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" Future benefits rarely figure in the minds of animals. "
Frans de Waal
Minds
Benefits
Animals
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" We need to separate the process of evolution - which is, indeed, a self-serving process - and the actual motivations of animals. "
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" People want to work with somebody who feels shame, who worries about the perceptions of others. Dishonesty is something we don't like in others. "
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" The enemy of science is not religion. Religion comes in endless shapes and forms... The true enemy is the substitution of thought, reflection, and curiosity with dogma. "
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" There are beautiful examples of art done by chimpanzees in human care. "
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" The role of inequity in society is grossly underestimated. Inequity is not good for your health, basically. "
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" Octopuses have hundreds of suckers, each one equipped with its own ganglion with thousands of neurons. These 'mini-brains' are interconnected, making for a widely distributed nervous system. That is why a severed octopus arm may crawl on its own and even pick up food. "
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" If you look at human society, it is very easy, of course, to compare our warfare and territoriality with the chimpanzee. But that's only one side of what we do. We also trade, we intermarry, we allow each other to travel through our territory. There's an enormous amount of cooperation. "
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Easy
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Travel
" If you look at national economies today, for example, the American economy, the European economy, the Indians, the Chinese, we're all tied together. If one of them sinks, the rest are going to sink with them and if one floats, the rest are lifted up. I find that very interesting. "
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" Very long ago our ancestors had moral systems. Our current institutions are only a couple of thousand years old, which is really not old in the eyes of a biologist. "
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Ancestors
" It is well known that apes in the wild offer spontaneous assistance to each other, defending against leopards, say, or consoling distressed companions with tender embraces. "
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Wild
Spontaneous
" If one bird foraging in a flock on the ground suddenly takes off, all other birds will take off immediately after, before they even know what's going on. The one who stays behind may be prey. "
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" You should know as much as you can about the human species if you have a hand in designing human society. "
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" Dogmatists have one advantage: they are poor listeners. "
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Advantage
Poor
Listeners
" Understanding the need for religion is a far superior goal to bashing it. "
Frans de Waal
Goal
Need
Religion
" It is hard to get animals which normally pay little attention to each other to do things together. One can teach dolphins to jump simultaneously out of the water precisely because they show similar behavior spontaneously, but try to make two domestic cats jump together and you will fail. "
Frans de Waal
Animals
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Water
" There are many reasons for kindness, and religion is just one of them. "
Frans de Waal
Just One
Kindness
Religion
" In Africa, we have the bush meat trade, which means that, on a very large scale, animals are being killed in the forests and sold in the cities as a luxury food. "
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Food
Luxury
Animals
" I think we need to start thinking about grounding our moral systems in our biology. "
Frans de Waal
Our
Think
Thinking
" Darwin wasn't just provocative in saying that we descend from the apes - he didn't go far enough. We are apes in every way, from our long arms and tailless bodies to our habits and temperament. "
Frans de Waal
Enough
Way
Saying
" 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. "
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Lie
Trying
Value
" If there is any form of contagion that is adaptive, it is the immediate response to the fear of others. If others are fearful, there may be good reason for you to be fearful too. "
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Others
You
Fear
" Most exotic animals are not particularly interested in people, which makes it hard to provoke them. Human-rearing gets them used to and sometimes imprinted on humans, which makes them potentially dangerous. "
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People
Dangerous
Sometimes
" Scientists are supposed to study animals in a totally objective fashion, similar to the way we inspect a rock or measure the circumference of a tree trunk. Emotions are not to interfere with the assessment. The animal-rights movement capitalizes on this perception, depicting scientists as devoid of compassion. "
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Fashion
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" Following rules is, of course, the reason the dog is man's best friend is because the dog follows rules, and they actually do experiments on that, is that how well certain breeds of dogs follow rules, and how much they internalize them. And so many hierarchical animals, obviously they follow rules. "
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" I was raised Catholic. Not just a little bit Catholic, like my wife, Catherine. When she was young, many Catholics in France already barely went to church, except for the big three: baptism, marriage, and funeral. And only the middle one was by choice. "
Frans de Waal
She
Church
Choice
" Sometimes I read about someone saying with great authority that animals have no intentions and no feelings, and I wonder, 'Doesn't this guy have a dog?' "
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Animals
Wonder
Dog
" Chimpanzees, typically, kiss and embrace after fights. They first make eye contact from a distance to see the mood of the others. Then they approach and kiss and embrace. "
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Mood
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" I have often noticed how primate groups in their entirety enter a similar mood. All of a sudden, all of them are playful, hopping around. Or all of them are grumpy. Or all of them are sleepy and settle down. In such cases, the mood contagion serves the function of synchronizing activities. "
Frans de Waal
How
Playful
Mood
" I'm personally a nonbeliever, so I'm struggling with if we really need religion. "
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Really
" The whole reason people fill their homes with furry carnivores and not with, say, iguanas and turtles, is because mammals offer something no reptile ever will. They give affection, they want affection, and respond to our emotions the way we do to theirs. "
Frans de Waal
Want
Emotions
Say