Skip to content

Sign up for a small monthly payment and enjoy ads-free browsing at 3QD


3 Quarks Daily

Make a one-time donation and enjoy ads-free browsing at 3QD


  • Home
  • About Us
  • Recommended Reading
  • Magazine Archives
  • Support 3QD
  • Log In

Frans de Waal

Frans de Waal is a Dutch/American primatologist with a Ph.D. in biology from Utrecht University. In 1981, he moved to the USA to teach at Emory University and direct the Living Links Center for the Study of Ape and Human Evolution, in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 2019, he is Emeritus professor. He is known for his popular books, such as “Chimpanzee Politics” (1982), "Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?" (2016) and most recently "Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist" (2022), which books have been translated into over twenty languages. His interests include animal cooperation, empathy, and the evolution of morality and justice. He has been elected to the (U.S.) National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Also see: http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/

The Gendered Ape, Essay 10: No Gender-Neutral Upbringing For Apes

Posted on Monday, Dec 5, 2022 2:10AMMonday, December 5, 2022 by Frans de Waal

Editor’s Note: Frans de Waal’s new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, has generated some controversy and misunderstanding. He will address these issues in a series of short essays which will be published at 3QD and can all be seen in one place here. More comments on these essays can also be…

Leave a comment

The Gendered Ape, Essay 9: Are Alpha Males Of Any Use?

Posted on Monday, Nov 21, 2022 2:05AMMonday, November 21, 2022 by Frans de Waal

Editor’s Note: Frans de Waal’s new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, has generated some controversy and misunderstanding. He will address these issues in a series of short essays which will be published at 3QD and can all be seen in one place here. More comments on these essays can also be…

Leave a comment

The Gendered Ape, Essay 8: Every Mammal Owns A Clitoris!

Posted on Monday, Nov 14, 2022 2:15AMMonday, November 14, 2022 by Frans de Waal

Editor’s Note: Frans de Waal’s new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, has generated some controversy and misunderstanding. He will address these issues in a series of short essays which will be published at 3QD and can all be seen in one place here. More comments on these essays can also be…

Leave a comment

The Gendered Ape, Essay 7: Males Are Better Caretakers Than You’d Think

Posted on Monday, Oct 24, 2022 2:10AMMonday, October 24, 2022 by Frans de Waal

Editor’s Note: Frans de Waal’s new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, has generated some controversy and misunderstanding. He will address these issues in a series of short essays which will be published at 3QD and can all be seen in one place here. More comments on these essays can also be…

Leave a comment

The Gendered Ape, Essay 6: Those Embarrassing Bonobos!

Posted on Monday, Oct 17, 2022 2:15AMMonday, October 17, 2022 by Frans de Waal

Editor’s Note: Frans de Waal’s new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, has generated some controversy and misunderstanding. He will address these issues in a series of short essays which will be published at 3QD and can all be seen in one place here. More comments on these essays can also be…

Leave a comment

The Gendered Ape, Essay 5: How Natural is LGBTQ+ Diversity?

Posted on Monday, Oct 10, 2022 2:05AMMonday, October 10, 2022 by Frans de Waal

Editor’s Note: Frans de Waal’s new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, has generated some controversy and misunderstanding. He will address these issues in a series of short essays which will be published at 3QD and can all be seen in one place here. More comments on these essays can also be…

Leave a comment

The Gendered Ape, Essay 4: Is Rape in our Genes?

Posted on Monday, Sep 26, 2022 2:10AMMonday, September 26, 2022 by Frans de Waal

Editor’s Note: Frans de Waal’s new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, has generated some controversy and misunderstanding. He will address these issues in a series of short essays which will be published at 3QD and can all be seen in one place here. More comments on these essays can also be…

Leave a comment

The Gendered Ape, Essay 3: Do Only Humans Have Genders?

Posted on Monday, Sep 19, 2022 2:05AMMonday, September 19, 2022 by Frans de Waal

Editor’s Note: Frans de Waal’s new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, has generated some controversy and misunderstanding. He will address these issues in a series of short essays which will be published at 3QD and can all be seen in one place here. More comments on these essays can also be…

Leave a comment

The Gendered Ape, Essay 2: Are Males Naturally Dominant?

Posted on Monday, Sep 12, 2022 2:05AMMonday, September 12, 2022 by Frans de Waal

Editor’s Note: Frans de Waal’s new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, has generated some controversy and misunderstanding. He will address these issues in a series of short essays which will be published at 3QD and can all be seen in one place here. More comments on these essays can also be…

Leave a comment

The Gendered Ape, Essay 1: Is The Maternal Instinct A Myth?

