Jane Goodall: 'We're Part of the Animal Kingdom'

For more than half a century, Jane Goodall has lived with and studied chimpanzees.

But what has that time taught her about humans?

"We've been jolly arrogant," Goodall said Thursday afternoon, speaking to reporters at Lafayette College in Easton. "We're part of the animal kingdom. We're not separate from it."

Goodall was at the school to deliver its Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Visiting Lecture for 2012-13.

She said she hoped students would come away with the "recognition, the hope, that it's not too late to turn things around."

She also shared what she's learned from animals, and "what we can continue to learn from there."

Goodall, who runs the global non-profit that bears her name, said she continues to be surprised by chimps.

For example, they recently observed a grandmother chimp steal babies from her daughter. But the older chimp was no longer able to nurse, and the babies died.

It was done "out of love," Goodall said, although they're not exactly sure why it happened.

"There are a lot of strange things that we'll never understand," she said.

One thing she stressed: The line between us is very blurry. Chimps are violent and aggressive and loving and altruistic.

"More and more evidence piles up to show they're just like us," Goodall said.

One of those ways is their use of tools. Speaking Thursday night to an audience of about 1,800, Goodall descibed how she discovered one of the chimps using a blade of grass to fish termites out of a hole.

“We now have to redefine man, redefine tool, or accept that chimpanzees are human," she said of the thinking at the time.

That chimp—whom she called David—became her ambassador to the other chimps. She watched their families and realized that—as in humans—chimps with good, nurturing mothers grow into better chimps.

Goodall also talked about her own mother, and how she encouraged her daughter's love of science and reading.

One of her first literary loves—besides Dr. Doolittle, of course—was Tarzan. She fell "passionately in love" with the ape man early on.

“And what did he do?" Goodall asked. "He married the wrong Jane.”