Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal, known for his work demonstrating that non-human primates are also endowed with abilities deemed human, died this Thursday at the age of 75 of stomach cancer, announced the Emory University in the United States, where he taught.
“From his seminal 1982 book 'The Politics of the Chimpanzee' to 2019's 'The Last Embrace', de Waal has shattered long-held preconceptions about what it meant to be an animal and a human
,” he said in a statement on Saturday. the university located in Atlanta, in the southern United States.
In an interview with AFP in 2022, Frans de Waal called for not choosing between nature and culture, going against the grain of often ideological battles.
“We consider (the great apes) driven above all by instinct and biology, but we also see a culture in them
,” explains the primatologist.
“Major discovery”
His book
Different, gender seen by a primatologist
, released at that time, sees the researcher sweeping several themes at the heart of the debates that agitate our societies: relations between the sexes, social hierarchy, violence, innate or the acquired.
Born in 1948 in 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, Frans de Waal studied zoology and ethology (study of animal behavior) before obtaining a doctorate in biology.
His thesis saw him working with chimpanzees from Arnhem Zoo and he then made his first
“major discovery”
, Emory emphasizes: chimpanzees reconcile after an argument.
He will say at a 2011 conference that this is when his image of humans
“starts to change”
.
Also read: What the observation of primates tells us about the difference between the sexes
Frans de Waal moved to the United States in 1981, before settling in Atlanta to teach at Emory until his retirement in 2019. In 2007,
Time
magazine named him
“one of the 100 most influential people in the world.” world"
.
In a 2011 conference in Atlanta, Frans de Waal argues that it is unfair to portray human beings as
"evil
. "
“Humanity is actually much more cooperative and empathetic than we think
,” he asserts.