Brian Hare is a professor of

evolutionary anthropology Evolutionary anthropology, the interdisciplinary study of the evolution of human physiology and human behaviour and of the relation between hominids and non-hominid primates, builds on natural science and on social science. Various fields and ...

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist Jam ...

. He researches the

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, though ...

by studying both humans, our close relatives the

primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians ( monkeys and apes, the latter includin ...

s (especially

bonobo The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus '' Pan,'' the other being the comm ...

s and

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative t ...

s), and species whose cognition converged with our own (primarily

domestic dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is Domestication of the dog, derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's n ...

s). He founded and co-directs the Duke Canine Cognition Center.

Biography

Hare obtained his

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

degree in

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

and

Psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...

from

Emory University Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...

in 1998. As an undergraduate, he conducted research with

Michael Tomasello Michael Tomasello (born January 18, 1950) is an American developmental and comparative psychologist, as well as a linguist. He is professor of psychology at Duke University. Earning many prizes and awards from the end of the 1990s onward, he is c ...

, where he found that chimpanzees are sensitive to what other chimpanzees can and cannot see, and that domestic dogs can follow humans’ pointing gestures to find food. Hare continued his study of primate and canid cognition at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

, where he was advised by

Richard Wrangham Richard Walter Wrangham (born 1948) is an English anthropologist and primatologist; he is Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. His research and writing have involved ape behavior, human evolution, violence, and cooking. ...

. In 2004, he obtained his Ph.D in Biological Anthropology. He joined the

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (german: Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie, shortened to MPI EVA) is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Plan ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

, where he founded the Hominoid Psychology Research Group. He studied great ape cognition in several African sanctuaries, including

s at

Lola ya Bonobo Founded by Claudine André in 1994, Lola ya Bonobo is the world's only sanctuary for orphaned bonobos. Since 2002, the sanctuary has been located just south of the suburb of Kimwenza at the Petites Chutes de la Lukaya, Kinshasa, in the De ...

and

s at

Tchimpounga The Tchimpounga Sanctuary, also known as the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center, for primates is located on a coastal plain of savanna and forest in Pointe Noire, Republic of the Congo, and was built in 1992. The site covers an area of ...

and

Ngamba Island Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary, is an island sanctuary in Uganda, dedicated to the care of orphaned eastern chimpanzees, that have been rescued by the Uganda Wildlife Authority. Many of the chimpanzees were rescued from poachers and are unlik ...

. Since 2008, Hare has been a professor at

. In 2009, he founded the

Duke Canine Cognition Center Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ranked ...

, which has tested the cognitive abilities of pet dogs in the

Research Triangle The Research Triangle, or simply The Triangle, are both common nicknames for a metropolitan area in the Piedmont region of North Carolina in the United States, anchored by the cities of Raleigh and Durham and the town of Chapel Hill, home to ...

area as well as working dogs from organizations such as

Canine Companions for Independence Canine Companions for Independence is a US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that trains and provides assistance dogs. As of 2018, it has placed over 6,000 assistance dogs with recipients at no charge. Foundations Canine Companions for Ind ...

. He has also researched

lemur Lemurs ( ) (from Latin ''lemures'' – ghosts or spirits) are wet-nosed primates of the superfamily Lemuroidea (), divided into 8 families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are endemic to the island of Madagas ...

cognition at the

Duke Lemur Center The Duke Lemur Center is an sanctuary for rare and endangered strepsirrhine primates, located at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It is the largest sanctuary for strepsirrhine primates in the world. The center is open to the public ...

. Hare co-founded Dognition, a

citizen science Citizen science (CS) (similar to community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is scientific research conducted with participation from the public (who are sometimes r ...

enterprise where dog owners play a variety of games with their dogs to test the dogs’ cognitive skills. With his wife,

Vanessa Woods Vanessa Woods (born 1977) is an Australian science writer, author and journalist, and is the main Australian/New Zealand feature writer for the Discovery Channel. A graduate of the Australian National University with a Master's degree in Sci ...

, Hare co-authored the popular science book ''The Genius of Dogs'', which was a New York Times Best Seller.

Publications

* Brian Hare and

, "

Survival of the Friendliest ''Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity'' is a book by anthropologist Brian Hare and writer Vanessa Woods, first published in 2020, based on Hare's research hypothesis of human self-domesti ...

: Natural selection for hypersocial traits enabled Earth's apex species to best Neandertals and other competitors", ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

'', vol. 323, no. 2 (August 2020), pp. 58–63.

Honors and awards

Hare was a 2004 recipient of the

Sofia Kovalevskaya Award The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany bestows the Sofia Kovalevskaya Award every two years. Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850–1891) was the first major Russian female mathematician, who made important contributions to mathematical analysis, ...

References

External links

Duke University Page

Duke Canine Cognition Center

Hominoid Psychology Research Group

Dognition
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hare, Brian American animal welfare workers Evolutionary psychologists American cognitive scientists American science writers Harvard University alumni Duke University faculty Living people Year of birth missing (living people)