Primate researcher and sometimes animal rights activist Jane Goodall recently contributed an article condemning war. In the article, Goodall writes,
It is desperately important that the general public should have access to the facts. Unfortunately, a common response is to shy away from such knowledge. People prefer not to know, not to think about such things but rather, like some gigantic flock of ostriches, bury their heads in the sand. As more and more of that sand becomes contaminated as a result of war and the preparations for war, the outlook for the ostriches – and for all life on Earth – will become increasingly desolate.
Goodall might start with her own apparently limited knowledge. Ostriches, of course, do not bury their heads in the sand except in cartoons and comic strips.
Perhaps Goodall was relying on this vast store of animal information of hers earlier this year when she said that if researchers had simply “stretched our brains” then they could have found ways to do medical research without animals.
But perhaps Goodall has indulged in a bit too much brain stretching.
Source:
Devastating The Earth. Jane Goodall, Resurgence, May/June 2003.