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SEP 12, 2009
Jane Goodall SCIENCE
Jane Goodall

Besides being a pioneer, a genius, and one of the rare scientists who is as comfortable in front of a crowd as she is in an African jungle, Jane Goodall is one foxy lady. (I must've seen her in a National Geographic at some sexually formative age.) She's an unconventional scientist—and has been criticized for giving her chimps names instead of numbers—but her mind and heart have collaborated on one of the most admirable careers of the 20th century. Goodall has a new book called Hope for Animals and Their World, about successes and failures in the bringing-animals-back-from-extinction racket. Discussed: Asian vultures, giant pandas, Mongolian miniature horses, American whooping cranes, and more. The event is sold out, but you can linger by the back door for an autograph and a kiss. (Theo Chocolate, 3400 Phinney Ave N, 624-6600. 12:30 pm, $50.)

 

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1
Goodall is god.

Saw her live and she's inspiring. Later as a small group gathered around her, Godall was asked, "Do you think chimpanzees have souls?"

And Goodall replied, "If we do, they do."

Go see her.
Posted by judybrowni on September 12, 2009 at 12:21 PM · Report
2
I thought JG is a hero - until I read her autobiography. Now I think she is an untrained pseudoscientist, whose pioneering effort in observation of wildlife has to be weighed against her flawed, ideological anthropomorphisizing analysis. The validity of her observations is limited by her highly intrusive presence and is considered subjective by those who's peer she would like to be. The word on the street among wildlife biologists is that she is an egomaniacal bitch (hearsay alert).

Her epic publicity whoredom has raised awareness of great apes but her barely literate nuttiness has contributed to the view that wildlife advocates are all hippie douchebags. This week she was on the radio making an earnest case for the existence of bigfoot: You see, more than one culture has similar myths and the reason there is no evidence is that they are too smart and probably bury their dead - a fine example of her imbecile reasoning. If you go (50$, really?) make sure to ask her about the Loch Ness monster and the easter bunny.

By the way, the visionary genius behind this overgrown little girl who likes to play with animals is Louis Leakey. Google him.

Posted by Indi on September 12, 2009 at 2:23 PM · Report
Free Lunch 3
I saw an old documentary with her in the jungle, hanging enormous bunches of bananas in the trees in order to attract the apes so she could better observe them. Of course, in doing so, she completely altered their normal feeding behavior, around which other social behaviors obviously revolve. At that point, the study was about as real-world as watching chimps in a zoo.

Her devotion is admirable. Her methodology is not.
Posted by Free Lunch on September 12, 2009 at 5:12 PM · Report
4
Ask anyone involved in the large chimp sanctuaries in Oklahoma and Louisiana-- Goodall is no hero. She can be bought. Here's how it works-- Goodall acts "concerned" about conditions at a lab using chimps, the pharma brings out Goodall for a very generous "honorarium" or "speaking fee", and Goodall's suddenly very silent on the matter. One notorious example of where this happened where the 25 chimps at the University of Oklahoma who made fame in National Geographic for their sign-language abilities and were then sold off into very cruel pharmaceutical labs, where the chimps signed the word "out" from their cages constantly. Jane was "concerned", until she was paid a $250K speaking fee to give her approval of the situation.
Posted by Twitty on September 13, 2009 at 1:56 PM · Report

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