Althouse: Goodbye to Jane Goodall.

October 2, 2025

Goodbye to Jane Goodall.

From "Jane Goodall: A Life in Pictures The primatologist gained scientific acclaim for her work with chimpanzees and then later used her fame to champion conservation" (NYT)(free access link, so you can see the pictures).

15 comments:

Joe Bar said...: "You cannot imagine how wrong you are."; 10/2/25, 6:10 AM
Whiskeybum said...: I attended a lecture of hers in college some 50 years ago. I remember her as a good speaker, but strangely, I can’t remember any highlight from her speech; just that she seemed to be a very disciplined person. RIP; 10/2/25, 6:17 AM
rehajm said...: It’s a fun photo…hopefully she doesn’t ignite a chain of naturalist deaths…; 10/2/25, 6:18 AM
Money Manger said...: So if her parents had instead given her, say, a stuffed Beluga Whale, she would have spent her life on the high seas.

Infant toys as destiny.; 10/2/25, 6:41 AM
Quayle said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/2/25, 6:56 AM
n.n said...: Just aping around.; 10/2/25, 7:25 AM
rhhardin said...: The philosophical crisis when chimps were taught sign language is covered in Vicki Hearne _Adam's Task_.; 10/2/25, 7:27 AM
Bob Boyd said...: Thanks, Althouse. Those are some great pictures.; 10/2/25, 7:29 AM
Peachy said...: I like people who love animals.; 10/2/25, 7:46 AM
Bob Boyd said...: When Greta Thunberg was a baby her parents gave her a broken thermometer.; 10/2/25, 7:47 AM
Peachy said...: Money - perhaps she has a few stuffed animal verities - but was the one.; 10/2/25, 7:47 AM
Marcus Bressler said...: Terminal TDS catches up to another: Donald Trump and chimpanzee behavior: In 2022 and 2016, Goodall's comments comparing Donald Trump's behavior to male chimpanzees vying for dominance went viral.; 10/2/25, 7:53 AM
Wince said...: Goodall wrote…
For several years I struggled to come to terms with this new knowledge. Often when I woke in the night, horrific pictures sprang unbidden to my mind—Satan [one of the apes], cupping his hand below Sniff's chin to drink the blood that welled from a great wound on his face; old Rodolf, usually so benign, standing upright to hurl a four-pound [1.8 kg] rock at Godi's prostrate body; Jomeo tearing a strip of skin from Dé's thigh; Figan, charging and hitting, again and again, the stricken, quivering body of Goliath, one of his childhood heroes.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War; 10/2/25, 7:55 AM
n.n said...: standing upright to hurl a four-pound [1.8 kg] rock at Godi's prostrate body

Capitol punishment.

cupping his hand below Sniff's chin to drink the blood that welled from a great wound

Planned Chimphood (PC)

Cruel and unusual.; 10/2/25, 8:00 AM
Eva Marie said...: The author of the article in the comments:
“When Jane Goodall began her work, it was absolutely the convention for scientists to refer to their animal subjects only by number -- to do anything else was viewed as a breach of scientific objectivity. And ascribing personalities to animals was viewed as anthropomorphic -- simply humans projecting our own attributes onto other species.
In psychology, "behaviorism" had also been the dominant paradigm for decades. Many of these researchers viewed their animal subjects as essentially a collection of hard-wired instincts -- rather than the thinking, feeling creatures that we now know they are.”
Just interesting. Not saying one view or the other is correct. Just interesting.; 10/2/25, 8:06 AM