Written by: Tiffany Westry
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Frans B.M. de Waal, one of the world’s best-known primatologists, has been named the winner of the 2016 Ireland Distinguished Visiting Scholar Award. De Waal is the C.H. Candler Professor of Psychology at Emory University, where he directs the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center.
The Caroline P. and Charles W. Ireland Distinguished Visiting Scholar Award is given to a distinguished intellectual outside of the University of Alabama at Birmingham academic community whose work is groundbreaking and transformational in his or her field. During their time on campus, awardees give a public lecture and share their knowledge through informal meetings with students and members of the faculty.
De Waal will give his lecture, titled “Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are?” on Thursday, March 31, at 4 p.m., in the UAB Hill Student Center Ballroom. The presentation is free and open to the public. A reception will follow in the lobby.
“We are excited to grant the Ireland Prize, the highest recognition of scholarly achievement offered by UAB, to Dr. de Waal,” said Robert Palazzo, Ph.D., dean of the UAB College of Arts and Sciences. “For decades, Dr. de Waal has explored the roots of human behavior in primates. Through a lifetime of work, he has documented that maintaining cooperative relationships and reconciling after a fight are important in both chimpanzees and bonobos, the two primate species most closely related to humans. His work explores complex questions of where our values, morality and sense of justice originates. By examining the behavior and neuroscience of other primate species, Dr. de Waal also suggests ways that human beings can live more peacefully with each other. Fundamentally, his work sheds light on what it means to be human.”
Born in the Netherlands, de Waal trained as a zoologist and ethologist at the Dutch institutions of Radboud University Nijmegen, the University of Groningen and Utrecht University. He received his doctorate in biology from Utrecht in 1977.
In 1982, he published his first book, “Chimpanzee Politics,” the result of a six-year study of the world’s largest captive colony of chimpanzees at the Royal Burgers’ Zoo in Arnhem, Netherlands. In the book, de Waal compares the schmoozing and scheming of chimpanzees involved in power struggles with that of human politicians. Since then, de Waal has drawn parallels between primate and human behavior, from peacemaking and morality to culture.
Despite the commonly held idea that humans are the only moral animals, de Waal’s research indicates a continuum of empathetic, altruistic and cooperative instincts between nonhuman apes and human beings. In “The Age of Empathy,” he argues that humans must understand where we came from before we can make social progress.
| De Waal will give his lecture, titled “Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are?” on Thursday, March 31, at 4 p.m., in the UAB Hill Student Center Ballroom. The presentation is free and open to the public. |
His scientific work has been published in hundreds of technical articles in journals such as Science, Nature, Scientific American and outlets specializing in animal behavior. His popular books – translated into 15 languages – have made him one of the world’s most visible primatologists. His many acclaimed books include “Peacemaking Among Primates,” “Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals,” “Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us About Human Social Evolution,” “The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society,” and “The Bonobo and the Atheist.”
De Waal was named one of Time magazine’s Top 100 Most Influential People in 2007 and named one of Discover magazine’s 47 Great Minds of Science in 2011. In 2013, he received the Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Technology Pioneer Award, the Galileo Prize from Padua University in 2014 and was named the 2015 Distinguished Primatologist from the American Society of Primatologists.
Today, de Waal continues to explore cultural learning, behavioral economics, empathy, communication, social reciprocity and conflict resolution in primates, as well as the origins of morality and justice in human society. His research on the concept of fairness among primates has been of particular interest after recent political and corporate corruption has come to light in the U.S. and Europe. To learn more about his work, watch his 2011 TED talk.