Richard Wrangham

Wrangham was born in Leeds, Yorkshire.{{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|place=Cham|publisher=Springer International Publishing|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_947-1|isbn=978-3-319-47829-6|access-date=2020-09-18|editor2-last=Shackelford|editor2-first=Todd}}

Following his years on the faculty of the University of Michigan, he became the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and his research group is now part of the newly established Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. He is a MacArthur fellow.{{Cite web | url=http://www.macfound.org/fellows/class/july-1987/ | title=Class of 1987 |publisher=MacArthur Foundation}}

He is co-director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, the long-term study of the Kanyawara chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda.{{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 }} 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.{{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}}

Wrangham is known predominantly for his work in the ecology of primate social systems, the evolutionary history of human aggression (in his 1996 book with Dale Peterson, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence and his 2019 work The Goodness Paradox), and his research in cooking (summarized in his book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human) and self-domestication.

Wrangham has been instrumental in identifying behaviors considered "human-specific" in chimpanzees, including culture{{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}} and with Eloy Rodriguez, chimpanzee self-medication.{{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}}

Among the recent courses he teaches in the Human Evolutionary Biology (HEB) concentration at Harvard are HEB 1330 Primate Social Behaviour and HEB 1565 Theories of Sexual Coercion (co-taught with Professor Diane Rosenfeld from Harvard Law School). In March 2008, he was appointed House Master of Currier House at Harvard College.{{cite web |title=Richard Wrangham and Elizabeth Ross Appointed Co-House Masters of Currier House|url=http://www.fas.harvard.edu/home/news-and-notices/news/press-releases/release-archive/releases-2008/currierMasters.shtml |publisher=Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences |access-date=May 2, 2012}} He received an honorary degree in Doctor of Science from Oglethorpe University in 2011.{{cite web|title=Honorary Degrees Awarded by Oglethorpe University |publisher=Oglethorpe University |url=http://www.oglethorpe.edu/about_us/history/honorary_degrees.asp |access-date=2015-03-04 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319104000/http://www.oglethorpe.edu/about_us/history/honorary_degrees.asp |archive-date=March 19, 2015 }}

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).{{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 }}

Wrangham has focused recently on the role cooking has played in human evolution. In 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 tubers, 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.{{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}}{{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}}{{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}} 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.{{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}}{{Cite journal | title = Did cooked tubers spur the evolution of big brains? | first = Elizabeth | last = Pennisi | author-link = Elizabeth Pennisi | 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 }} 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.{{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 }}

Wrangham married Elizabeth Ross in 1980 and has three sons.{{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}} His work of studying the essential violence of chimpanzees caused Wrangham to not eat meat for 40 years.{{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}}

• Demonic Males with Peterson, D., Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. 1996. {{ISBN|978-0-395-87743-2}}.
• Smuts, B.B., Cheney, D.L. Seyfarth, R.M., Wrangham, R.W., & Struhsaker, T.T. (Eds.) (1987). Primate Societies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. {{ISBN|0-226-76715-9}}
• Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Basic Books, 2009. {{ISBN|0-465-01362-7}}
• The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution. Pantheon, 2019. {{ISBN|978-1-101-87090-7}}

{{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 }}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Wrangham | first1 = R. | last2 = Conklin | first2 = N. L. | last3 = Chapman | first3 = C. A. | last4 = Hunt | first4 = K. D. | year = 1991 | title = The significance of fibrous foods for Kibale Forest chimpanzees | journal = Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences | volume = 334 | issue = 1270| pages = 171–178 | doi=10.1098/rstb.1991.0106| pmid = 1685575 }}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Wrangham | first1 = R | year = 1993 | title = The evolution of sexuality in chimpanzees and bonobos | journal = Human Nature | volume = 4 | issue = 1| pages = 47–79 | doi=10.1007/bf02734089| pmid = 24214293 | s2cid = 46157113 }}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Wrangham | first1 = R | year = 1997 | title = Subtle, secret female chimpanzees | journal = Science | volume = 277 | issue = 5327| pages = 774–775 | doi=10.1126/science.277.5327.774| pmid = 9273699 | s2cid = 26175542 }}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Wrangham | first1 = R | year = 1999 | title = Is military incompetence adaptive? | journal = Evolution and Human Behavior | volume = 20 | issue = 1| pages = 3–17 | doi=10.1016/s1090-5138(98)00040-3}}
• {{cite journal | last1 = Wrangham | first1 = R. | last2 = Jones | first2 = J. H. | last3 = Laden | first3 = G. | last4 = Pilbeam | first4 = D. | last5 = Conklin-Brittain | first5 = N. L. | year = 1999 | title = The raw and the stolen: Cooking and the ecology of human origins | journal = Current Anthropology | volume = 40 | issue = 5| pages = 567–594 | doi=10.1086/300083 | pmid=10539941| s2cid = 82271116 }}
• Eds. Muller, M. & Wrangham, R. (2009). 'Sexual Coercion in Primates and Humans'. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

{{Reflist}}

{{Wikiquote}}

• [http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~kibale Website of Kibale Chimpanzee Project]
• [http://www.heb.fas.harvard.edu Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University]
• [http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/19925 Video (with mp3 available) of interview about his research with Wrangham] by John Horgan on Bloggingheads.tv

{{Evolutionary psychologists}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wrangham, Richard}}

Category:Living people

Category:1948 births

Category:Harvard University faculty

Category:Human evolution theorists

Category:Primatologists

Category:MacArthur Fellows

Category:University of Michigan faculty

Category:Academics from Yorkshire

Category:Academics from Leeds

Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge

Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford

Category:Corresponding fellows of the British Academy