Picture of author.

Frans de Waal (1948–2024)

Author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

27+ Works 5,158 Members 113 Reviews 9 Favorited

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

Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape (1997) 224 copies
Peacemaking among Primates (1988) 124 copies
Natural Conflict Resolution (2000) — Editor — 25 copies

Associated Works

Darwin (Norton Critical Edition) (1970) — Contributor, some editions — 652 copies
The Best American Science Writing 2006 (2006) — Contributor — 264 copies
The Descent of Man: The Concise Edition (2007) — Foreword — 48 copies
The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now (2011) — Contributor — 41 copies
The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution (2012) — Contributor — 19 copies
Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes and Animals (1996) — Contributor — 17 copies
On Being Moved: From Mirror Neurons to Empathy (2007) — Contributor — 9 copies
Monkeys and Apes in the Wild (2007) — Foreword, some editions — 5 copies
Les grands singes : L'humanité au fond des yeux (2005) — Preface, some editions — 2 copies

Tagged

animal behavior (102) animal intelligence (20) animals (210) anthropology (142) apes (38) audiobook (18) behavior (32) biology (293) bonobo (23) bonobos (22) chimpanzees (45) cognition (23) culture (30) ebook (31) emotions (26) empathy (35) ethics (96) ethology (126) evolution (222) goodreads (21) human behavior (25) human evolution (31) intelligence (26) morality (39) natural history (29) nature (90) non-fiction (340) philosophy (80) primates (134) primatology (127) psychology (160) read (33) religion (23) science (364) sociobiology (23) sociology (42) to-read (581) unread (22) wishlist (22) zoology (65)

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
Short biography
Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal is a Dutch/American biologist and primatologist known for his work on the behavior and social intelligence of primates.  His first book, Chimpanzee Politics (1982) compared the schmoozing and scheming of chimpanzees involved in power struggles with that of human politicians. Ever since, de Waal has drawn parallels between primate and human behavior, from peacemaking and morality to culture. His scientific work has been published in hundreds of technical articles in journals such as Science, Nature, Scientific American, and outlets specialized in animal behavior. His popular books — translated into twenty languages — have made him one of the world's most visible primatologists. 

De Waal is C. H. Candler Professor in the Psychology Department of Emory University and Director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 2013, he is a Distinguished Professor (Universiteitshoogleraar) at Utrecht University. He has been elected to the (US) National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. In 2007, he was selected by Time as one of The Worlds' 100 Most Influential People Today, and in 2011 by Discover as among 47 (all time) Great Minds of Science. Being editor-in-chief of the journal Behaviour, de Waal has stepped in the footsteps of Niko Tinbergen, one of the founders of ethology.

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
 
Flagged
cspiwak | 5 other reviews | Mar 6, 2024 |
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)
 
Flagged
yates9 | 9 other reviews | Feb 28, 2024 |
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)
 
Flagged
Den85 | 5 other reviews | Jan 3, 2024 |
This is the primatologist side of the evopsych questions raised in books like [b:Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality|1991|Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality (Science Masters)|Jared Diamond|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1431354333l/1991._SY75_.jpg|1087981], and has a lot more of the hard science answers that book couldn't provide, in regards to our various cousins and their sexual behaviours and gender roles. That's what the first part of this book is about and it's great, building on de Waal's long experience in the field (there's some repetition if you've read his previous books like [b:Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves|45894068|Mama's Last Hug Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves|Frans de Waal|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1568276393l/45894068._SX50_.jpg|62339663]).
De Waal is a good resource for expanding the often narrow and shallow view of animal psychology and behaviour, but the problem is a lot of these books want to create lessons for or about humans and that's the tenuous part of the equation that unfortunately gets the least supporting evidence.

So it is with this book, where we can catch glimpses of gender divisions and hierarchies handled in different ways by different primates; the very brutal world of chimps contrasted with the casual sex of bonobo society. De Waal is aware of the biased adoption of both of these cases by various political sides trying to promote human agendas, appealing to one or the other cousin as part of the legitimacy of their worldview. Is life a nasty, brutal competition for the top spot or should we all be living in some polyamorous hippie community? As he points out neither caricature is true to the animals, nor are their "conclusions" about life much use to us as humans.

But then De Waal himself attempts to use his primate background to draw conclusions about humans, and that's where the book breaks down. Having a more nuanced view of the complexity of our cousins doesn't really help him come up with solid conclusions about humans. He takes an "old liberal" stance of asserting biology matters, but that the alpha/beta type talk is not applicable to humans and that our social interactions are much more complex and allow for a society that can be free from whatever biology has thrown into the mix (as in more egalitarian than nature might suggest). This might have been an applause line in the 90s but is likely to offend the current polarized politics from both sides.

My main problem is rather that it all becomes "just so" stories where what's plausible sounding takes precedence over asking the question "how the hell can we draw these conclusions". De Waal shies away from examining biological determinism in the way Murray did with The Bell Curve, and is fairly agnostic about how our apelike ancestors divided things according to gender. There's a lot of sore toes he doesn't care to step on. In lieu of such hard biological stances we're reduced to "seems to me" type statements pointing to similarities here and there, and fair enough, the comparisons are interesting. But there aren't answers.

Subtitle should read more like "gender through the eyes of a guy who also happens to be a primatologist".
… (more)
 
Flagged
A.Godhelm | 3 other reviews | Oct 20, 2023 |

Lists

Awards

You May Also Like

Associated Authors

Statistics

Works
27
Also by
9
Members
5,158
Popularity
#4,822
Rating
4.0
Reviews
113
ISBNs
256
Languages
19
Favorited
9

Charts & Graphs