When Jane Goodall went to Gombe to observe chimpanzees, in 1960, the world knew almost nothing about them. Everything we know about their social structure, mating habits, diets, and so on springs from her studies. Hers was the first such intensive, intentional study of wild primates I know of, but its success led to dozens of others. She was courageous, meticulous, clear-headed, and caring, and she publicly changed her mind about important claims she had made when new data convinced her that she had been wrong. To my mind, she was the perfect scientist.
Sometimes I marvel at how recent so much of my knowledge of the world actually is. What we knew about the operations of a cell when I was born could have been written on a single sheet of paper. We got our first look at the outer planets when I was in high school; we found the first extra-solar planet in 1992. My universe is vastly large than those of my ancestors.
So I honor Jane Goodall and all the other pioneering researchers who opened the world to us, giving us new tools for thinking about the universe and our place in it.
No comments:
Post a Comment