WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.820 So I want you to imagine something for a second. 00:00:02.200 --> 00:00:04.879 Imagine you just get hired as a secretary. You're 00:00:04.879 --> 00:00:07.780 expecting filing, typing, making coffee. But 00:00:07.780 --> 00:00:11.580 instead, your brand new boss immediately sends 00:00:11.580 --> 00:00:14.759 you into the deep African jungle to study wild 00:00:14.759 --> 00:00:17.160 apes. I mean, that sounds like a joke, right? 00:00:17.260 --> 00:00:20.239 Or a really intense reality show. Exactly. But 00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:22.539 it actually happened. And the wild thing is, 00:00:22.719 --> 00:00:25.579 back in 1960, the scientific establishment believed 00:00:25.579 --> 00:00:28.989 two things with like, absolute, unquestionable 00:00:28.989 --> 00:00:31.309 certainty. Right, the golden rules of biology 00:00:31.309 --> 00:00:35.009 at the time. Yeah. First, that humans, and only 00:00:35.009 --> 00:00:37.210 humans, could make tools. That was the line in 00:00:37.210 --> 00:00:40.329 the sand. And second, that wild chimpanzees were 00:00:40.329 --> 00:00:42.929 these gentle, peaceful vegetarians. Which was 00:00:42.929 --> 00:00:45.630 just accepted dogma. No one questioned it. Nobody. 00:00:45.929 --> 00:00:48.890 until a 26 -year -old secretary from England, 00:00:49.329 --> 00:00:51.929 who had zero college degrees and, I mean, absolutely 00:00:51.929 --> 00:00:54.429 no formal scientific training, just completely 00:00:54.429 --> 00:00:56.170 shattered both of those assumptions. Violently 00:00:56.170 --> 00:00:59.030 shattered them, honestly. Yeah. So today's deep 00:00:59.030 --> 00:01:01.909 dive is into the life, the totally unorthodox 00:01:01.909 --> 00:01:04.469 methods, and the legacy of Jane Goodall, who 00:01:04.469 --> 00:01:07.730 recently passed away in October of 2025. At 91 00:01:07.730 --> 00:01:09.870 years old, yeah. Right. And our mission for you 00:01:09.870 --> 00:01:12.629 today, as we go through these sources, is to 00:01:12.629 --> 00:01:16.099 figure out how someone completely outside this 00:01:16.099 --> 00:01:19.200 system fundamentally redefined what it means 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:22.019 to be human. And not just that, but how she leveraged 00:01:22.019 --> 00:01:25.159 that whole scientific earthquake into this massive 00:01:25.159 --> 00:01:29.120 global conservation empire. So to really get 00:01:29.120 --> 00:01:31.620 the magnitude of this, we need to go back to 00:01:31.620 --> 00:01:34.359 the beginning, the origin story. Yeah, you have 00:01:34.359 --> 00:01:38.000 to mentally transport yourself to the early 1960s, 00:01:38.379 --> 00:01:42.500 to the Gombe stream in Tanzania. lush, steep, 00:01:43.019 --> 00:01:45.780 incredibly remote terrain. Exactly. And the context 00:01:45.780 --> 00:01:47.859 here is crucial because she wasn't chosen for 00:01:47.859 --> 00:01:50.859 this impossible field study in spite of her lack 00:01:50.859 --> 00:01:52.900 of a university background. Wait, really? Yeah. 00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:55.280 She was chosen by her mentor specifically because 00:01:55.280 --> 00:01:57.780 she didn't have one. OK, let's unpack this. Because 00:01:57.780 --> 00:02:00.640 that mentor was Louis Leakey, the legendary paleoanthropologist. 00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:03.159 All right. But how does the secretary end up 00:02:03.159 --> 00:02:04.879 working for Louis Leakey? We have to look at 00:02:04.879 --> 00:02:07.379 her childhood. She was born in London in 1934. 00:02:07.819 --> 00:02:09.879 Instead of a normal teddy bear, her dad gives 00:02:09.879 --> 00:02:12.099 her a stuffed toy chimpanzee. Named Jubilee. 