Frans de Waal Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
-
“The possibility that empathy resides in parts of the brain so ancient that we share them with rats should give pause to anyone comparing politicians with those poor, underestimated creatures.”
-- Frans de WaalSource : "Do Humans Alone 'Feel Your Pain'?". The Chronicle, October 26, 2001.
-
“The hamadryas baboon is a harem holder where one male mates with multiple females.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“We start out postulating sharp boundaries, such as between humans and apes, or between apes and monkeys, but are in fact dealing with sand castles that lose much of their structure when the sea of knowledge washes over them. They turn into hills, leveled ever more, until we are back to where evolutionary theory always leads us: a gently sloping beach.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“If you want to design a successful human society, you need to know what kind of animal we are. Are we a social animal or a selfish animal? Do we respond better when we're solitary or living in a group?”
-- Frans de Waal -
-
“To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us.”
-- Frans de WaalSource : "Are We in Anthropodenial?" by Frans de Waal, discovermagazine.com. July 1, 1997.
-
“You should know as much as you can about the human species if you have a hand in designing human society. I'm not saying that you can derive moral rules from nature - that's deriving an ought from an is, as the philosophers say - but you do need to know what kind of animals we are if you want to design a stable society.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“The enemy of science is not religion... . The true enemy is the substitution of thought, reflection, and curiosity with dogma.”
-- Frans de WaalSource : Frans de Waal (2013). “The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates”, p.84, W. W. Norton & Company
-
“If you are a cooperative animal, you need to watch what you get. If you, or even a whole community, invest in something but then a few individuals receive a much larger return, it's not a good arrangement. If it happens consistently, it's time to look for an arrangement that is more beneficial. That's why we're so sensitive to how rewards are being divided.”
-- Frans de Waal -
-
“If we look straight and deep into a chimpanzee's eyes, an intelligent self-assured personality looks back at us. If they are animals, what must we be?”
-- Frans de WaalSource : Frans de Waal (2007). “Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes”, p.3, JHU Press
-
“We justify the inequalities by saying some people are just better and smarter than others and the strong should survive and the poor can die off.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“I sometimes try to imagine what would have happened if we’d known the bonobo first and the chimpanzee only later—or not at all. The discussion about human evolution might not revolve as much around violence, warfare and male dominance, but rather around sexuality, empathy, caring and cooperation. What a different intellectual landscape we would occupy!”
-- Frans de WaalSource : Frans de Waal (2006). “Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are”, p.41, Penguin
-
“If both parties have a stake in the other, the chances of them killing each other are going to be reduced.”
-- Frans de Waal -
-
“Perhaps it's just me, but I am wary of any persons whose belief system is the only thing standing between them and repulsive behavior.”
-- Frans de WaalSource : Twitter post from Aug 13, 2009
-
“Studies of reconciliation in primates have demonstrated that if the relationship value increases between two parties they are more willing to make peace.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“Humanity is actually much more cooperative and empathic than [it's] given credit for.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“As far as the environment is concerned, I am becoming pessimistic because I do not see anybody stepping up and taking the long view approach. It seems like we're stuck in a tragedy of the commons where everyone is trying to contribute as little as possible to get out of this situation.”
-- Frans de Waal -
-
“Although elephants are far more distantly related to us than the great apes, they seem to have evolved similar social and cognitive capacities.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“Empathy as a complex emotion is different. It requires awareness of the other person's feelings and of one's own reactions. The appropriate reaction may not be to cry when another person cries, but to reassure them, or even to leave them alone.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“Most exotic animals are not particularly interested in people, which makes it hard to provoke them. Human-rearing gets them used to and sometimes imprinted on humans, which makes them potentially dangerous.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“If I were God, I'd work on the reach of empathy.”
-- Frans de Waal -
-
“Unlike the primate hand, the elephant's grasping organ is also its nose. Elephants use their trunks not only to reach food but also to sniff and touch it. With their unparalleled sense of smell, the animals know exactly what they are going for. Vision is secondary.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“After World War II it was decided that, in order to prevent the Germans and the French from having another war, it would be better to tie them together into one economic pact so they would invest in each other and have mutual stakes. Until now, that has worked to prevent warfare between the two.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“In Africa, we have the bush meat trade, which means that, on a very large scale, animals are being killed in the forests and sold in the cities as a luxury food.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“Popular culture bombards us with examples of animals being humanized for all sorts of purposes, ranging from education to entertainment to satire to propaganda. Walt Disney, for example, made us forget that Mickey is a mouse, and Donald a duck. George Orwell laid a cover of human societal ills over a population of livestock.”
-- Frans de Waal -
-
“It is well known that apes in the wild offer spontaneous assistance to each other, defending against leopards, say, or consoling distressed companions with tender embraces.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“The intuitive connection children feel with animals can be a tremendous source of joy. The unconditional love received from pets, and the lack of artifice in the relationship, contrast sharply with the much trickier dealings with members of their own species.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“As in a Russian doll, however, the outer layers always contain an inner core. Instead of evolution having replaced simpler forms of empathy with more advanced ones, the latter are merely elaborations on the former and remain dependent on them. This also means that empathy comes naturally to us. It is not something we only learn later in life, or that is culturally constructed.”
-- Frans de Waal -
“You need to indoctrinate empathy out of people in order to arrive at extreme capitalist positions.”
-- Frans de Waal -
-
“We would much rather blame nature for what we don't like in ourselves than credit it for what we do like.”
-- Frans de WaalSource : Frans de Waal (2006). “Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are”, p.11, Penguin
-
“Religions have a strong binding function and a cohesive element. They emphasize the primacy of the community as opposed to the individual, and they also help set one community apart from another that doesn't share their beliefs.”
-- Frans de Waal
You may also like:
-
Antonio Damasio
Professor -
David Attenborough
Broadcaster -
Desmond Morris
Zoologist -
Dian Fossey
Zoologist -
Frans Lanting
Photographer -
Gregory Berns
Neuroscientist -
Jane Goodall
Primatologist -
Jared Diamond
Scientist -
Konrad Lorenz
Zoologist -
Marc Bekoff
Professor -
Marie Curie
Physicist -
Patricia Churchland
Philosopher -
Paul Bloom
Professor -
Rachel Carson
Marine biologist -
Richard Dawkins
Ethologist -
Robert M. Sapolsky
Neuroendocrinologist -
Rosalind Franklin
Scientist -
Stephen Jay Gould
Paleontologist -
Steven Pinker
Psychologist -
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
Researcher