:28:12.700 For all her work with chimps, her favorite animal, 00:28:12.859 --> 00:28:16.359 she always said, was the dog. I love that. And 00:28:16.359 --> 00:28:19.039 she also had prosopagnosia, which is face blindness. 00:28:19.460 --> 00:28:22.240 She had real difficulty recognizing people's 00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:24.880 faces, which must have made a life of constant 00:28:24.880 --> 00:28:27.599 public appearances incredibly challenging. That's 00:28:27.599 --> 00:28:29.539 amazing. And we cannot end this section without 00:28:29.539 --> 00:28:31.720 talking about the Farsight cartoon. The ultimate 00:28:31.720 --> 00:28:35.000 pop culture moment. It's from 1987 by Gary Larson. 00:28:35.140 --> 00:28:37.839 It shows two chimps. One is grooming the other, 00:28:37.960 --> 00:28:41.440 finds a long blonde hair and says the line. Conducting 00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:43.220 a little more research with that Jane Goodall 00:28:43.220 --> 00:28:45.619 tramp. It's an iconic cartoon, but the initial 00:28:45.619 --> 00:28:49.460 reaction from her institute was not great. Not 00:28:49.460 --> 00:28:51.839 great is an understatement. The lawyers for the 00:28:51.839 --> 00:28:54.259 Jane Goodall Institute were furious. They called 00:28:54.259 --> 00:28:56.460 it an atrocity and were apparently ready to sue. 00:28:56.680 --> 00:28:58.599 But then Jane herself, who was out in the field 00:28:58.599 --> 00:29:01.609 at Gombe, finally saw it. And she loved it. She 00:29:01.609 --> 00:29:03.630 thought it was hilarious. She later said it was 00:29:03.630 --> 00:29:05.450 her favorite thing ever done about her in pop 00:29:05.450 --> 00:29:08.849 culture. The whole thing was smoothed over. And 00:29:08.849 --> 00:29:10.670 Larson ended up being a big supporter of her 00:29:10.670 --> 00:29:12.750 work. And there's a perfect ending to that story, 00:29:12.869 --> 00:29:15.549 isn't there? There is. A year later, Gary Larson 00:29:15.549 --> 00:29:18.269 actually went to visit her at Gombe. And while 00:29:18.269 --> 00:29:20.329 he was there, he was attacked by a chimp named 00:29:20.329 --> 00:29:23.490 Frodo. Frodo was one of Flo's sons, right? And 00:29:23.490 --> 00:29:25.470 known for being aggressive. Notoriously aggressive. 00:29:25.869 --> 00:29:28.009 Yeah. He attacked humans all the time, including 00:29:28.009 --> 00:29:30.880 Jane herself. It was a pretty stark reminder 00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:33.839 for Larson that these were not cute cartoon characters. 00:29:34.160 --> 00:29:37.059 They were powerful, wild animals. A life lived 00:29:37.059 --> 00:29:40.140 right to the end. She died on October 1st, 2025 00:29:40.140 --> 00:29:44.359 at the age of 91, peacefully in her sleep while 00:29:44.359 --> 00:29:46.779 she was in California on yet another speaking 00:29:46.779 --> 00:29:49.559 tour. Still working. And the tributes that poured 00:29:49.559 --> 00:29:51.539 in from all over the world from Prince Harry 00:29:51.539 --> 00:29:54.339 L. Gore, the U .N. Secretary General, it just 00:29:54.339 --> 00:29:57.220 showed the sheer scale of her impact. She wasn't 00:29:57.220 --> 00:29:59.740 just a scientist anymore. She was a global conscience. 00:30:00.099 --> 00:30:03.099 So as we wrap up this very deep dive into the 00:30:03.099 --> 00:30:06.400 life and legacy of Jane Goodall, let's just quickly 00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:09.279 crystallize the three big transformations that 00:30:09.279 --> 00:30:12.299 defined her career. Okay. First, you have the 00:30:12.299 --> 00:30:14.779 pioneering field researcher, the one who changed 00:30:14.779 --> 00:30:17.400 the methods of science itself by insisting on 00:30:17.400 --> 00:30:20.299 using names, on seeing personality, on getting 00:30:20.299 --> 00:30:23.079 close. Second, she was the revolutionary scientist, 00:30:23.380 --> 00:30:25.839 the one whose discoveries, especially about tool 00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:28.619 use and social complexity, completely redefined 00:30:28.619 --> 00:30:30.660 the line between human and animal. And third, 00:30:30.900 --> 00:30:33.420 she became the global activist and institution 00:30:33.420 --> 00:30:37.279 builder. After that 1986 conference, she dedicated 00:30:37.279 --> 00:30:40.279 her life to advocacy, creating massive, lasting 00:30:40.279 --> 00:30:42.240 organizations like the Jane Goodall Institute 00:30:42.240 --> 00:30:45.019 and Roots & Shoots that will carry her work forward. 00:30:45.420 --> 00:30:47.259 We started this discussion talking about how 00:30:47.259 --> 00:30:49.599 her early work forced us to see our similarities 00:30:49.599 --> 00:30:51.740 with chimpanzees, the tool use, the affection. 00:30:52.039 --> 00:30:54.720 It challenged our idea of being special. But 00:30:54.720 --> 00:30:56.980 then her later discoveries about the Gumby War, 00:30:57.180 --> 00:30:59.839 the infanticide, the darker side, that forced 00:30:59.839 --> 00:31:02.720 her and us to confront a different kind of similarity, 00:31:02.980 --> 00:31:05.420 a shared capacity for violence. Which leaves 00:31:05.420 --> 00:31:08.079 us with a really challenging final thought. If 00:31:08.079 --> 00:31:10.460 this complex social structure that allows for 00:31:10.460 --> 00:31:12.900 love and cooperation and learning in chimpanzees 00:31:12.900 --> 00:31:17.140 also enables savage, organized brutality, what 00:31:17.140 --> 00:31:19.700 does that say about us? About the inevitability 00:31:19.700 --> 00:31:22.440 of our own conflicts? It's a profound question. 00:31:22.940 --> 00:31:25.339 If we share both the light and the dark with 00:31:25.339 --> 00:31:27.700 our closest living relatives, if both are part 00:31:27.700 --> 00:31:30.299 of our deep evolutionary inheritance, where do 00:31:30.299 --> 00:31:32.680 we find the hope and the will to choose one over 00:31:32.680 --> 00:31:35.240 the other? A powerful question to leave you with. 00:31:35.279 --> 00:31:37.259 Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into 00:31:37.259 --> 00:31:39.019 the incredible legacy of Jane Goodall. We hope 00:31:39.019 --> 00:31:41.220 you feel a little more informed and maybe a lot 00:31:41.220 --> 00:31:41.599 more inspired.