00:02:12.500 --> 00:02:16.060 Yes, Jubilee, which is just so hyper realistic. 00:02:16.180 --> 00:02:18.319 And it completely horrified her mother's friends. 00:02:18.379 --> 00:02:19.979 I mean, they thought it was grotesque. They thought 00:02:19.979 --> 00:02:22.319 she'd get night terrors from it. Yeah, but instead 00:02:22.319 --> 00:02:25.960 it sparked this lifelong obsessive love for African 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:29.800 wildlife. So fast forward to 1957. She goes to 00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:33.289 Kenya, gets a secretarial job, and just... She 00:02:33.289 --> 00:02:35.870 literally cold calls Louie Leakey. No pitch. 00:02:36.250 --> 00:02:37.789 Nothing. Just wants to talk to someone about 00:02:37.789 --> 00:02:40.569 animals. And Leakey at this point is a giant 00:02:40.569 --> 00:02:43.169 in the field. He's digging up hominid fossils 00:02:43.169 --> 00:02:46.289 in the Olduvai Gorge, trying to figure out human 00:02:46.289 --> 00:02:49.430 origins. Right, and Leakey had this radical theory. 00:02:50.009 --> 00:02:52.689 He believed fossils only show you bone structure. 00:02:52.930 --> 00:02:54.969 Makes sense. But if you want to understand how 00:02:54.969 --> 00:02:57.509 our ancestors behaved like, how they solved problems, 00:02:57.650 --> 00:03:00.919 how they socialized... You have to study the 00:03:00.919 --> 00:03:03.280 great apes alive today. So he needs a researcher 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:06.139 to go live with wild chimps. Exactly. But he 00:03:06.139 --> 00:03:08.400 doesn't tell her that right away. He hires her 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:11.180 as a secretary, takes her on a dig to test her 00:03:11.180 --> 00:03:13.560 resilience, and then finally drops the Gombe 00:03:13.560 --> 00:03:16.240 stream plan on her. Which, by the way, was considered 00:03:16.240 --> 00:03:19.159 so absurdly dangerous that the park's chief warden 00:03:19.159 --> 00:03:21.520 wouldn't even let her go alone. Oh, yeah. The 00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:24.439 mandatory chaperone. Right. A 26 -year -old woman 00:03:24.439 --> 00:03:27.360 heading into uncharted jungle for primate research. 00:03:27.699 --> 00:03:30.490 And she has to bring her mom. Her mother, Van. 00:03:31.310 --> 00:03:33.569 Honestly, it was a godsend because field biology 00:03:33.569 --> 00:03:36.770 in the 60s was this aggressively male -dominated 00:03:36.770 --> 00:03:39.349 space. Oh, for sure. Having her mom there running 00:03:39.349 --> 00:03:42.129 base camp gave Goodall this crucial psychological 00:03:42.129 --> 00:03:44.969 anchor because it took months just to get the 00:03:44.969 --> 00:03:47.229 chimps to not run away when they saw her. Just 00:03:47.229 --> 00:03:50.439 brutal, exhausting work. And Leakey is so confident 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:53.819 in her that by 1962, he forces the academic world 00:03:53.819 --> 00:03:55.939 to take her seriously. He gets her into Cambridge 00:03:55.939 --> 00:03:58.580 for a PhD. Without a bachelor's degree. Right. 00:03:58.599 --> 00:04:00.479 She's only the eighth person in Cambridge history 00:04:00.479 --> 00:04:02.819 to ever be allowed to do that. But here's my 00:04:02.819 --> 00:04:05.659 question. This is like a tech CEO hiring a brilliant 00:04:05.659 --> 00:04:08.699 high schooler to lead R &D specifically because 00:04:08.699 --> 00:04:10.900 they aren't brainwashed by industry norms yet. 00:04:11.020 --> 00:04:13.080 That's a great way to put it. But wasn't that 00:04:13.080 --> 00:04:15.280 incredibly risky for Leakey's own reputation? 00:04:15.900 --> 00:04:19.040 Why bypass the whole academic system? Well, what's 00:04:19.040 --> 00:04:21.579 fascinating here is that Leakey knew a top -tier 00:04:21.579 --> 00:04:24.639 biology grad in the 50s would be totally indoctrinated. 