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In one of her speeches, anthropologist Jane Goodall commented about
the powerful perspective on the difference between male and female
behavior, "Every individual matters, has a role to play and makes a
difference. We have this huge collective power. If only we'd use it. We
have this great "me-ism." You know, "I'm one person.
I live in an expanding world of people. What can I do to make any
difference?" It's apathy. What the individual does really matters. You
need to feel that you are contributing to society. Maybe it's boring in
your workplace, but work isn't the only part of your life. You have
evenings, weekends, holidays. And all the time, we can influence other
people by what we say. What our attitudes are. Even in the most boring
job, you can make a difference with your fellow workers, just with your
attitude."
Jane Goodall was born in April 3, 1934 in London and educated in
Bournemouth. Since her childhood, she was connected with animals in
some way or the other. She was an ardent fan of Tarzan. Her father
presented her with a chicken’s egg when she was six years old with the
intention that she would raise the bird as her pet. This bird became
her first pet. It also introduced her to the animal kingdom. As she
grew older, her interest in animals also grew and she aspired to work
in a job which involved them. She took secretarial courses, and she
waited tables to help fund her first trip to Africa. She went to Africa
and worked with the world famous anthropologist, Louis Leakey at the
Gombe Stream Chimpanzees Reserve on Lake Tanganyika where she had to
watch for nearly ten years the behavior of the rarely observed lives of
wild chimpanzees and record them.
She loved the experience of being amongst chimpanzees however,
initially they shied away from her. After a while they finally got used
to her and she was successful in being amongst them. She was able to be
with the chimps in their environment and they also became very
comfortable with her. She was able to witness the various phases of
their lives like fights, giving birth to their younger ones, feeding
etc.
With her growing knowledge of the various animal behaviors, she
pursued her education in the study of animal behavior which is called
Ethology. She became the most famous ethologist in the world due to her
ability to live with chimps and observe their various behaviors. She
was also able to provide advice to breeders and conservationists. She
is now a member of the teaching faculty in various universities around
the world giving talks about her various experiments with the wild
chimps at Gombe. [Weiss, 2004]
She once commented on her favorite topic, chimps as “Chimpanzees
have given me so much. The long hours I spent with them in the forest
have enriched my life beyond measure. What I have learned from them has
snapped my understandings of human behavior, of our place in nature."
She happens to be only ethologist who has been covered by National
Geographic magazine the maximum number of times. Her name has become
synonymous with names of chimps like Flo, Davd Greybeard and Freud. Her
study of chimps gives insight of humans’ humanness and behaviors and
also indicates humans’ association to chimps in various ways like that
about 98% of human DNA is similar to that of chimps. The chimps’ facial
expressions are usually like that of humans however, it is difficult to
correspond them to any kind of emotions. Behaviors of chimps are common
to that of humans like chimps greet one another with a hug, kiss or a
gentle touch with their hand and babies are usually with their mothers
till they are fully grown as well as the fact that they are omnivorous
contrary to the earlier belief that they were herbivorous.
Another significant discovery by Jane was that the chimps like
humans made and used tools for various applications. This breakthrough
was done when David Greybeard, the chimp used a thick grass blade as a
tool to catch termites. More than the thick grass blade being used, the
more amazing discovery by Jane was that David had used a metallic piece
to sharpen the blade. This was the first recorded incidence of tool
manufacturing in an animal other than humans. [Nichols 1995, Goodall
1971]
Jane received her Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1965 making her
one the only eight people who had received their Ph.D. without a
bachelor’s degree. Commenting on the findings on the similarity between
humans and chimps, she said, "It is not easy to study emotions even
when the subjects are human. As we try to come to grips with the
emotions of beings progressively more different from ourselves the
task, obviously, becomes increasingly difficult. If we ascribe human
emotions to nonhuman animals we are accused of being anthropomorphic-a
cardinal sin in ethology. But is it so terrible? If we test the effect
of drugs on chimpanzees because they are biologically so similar to
ourselves, if we accept that there are dramatic similarities in
chimpanzee and human brain and nervous system, is it not logical to
assume that there will be similarities also in at least the more basic
feelings, emotions, moods of the two species?" [Jane Goodall 1990,
p.16]
References:
Nichols, M. (1995). Jane Goodall. National Geographic. December.
105-131.
Goodall, J. (1990). Through a window. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Publishing, p.16
Weiss Adrian G., JANE GOODALL 1934- , website visited
on 30th December, 2004, http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/janegoodall.html
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