Jane Goodall’s Legacy of Challenging What It Means to Be a Scientist

Jane Goodol, a British primatologist, known for his work with chimpanzees, died on Wednesday October 1, at the age of 91. She was in California in a speech and died of natural reasons, according to the Institute, Jane Gudoll.

Guddul is most famous for its work with chimpanzees in the Gomba National Park in Tanzania. She was the first to find that the chimpanzees were made and used tools. Further, she became a defender of conservation, human rights and protection of animals, including the cessation of the use of animals in medical research. She founded the Jane Gudoll Institute, a non -profit organization in the wild and the protection of nature in Washington, the district of Colombia, in 1977.

Here are the ways in which Gudll's legacy will endure.


On the support of scientific journalism

If you like this article, consider the opportunity to support our journalism awards SubscriptionWhen buying a subscription, you help to ensure the future of effective stories about discoveries and ideas that form our world today.


Humanization of primates

During training for his doctor of philosophy at Cambridge University, Great Britain, in the early 1960s, Gudoll broke through the scientific convention on the use of numbers for the identification of animals, instead assigning them the names. She called male chimpanzees with silver hair on the face of David Graibard. This change at that time upset senior scientists, but now it is Normal practice Use animal names.

“This was criticized as non -scientific,” says MIRAE mayor, an anthropologist and a primatologist from the International University of Florida in Miami, “but she proved that science can expand its boundaries without losing severity.”

Guddul was one of the first to show that the animals had emotions, sympathy and culture, the features that were reserved for people, the mayor says. Her study has changed how animal research was conducted, she adds.

Her discoveries in the Gomba National Park “reduced humanity”, says Nick Boyle, executive director of the Tarong Zoo in Sydney, Australia. Gudoll challenged the idea that the chimpanzees were herbivores, and showed that they ate meat, hunted and engaged in war, he adds. In 1973, Guddolla observed the social separation between the two communities of chimpanzees, which led to a four -year conflict and the death of all male monkeys in one of the communities.

Inspiring women -scientists

In addition to primatology, the legacy of Gudolla is generations of women whom she inspired, according to the mayor. In 1961, Goodoll was one of the few students accepted into a doctoral degree in Cambridge without a bachelor's degree. She graduated from a doctoral degree in 1965.

“She showed that a young woman without official scientific training can rewrite the science and understanding of animals at such a fundamental level,” the mayor adds.

Alison Hayi, an anthropologist from the Australian National University, was one of the inspired by Goodall. After the performance of Goodolla, Beha, says that she switched her master from microbiology to anthropology and began to take courses of primatology and conservation. “It was just a happy coincidence, but she came to speak at a time when I am not quite sure what science I wanted to do,” she says.

In 2017, Hayy introduced eight of her students in Goodll during her visit to Australia. “For me there was a full circle so that I could show my students that inspired me to go on this path.”

Communication of science

The secret of the influence and popularity of Gudll is that she made her study interconnected, Beri says. Guddolla associated science with things that people worry and care about, such as relations between mother and child, and showed how similar to the people of chimpanzees. She made them take care of places and animals that were far away, the mayor adds.

She was a talented storyteller who helped her to contact the public and involve them in important issues, says Yuan Ritchi, a scientist in preserving the University of Dikin in Melbourne, Australia. She showed that researchers can be defenders and scientific communicators, and she is taken seriously, he says.

The longtime co -author of Thomas Gillespi, an ecologist for illness at the University of Emory in Atlanta, Georgia, says that Gudll was an introvert, so her success and the ability to communicate with the public demanded great discipline.

According to Boyle, she always devoted time to young people. “She was a messenger of hope,” and she saw that young people were so important in this, he adds. Her youth program “Roots and shooting”, created in 1991, was a way of teaching young people and involving them in the conservation efforts. “It was her child,” says Maria Sixix, Executive Director of the Jane Goodall Institute Australia Institute.

But there were sides of Goodolla, which the audience is unlikely to see, the mayor says. “Most people don’t know,” the mayor says is that “Jane was incredibly cheerful and flirty, even at 90.”

This article is reproduced with permission and was First published October 2, 2025.

Leave a Comment