00:04:24.779 --> 00:04:27.699 Into ethology, right? Exactly. The science of 00:04:27.699 --> 00:04:30.279 animal behavior back then was so clinical, they 00:04:30.279 --> 00:04:33.040 treated animals like stimulus response machines. 00:04:33.339 --> 00:04:36.579 Oh, just cold data. Yeah. Trained ethologists 00:04:36.579 --> 00:04:39.259 would have gone to Gombe with academic blinders 00:04:39.259 --> 00:04:41.339 on, just measuring distances and ticking boxes 00:04:41.339 --> 00:04:44.620 on a clipboard. But good all... was a blank slate. 00:04:44.899 --> 00:04:46.800 She didn't know the rules. Right. She just watched 00:04:46.800 --> 00:04:48.660 them without trying to force them into a math 00:04:48.660 --> 00:04:50.600 model. But because she didn't know the rules, 00:04:50.860 --> 00:04:53.220 she immediately commits the ultimate scientific 00:04:53.220 --> 00:04:56.540 sin of that era. The naming. Yes. The gold standard 00:04:56.540 --> 00:05:00.160 was to use numbers. Subject 1, subject 14. You 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:03.339 strip identity to stay objective. But she ignores 00:05:03.339 --> 00:05:05.439 it entirely. Raisingly ignores it. She names 00:05:05.439 --> 00:05:10.110 them David Greybird, Flo, Frodo. Goliath. And 00:05:10.110 --> 00:05:11.970 she writes field notes about them hugging and 00:05:11.970 --> 00:05:14.310 kissing and tickling each other. And the establishment 00:05:14.310 --> 00:05:17.089 lost its collective mind. They accused her of 00:05:17.089 --> 00:05:19.730 anthropomorphism. Right. Projecting human emotions 00:05:19.730 --> 00:05:22.709 onto animals. Basically accused her of writing 00:05:22.709 --> 00:05:25.629 Disney fairy tales and calling it science. Okay, 00:05:26.029 --> 00:05:27.949 but playing devil's advocate here, here's where 00:05:27.949 --> 00:05:30.529 it gets really interesting. Numbering subjects 00:05:30.529 --> 00:05:33.610 actually seems like basic logical scientific 00:05:33.610 --> 00:05:37.199 objectivity. It does. By naming them David and 00:05:37.199 --> 00:05:40.420 deciding he has a brave personality, didn't she 00:05:40.420 --> 00:05:43.019 severely risk projecting human narratives and 00:05:43.019 --> 00:05:46.160 losing her scientific credibility? That is exactly 00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:48.399 what her professors at Cambridge hammered her 00:05:48.399 --> 00:05:51.199 with. But history proved them completely wrong. 00:05:51.339 --> 00:05:53.980 How so? Because naming wasn't just a cute quirk, 00:05:54.160 --> 00:05:57.769 it was a revolutionary data tool. Chimp societies 00:05:57.769 --> 00:06:00.589 are incredibly complex. Like political alliances 00:06:00.589 --> 00:06:03.709 and stuff? Yes. Intergenerational politics, deep 00:06:03.709 --> 00:06:06.829 familial grief, social hierarchy spanning decades. 00:06:07.250 --> 00:06:09.850 You cannot track 50 years of Machiavellian family 00:06:09.850 --> 00:06:12.709 dynamics if you only see subject 14 interacting 00:06:12.709 --> 00:06:15.490 with subject 26. Ah, so you need the individual 00:06:15.490 --> 00:06:18.250 narrative to see the big picture. Exactly. Treating 00:06:18.250 --> 00:06:20.670 them as individuals unlocked a depth that cold 00:06:20.670 --> 00:06:23.430 metrics couldn't capture. Empathy became a valid 00:06:23.430 --> 00:06:26.160 scientific instrument. And that empathy leads 00:06:26.160 --> 00:06:29.240 directly to the massive breakthrough. She spends 00:06:29.240 --> 00:06:31.959 months gaining the trust of this male chimp, 00:06:32.120 --> 00:06:35.220 David Greybeard. And one day, she sees him at 00:06:35.220 --> 00:06:37.819 a termite mound. This is the moment. He doesn't 00:06:37.819 --> 00:06:41.040 just use a stick. She