Frans de Waal on chimpanzees

The Life Scientific

BBC

Technology, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2016

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

We share 99% of our DNA with the chimpanzee and the bonobo. And yet we're often surprised to learn that apes, like us, can be both kind and clever. Behavioural biologist and best-selling author, Frans de Waal has spent many years observing our closest living animal relatives. He pioneered studies of kindness and peace-making in primates, when other scientists were focussing on violence, greed and aggression. Empathy, he argues, has a long evolutionary history; and he is determined to undermine our arrogant assumptions of human superiority. Frans talks to Jim Al-Khalili about growing up on the Dutch polders, chimpanzee politics, and the extraordinary sex lives of the bonobos. Producer: Anna Buckley.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Life Scientific.
0:03.6	First broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
0:06.2	I'm Jumal Kiele and my mission is to interview the most fascinating and important
0:11.0	scientists alive today and to find out what makes them tick.
0:15.0	Our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom are in many ways just like us.
0:20.0	They laugh and kiss and hate injustice. They pose like Rodin's thinker.
0:27.0	A Yumu, the chimp, has a photographic memory for numbers that puts humans to shame.
0:32.0	Chimpanzies engage in Machiavellian politics.
0:35.0	Bonobos, our other close ape cousins, have sex in the missionary position.
0:40.0	It was Charles Darwin who alerted us to our ape ancestry.
0:43.6	Genome analysis confirms we share 99% of our DNA
0:47.8	with chimpanzees and bonobos.
0:49.8	And yet we're surprised, amazed even, to learn what these apes are capable of.
0:56.0	My guest today sees things rather differently.
0:58.0	France Duval has spent decades observing chimpanzees close up from enviable offices in nature reserves.
1:05.5	He pioneered studies of peacemaking and primates, and he's constantly challenging our
1:11.3	stubborn commitment to the idea that we humans are unique and in every
1:16.4	way superior to the rest of the animal kingdom.
1:19.8	Professor Franz de Ville, primatologist and best-selling author, Welcome to the Life Scientific.
1:24.0	Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
1:26.0	It's notable, I think, France, that when you were pioneering studies of kindness in primates,
1:31.0	most other biologists were focusing on violence, greed and aggression.
	...

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