On being is brought to you by the John Templeton Foundation, harnessing the power of the sciences

to explore the deepest and most perplexing questions facing humankind. Learn about the latest

discoveries in the study of hope and optimism, intellectual humility, and free will at Templeton.org.

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 and 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 and pathic eye she trained on the entire ecosystem of the Gumbae 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 I'll trick up 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.

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