Jane Goodall

What separates us from chimpanzees?

Posted Apr 2007Rated Inspiring, Beautiful

http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_goodall_on_what_separates_us_from_the_apes/transcript?
language=en#t-1452000

Jane Goodall hasn't found the missing link, but she's come closer than nearly anyone else. The
primatologist says the only real difference between humans and chimps is our sophisticated language.
She urges us to start using it to change the world.

Good morning everyone. First of all, it's been fantastic being here over these past few days. And
secondly, I feel it's a great honor to kind of wind up this extraordinary gathering of people, these
amazing talks that we've had. I feel that I've fitted in, in many ways, to some of the things that I've
heard. I came directly here from the deep, deep tropical rainforest in Ecuador, where I was out -- you
could only get there by a plane -- with indigenous people with paint on their faces and parrot feathers
on their headdresses, where these people are fighting to try and keep the oil companies, and keep the
roads, out of their forests. They're fighting to develop their own way of living within the forest in a world
that's clean, a world that isn't contaminated, a world that isn't polluted. And what was so amazing to
me, and what fits right in with what we're all talking about here at TED, is that there, right in the
middle of this rainforest, was some solar panels -- the first in that part of Ecuador -- and that was
mainly to bring water up by pump so that the women wouldn't have to go down. The water was
cleaned, but because they got a lot of batteries, they were able to store a lot of electricity. So every
house -- and there were, I think, eight houses in this little community -- could have light for, I think it
was about half an hour each evening. And there is the Chief, in all his regal finery, with a laptop
computer. (Laughter)And this man, he has been outside, but he's gone back, and he was saying, "You
know, we have suddenly jumped into a whole new era, and we didn't even know about the white man
50 years ago, and now here we are with laptop computers, and there are some things we want to learn
from the modern world. We want to know about health care. We want to know about what other people
do -- we're interested in it. And we want to learn other languages. We want to know English and French
and perhaps Chinese, and we're good at languages." So there he is with his little laptop computer, but
fighting against the might of the pressures -- because of the debt, the foreign debt of Ecuador -- fighting
the pressure of World Bank, IMF, and of course the people who want to exploit the forests and take
out the oil. And so, coming directly from there to here. But, of course, my real field of expertise lies in
an even different kind of civilization -- I can't really call it a civilization. A different way of life, a different
being. We've talked earlier -- this wonderful talk by Wade Davis about the different cultures of the
humans around the world -- but the world is not composed only of human beings; there are also other
animal beings. And I propose to bring into this TED conference, as I always do around the world, the
voice of the animal kingdom. Too often we just see a few slides, or a bit of film, but these beings have
voices that mean something. And so, I want to give you a greeting, as from a chimpanzee in the
forests of Tanzania -- Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh!
(Applause)I've been studying chimpanzees in Tanzania since 1960. During that time, there have been
modern technologies that have really transformed the way that field biologists do their work. For
example, for the first time, a few years ago, by simply collecting little fecal samples we were able to
have them analyzed -- to have DNA profiling done -- so for the first time, we actually know which male
chimps are the fathers of each individual infant. Because the chimps have a very promiscuous mating
society. So this opens up a whole new avenue of research. And we use GSI -- geographic whatever it
is, GSI -- to determine the range of the chimps. And we're using -- you can see that I'm not really into
this kind of stuff -- but we're using satellite imagery to look at the deforestation in the area. And of

