Read Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? Online
Authors: Frans de Waal
utilitarianism, 122, 267
van de Waal, Erica, 254–55
vervet monkeys, 107, 255
Visalberghi, Elisabetta, 84–85, 86
visual perspective taking, 138
vocal learning, 109
waggle dance, 11
Wallace, Alfred Russel, 122–23, 268
Wallace’s Problem, 122–23
Washoe (chimpanzee), 105, 109, 113
wasps:
brains of, 73
face recognition in,
70
, 72–73, 75, 274
Weaver, Ann, 261
Wernicke’s area of the brain, 109
whales:
brain size of, 123, 248
cooperation among, 190–91,
190
, 196
echolocation of, 75
lobtail technique of, 254
Wheeler, William Morton, 37
White, Leslie,
The Evolution of Culture,
151
Whiten, Andrew, 152, 153, 254–55
wildebeest, 223
will, and self-control, 226–27
Williams, Robin, 105
Wilson, E. O., 13
Sociobiology,
187
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 9
wolves:
compared with dogs, 149–50, 156
conspecific research with, 152, 156
human-raised, 150
imitation in, 156
teamwork among, 191
Yamakoshi, Gen, 77
Yerkes, Robert, 65–66, 96, 111–12, 113, 143, 185, 265
Yerkes Field Station, 148, 189, 193
Yerkes Primate Center, 36, 137–38, 185–86, 213
Yeroen (chimpanzee), 165–67, 170, 172
zebra fish, 162
Zuberbühler, Klaus, 180
Praise for
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
“So, are we ‘smart enough to know how smart animals are’? The question will occur to you many times as you read Frans de Waal’s remarkable distillations of science in this astonishingly broad-spectrum book. I guarantee one thing: readers come away a
lot
smarter. As this book shows, we are here on Planet Earth with plenty of intelligent company.”
—Carl Safina
, author of
Beyond Words: What Animals
Think and Feel
“Frans de Waal’s groundbreaking research has long challenged scientists, philosophers, and theologians to rethink the place of humans in the natural world, showing that we aren’t the only species with strategic ‘political’ behavior, elements of empathy, a sense of justice, and high intelligence. Here he covers not only primates, but a much wider range of species, showing his unique ability to translate the latest findings into sparkling, accessible, provocative books for the thinking public.”
—Robert Sapolsky
, author of
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers
“Engaging and provocative … de Waal illuminates the latest ideas and thinking about animal minds and emotions…. He challenges us to accept the ultimate findings of this research: Our mental skills are the product of evolution, and all animals from spiders to octopuses to ravens and apes are thinkers in their own ways. And he asks us perhaps the most daunting question of all: Are we really smart enough to understand the minds of other animals?”
—Virginia Morell
, author of
Animal Wise: How We Know Animals Think and Feel
“You can’t help but get a sense that de Waal has placed another nail in the coffin of behaviorism. In animal after animal, de Waal shows the depths of their intelligence and triumphantly affirms that, yes, we are smart enough to see it, and the clues have been there all along.”
—Gregory Berns
, author of
How Dogs Love Us
“Frans de Waal brilliantly demonstrates through scientific evidence, inspiring stories, and common sense that we must fully appreciate the continuous evolutionary process that led to intelligence—understanding situations, reasoning, learning, emotional and empathic knowledge, communication, planning, creativity, and problem solving—and to other amazing cognitive skills that allow various species to best survive, each in their own way. A must for those who aspire to transcend the biases of both anthropocentrism and anthropodenial.”
—Matthieu Ricard
, author of
Altruism: The Power of Compassion to Change Yourself and the World
Also by Frans de Waal
The Bonobo and the Atheist
(2013)
The Age of Empathy
(2009)
Primates and Philosophers
(2006)
Our Inner Ape
(2005)
My Family Album
(2003)
The Ape and the Sushi Master
(2001)
Bonobo
(1997)
Good Natured
(1996)
Peacemaking among Primates
(1989)
Chimpanzee Politics
(1982)
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Frans de Waal is a Dutch-American ethologist and primatologist. Having earned a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Utrecht, in 1977, he completed a six-year study of the chimpanzee colony at Burgers’ Zoo in Arnhem, before moving to the United States. His first popular book,
Chimpanzee Politics
, compared the schmoozing and scheming of chimpanzees involved in power struggles with that of human politicians. Ever since, de Waal has drawn parallels between primate and human behavior. Translated into over twenty languages, his books have made him one of the world’s most visible biologists.
With his discovery of reconciliation in primates, de Waal pioneered research on animal conflict resolution. He received the 1989 Los Angeles Times Book Award for
Peacemaking among Primates
. His scientific articles have been published in journals from
Science
,
Nature
, and
Scientific American
to those specialized in animal behavior and cognition. His latest interests are animal cooperation, emotion, and empathy, and the evolution of human morality.
De Waal is C. H. Candler Professor in the Psychology Department of Emory University; Director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, in Atlanta; and Distinguished Professor at the University of Utrecht. He is a longtime member of the board of directors of Chimp Haven, the National Chimpanzee Sanctuary, which releases ex-laboratory chimpanzees on large forested islands in Louisiana. He has been elected to both the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2007 he was selected by
Time
as one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People Today and in 2011 by
Discover
as among forty-seven (all-time) Great Minds of Science.
With his wife, Catherine, de Waal lives in Smoke Rise, Georgia.
Copyright © 2016 by Frans de Waal
All rights reserved
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ISBN 978-0-393-24618-6
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