R.I.P. Frans de Waal: Primatologist who brought us closer to our nonhuman relatives passed away
Frans de Waal wrote more than a dozen books that challenged the public to question their views of human supremacy within the world of animals. For scientists and public readers alike, his writings encouraged people to consider that the divide between human and nonhuman animal cognition may not be so great. He coined the term 'anthropodenial' to express his exasperation with science’s continued reluctance to ascribe complex, 'human-like' emotions and cognitive abilities to animals.
JOSHUA M. PLOTNIK: Frans B. M. de Waal, one of the giants in the study of primate behavior and a remarkably prolific scientific and popular book writer, passed away at the age of 75 this past March. He is widely regarded as a pioneer in the observational and experimental investigation of conflict resolution, cooperation, and empathy in nonhuman primates. In addition to contributing several hundred peer-reviewed papers to the scientific literature, he wrote more than a dozen books (one more is forthcoming) that challenged the public to question their views of human supremacy within the world of animals…
For scientists and public readers alike, Frans’ writings encouraged people to consider, often for the first time, that the divide between human and nonhuman animal cognition may not be so great. Frans often bristled at criticism by colleagues of how he interpreted primate behavior; in fact, he coined the term “anthropodenial” to express his exasperation with science’s continued reluctance to ascribe complex, “human-like” emotions and cognitive abilities to animals…
With students, postdocs, and colleagues, he studied chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys living in a number of different social groups. His collaborative experimental research with these animals, for example, demonstrated cultural transmission, prosociality, and cooperative problem-solving, as well as aversion to inequity, and facial/body recognition…
Born in the Netherlands in 1948, Frans developed a fascination for animals from a very young age and a self-described interest in working with them. He pursued that passion to a PhD, which he received from the University of Utrecht in 1977. While his doctoral research was on aggression in macaques, his observations of chimpanzees at the Arnhem Zoo in the late 1970s revolutionized our understanding of the complexity of nonhuman primate behavior. He described in vivid detail the power struggles between males, the surprising calm that followed intense fighting, and the calculated decisions that males and females made to negotiate power.
In Frans’ descriptions of chimpanzee sociality, published in his first book, Chimpanzee Politics, in 1982 and in more than 40 years of subsequent observational and experimental research with chimpanzees and other primate species, he wrote about aggression and conflict, but also cooperation, helping behavior, reconciliation, consolation, empathy, and culture. Frans arrived at Emory University in Atlanta in 1991 and, after nearly three decades of teaching and leading an expansive research program there, retired in 2019. He was the C. H. Candler Professor of Psychology, as well as the founder and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes (now Emory) National Primate Research Center…
He was an extraordinary scientist, whose work will have an impact on the fields of primatology and animal cognition for decades to come, and on the millions of people who have read his books and listened to his lectures. In the PNAS profile of Frans published in 2005 following his election to the National Academy of Sciences, Frans described the reasoning behind his move, in 1991, from a full-time research position in Wisconsin to his faculty position at Emory University, explaining that he wanted the opportunity to mentor students. “I was missing the fact that I had no legacy,” he said. Frans needn’t have worried. He is and will continue to be, sorely missed for the scientist he was and the incredible body of work he left behind, as well as for the kind and supportive mentor he was to so many. SOURCE…
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