Posted on Monday, Sep 5, 2022 2:10AMMonday, September 5, 2022 by Frans de Waal

Editor’s Note: Frans de Waal’s new book, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist, has generated some controversy and misunderstanding. He will address these issues in a series of short essays which will be published at 3QD and can all be seen in one place here. More comments on these essays can also be…

Leave a comment

Academic War About War

Posted on Monday, Jul 19, 2010 12:40AMFriday, December 8, 2017 by Frans de Waal

by Frans de Waal [Film by The Department of Expansion.] For many years, anthropologists and biologists have been comparing the aggression of animals with human warfare. It started with Konrad Lorenz in the 1960s, and remains a popular endeavor. We have an aggressive instinct that leads to warfare, hence war will always be with us.…

Leave a comment

Rousseau Meets Japanese Primatology

Posted on Monday, Mar 15, 2010 1:50AMThursday, September 1, 2022 by Frans de Waal

by Frans de Waal Yesterday in a restaurant in Tokyo, someone at the table next to us lit up a cigarette. I asked my Japanese host if no one ever asked smokers to go outside. His answer took me by surprise: one is not allowed to smoke on the street. Inside is fine, outside is…

Leave a comment

The Continuity Wars

Posted on Monday, Feb 25, 2008 12:00AMThursday, September 1, 2022 by Frans de Waal

by Frans B. M. de Waal Something curious is underfoot in the science of human vs. ape comparisons. For a long time, we’ve been used to scientists who believe we’re totally unique. They simply don’t see humans as part of the animal kingdom, are uninterested in evolution, and indeed uninterested in any meaningful cross-species comparison.…

Leave a comment

The Curated Links at 3QD *

The usual curated links to articles elsewhere are no longer on the front page. They are on the “Recommended Reading” page which can be accessed by clicking the menu item of that name, just under the main 3QD banner. Try it and see. Or just click here.

Receive 3QD Posts by Email

Please fill out the form below to get our email with all the posts from the previous 24 hours, which is sent out a bit after midnight (NY City time) each day. This is completely free of charge for everyone.
Name: 
Your email address:*
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

Follow 3QD on Social Media


What People Say About 3QD




"The cross-disciplinary curatorial website 3 Quarks Daily represents a pocket of humanity in an increasingly amoral, algorithmic internet."

—Thomas Manuel, playwright, in The Wire.




"I look for relevant research, interesting themes and funny stories on sites like 3 Quarks Daily, Crooked Timber, Boing Boing and Slashdot."

—Clay Shirky, prominent thinker on the Internet and its social and economic consequences, and author of Here Comes Everybody, in The Atlantic.




"I've recommended your site to a number of friends and colleagues who've bemoaned the dearth of sites with any literary/scientific muscularity. Keep up the wonderful work."

—John Allen Paulos, Professor of Mathematics at Temple University, and bestselling author of Innumeracy




"I like to check in from time to time with 3 Quarks Daily."

—Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist. "One of the most celebrated writers of his generation," according to the Virginia Quarterly Review.




“From my perspective as an early modernist, what you’re undertaking is akin to the heroic labors of Renaissance compositors, who would (like you) read widely and excerpt and synthesize vast amounts of knowledge for others. A real service to the republic of letters.”

—Scott Newstok, Executive Director of the Spence Wilson Center for Interdisciplinary Humanities, Rhodes College, and author of How to Think like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education.




"It is a great honor to be mentioned in one of my two ONLY portals to the internet—and the world, since I do not read newspapers. My discipline, to avoid drowning in information, is not to cruise the web outside of these two points. I tried many sites; yours has CHARM."

—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan. [The other site NNT is referring to is the excellent Arts & Letters Daily.]




"Thanks for 3 Quarks Daily which has been very high on my reading list for several years now!"

—Huw Price, Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy and Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He is also co-founder, with Martin Rees and Jaan Tallinn, of a project to establish a Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.




"3 Quarks Daily is smart and highclass."

—Robert Pinsky, only three-term U.S. Poet Laureate.




"You guys rock!"

—Andrew Sullivan, former editor of The New Republic, author of five books, überblogger.




"3 Quarks Daily is a warm and often amusing home for intellectuals and other wags."

—Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer.










Recent Comments on 3QD

3QD Design History and Credits

The original site was designed by S. Abbas Raza in 2004 but soon completely redesigned by Mikko Hyppönen and deployed by Henrik Rydberg. It was later upgraded extensively by Dan Balis in 2006. The next major revision was designed by S. Abbas Raza, building upon the earlier look, and coded by Dumky de Wilde in 2013. And this current version 5.0 has been designed and deployed by Dumky de Wilde in collaboration with S. Abbas Raza.

3 Quarks Daily

3 Quarks Daily started in 2004 with the idea of creating a curated retreat for everything intellectual on the web. No clickbait, no fake news, not just entertainment, but depth and breadth —something increasingly hard to find on the internet today. If you like what we do, please consider making a donation.