“What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language.”
There are few greater temptations (or pleasures) in life than viewing a documentary on primates and pointing to our closest primate relatives for their uncanny behavioural and physical resemblances to humans. Feeding each other, grooming each other, courting each other, throwing feca-…well, no, let’s not go there, because most of us have evolved beyond that. Most of us. So when we ask ourselves “What separates us from other animals?”, we question both our differences and our similarities – a feat deemed impossible without the influence of the work of famed ethologist Dr Jane Goodall. In 2017, Goodall returns to Australian shores to help us revisit this eminent yet elusive question. Since 1960, Goodall established herself as a low-ranking member of chimpanzee tribes in Gombe, Tanzania, where she documented not only complex personalities of the chimps, but the striking similarities they had to humans in terms of dietary habits, emotional stability, the use of hunting tools, and of experiencing war and peace. For the sciences, Goodall became renowned for broadening the criteria of scientific research, re-introducing the importance of qualitative data to explain some limitations that quantitative data had failed to, and ultimately reducing the distance (and increasing the intimacy) between the observer and the observed. Continuing her research throughout her life, Goodall has since also been a renowned environmental activist, founding the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to support ongoing wildlife research and the protection of natural habitats, and penning a total of 26 books between her research and her efforts in children’s education. Her activism and ongoing research into environmental conservation has yielded a slew of awards, medals, and honorary doctorate degrees throughout the last four decades. In 2004, she was titled Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.