Quotes from Frans de Waal

Yet at the same time humans are inherently irreverent. It was Saint Bonaventura, a thirteenth-century theologian, who said, "The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of its behind." We love to make fun of the higher-ups. We're always ready to bring them down. And the powerful know this all too well. "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," as Shakespeare wrote.

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.

Recently, we have learned that some matriarchal, long-lived whales, such as orcas and belugas, also experience menopause. Grandmother whales increase the survival of their grand-offspring by passing on freshly caught salmon to young calves and guarding them on the ocean surface while their mother takes off for a deep dive.43

Unjustified linguistic barriers fragment the unity with which nature presents us.

Their earlier poor performance had had more to do with the way they were tested than with their mental powers. Elephants

Estar resentido por el éxito de otro puede parecer mezquino, pero a la larga evita que abusen de uno.

Todos los animales mutilan o matan a otros organismos. Ni el agricultor más orgánico puede evitar perjudicar los intereses de otras formas de vida al robar el hábitat de animales salvajes, erradicar insectos con pesticidas naturales y sacrificar plantas para el consumo humano.

Al ser parte del tejido de la naturaleza, constantemente sopesamos nuestros intereses con los de otros organismos, casi siempre a favor de los nuestros.

We attach such importance to verbal communication that we lose track of what our bodies say about us.

Animals learn what they need to learn and have specialized ways of sifting through the massive information around them. They actively seek, collect, and store information. (p. 270)

Even those who believe that humans are more egalitarian than chimpanzees will have to admit that our societies could not possibly function without an acknowledged order.

With every male trying to ensure that his life's savings ended up in the right hands -those of his own progeny- an obsession with virginity and chastity became inevitable. Patriarchy, as it's known, can be thought of simply as an outgrowth of male assistance with the rearing of offspring.

By placing people in brain scanners and asking them to resolve moral dilemmas, experts have discovered that such dilemmas activate ancient emotional centers deeply embedded in the brain. Instead of being a surface phenomenon in our expanded neocortex, moral decision-making apparently taps into millions of years of social evolution.

A species's cognition is generally as good as what it needs for its survival.

of amazing intelligence, they learn quickly and remember easily with few repetitions. There is often an uncanny understanding of what is wanted and needed of them at any given time. Bred to love people, they bond very tightly to their owners."24 Instead

There is no single form of cognition, and there is no point in ranking cognitions from simple to complex. A species's cognition is generally as good as what it needs for its survival. (p. 200)

Below I describe two examples, one concerning self-awareness and the other culture, both concepts that, whenever mentioned in relation to animals, still send some scholars through the roof. Armchair

The reality is that we are bodies born from other bodies, bodies feeding other bodies, bodies having sex with other bodies, bodies seeking a shoulder to lean or cry on, bodies traveling long distances to be close to other bodies, and so on. Would life be worth living without these connections and the emotions they arouse? How happy would we be, especially given that happiness, too, is an emotion?

First, the behavior should not follow directly from present needs and desires. Second, it should prepare the individual for a future situation in a different context than the current one. The girl needed a spoon not in bed, but at the chocolate pudding party she expected in her dream.11

True empathy is not self-focused but other-oriented. Instead of making humanity the measure of all things, we need to evaluate other species by what they are. In doing so, I am sure we will discover many magic wells, including some as yet beyond our imagination.

He prefers to point with a stick and will go out of his way to bring one with him, thus anticipating our test and his self-invented need for a tool. But

The initial animosity between divergent approaches can be overcome if we realize that each has something to offer that the other lacks. We may weave them together into a new whole that is stronger than the sum of its parts.

The Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz told us that we lack control over our aggressive instincts. Not long afterward the British biologist Richard Dawkins stated that our chief purpose on earth is to obey our "selfish genes.

We seek ecological validity in our studies and follow the advice of Uexküll, Lorenz, and Imanishi, who encouraged human empathy as a way to understand other species. True empathy is not self-focused but other-oriented. Instead of making humanity the measure of all things, we need to evaluate other species by what they are.