course, there's developments in infrared, so you can watch animals at night, and equipment for
recording by video, and tape recording is getting lighter and better. So in many, many ways, we can do
things today that we couldn't do when I began in 1960. Especially when chimpanzees, and other
animals with large brains, are studied in captivity, modern technology is helping us to search for the
upper levels of cognition in some of these non-human animals. So that we know today, they're capable
of performances that would have been thought absolutely impossible by science when I began. I think
the chimpanzee in captivity who is the most skilled in intellectual performance is one called Ai in Japan
-- her name means love --and she has a wonderfully sensitive partner working with her. She loves her
computer -- she'll leave her big group, and her running water, and her trees and everything. And she'll
come in to sit at this computer -- it's like a video game for a kid; she's hooked. She's 28, by the way,
and she does things with her computer screen and a touch pad that she can do faster than most
humans. She does very complex tasks, and I haven't got time to go into them, but the amazing thing
about this female is she doesn't like making mistakes. If she has a bad run, and her score isn't good,
she'll come and reach up and tap on the glass -- because she can't see the experimenter -- which is
asking to have another go.And her concentration -- she's already concentrated hard for 20 minutes or
so, and now she wants to do it all over again, just for the satisfaction of having done it better. And the
food is not important -- she does get a tiny reward, like one raisin for a correct response -- but she will
do it for nothing, if you tell her beforehand. So here we are, a chimpanzee using a computer.
Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans also learn human sign language. But the point is that when I was
first in Gombe in 1960 -- I remember so well, so vividly, as though it was yesterday -- the first time,
when I was going through the vegetation,the chimpanzees were still running away from me, for the
most part, although some were a little bit acclimatized -- and I saw this dark shape, hunched over a
termite mound, and I peered with my binoculars. It was, fortunately, one adult male whom I'd named
David Greybeard -- and by the way, science at that time was telling me that I shouldn't name the
chimps; they should all have numbers; that was more scientific. Anyway, David Greybeard -- and I saw
that he was picking little pieces of grass and using them to fish termites from their underground nest.
And not only that -- he would sometimes pick a leafy twig and strip the leaves -- modifying an object to
make it suitable for a specific purpose --the beginning of tool-making. The reason this was so exciting
and such a breakthrough is at that time, it was thought that humans, and only humans, used and
made tools. When I was at school, we were defined as man, the toolmaker. So that when Louis
Leakey, my mentor, heard this news, he said, "Ah, we must now redefine 'man,' redefine 'tool,' or
accept chimpanzees as humans." (Laughter) We now know that at Gombe alone, there are nine
different ways in which chimpanzees use different objects for different purposes. Moreover, we know
that in different parts of Africa, wherever chimps have been studied, there are completely different toolusing behaviors. And because it seems that these patterns are passed from one generation to the
next, through observation, imitation and practice -- that is a definition of human culture. What we find
is that over these 40-odd years that I and others have been studying chimpanzees and the other great
apes, and, as I say, other mammals with complex brains and social systems, we have found that after
all, there isn't a sharp line dividing humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. It's a very wuzzy line.
It's getting wuzzier all the time as we find animals doing thingsthat we, in our arrogance, used to think
was just human. The chimps -- there's no time to discuss their fascinating lives -- but they have this
long childhood, five years of suckling and sleeping with the mother, and then another three, four or five
years of emotional dependence on her, even when the next child is born. The importance of learning in
that time, when behavior is flexible -- and there's an awful lot to learn in chimpanzee society. The longterm affectionate supportive bonds that develop throughout this long childhood with the mother, with
the brothers and sisters, and which can last through a lifetime,which may be up to 60 years. They can
actually live longer than 60 in captivity, so we've only done 40 years in the wild so far. And we find
chimps are capable of true compassion and altruism. We find in their non-verbal communication -- this
is very rich -- they have a lot of sounds, which they use in different circumstances, but they also use
touch, posture, gesture, and what do they do? They kiss; they embrace; they hold hands. They pat one
another on the back; they swagger; they shake their fist -- the kind of things that we do, and they do
them in the same kind of context. They have very sophisticated cooperation. Sometimes they hunt -not that often, but when they hunt, they show sophisticated cooperation, and they share the prey. We

