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{{Short description|British anthropologist and primatologist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Richard Wrangham
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| birth_date = 1948
 
| employer = Harvard University<br />[[University of Michigan]]
| nationality = [[United Kingdom|British]]
}}
'''Richard Walter Wrangham''' (born 1948) is an [[English people|English]] [[anthropologist]] and [[primatology|primatologist]]; he is Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. His research and writing have involved ape behavior, human evolution, violence, and cooking.
 
== Biography ==
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He is co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, the long-term study of the Kanyawara chimpanzees in [[Kibale National Park]], Uganda.<ref>{{cite web |title=About |url=http://kibalechimpanzees.wordpress.com/about/ |publisher=Kibale Chimpanzee Project |access-date=April 20, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120215171303/http://kibalechimpanzees.wordpress.com/about/ |archive-date=February 15, 2012 }}</ref> His research culminates in the study of [[human evolution]] in which he draws conclusions based on the behavioural ecology of apes. As a graduate student, Wrangham studied under [[Robert Hinde]] and [[Jane Goodall]].<ref name=VegT>{{cite journal |last1=Gerber |first1=Suzanne |url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0820/is_n255/ai_21224859 |title=Not just monkeying around |journal=Vegetarian Times |date=November 1998}}</ref>
 
Wrangham is known predominantly for his work in the ecology of primate social systems, the evolutionary history of human aggression (culminating in his 1996 book with Dale Peterson, ''[[Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence]]'' and his 2019 work ''[[The Goodness Paradox]]''), and most recently his research in cooking (summarized in his book, ''[[Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human]]'') and [[Neoteny#In humans|self-domestication]]. He is a vegetarian.<ref>{{cite news |title=Food For Thought: Meat-Based Diet Made Us Smarter|newspaper = NPR.org|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128849908 |publisher=NPR |access-date=May 2, 2012}}</ref>
 
Wrangham has been instrumental in identifying behaviors considered "human-specific" in chimpanzees, including culture<ref>{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1038/21415|pmid = 10385119|title = Cultures in chimpanzees|journal = Nature|volume = 399|issue = 6737|pages = 682–685|year = 1999|last1 = Whiten|first1 = A.|last2 = Goodall|first2 = J.|last3 = McGrew|first3 = W. C.|last4 = Nishida|first4 = T.|last5 = Reynolds|first5 = V.|last6 = Sugiyama|first6 = Y.|last7 = Tutin|first7 = C. E. G.|last8 = Wrangham|first8 = R. W.|last9 = Boesch|first9 = C.|bibcode = 1999Natur.399..682W|s2cid = 4385871}}</ref> and with [[Eloy Rodriguez]], chimpanzee [[Zoopharmacognosy|self-medication]].<ref name="VegT" /><ref name="NZ_Herald_10339384">{{cite news |url=http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10339384 |title=Animal instinct for finding treatment |date=August 6, 2005 |agency=[[The Independent]] |work=[[The New Zealand Herald]] |access-date=April 20, 2012}}</ref>
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Wrangham began his career as a researcher at [[Jane Goodall]]'s long-term [[common chimpanzee]] field study in [[Gombe Stream National Park]] in [[Tanzania]]. He befriended fellow primatologist [[Dian Fossey]] and assisted her in setting up her nonprofit [[mountain gorilla]] conservation organization, the [[Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund]] (originally the Digit Fund).<ref name="Mowat173">{{cite book |title=Woman in the Mists |last=Mowat |first=Farley |author-link=Farley Mowat |year=1987 |publisher=Warner Books|location=New York |isbn=978-0-356-17106-7 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/womaninmists00mowa/page/172 172–3]|title-link=Woman in the Mists }}</ref>
 
