Her Unconventional Research Practices Received Many Criticisms

Despite her groundbreaking discoveries, Goodall's work occasionally came under fire. It was forbidden to talk about an animal's consciousness or personality when Goodall started her investigation in Gombe Stream National Park. Most scientists merely acknowledged that animals were little bundles of stimulation and reaction, and any sort of sympathy or compassion for them was viewed as wholly inappropriate. Her investigation did find distinct, individual personalities among the chimpanzees, who also hugged, kissed, patted each other on the back, and even tickled one other, actions that humans would recognize as being uniquely human.

Instead of numbering her chimpanzees, Goodall gave them names. Numbering was utilized at the time to avoid getting emotionally involved and losing impartiality. Her claims of identity and emotion in chimpanzees had drawn unfavorable criticism from her Cambridge colleagues, and Goodall was accused of committing the worst ethological sin. In order to maintain objectivity and avoid subject attachment, it was standard procedure at the time to assign numbers to the animals.

Goodall also received criticism for luring chimpanzees with feeding stations. It was argued that this resulted in the disturbance of the animals' normal eating cycles, which fostered violence. It has been proposed in the past that eating can increase the chimpanzees' aggression, which might cause conflicts between the social groupings that Goodall observed.