find that they show emotions, similar to -- maybe sometimes the same -- as those that we describe in
ourselves as happiness, sadness, fear, despair. They know mental as well as physical suffering. And I
don't have time to go into the informationthat will prove some of these things to you, save to say that
there are very bright students, in the best universities, studying emotions in animals, studying
personalities in animals. We know that chimpanzees and some other creatures can recognize
themselves in mirrors -- "self" as opposed to "other." They have a sense of humor, and these are the
kind of things which traditionally have been thought of as human prerogatives. But this teaches us a
new respect -- and it's a new respect not only for the chimpanzees, I suggest, but some of the other
amazing animals with whom we share this planet. Once we're prepared to admit that after all, we're
not the only beings with personalities, minds and above all feelings, and then we start to think about
ways we use and abuse so many other sentient, sapient creatures on this planet, it really gives cause
for deep shame, at least for me. So, the sad thing is that these chimpanzees -- who've perhaps taught
us, more than any other creature, a little humility -- are in the wild, disappearing very fast. They're
disappearing for the reasons that all of you in this room know only too well. The deforestation, the
growth of human populations, needing more land. They're disappearing because some timber
companies go in with clear-cutting. They're disappearing in the heart of their range in Africa because
the big multinational logging companies have come in and made roads -- as they want to do in Ecuador
and other parts where the forests remain untouched -- to take out oil or timber. And this has led in
Congo basin, and other parts of the world, to what is known as the bush-meat trade. This means that
although for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, people have lived in those forests, or whatever
habitat it is, in harmony with their world, just killing the animals they need for themselves and their
families -- now, suddenly, because of the roads, the hunters can go in from the towns. They shoot
everything, every single thing that moves that's bigger than a small rat; they sun-dry it or smoke it. And
now they've got transport; they take it on the logging trucks or the mining trucks into the towns where
they sell it. And people will pay more for bush-meat, as it's called, than for domestic meat -- it's
culturally preferred. And it's not sustainable, and the huge logging camps in the forest are now
demanding meat, so the Pygmy hunters in the Congo basin who've lived there with their wonderful way
of living for so many hundreds of years are now corrupted. They're given weapons; they shoot for the
logging camps; they get money. Their culture is being destroyed, along with the animals upon whom
they depend. So, when the logging camp moves, there's nothing left. We talked already about the loss
of human cultural diversity, and I've seen it happening with my own eyes. And the grim picture in Africa
-- I love Africa, and what do we see in Africa? We see deforestation; we see the desert spreading; we
see massive hunger; we see disease and we see population growth in areas where there are more
people living on a certain piece of land than the land can possibly support, and they're too poor to buy
food from elsewhere. Were the people that we heard about yesterday, on the Easter Island, who cut
down their last tree -- were they stupid? Didn't they know what was happening? Of course, but if you've
seen the crippling poverty in some of these parts of the world it isn't a question of "Let's leave the
tree for tomorrow." "How am I going to feed my family today? Maybe I can get just a few dollars from
this last tree which will keep us going a little bit longer, and then we'll pray that something will happen
to save us from the inevitable end." So, this is a pretty grim picture. The one thing we have, which
makes us so different from chimpanzees or other living creatures, is this sophisticated spoken
language -- a language with which we can tell children about things that aren't here. We can talk about
the distant past, plan for the distant future, discuss ideas with each other, so that the ideas can grow
from the accumulated wisdom of a group. We can do it by talking to each other; we can do it through
video; we can do it through the written word. And we are abusing this great power we have to be wise
stewards, and we're destroying the world. In the developed world, in a way, it's worse, because we
have so much access to knowledge of the stupidity of what we're doing. Do you know, we're bringing
little babies into a world where, in many places, the water is poisoning them? And the air is harming
them, and the food that's grown from the contaminated land is poisoning them. And that's not just in
the far-away developing world; that's everywhere. Do you know we all have about 50 chemicals in our
bodies we didn't have about 50 years ago? And so many of these diseases, like asthma and certain
kinds of cancers, are on the increase around places where our filthy toxic waste is dumped. We're
harming ourselves around the world, as well as harming the animals, as well as harming nature herself

-- Mother Nature, that brought us into being; Mother Nature, where I believe we need to spend time,
where there's trees and flowers and birds for our good psychological development.And yet, there are
hundreds and hundreds of children in the developed world who never see nature,because they're
growing up in concrete and all they know is virtual reality, with no opportunity to go and lie in the sun,
or in the forest, with the dappled sun-specks coming down from the canopy above.As I was traveling
around the world, you know, I had to leave the forest -- that's where I love to be. I had to leave these
fascinating chimpanzees for my students and field staff to continue studyingbecause, finding they
dwindled from about two million 100 years ago to about 150,000 now, I knew I had to leave the forest
to do what I could to raise awareness around the world. And the more I talked about the chimpanzees'
plight, the more I realized the fact that everything's interconnected, and the problems of the
developing world so often stem from the greed of the developed world, and everything was joining
together, and making -- not sense, hope lies in sense, you said -- it's making a nonsense.How can we
do it? Somebody said that yesterday. And as I was traveling around, I kept meeting young people
who'd lost hope. They were feeling despair, they were feeling, "Well, it doesn't matter what we do; eat,
drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Everything is hopeless -- we're always being told so by the
media." And then I met some who were angry, and anger that can turn to violence, and we're all
familiar with that. And I have three little grandchildren, and when some of these students would say to
me at high school or university, they'd say, "We're angry," or "We're filled with despair, because we
feel you've compromised our future, and there's nothing we can do about it." And I looked in the eyes
of my little grandchildren, and think how much we've harmed this planet since I was their age. I feel
this deep shame, and that's why in 1991 in Tanzania, I started a program that's called Roots and
Shoots.There's little brochures all around outside, and if any of you have anything to do with children
and care about their future, I beg that you pick up that brochure. And Roots and Shoots is a program
for hope.Roots make a firm foundation. Shoots seem tiny, but to reach the sun they can break through
brick walls. See the brick walls as all the problems that we've inflicted on this planet. Then, you see, it
is a message of hope. Hundreds and thousands of young people around the world can break through,
and can make this a better world. And the most important message of Roots and Shoots is that every
single individual makes a difference. Every individual has a role to play. Every one of us impacts the
world around us everyday, and you scientists know that you can't actually -- even if you stay in bed all
day, you're breathing oxygen and giving out CO2, and probably going to the loo, and things like that -you're making a difference in the world. So, the Roots and Shoots program involves youth in three
kinds of projects. And these are projects to make the world around them a better place. One project to
show care and concern for your own human community. One for animals, including domestic animals -and I have to say, I learned everything I know about animal behavior even before I got to Gombe and
the chimps from my dog, Rusty, who was my childhood companion. And the third kind of project:
something for the local environment. So what the kids do depends first of all, how old are they -- and
we go now from pre-school right through university. It's going to depend whether they're inner-city or
rural. It's going to depend if they're wealthy or impoverished. It's going to depend which part, say, of
America they're in. We're in every state now, and the problems in Florida are different from the
problems in New York. It's going to depend on which country they're in -- and we're already in 60-plus
countries, with about 5,000 active groups -- and there are groups all over the place that I keep hearing
about that I've never even heard of, because the kids are taking the program and spreading it
themselves. Why? Because they're buying into it, and they're the ones who get to decide what they're
going to do. It isn't something that their parents tell them, or their teachers tell them. That's effective,
but if they decide themselves, "We want to clean this river and put the fish back that used to be
there.We want to clear away the toxic soil from this area and have an organic garden. We want to go
and spend time with the old people and hear their stories and record their oral histories. We want to
go and work in a dog shelter. We want to learn about animals. We want ... " You know, it goes on and
on, and this is very hopeful for me. As I travel around the world 300 days a year, everywhere there's a
group of Roots and Shoots of different ages. Everywhere there are children with shining eyes saying,
"Look at the difference we've made." And now comes the technology into it, because with this new
way of communicating electronically these kids can communicate with each other around the world.
And if anyone is interested to help us, we've got so many ideas but we need help -- we need help to

