Frans de Waal
The thinking is that we started evolving language not by speaking but by gesturing.
The role of inequity in society is grossly underestimated. Inequity is not good for your health, basically.
Very ancient parts of the brain are involved in moral decision making.
War is evitable if conditions are such that the costs of making war are higher than the benefits.
Our brains have been designed to blur the line between self and other. It is an ancient neural circuitry that marks every mammal, from mouse to elephant.
There is little evidence that other animals judge the appropriateness of actions that do not directly affect themselves.
There's a long tradition in Western thought that humans are not shackled by biology, whereas animals are pure instinct machines.
Chimps don't have language. Humans actively instruct others about how things should be done. Chimpanzees probably pick up cultural traditions by observation.
There are beautiful examples of art done by chimpanzees in human care.
Following rules is, of course, the reason the dog is man's best friend is because the dog follows rules, and they actually do experiments on that, is that how well certain breeds of dogs follow rules, and how much they internalize them. And so many hierarchical animals, obviously they follow rules.
Science is not inherently good.
Chimpanzees, typically, kiss and embrace after fights. They first make eye contact from a distance to see the mood of the others. Then they approach and kiss and embrace.
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.
Chimpanzees have very strong preferences and aversions that are completely personality-linked. The people who are unsuccessful in working with chimpanzees are those who take this personally.
When humans behave murderously, such as inflicting senseless slaughter of innocents in warfare, we like to blame it on some dark, 'animalistic' instinct.
Female bonobos form a strong sisterhood. They rule through female solidarity.
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.
The primate laugh is given in playful contexts, and as such has a strong similarity to the human laugh.
Understanding the need for religion is a far superior goal to bashing it.
We need to separate the process of evolution - which is, indeed, a self-serving process - and the actual motivations of animals.
The more self-aware an animal is, the more empathetic it tends to be.
Many economists are great believers in the idea that everything in nature is competitive and that we should set up a society which is competitive to reflect that. Anyone who cannot keep up, well, too bad.
Although elephants are far more distantly related to us than the great apes, they seem to have evolved similar social and cognitive capacities.
There has been so much underestimating of animal cognition that to perhaps overestimate it, as I probably do, is probably a healthy reaction.
Male bonobos really don't fit the human male ideal.
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.Collection: Nature
The enemy of science is not religion... . The true enemy is the substitution of thought, reflection, and curiosity with dogma.Collection: Reflection
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?Collection: Inspirational
We are territorial, power-hungry and even more brutal than chimpanzees.Collection: Hungry
To neglect the common ground with other primates, and to deny the evolutionary roots of human morality, would be like arriving at the top of a tower to declare that the rest of the building is irrelevant, that the precious concept of "tower" ought to be reserved for the summit.Collection: Roots
You need to indoctrinate empathy out of people in order to arrive at extreme capitalist positions.Collection: Order
Robin Hood had it right.Humanity's deepest wish is to spread the wealth.Collection: Humanity
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.Collection: Giving
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!Collection: Caring
Morality, after all, has nothing to do with selflessness. On the contrary, self-interest is precisely the basis of the categorical imperative.Collection: Self
There's actually a lot of evidence in primates and other animals that they return favors.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Belief
Socialism cannot function, because its economic reward structure is contrary to human nature.Collection: Rewards
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.Collection: Empathy
We are by far the most contradictory of all primates. An animal with this much internal conflict has never lived on this earth.Collection: Animal
We would much rather blame nature for what we don't like in ourselves than credit it for what we do like.Collection: Credit
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.Collection: Beach
If I were God, I'd work on the reach of empathy.Collection: Love
The development of family entities enables men to cooperate far more effectively. Instead of constantly competing for the women with other men, each man essentially has a partner assigned to him, one with whom he can establish a family.Collection: Men
When someone brutally kills someone else, we call him "animalistic." But we consider ourselves "human" when we give to the poor.Collection: Giving
In humans, the family prevents infanticide. Next to language, the core family, consisting of a mother, a father and children, is the greatest difference between us and other primates.Collection: Mother
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.Collection: Views
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.Collection: Strong
The chimpanzees could tear me apart in no time. They're many times stronger than we are.Collection: Tears