One thing bothered me as a student. In the 1960s, human behavior was totally off limits for the biologist. There was animal… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
Experiments with animals have long been handicapped by our anthropocentric attitude: We often test them in ways that work fine with humans… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
Darwin wasn't just provocative in saying that we descend from the apes - he didn't go far enough. We are apes in… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental,… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
As far as the environment is concerned, I am becoming pessimistic because I do not see anybody stepping up and taking the… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
Very long ago our ancestors had moral systems. Our current institutions are only a couple of thousand years old, which is really… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
There's a long tradition in Western thought that humans are not shackled by biology, whereas animals are pure instinct machines. — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
If both parties have a stake in the other, the chances of them killing each other are going to be reduced. — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
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… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
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… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
The possibility that empathy resides in parts of the brain so ancient that we share them with rats should give pause to anyone comparing… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
“on August 16, 1996, when an eight-year-old female gorilla named Binti Jua helped a three-year-old boy who had fallen eighteen feet into the primate… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
We start out postulating sharp boundaries, such as between humans and apes, or between apes and monkeys, but are in fact dealing with sand… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
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 Waal Copy Share Image
Personally, I think it is possible to build a society that is moral on a nonreligious basis, but the jury is still out on… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
“humans are a strange lot. We have the power to analyze and explore the world around us, yet panic as soon as the evidence… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
Armies are a purely human invention. Most soldiers who go to war nowadays don't even do it because they're inherently aggressive. — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
