Frans de Waal (1948–2024)
Author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
About the Author
Frans De Waal has been named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People. The author of The Bonobo and the Atheist, among many other works, he is the C. H. Candler Professor in Emory University's Psychology Department and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate show more Research Center. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia. show less
Works by Frans de Waal
Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution (2001) — Editor; Contributor — 83 copies
Animal Social Complexity: Intelligence, Culture, and Individualized Societies (2003) — Editor — 12 copies
Emotions Inside Out: 130 Years After Darwin's the Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (Annals of the New York (2003) 8 copies
L'Ultimo abbraccio 1 copy
Journal: Bonobo Dialogues 1 copy
Simian Sympathy 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Waal, Frans de
- Legal name
- Waal, Fransiscus Bernardus Maria de
- Birthdate
- 1948-10-29
- Date of death
- 2024-03-14
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Netherlands
USA - Birthplace
- 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
- Place of death
- Atlanta, Georgia, USA
- Cause of death
- stomach cancer
- Places of residence
- Utrecht, Netherlands
Atlanta, Georgia, USA - Education
- Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Utrecht University, The Netherlands - Occupations
- zoologist
ethologist - Organizations
- National Academy of Sciences
Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen (Nederland)
Emory University - Agent
- Michelle Tessler
Members
Reviews
Looks at a lot of the research, and some anecdotal evidence, on the nature versus urture or instinct versus culture debate. He was preaching to the choir in my case, so its hard to gauge how compelling his arguments would have been to a skeptic. I am quite sure that man is an animal and shares many of his experiences and ways of reacting to them with his primate cousins and even some more distant relatives
A fun intriguing book taking you into the world of primate research performed in a relatively natural setting. Primates are shown to demonstrate components of behaviour that are highly evocative of our human counterpart. The problem with identification, projecting intent in actions that may or may not subjectively be the same as ours takes an ominous central place in the subtext. However the argument is necessarily circular, you need to empathise and therefore identify yourself with the subject to be able to interpret it as such.… (more)
Highly informative, insightful and enlightening to anyone interested in human nature. A very humbling yet thought provoking account of how much of this intangible matter – morals – we share with primates. You will also learn that a tremendously big part of our individual and collective behavior apparently started in apes. It robs us of our perceived uniqueness, but simultaneously enriches us with a widened realization of a bigger and more complex picture. And this is just a tiny sliver of many other wonderful revelations that are kept for your in store in this treasure trove of a book! A must read.… (more)
Lists
Zoology (1)
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 29
- Also by
- 10
- Members
- 5,236
- Popularity
- #4,763
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 114
- ISBNs
- 261
- Languages
- 19
- Favorited
- 9
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From amazon: Hailed as a classic, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? explores the oddities and complexities of animal cognition―in crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, chimpanzees, and bonobos―to reveal how smart animals really are, and how we’ve underestimated their abilities for too long. Did you know that octopuses use coconut shells as tools, that elephants classify humans by gender and language, and that there is a young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame? Fascinating, entertaining, and deeply informed, de Waal’s landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal―and human―intelligence.
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I wanted to like this book more than I did. Written by one of the world's leading primatologists, it focuses on primates mostly, though the description is contrary. The central thesis is that our testing methodology is so biased towards Homo Sapien intelligence that we don't recognize the biases and when the biases are removed, many mammals/birds have more intelligence than we tend to be willing to recognize. That's not a surprise to me but I didn't find the work very engaging. He does note a test about magpies (corvid family) that have been proven to recognize themselves in the mirror, as the only non-primate so tested to do so.… (more)