Frans de Waal, the primatologist who connected the essences of humans and apes, dies

When the Dutch naturalist Frans de Waal began to investigate the behavior of chimpanzees in the seventies, he saw that his academic training was not suitable for him to address it and ended up studying Political and Social Sciences.

It seemed to him the only way to understand the struggle for power, strategies and alliances that he observed in an open-air colony of these primates at the Burgers zoo, located in Arnhem, in the east of the Netherlands.

He concluded that it is not brute force and the direct exercise of power, but mediation in conflicts, coalition management and flexibility, that marks the life of an ape leader.

The publication in 1982 of his book

(Alianza Editorial, 1993) made him famous, and he knew how to combine popularization with scientific rigor in the rest of his works.

He died this Thursday in Atlanta (United States) at the age of 75. His family confirmed his death on Saturday to the Dutch newspaper

, explaining that the cause of his death was stomach cancer.

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Frans de Waal points out that female bonobos were ahead of Me Too

The success of his work reduced the distance between humans and apes, and his observations included examples that lingered in memory.

Like the death of the chimpanzee

, in the same Burgers zoo.

It happened in 2016, she was 59 years old and, according to the primatologist, “her personality was exceptionally strong and dominant, so that no male who aspired to power could avoid her.”

in turn consoled her peers and mediated in case of conflict.

On other occasions, De Waal challenged the reader and the viewer—because his appearances in the media were frequent—to ask themselves what we are.

His answer, after having dedicated some 10,000 hours to observing chimpanzees, bonobos or capuchin monkeys, is that “they are more similar to humans, and vice versa, than we believe,” according to what he wrote in the pages of the same diary.

Or as he added later: “I've taken the monkeys up a bit and I've taken the people down a bit.”

In another of his books, titled

(Tusquets Editores, 2007), De Waal questions the place that the human being occupies as a species in nature.

His theory is that we not only share with great apes the desire for power, territoriality, manipulation or the fight for sex.

It seems to him that we have inherited the generosity, altruism and solidarity that characterize human nature from our closest relatives.

How do you defend it?

Suggesting that bonobos can show a kind behavior and with empathy, patience and sensitivity.

Because of this, they are also a good model for analyzing human morality.

In the work

(Tusquets Editores, 2016), there are multiple examples of animal cooperation and empathy.

Once again, he rethinks the intelligence of humans and animals.

And in

(Tusquets Editores, 2022) he examines issues such as gender identity, sexuality, gender violence and friendship.

Here, he argues that biological evolution contributes to a more culturally nuanced understanding of gender.

Francisco Bernardo María de Waal was born in the Dutch town of Bolduque into a family of six children.

As a child he raised animals in the garden of his house and studied Biology at the universities of Nijmegen and Groningen.

He received his doctorate from Utrecht in 1977, and between 1975 and 1981 he researched at Burgers Zoo.

Married to Catherine Marin, they had no children and he was a professor of Psychology at the American University of Emory, Atlanta (Georgia), and director of a great ape research center.

Very prolific, he published books on human existence, emotions, intelligence and religion.

He also in scientific magazines such as

and

magazine

among the 100 people who shape our world, and he always put a lot of effort into emphasizing that behavior is more than a series of tendencies considered basic: that men are more competitive and women provide more. attention to social relationships.

He maintained that there are natural behaviors that go beyond their evolutionary usefulness.

In an interview with

he explained this position by recalling that if people push a whale stranded on the sand back to the sea, they do so out of empathy: “We have not evolved to save marine mammals.”

After residing for more than four decades in the United States, he adopted that nationality along with his wife.

In 2014 he was a professor at the Dutch universities of Utrecht and Maastricht and pointed out that biology should work hand in hand with other disciplines, such as psychology or neuroscience.

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