A Conversation about animal cognition and emotions, anthropomorphism versus anthropodenial, and the power of storytelling in science with distinguished Professor Emeritus Dr. Frans de Waal

Send us a text

This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.

The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.

For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.

Unlike our normal format for these lectures, in which our guests normally provide us with an origin story lecture, we instead ran IPLS 18 as an interview with Distinguished Professor Emeritus Dr. Frans de Waal. Frans almost needs no introduction, but you can find out more about him through some links to Emory University here and here, and on his Wikipedia page here. 
 
The interview was conducted by Dr. Michael Huffman and yours truly, with a smattering of questions from participants, including students and postdoctoral researchers affiliated with Kyoto University’s program in primatology and wildlife science.

The conversation was recorded on Wednesday, January 18, 2023.

In the interview, we talk about:

• his book Chimpanzee Politics and communicating science and writing popular books
• English, writing and storytelling as a non-native English speaker, and extending rigorous scientific research into popular science prose
• the responsibility of scientists to communicate their findings when they relate to society and how their ideas might be coopted for certain agendas end users may have - think Konrad Lorenz falling in with eugenicists or Richard Dawkins calling us 'slaves to our genes'
• primate culture and empathy for Japanese primatology
• how our views of the pillars of primate society have evolved from competition, aggression, dominance and conflict to peacemaking, conflict resolution and cooperation
• drawing the line between anthropomorphism and anthropodenial, and what components of animal cognition and emotion overlap with those of humans
• how measuring emotions in animals is not the same thing as understanding their 'feelings', for example grief, which was asked about by an audience member
• and much, much more!

Support the show

The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves.

Here's what you can do to get in touch!

• Connect with us on Facebook, X, or Instagram
• Subscribe where you get your podcasts
• Email [e-mail] with thoughts and comments

If you value the show, leave ratings and reviews wherever it is that you listen, and consider donating by clicking the "Support the Show" link above.

Thanks for being part