Jane Goodall speaks at USC

Today I went to a lecture by Jane Goodall. Of course Goodall is one of the most famous scientists alive, but in my own peculiar cosmology what really makes her a big star is that she was referenced in a Far Side cartoon. See this page (under References in Popular Culture) for the whole story. She talked about how her fascination with animals and Africa was sparked by two fictional characters, Dr. Doolittle and Tarzan. She talked about how her erudite professors at Cambridge critized her writings as unprofessional and unscientific for ascribing such traits as “feelings” and “personalities” to mere chimpanzees. She says she knew they were wrong for one simple reason — she’d grown up with a dog. In fact, recent analysis has revealed that chimps are more similar to humans than anyone thought — we share about 99% of the same DNA. We are more similar to chimps than rats are to mice. Goodall described an incident where a startled chimp toppled into the moat surrounding his enclosure and seemed certain to drown. A bystander leapt into the water and rescued the chimp, against the orders of the keepers and at enormous risk to his own life. When asked why he’d done it, he replied, “I looked into his eyes and saw there an expression I recognized utterly, this look of, ‘Please somebody help me.'”