watches him deliberately 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:44.120 pick a leafy twig, strip the leaves off to smooth 00:06:44.120 --> 00:06:47.660 it out, and then fish for termites. He modified 00:06:47.660 --> 00:06:49.860 an object from his environment? He manufactured 00:06:49.860 --> 00:06:52.360 a tool. And you really can't overstate how huge 00:06:52.360 --> 00:06:55.079 that was. The scientific consensus literally 00:06:55.079 --> 00:06:57.959 defined our species as man the toolmaker. It 00:06:57.959 --> 00:07:00.699 was our exclusive club. Right. It was the impenetrable 00:07:00.699 --> 00:07:03.600 wall separating humanity from the beasts. So 00:07:03.600 --> 00:07:06.439 she telegraphs Leaky and his response is legendary. 00:07:07.319 --> 00:07:10.600 We must now redefine man, redefine tool or accept 00:07:10.600 --> 00:07:12.879 chimpanzees as human. Such an amazing quote. 00:07:12.959 --> 00:07:14.879 She completely erased the line between us and 00:07:14.879 --> 00:07:17.550 them. She did. But. And this is the big but, 00:07:17.810 --> 00:07:20.509 if we accept they're like us with familial love 00:07:20.509 --> 00:07:22.810 and tool making. They also share our shadows. 00:07:23.050 --> 00:07:25.649 Exactly. And that is the jarring part. The second 00:07:25.649 --> 00:07:28.730 dogma she destroyed was the peaceful vegetarian 00:07:28.730 --> 00:07:30.949 ape myth. Yeah, this was a tough pill to swallow. 00:07:31.269 --> 00:07:34.110 She discovered they are strategic, highly active 00:07:34.110 --> 00:07:37.290 hunters. She saw them hunting a colobus monkey, 00:07:37.470 --> 00:07:39.430 and it wasn't just scavenging. It was a coordinated 00:07:39.430 --> 00:07:42.310 military tactic. Blocking escape routes, flushing 00:07:42.310 --> 00:07:44.750 the monkey out, dividing the meat. They're apex 00:07:44.750 --> 00:07:47.500 predators. They eat up to a third of the park's 00:07:47.500 --> 00:07:50.360 colobus population every single year. It totally 00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:53.300 shattered that noble savage illusion, and it 00:07:53.300 --> 00:07:56.420 got darker, much darker. The Gombe Chimpanzee 00:07:56.420 --> 00:08:01.220 War. Right, from 1974 to 1978. Good -ol used 00:08:01.220 --> 00:08:03.620 to think chimps were inherently better than humans, 00:08:03.980 --> 00:08:06.620 but then a community split into two factions, 00:08:07.019 --> 00:08:09.779 the Kasekila and the Kahama. And it was a systematic 00:08:09.779 --> 00:08:12.560 annihilation. Over four years, the larger faction 00:08:12.560 --> 00:08:15.600 hunted down and murdered every single male of 00:08:15.600 --> 00:08:18.439 the smaller faction. Just horrifying brutality, 00:08:18.980 --> 00:08:21.259 dominant females killing rival infants to keep 00:08:21.259 --> 00:08:24.279 status, cannibalism. Goodall wrote about waking 00:08:24.279 --> 00:08:26.420 up terrified in the night. She was traumatized 00:08:26.420 --> 00:08:28.740 by seeing this innate violence in animals she 00:08:28.740 --> 00:08:31.160 loved. This is like finding out your sweet vegetarian 00:08:31.160 --> 00:08:33.120 grandmother is secretly running an underground 00:08:33.120 --> 00:08:35.559 bare -knuckle boxing ring. Huh, exactly. Just 00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:38.600 a total paradigm shift. But this sparks a huge 00:08:38.600 --> 00:08:41.860 controversy. A researcher named Margaret Power 00:08:41.860 --> 00:08:44.639 pointed a finger at Goodall's use of artificial 00:08:44.639 --> 00:08:47.340 feeding stations. Right, the banana camps. To 00:08:47.340 --> 00:08:49.840 get the chimps used to humans, Goodall's team 00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:52.600 had set up a central location with bananas. And 00:08:52.600 --> 00:08:55.379 Margaret Power has a massive point here. If you 00:08:55.379 --> 00:08:58.139 drop a highly valuable concentrated food source 00:08:58.139 --> 00:09:01.659 into a wild population, you create artificial 00:09:01.659 --> 00:09:04.519 scarcity. And competition. So what does this 00:09:04.519 --> 00:09:07.600 all mean? Did her own methodology accidentally 00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:10.919 manufacture the war? She became famous for documenting. 