Vermoorden Frans Quotes

What is the evolutionary value of blushing? It seems not to be to our advantage to do it, to involuntarily reveal our inner emotions. If we're trying to manipulate or lie, actions in furtherance of individual goals as opposed to the goals of others, blushing would not seem to be helpful. And yet everyone blushes, except the psychopath. ~ Frans De Waal

Personally, I think it is possible to build a society that is moral on a nonreligious basis, but the jury is still out on that. ~ Frans De Waal

I think we need to start thinking about grounding our moral systems in our biology. ~ Frans De Waal

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. ~ Frans De Waal

Along with people in other creative professions, such as artists and musicians, many scientists experience this transcendence. I do so every day. For one, it's impossible to look an ape in the eye and not see oneself. There are other animals with frontally oriented eyes, but none that give you the shock of recognitions of the ape's. Looking back at you is not so much an animal but a personality as solid and willful as yourself. ~ Frans De Waal

To broaden your horizon, take a step forward. ~ Frans Hiddema

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. ~ Frans De Waal

Without agreement on rank and a certain respect for authority there can be no great sensitivity to social rules, as anyone who has tried to teach simple house rules to a cat will agree. ~ Frans De Waal

The term 'alpha female' originated in my field of animal behavior, but has acquired new meaning. It refers to women who are in charge, for example, by flirting and dating on their own terms. It is also used maliciously for a loud-mouthed, controlling woman who has no patience with deviating opinions. ~ Frans De Waal

Popular culture bombards us with examples of animals being humanized for all sorts of purposes, ranging from education to entertainment to satire to propaganda. Walt Disney, for example, made us forget that Mickey is a mouse, and Donald a duck. George Orwell laid a cover of human societal ills over a population of livestock. ~ Frans De Waal

We need to separate the process of evolution - which is, indeed, a self-serving process - and the actual motivations of animals. ~ Frans De Waal

If you ask anyone, what is morality based on? These are the two factors that always come out: One is reciprocity, ... a sense of fairness, and the other one is empathy and compassion. ~ Frans De Waal

Still, the frequent absence of happiness is what keeps us pursuing it, and thus makes us productive."10 This is a curious notion of productivity - at once overtly political and yet presented innocently enough, as if there were only one possible meaning of "productivity." This perspective on life incorporates the Protestant work ethic (that "productivity" is what makes an animal "effective") and echoes the Old Testament notion that life must be endured, not enjoyed. These assumptions are embedded throughout the literature of evolutionary psychology. Ethologist/primatologist Frans de Waal, one of the more open-minded philosophers of human nature, calls this Calvinist sociobiology. ~ Christopher Ryan

One aspect we might focus on during this moratorium is an alternative to overly cerebral approaches. ~ Frans De Waal

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

Our northern brethren buried their dead, were skilled toolmakers, kept fires going, and took care of the infirm just like early humans. The fossil record shows survival into adulthood of individuals afflicted with dwarfism, paralysis of the limbs, or the inability to chew. Going by exotic names such as Shanidar I, Romito 2, the Windover Boy, and the Old Man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, our ancestors supported individuals who contributed little to society. Survival of the weak, the handicapped, the mentally retarded, and others who posed a burden is seen by paleontologists as a milestone in the evolution of compassion. This communitarian heritage is crucial in relation to this book's theme, since it suggests that morality predates current civilizations and religions by at least a hundred millennia. ~ Frans De Waal

Male bonobos really don't fit the human male ideal. ~ Frans De Waal

One thing bothered me as a student. In the 1960s, human behavior was totally off limits for the biologist. There was animal behavior, then there was a long time nothing, after which came human behavior as a totally separate category best left to a different group of scientists. ~ Frans De Waal

I think a photograph, of whatever it might be - a landscape, a person - requires personal involvement. That means knowing your subject, not just snapping at what's in front of you. ~ Frans Lanting

Moreover, not unlike presidential candidates who hold babies up in the air as soon as the cameras are rolling, male chimps vying for power develop a sudden interest in infants, which they hold and tickle in order ~ Frans De Waal

While the matriarch operates on the basis of knowledge, the rest of the herd operates on the basis of trust. ~ Frans De Waal

Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously gave us the 'God is dead' phrase was interested in the sources of morality. He warned that the emergence of something (whether an organ, a legal institution, or a religious ritual) is never to be confused with its acquired purpose: 'Anything in existence, having somehow come about, is continually interpreted anew, requisitioned anew, transformed and redirected to a new purpose.'

This is a liberating thought, which teaches us to never hold the history of something against its possible applications. Even if computers started out as calculators, that doesn't prevent us from playing games on them. (47) (quoting Nietzsche, the Genealogy of Morals) ~ Frans De Waal

Harold Laswell's famous definition of politics as a social process determining "who gets what, when, and how," there can be little doubt that chimpanzees engage in it. Since in both humans and their closest relatives the process involves bluff, coalitions, and isolation tactics, a common terminology is warranted. ~ Frans De Waal

In other words, both macaques and rats volunteer for tests only when they feel confident, suggesting that they know their own knowledge. ~ Frans De Waal

Being both more systematically brutal than chimps and more empathetic than
bonobos, we are by far the most bipolar ape. Our societies are never completely peaceful, never completely competitive, never ruled by sheer selfishness, and never perfectly moral. ~ Frans De Waal

This suggests that for our species, too, the cerebellum is critically important.63 ~ Frans De Waal

Human reflection is chronically overrated, though, and we now suspect that our own reaction to food poisoning is in fact similar to that of rats. Garcia's findings forced comparative psychology to admit that evolution pushes cognition around, adapting it to the organism's needs. ~ Frans De Waal

Everyone we regard as brilliant has endured an enormous amount of failure. ~ Frans Johansson

Charles Darwin himself had written a whole tome about the parallels between human and animal emotional expressions. ~ Frans De Waal

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. ~ Frans De Waal

There has been so much underestimating of animal cognition that to perhaps overestimate it, as I probably do, is probably a healthy reaction. ~ Frans De Waal

The common argument that men are naturally polygamous and women naturally monogamous is as full of holes as Swiss cheese. ~ Frans De Waal

The intuitive connection children feel with animals can be a tremendous source of joy. The unconditional love received from pets, and the lack of artifice in the relationship, contrast sharply with the much trickier dealings with members of their own species. ~ Frans De Waal

Aristotle's scala naturae, which runs from God, the angels, and humans at the top, downward to other mammals, birds, fish, insects, and mollusks at the bottom. ~ Frans De Waal