create the right kind of system that will help these young people to communicate their excitement. But
also -- and this is so important -- to communicate their despair, to say, "We've tried this and it doesn't
work, and what shall we do?" And then, lo and behold, there's another group answering these kids
who may be in America, or maybe this is a group in Israel, saying, "Yeah, you did it a little bit wrong.
This is how you should do it." The philosophy is very simple. We do not believe in violence. No
violence, no bombs, no guns. That's not the way to solve problems. Violence leads to violence, at
least in my view. So how do we solve? The tools for solving the problems are knowledge and
understanding. Know the facts, but see how they fit in the big picture. Hard work and persistence
--don't give up -- and love and compassion leading to respect for all life. How many more minutes? Two,
one? Chris Anderson: One -- one to two. Jane Goodall: Two, two, I'm going to take two. (Laughter) Are
you going to come and drag me off? (Laughter) Anyway -- so basically, Roots and Shoots is beginning
to change young people's lives. It's what I'm devoting most of my energy to. And I believe that a group
like this can have a very major impact, not just because you can share technology with us, but
because so many of you have children. And if you take this program out, and give it to your children,
they have such a good opportunity to go out and do good, because they've got parents like you. And
it's been so clear how much you all care about trying to make this world a better place. It's very
encouraging. But the kids do ask me -- and this won't take more than two minutes, I promise -- the kids
say, "Dr. Jane, do you really have hope for the future? You travel, you see all these horrible things
happening." Firstly, the human brain -- I don't need to say anything about that. Now that we know what
the problems are around the world, human brains like yours are rising to solve those problems. And
we've talked a lot about that.Secondly, the resilience of nature. We can destroy a river, and we can
bring it back to life. We can see a whole area desolated, and it can be brought back to bloom again,
with time or a little help. And thirdly, the last speaker talked about -- or the speaker before last, talked
about the indomitable human spirit.We are surrounded by the most amazing people who do things that
seem to be absolutely impossible.Nelson Mandela -- I take a little piece of limestone from Robben
Island Prison, where he labored for 27 years, and came out with so little bitterness, he could lead his
people from the horror of apartheid without a bloodbath. Even after the 11th of September -- and I was
in New York and I felt the fear -- nevertheless, there was so much human courage, so much love and
so much compassion. And then as I went around the country after that and felt the fear -- the fear that
was leading to people feelingthey couldn't worry about the environment any more, in case they seemed
not to be patriotic -- and I was trying to encourage them, somebody came up with a little quotation from
Mahatma Gandhi, "If you look back through human history, you see that every evil regime has been
overcome by good." And just after that a woman brought me this little bell, and I want to end on this
note. She said, "If you're talking about hope and peace, ring this. This bell is made from metal from a
defused landmine, from the killing fields of Pol Pot -- one of the most evil regimes in human history -where people are now beginning to put their lives back together after the regime has crumbled. So,
yes, there is hope, and where is the hope? Is it out there with the politicians? It's in our hands. It's in
your hands and my hands and those of our children. It's really up to us. We're the ones who can make
a difference. If we lead lives where we consciously leave the lightest possible ecological footprints, if
we buy the things that are ethical for us to buy and don't buy the things that are not, we can change
the world overnight. Thank you.

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