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In 1960, a 26-year-old began studying chimpanzees in East Africa. She had no higher education in science. Jane Goodall would go on to become one of the best-known scientists and conservationists in the world. She died Wednesday at 91. And as NPR's Nate Rott reports, she inspired generations of scientists hoping to better understand our place in the world.
NATE ROTT, BYLINE: When Jane Goodall started her long-term study of chimpanzee behavior in Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park, a study that would make her a household name, her lack of experience was viewed as a good thing - at least in the eyes of her adviser and mentor, the paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey. That's what she told NPR on MORNING EDITION in an interview in 2021.
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JANE GOODALL: Because at that time, the scientific attitude towards animals was so reductionist. You know, only humans had personalities, minds and emotions, and animals were not sentient beings at all. You shouldn't have empathy with them. Well, I didn't know any of that. I hadn't been told it.
ROTT: Goodall gave the chimpanzees she was studying names like Flo, Fifi and David Greybeard. She interacted with them and quickly started making discoveries about their social structures, how they use tools, how, in many ways, they weren't all that different from us.
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GOODALL: Genetically, we share 98.6% of our DNA with them.
ROTT: So she did empathize with them.
THOMAS GILLESPIE: Jane brought science and caring together.
ROTT: Thomas Gillespie is a professor and the chair of the department of environmental sciences at Emory University.
GILLESPIE: She dealt with animal welfare issues as well as conservation issues.
ROTT: For the past 20-some years, Gillespie worked with Goodall in a collaborative project monitoring the health of chimpanzees and other wildlife in the Greater Gombe Ecosystem, where Goodall got her start.
GILLESPIE: So often I would see Jane and look up to her, and then I would hear from other scientists, well, she's not a real scientist.
ROTT: But Gillespie says her ability to push through that narrative and communicate science, making it accessible to policymakers and the public both as a researcher and, later in life, as an advocate, was part of what made her so special. Her fame didn't hurt either.
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YEARDLEY SMITH: (As Lisa) Dr. Goodall, I can't thank you enough for saving Lolo.
GOODALL: (As self) Lolo. That's what they called her in captivity. But I've given her a new name, one worthy of such a magnificent creature - Popo.
ROTT: Goodall voiced herself in an episode of "The Simpsons" in 2019. The toymaker Mattel released a Jane Goodall-themed Barbie in 2022, complete with binoculars and a notebook.
GILLESPIE: She was able to become, in many ways, the face of Mother Nature.
ROTT: But perhaps her most enduring legacy is how many people she inspired.
LYNNE ISBELL: I had always been interested in animal behavior.
ROTT: Lynne Isbell was in college, wandering around a bookstore, when she stumbled on Goodall's book "In The Shadow of Man."
ISBELL: The cover had a woman, young woman with green background of the forest, following chimpanzees. And I thought, wow. She kind of looks like me. That's when I decided I wanted to do that kind of work.
ROTT: Isbell would go on to work in Africa as well and become, for a time, the president of the American Society of Primatologists. And she says one time, she met Goodall in Africa and told her how she had been her inspiration.
ISBELL: Of course, I didn't say it very articulately. I was very nervous. But she took it in stride. And she just said something like, oh, you don't know how many women have told me this (laughter).
ROTT: Isbell says it was a big moment for her, a small moment for Goodall and an example of how humble and impactful she was and continues to be.
Nate Rott, NPR News.
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