00:09:11.080 --> 00:09:12.759 Well, this raises an important question about 00:09:12.759 --> 00:09:15.159 the observer effect in science. How much does 00:09:15.159 --> 00:09:17.580 studying a system alter it? Right. And to her 00:09:17.580 --> 00:09:19.759 credit, Goodall didn't shy away. She admitted 00:09:19.759 --> 00:09:21.759 the bananas probably amplified the aggression. 00:09:21.879 --> 00:09:24.440 High value resources caused tension. Sure. But 00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:26.779 she fiercely maintained that it only altered 00:09:26.779 --> 00:09:29.519 the intensity of the conflict, not the fundamental 00:09:29.519 --> 00:09:32.620 nature of the species. The capacity for war was 00:09:32.620 --> 00:09:35.559 innate. The bananas were just a catalyst. Exactly. 00:09:35.799 --> 00:09:38.200 And subsequent research totally vindicated her. 00:09:38.600 --> 00:09:41.080 Other primatologists doing long -term studies 00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:44.039 without feeding stations still observed intergroup 00:09:44.039 --> 00:09:46.899 warfare and infanticide. So the duality is real, 00:09:46.899 --> 00:09:49.580 the empathy and the violence? It is. Though in 00:09:49.580 --> 00:09:52.519 2017, she did admit she wouldn't use feeding 00:09:52.519 --> 00:09:54.779 stations today. Because of disease, right? Yeah. 00:09:54.799 --> 00:09:57.919 We know now how easily human diseases can wipe 00:09:57.919 --> 00:10:00.919 out ape populations through close contact. And 00:10:00.919 --> 00:10:03.200 that willingness to adapt is what pulled her 00:10:03.200 --> 00:10:05.639 out of the jungle. Yeah. Sources point to a very 00:10:05.639 --> 00:10:09.360 specific moment. A 1986 con... in Chicago called 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:11.899 Understanding Chimpanzees. She walked in as a 00:10:11.899 --> 00:10:14.299 researcher and walked out as a full -time activist. 00:10:14.700 --> 00:10:16.259 Because what's the point of gathering behavior 00:10:16.259 --> 00:10:18.620 data if the forest they live in is being destroyed? 00:10:18.820 --> 00:10:20.960 Exactly. The habitat destruction and bushmeat 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:23.159 trade data presented there just changed her life. 00:10:23.320 --> 00:10:26.460 So she found the Jane Goodall Institute and the 00:10:26.460 --> 00:10:29.340 Roots and Shoots Youth Program. But the program 00:10:29.340 --> 00:10:32.879 that really blows my mind is to care. Oh, it 00:10:32.879 --> 00:10:35.100 was brilliant. Traditional conservation was just 00:10:35.100 --> 00:10:37.559 draw a line on a map. build a fence, keep humans 00:10:37.559 --> 00:10:40.519 out. But she realized if the humans bordering 00:10:40.519 --> 00:10:43.440 the park are starving and need firewood to boil 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:47.129 water so their kids don't get dysentery. Offense 00:10:47.129 --> 00:10:49.129 means nothing. They'll cut the forest down to 00:10:49.129 --> 00:10:52.190 survive. Exactly. So Ticare focused entirely 00:10:52.190 --> 00:10:54.230 on the humans. It was holistic. Agricultural 00:10:54.230 --> 00:10:56.870 training, microloans. Scholarships for local 00:10:56.870 --> 00:10:59.490 girls to go to college. They turned desperate 00:10:59.490 --> 00:11:02.009 competitors into economically