{"author":"Frans de Waal","author_id":"Frans+de+Waal","total_quotes":25,"quotes":[{"text":"Unlike the primate hand, the elephant's grasping organ is also its nose. Elephants use their trunks not only to reach food but also to sniff and touch it. With their unparalleled sense of smell, the animals know exactly what they are going for. Vision is secondary.","author":"Frans de Waal","tags":["vision","elephant","animals "],"id":1469,"author_id":"Frans+de+Waal"},{"text":"Deep down, creationists realize they will never win factual arguments with science. This is why they have construed their own science-like universe, known as Intelligent Design, and eagerly jump on every tidbit of information that seems to go their way.","author":"Frans de Waal","tags":["deep","science","universe "],"id":22291,"author_id":"Frans+de+Waal"},{"text":"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.","author":"Frans de Waal","tags":["progress","schools-of-thought","science"],"id":43615,"author_id":"Frans+de+Waal"},{"text":"Even the staunchest atheist growing up in Western society cannot avoid having absorbed the basic tenets of Christian morality. Our societies are steeped in it: everything we have accomplished over the centuries, even science, developed either hand in hand with or in opposition to religion, but never separately. It is impossible to know what morality would look like without religion. It would require a visit to a human culture that is not now and never was religious. That such cultures do not exist should give us pause.","author":"Frans de Waal","tags":["atheism","morality","religion"],"id":51376,"author_id":"Frans+de+Waal"},{"text":"Experiments with animals have long been handicapped by our anthropocentric attitude: We often test them in ways that work fine with humans but not so well with other species.","author":"Frans de Waal","tags":["work","long","animals "],"id":51752,"author_id":"Frans+de+Waal"},{"text":"Ironically, torture requires empathy, too, in the sense that one cannot deliberately inflict pain without realizing what is painful.","author":"Frans de Waal","tags":["empathy","pain","torture"],"id":93016,"author_id":"Frans+de+Waal"},{"text":"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.","author":"Frans de Waal","tags":["women","woman","animal "],"id":104973,"author_id":"Frans+de+Waal"},{"text":"If faith makes people buy an entire package of myths and values without asking too many questions, scientists are only slightly better.","author":"Frans de Waal","tags":["faith","religion","science","values"],"id":134693,"author_id":"Frans+de+Waal"},{"text":"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!","author":"Frans de Waal","tags":["caring","cooperation","empathy","evolution","frans-de-waal","male-dominance","matriarchy","patriarchy","violence","warfare"],"id":175081,"author_id":"Frans+de+Waal"},{"text":"[T]he term 'nonhuman' grates on me, since it lumps millions of species together by an absence, as if they were missing something. Poor things, they are nonhuman! When students embrace this jargon in their writing, I cannot resist sarcastic corrections in the margin saying that for completeness's sake, they should add that the animals they are talking about are also nonpenguin, nonhyena, and a whole lot more.","author":"Frans de Waal","tags":["animals","ethology"],"id":202726,"author_id":"Frans+de+Waal"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":25,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}