Wrangham's latestfocused work focusesrecently on the role cooking has played in human evolution. HeIn has''[[Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human]]'', he argued that cooking food is obligatory for humans as a result of biological adaptations and that cooking, in particular the consumption of cooked [[tuber]]s, might explain the increase in hominid brain sizes, smaller teeth and jaws, and decrease in [[sexual dimorphism]] that occurred roughly 1.8 million years ago.<ref name="Gorman20071216">{{Cite journal | url = http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cooking-up-bigger-brains | title = Cooking Up Bigger Brain | last = Gorman | first = Rachael Moeller | date = 2007-12-16 | journal = Scientific American}}</ref><ref name="pmid14527628">{{cite journal |first1=Richard |last1=Wrangham |first2=NancyLou |last2=Conklin-Brittain |title=Cooking as a biological trait |journal=Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A |volume=136 |issue=1 |pages=35–46 |year=2003 |pmid=14527628 |doi=10.1016/S1095-6433(03)00020-5}}</ref><ref name="isbn0195183460">{{cite book |last=Wrangham |first=Richard |editor1-last=Ungar |editor1-first=Peter S. |title=Evolution of the Human Diet: The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable |url=https://archive.org/details/evolutionhumandi00unga |url-access=limited |year=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-518346-7 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/evolutionhumandi00unga/page/n322 308]–23 |chapter=The Cooking Enigma}}</ref> Some anthropologists disagree with Wrangham's ideas, arguing that no solid evidence has been found to support Wrangham's claims, though Wrangham and colleagues, among others, have demonstrated in the laboratory the effects of cooking on energetic availability: cooking denatures proteins, gelatinizes starches, and helps kill pathogens.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Carmody|first1=Rachel|title=The energetic significance of cooking.|journal=Journal of Human Evolution|doi=10.1016/j.jhevol.2009.02.011|pmid=19732938|volume=57|issue=4|year=2009|pages=379–391|s2cid=15255649 |url=http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:5283945}}</ref><ref name="Pennisi1999">{{Cite journal | title = Did cooked tubers spur the evolution of big brains? | first = Elizabeth | last = Pennisi | author-link = Elizabeth Pennisi | journal= [[Science (journal)|Science]] | volume = 283 | issue = 5410 | date = 1999-03-26 | pages = 2004–2005 | url = http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Pennisi_99.html | pmid = 10206901 | doi = 10.1126/science.283.5410.2004| s2cid = 39775701 }}</ref><ref name="Gorman20071216" /> The mainstream explanation is that human ancestors, prior to the advent of cooking, turned to eating meats, which then caused the evolutionary shift to smaller guts and larger brains.<ref name="Aiello1997">{{Cite journal | last1 = Aiello | first1 = L. C. | title = Brains and guts in human evolution: The Expensive Tissue Hypothesis | doi = 10.1590/S0100-84551997000100023 | journal = Brazilian Journal of Genetics | volume = 20 | pages = 141–148 | year = 1997 | doi-access = free }}</ref>
 
In his 2019 book, ''[[The Goodness Paradox]]: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution'', Wrangham argues that humans have "domesticated" themselves by a process of self-selection, as opposed to our selective breeding of dogs, livestock, or (more recently) foxes by Dmitry Belyayev and others. Wrangham distinguishes between "reactive aggression", when individuals lash out or react to a provocation, and "proactive aggression", which is planned, premeditated, and involves deliberate risk-avoidant tactical strikes, including war and capital punishment. He claims that humans are paradoxically extraordinarily low in "reactive" aggression but very high in and highly skilled at "proactive" aggression, and he argues that the threat of proactive aggression by males has played a crucial role in human psychology, patriarchy, so-called "morality" and history.
 
== Personal life ==
Wrangham married Dr. Elizabeth Ross in 1980 and has three adult sons.<ref>{{Citation |last=Thompson |first=Melissa Emery |title=Richard Wrangham |date=2018 |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_947-1 |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior |pages=1–5 |editor-last=Vonk |editor-first=Jennifer |access-date=2023-09-27 |place=Cham |publisher=Springer International Publishing |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_947-1 |isbn=978-3-319-47829-6 |editor2-last=Shackelford |editor2-first=Todd}}</ref> His work of studying the essential violence of chimpanzees, caused Wrangham to not eat meat for 40 years.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Grolle |first=Johann |date=2019-03-22 |title=Interview with Anthropologist Richard Wrangham |language=en |work=Der Spiegel |url=https://www.spiegel.de/international/interview-with-anthropologist-richard-wrangham-a-1259252.html |access-date=2023-09-27 |issn=2195-1349}}</ref>
 
==Bibliography==
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===Papers===
{{Scholia}}
*{{cite journal | last1 = Wrangham | first1 = R | year = 1980 | title = An ecological model of female-bonded primate groups | journal = Behaviour | volume = 75 | issue = 3–4| pages = 262–300 | doi=10.1163/156853980x00447}}
*{{cite journal | last1 = Wrangham | first1 = R. | author-link2 = Barbara Smuts | last2 = Smuts | first2 = B. B | year = 1980 | title = Sex differences in the behavioural ecology of chimpanzees in the Gombe National Park, Tanzania | pmid = 6934308 | journal = Journal of Reproduction and Fertility | volume = 28 Suppl | pages = 13–31 }}
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* [http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/19925 Video (with mp3 available) of interview about his research with Wrangham] by [[John Horgan (American journalist)|John Horgan]] on [[Bloggingheads.tv]]
 
{{Evolutionary psychologists}}
{{Authority control}}
 
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[[Category:University of Michigan faculty]]
[[Category:Academics from Yorkshire]]
[[Category:PeopleAcademics from Leeds]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford]]
[[Category:Corresponding Fellowsfellows of the British Academy]]
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