stable stakeholders 00:11:02.009 --> 00:11:05.289 in the forest's survival. Such a massive shift 00:11:05.289 --> 00:11:09.690 in philosophy. And she pushed this advocacy globally, 00:11:10.210 --> 00:11:12.509 getting captive chimps in the U .S. listed as 00:11:12.509 --> 00:11:15.509 endangered. She even went vegan. She really aligned 00:11:15.509 --> 00:11:17.909 her whole life with her ethics. But, okay, let's 00:11:17.909 --> 00:11:20.230 unpack this part, because amidst all this heavy, 00:11:20.429 --> 00:11:23.070 world -changing activism, her personal life was 00:11:23.070 --> 00:11:25.210 full of these crazy contradictions. Oh, she had 00:11:25.210 --> 00:11:27.750 some amazing quirks. You'd think the world's 00:11:27.750 --> 00:11:29.830 preeminent chimp expert would love chimps the 00:11:29.830 --> 00:11:32.190 most, but she explicitly stated her favorite 00:11:32.190 --> 00:11:34.669 animals were actually dogs. She never hid it. 00:11:34.769 --> 00:11:37.070 Just a profound love for dogs. And the detail 00:11:37.070 --> 00:11:39.789 that genuinely stunned me. She suffered from 00:11:39.789 --> 00:11:43.500 prosopagnosia. Face blindness. The woman who 00:11:43.500 --> 00:11:46.179 forced science to recognize the individual faces 00:11:46.179 --> 00:11:49.759 of wild chimpanzees struggled her entire life 00:11:49.759 --> 00:11:53.379 to recognize human faces. The irony is just staggering, 00:11:53.539 --> 00:11:56.139 but I think it speaks to how differently her 00:11:56.139 --> 00:11:58.659 brain processed the world. Oh, for sure. Which 00:11:58.659 --> 00:12:00.980 extended to the unknown, too. She was publicly 00:12:00.980 --> 00:12:05.039 fascinated by cryptids. Yes. She told the Huffington 00:12:05.039 --> 00:12:07.399 Post she'd read all the accounts of Bigfoot and 00:12:07.399 --> 00:12:09.820 would actually love for it to exist. Which sounds 00:12:09.820 --> 00:12:12.779 absurd for a rigorous scientist. It feels like 00:12:12.779 --> 00:12:15.360 finding out Einstein's favorite subject was recess. 00:12:15.980 --> 00:12:17.779 It's almost a punchline. But think about it. 00:12:17.899 --> 00:12:20.279 The only reason she discovered tool use was because 00:12:20.279 --> 00:12:22.840 her mind was radically open to the impossible. 00:12:22.919 --> 00:12:24.879 Oh, that's true. Why wouldn't she entertain an 00:12:24.879 --> 00:12:27.440 undiscovered primate? Exactly. She never let 00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:30.080 academia extinguish her sense of wonder. And 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:32.500 that genuine approachability is why she became 00:12:32.500 --> 00:12:34.899 a pop culture icon. Which brings us to her legacy. 00:12:35.460 --> 00:12:38.740 She passed away in 2025 on a speaking tour, but 00:12:38.740 --> 00:12:42.100 her cultural footprint is just immortal. Stevie 00:12:42.100 --> 00:12:44.279 Nicks wrote a song about her. She voiced herself 00:12:44.279 --> 00:12:46.690 on The Simpsons. Mattel made a Barbie of her 00:12:46.690 --> 00:12:49.649 from recycled plastic. She was basically a scientific 00:12:49.649 --> 00:12:52.610 rock star. How many ethologists have groupies? 00:12:53.049 --> 00:12:55.990 Almost none. But if we connect this to the bigger 00:12:55.990 --> 00:12:59.629 picture, she wielded that fame with such brilliant 00:12:59.629 --> 00:13:02.429 humor. Oh, man, the Gary Larson incident. Yes. 00:13:02.690 --> 00:13:05.870 So in 1987, Gary Larson publishes a far side 00:13:05.870 --> 00:13:08.809 comic. Two chimps are grooming each other. One 00:13:08.809 --> 00:13:10.809 finds a blonde hair and says, conducting a little 00:13:10.809 --> 00:13:13.269 more research with that Jane Goodall tramp. Very 00:13:13.269 --> 00:13:16.429 classic, edgy far side. Her institute's lawyers 00:13:16.429 --> 00:13:19.149 were furious. They were drafting cease and desist 00:13:19.149 --> 00:13:22.129 letters, calling it an atrocity. Ready to sue 00:13:22.129 --> 00:13:24.129 for defamation. When she was out in the field. 