Several years ago, I moderated a gathering on an island off Istanbul that included the primatologist Jane Goodall.

I knew about her epic early years studying chimpanzees in the wild, at first without even a college degree.

The science she proceeded to do also ended up shaping the self-understanding of our species. She recalled modern Western science to the fact that we are a part of nature, not separate from it. But what I'd never gleaned from all I'd read about her across the years, yet saw powerfully when we met, is how fully she had, mid-career, given her life's work over to a new

passion. Humanity had become a threat to its own kin in the natural world. With the same

careful, empathic eye she trained on the entire ecosystem of the Gombe Forest, she began to do

her part to tend to the human pain and misunderstanding

that led to her beloved chimpanzees suffering. This hour, in honor of the publication of her

32nd book, we revisit the beautiful conversation I had with her in 2020. We experience the moral and spiritual convictions that have driven

this extraordinary woman, what she is teaching and still learning about what it means to be human.

I believe that a trigger for this development of the intellect, which is so startling really, was the fact that we developed

this way of communicating.

So I can tell you things you don't know.

You can tell me things I don't know.

We can teach children about things that aren't present.

And all that has enabled us to ask questions like, you know, who am I? Why am I here? And I believe

part of being human is a questioning, a curiosity, a trying to find answers, but an understanding

that there are some answers that, at least on this planet, this life, this life form, we will not be able to answer.

I'm Krista Tippett, and this is On Being.

Jane Goodall's new book is The Book of Hope, a survival guide for trying times.

She spoke to me over Zoom from pandemic lockdown in Bournemouth, England,

in the home where she spent part of her childhood,

living with her mother and her beloved grandmother whom she called Danny.

...