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258 Animal Welfare and Human Values Of course, this may diminish the impartiality, the objectivity, of their findings. If one is involved with one's research subject then one's objectivity suffers. While that is true, one has to be impressed with the degree to which each of the researchers has limited the extent of the problem. Still, many scientists insist that this is a serious detriment to their studies. They are in danger of becoming the latetwentieth-century 'nature fakers'. Being involved, being committed, sharing, all interfere with the search for truth. There is some merit in such criticism. However , it fails to recognize that it is precisely by becoming involved that one extends one's horizons, one recognizes patterns and characteristics that would otherwise be missed, one sees beyond the external behaviour to the intricate world of the apes' emotions. While there is a danger that one may inappropriately impose one's own feelings on the apes there is an even greater danger in distanced understandingthat one will not recognize the complexities and depth of emotions for what they are. On balance the ape ladies have demonstrated that their approach is superior to that of the 'objective' scientist, at least in the understanding of primates in the wild. Through understanding, in the sense of feeling at one with, our knowledge of the behaviour of the apes has been greatly enhanced. One cannot understand fully without empathy for the life of the ape. If there are 'scientific' dangers in being inside rather than outside one's study there are even greater 'scientific' drawbacks in being outside—one will simply not share, and hence not fully understand , the emotions and the creativity one is witnessing. After all, we can only fully understand other humans by recognizing in them aspects of their personalities we understand in ourselves. This is not to say that we possess identical characteristics, merely that we share in differing degrees in our own natures and propensities what we see in them. Our understanding of other humansdepends upon our successfully recognizing similarities and differences, but differences which develop from a certain underlying similarity. And so it is with understanding the apes. What should astonish us is that the similarities are far greater than we might ever have imagined—including aspects ofbehaviour wemight find less than appealing (instances of rape among both the chimpanzees and the orangutans, for example). However, Goodall also describes the chimpanzees' significant sense of self as individuals, and their sense of humour. Goodall describes the intellectual and emotional similarity of chimpanzees to humans. The games of the young, the greetings of the mature, the relationship of mother to child are in many respects almost identical to ours in their basic structure. Goodall claims to have learned a great deal from a chimpanzee named Flo—all the researchers named their apes—on the art of motherhood. She describes the stresses brought on by the loss of a loved one. "Flint," she said, "died of grief." The Community of Sentient Beings 259 Dian Fossey wrote of "sharing something with the gorillas," of Digit as being her friend and of the cohesion of the gorilla family unit (far stronger than with chimpanzees, somewhat stronger than with the orangutans). One feels especially when reading Fossey that our language is always inadequate to describe the animal-human bond, although the same sense comes across in the other account as well. This is in large part because the language we employ to describe emotion and belonging was developed in an era which recognized only the selfinterested side. Our language ispredicated on a behaviouralist approach to understanding. It is inadequate to express fully the sentiments of community, sharing and belonging. Certainly, our language makes it easy to work within the behaviouralist paradigm, difficult to express oneself adequately outside of it. Thus it is that Fossey was always aware that she lacked the tools to describe what she implicitly understood. It was not Fossey's fault, but the circumscription of language designed to express an individualistic mode of conception. Leakey chose women to conduct the research because he believed that women are both "blessed and cursed," according to Tita Caldwell, "with sensitivity and intuition that only one in a million men have."21 In Western culture 'manliness' was traditionally understood as competitive , striving and individualistic, whereas 'womanliness' has traditionally implied sharing, altruism and belongingness. Certainly, the ape ladies have brought these qualities to bear in their studies. In Goodall's communications with the...

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