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
“This is more like the scientists I know. Authority outweighs evidence, at least for as long as the authority lives.” — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
“Along with people in other creative professions, such as artists and musicians, many scientists experience this transcendence. I do so every day.… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
It is not only visitors to the zoo who are fascinated but uneasy in the presence of chimpanzees; the same is true… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
“The science fiction novelist Isaac Asimov reportedly once said, “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
Scientists are supposed to study animals in a totally objective fashion, similar to the way we inspect a rock or measure the… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
The enemy of science is not religion... . The true enemy is the substitution of thought, reflection, and curiosity with dogma. — 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
“Having spent all my life among academics, I can tell you that hearing how wrong they area is about as high on… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
Deep down, creationists realize they will never win factual arguments with science. This is why they have construed their own science-like universe,… — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
“If faith makes people buy an entire package of myths and values without asking too many questions, scientists are only slightly better.” — Frans de Waal Copy Share Image
The enemy of science is not religion. Religion comes in endless shapes and forms... The true enemy is the substitution of thought,… — 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