Brian Hare (born 1976) is a professor of

evolutionary anthropology Evolutionary anthropology, the interdisciplinary study of the human evolution, 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. Vari ...

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

. He researches the

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

cognition Cognition is 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, thought, ...

by studying both humans, our close relatives the

primate Primates is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers a ...

s (especially

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

s and

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (; ''Pan troglodytes''), also simply known as the chimp, is a species of Hominidae, great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close rel ...

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 gray wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from a population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers ...

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

Biography

Hare obtained his

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree in

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

and

Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

from

Emory University Emory University is a private university, private research university in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was founded in 1836 as Emory College by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory. Its main campu ...

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 ...

, 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 university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, 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 (, shortened to MPI EVA) is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network. Well-known scientists currently based at ...

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

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

s at

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

and

s at Tchimpounga and Ngamba Island. Since 2008, Hare has been a professor at

. In 2009, he founded the Duke Canine Cognition Center, 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 (United States), Piedmont region of the U.S. state of North Carolina. Anchored by the cities of Raleigh, North Carolina, Raleigh an ...

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 In ...

. He has also researched

lemur Lemurs ( ; from Latin ) are Strepsirrhini, wet-nosed primates of the Superfamily (biology), superfamily Lemuroidea ( ), divided into 8 Family (biology), families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 existing species. They are Endemism, ...

cognition at the Duke Lemur Center. Hare co-founde
Dognition
a

citizen science The term citizen science (synonymous to terms like community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is research conducted with participation from the general public, or am ...

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 Australians, 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 of A ...

, 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: 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 scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'', vol. 323, no. 2 (August 2020), pp. 58–63. * Brian Hare and

, " Survival of the Friendliest. Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity". New York: Random House 2020. ISBN 978-0-39959-068-9

Honors and awards

Hare was a 2004 recipient of the Sofia Kovalevskaya Award.

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 1976 births