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SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUALITY
“Nothing exists for itself alone, but only in relation to other forms of life.” -Charles Darwin
It has been 60 years since anthropologist Louis Leaky provided funds for three brilliant and brave young women to go live with humanity’s closest remaining primate relatives. Diane Fossey lived with gorillas, Birutė Galdikas with orangutans, and Jane Goodall with chimpanzees. A fourth woman was to be sent to the bonobos, but Leaky died before funding could be raised.
Perhaps Leakey chose women to study these primates because he thought they would be more likely to understand the animals both objectively AND subjectively. Goodall, the granddaughter of an open minded and inclusive Congregationalist minister, was a blend of scientist and nature mystic. She wrote, “For those who have experienced the joy of being alone with nature there is really little need for me to say much more; for those who have not, no words of mine can ever describe the powerful, almost mystical knowledge of beauty and eternity that come, suddenly, and all unexpected.”
Science had already weighed, measured and dissected primates, Leakey wanted these women to reverently LISTEN to our nearest relatives that we might discover who WE are before it is too late. The work of these women was intended to be the best of science AND a very deep reverence for the web of life. In addition to the…
