It has actually been suggested that warfare may have been the principle evolutionary pressure that created the huge gap between the human brain and that of our closest living relatives, the anthropoid apes. Whole groups of hominids with inferior brains could not win wars and were therefore exterminated.

I've always felt you don't have to be completely detached, emotionally uninvolved to make precise observations. There's nothing wrong with feeling great empathy for your subjects.

Of course we're all programmed genetically to some extent. But the "selfish gene" thesis doesn't explain everything.

There are many animal-welfare groups that sometimes seem to forget that human beings are animals too, that we need to include them in our sphere of compassion.

I don't even think of chimps as animals. I think of them as beings.

Become as knowledgeable as possible.

I wasn't trying to be a scientist. I only ever wanted to be a naturalist, like a David Attenborough.