Dutch - Scientist | October 29, 1948 -
There is little evidence that other animals judge the appropriateness of actions that do not directly affect themselves.
Frans de Waal
JudgeAnimalsEvidenceLittleAffect
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.
ScienceReflectionReligionCuriosity
When humans behave murderously, such as inflicting senseless slaughter of innocents in warfare, we like to blame it on some dark, 'animalistic' instinct.
BlameDarkBehaveInstinctLike
Female bonobos form a strong sisterhood. They rule through female solidarity.
StrongSolidarityThroughRuleForm
The primate laugh is given in playful contexts, and as such has a strong similarity to the human laugh.
StrongLaughHumanPlayfulGiven
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.
TreeCompassionFashionPerception
Closeness to animals creates the desire to understand them, and not just a little piece of them, but the whole animal. It makes us wonder what goes on in their heads even though we fully realize that the answer can only be approximated.
AnimalWonderDesireUnderstandUs
Religion looms as large as an elephant in the United States, to the point that being nonreligious is about the biggest handicap a politician running for office can have, bigger than being gay, unmarried, thrice married, or black.
ReligionBlackElephantGayOffice
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.
WaterCatsTogetherBehaviorYou
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.
PeopleWorldBadStudyingStarted
The fact that the apes exist and that we can study them is extremely important and makes us reflect on ourselves and our human nature. In that sense alone, you need to protect the apes.
NatureAloneHuman NatureYouNeed
I'm personally a nonbeliever, so I'm struggling with if we really need religion.
ReligionNeedPersonallyReally
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