00:13:24.649 --> 00:13:28.149 When she finally gets back and sees it, she absolutely 00:13:28.149 --> 00:13:30.210 loves it. She thought it was hilarious. She shuts 00:13:30.210 --> 00:13:33.210 down the lawyers, calls it her favorite pop culture 00:13:33.210 --> 00:13:36.110 depiction. And then this is the PR judo master 00:13:36.110 --> 00:13:39.009 class. She starts selling T -shirts of the comic 00:13:39.009 --> 00:13:41.990 to fund her institute. It's the perfect example 00:13:41.990 --> 00:13:44.450 of her zero ego approach, though, you know, the 00:13:44.450 --> 00:13:46.269 universe has a twisted sense of humor. Oh, right, 00:13:46.389 --> 00:13:48.309 because when Gary Larson actually visited Gombe 00:13:48.309 --> 00:13:50.929 the next year, he got physically attacked and 00:13:50.929 --> 00:13:53.850 roughed up by a chimp named Frodo. You literally 00:13:53.850 --> 00:13:56.149 cannot write a better punchline to that saga. 00:13:57.269 --> 00:14:00.190 But it shows how strategic she was. Every talk 00:14:00.190 --> 00:14:03.210 show, every joke was a calculated move to fund 00:14:03.210 --> 00:14:05.570 conservation. So when you look at her whole 91 00:14:05.570 --> 00:14:08.669 -year arc, the takeaway is so empowering. A young 00:14:08.669 --> 00:14:11.850 secretary with a stuffed toy redefines human 00:14:11.850 --> 00:14:14.590 exceptionalism just by watching with empathy. 00:14:14.769 --> 00:14:16.970 She sees the brutal warfare in nature and still 00:14:16.970 --> 00:14:19.649 dedicates her life to protecting it by uplifting 00:14:19.649 --> 00:14:21.669 the humans around it. She proves that approaching 00:14:21.669 --> 00:14:23.970 a complex problem with a beginner's mind can 00:14:23.970 --> 00:14:26.250 literally change the world. Which brings me to 00:14:26.250 --> 00:14:28.649 one final fascinating detail from the sources 00:14:28.649 --> 00:14:31.210 that I want you to mull over. She wrote 32 books 00:14:31.210 --> 00:14:34.549 in her life. A huge output. The 2013 book, Seeds 00:14:34.549 --> 00:14:37.750 of Hope, had a massive plagiarism scandal. Right 00:14:37.750 --> 00:14:40.090 before release, reviewers found chunks copied 00:14:40.090 --> 00:14:43.230 from websites, including Wikipedia. Unattributed. 00:14:43.350 --> 00:14:45.929 It was a big deal. She had to apologize, halt 00:14:45.929 --> 00:14:49.409 the release, and add 57 pages of endnotes. And 00:14:49.409 --> 00:14:52.529 her excuse. She blamed her fundamentally chaotic 00:14:52.529 --> 00:14:55.570 note -taking. It's definitely a black mark, but 00:14:55.570 --> 00:14:58.009 it forces us to look at the double -edged sword 00:14:58.009 --> 00:15:02.889 of her genius. Exactly. The same chaotic, untethered 00:15:02.889 --> 00:15:05.690 mind that caused a publishing scandal was the 00:15:05.690 --> 00:15:08.470 exact same mind that saw what the rigid 1960s 00:15:08.470 --> 00:15:11.649 academics completely missed. Right. So how much 00:15:11.649 --> 00:15:14.490 of brilliant paradigm shifting science relies 00:15:14.490 --> 00:15:17.190 entirely on the messy, unconventional thinking 00:15:17.190 --> 00:15:19.850 that modern academia tries so hard to eliminate? 00:15:20.190 --> 00:15:22.129 That's a profound question. You probably wouldn't 00:15:22.129 --> 00:15:24.309 hire an uncredentialed secretary to run your 00:15:24.309 --> 00:15:26.909 lab today. But if we filter out everyone who 00:15:26.909 --> 00:15:29.649 doesn't fit the mold, Whose discoveries are we 00:15:29.649 --> 00:15:31.309 missing? Something to really think about. We'll 00:15:31.309 --> 00:15:32.250 catch you on the next Deep Dive.