11 quotes
I think if we study the primates, we notice that a lot of these things that we value in ourselves, such as human morality, have a connection with primate behavior.
The Bonobo in All of Us (2007)
I've argued that many of what philosophers call moral sentiments can be seen in other species.
They give up trusting others, and conversely others give up trusting them.
Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are (2005)
To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us.
The possibility that empathy resides in parts of the brain so ancient that we share them with rats should give pause to anyone comparing politicians with those poor, underestimated creatures.
Don’t believe anyone who says that since nature is based on a struggle for life, we need to live like this as well. Many animals survive not by eliminating each other or by keeping everything for themselves, but by cooperating and sharing.
The Age of Empathy (2009)
Clearly, we have both of these sides in us, and that's why I sometimes call us "the bipolar apes."
The Bonobo in All of Us (2007)
Our societies are constructed around the interface between those two, so we need both actually.
The Bonobo in All of Us (2007)
I first saw them in 1978. At the time, I knew a lot about chimps, because I had been studying them. I saw the bonobos at a zoo in Holland, and I thought immediately, they're totally different.
The Bonobo in All of Us (2007)
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.
It is true that the chimpanzee is dominance-oriented, violent, territorial. But it's also cooperative in many ways, and so that side is sometimes forgotten. The bonobo is sensual, sensitive, sexual, a peacemaker, but also can have a nasty side, and that's sometimes forgotten.
The Bonobo in All of Us (2007)