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" 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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" When humans behave murderously, such as inflicting senseless slaughter of innocents in warfare, we like to blame it on some dark, 'animalistic' instinct. "

Frans de Waal

Some

Instinct

" 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. "

" War is evitable if conditions are such that the costs of making war are higher than the benefits. "

" 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. "

" I am personally not against keeping animals at zoos, as they serve a huge educational purpose, but treating them well and with respect seems the least we could do, and with 'we' I mean not just zoo staff, but most certainly also the public. "

" After World War II it was decided that, in order to prevent the Germans and the French from having another war, it would be better to tie them together into one economic pact so they would invest in each other and have mutual stakes. Until now, that has worked to prevent warfare between the two. "

" 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. "

" The more self-aware an animal is, the more empathetic it tends to be. "

Frans de Waal

Tends

Empathetic

" I was born in Den Bosch, where the painter Hieronymus Bosch named himself after. And so I've always been very fond of this painter who lived and worked in the 15th century. "

" 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. "

" Chimps don't have language. Humans actively instruct others about how things should be done. Chimpanzees probably pick up cultural traditions by observation. "

Frans de Waal

Others

Done

" Empathy probably started out as a mechanism to improve maternal care. Mammalian mothers who were attentive to their young's needs were more likely to rear successful offspring. "

Frans de Waal

Young

Care

" The primate laugh is given in playful contexts, and as such has a strong similarity to the human laugh. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Bonobo studies started in the '70s and came to fruition in the '80s. Then in the '90s, all of a sudden, boom, they ended because of the warfare in the Congo. It was really bad for the bonobo and ironic that people with their warfare were preventing us from studying the hippies of the primate world. "

" Chimps cannot tell us anything about peaceful relations, because chimps have only different degrees of hostility between communities. Whereas bonobos do tell us something; they tell us about the possibility of having peaceful relationships. "

" I think the sense of fairness in humans is very strongly developed, and that's why we react so strongly to all the bonuses received by Wall Street executives. We want to know why they deserve these benefits. "

" 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. "

" The role of inequity in society is grossly underestimated. Inequity is not good for your health, basically. "

" A chimpanzee who is really gearing up for a fight doesn't waste time with gestures but just goes ahead and attacks. "

Frans de Waal

Just

Time

" I think we need to start thinking about grounding our moral systems in our biology. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Humans have a lot of pro-social tendencies. "

" There's a long tradition in Western thought that humans are not shackled by biology, whereas animals are pure instinct machines. "

" 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. "

" 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. "