December 6, 2002

Before Jane Goodall, There Was Nadia Kohts

By FRANS B. M. de WAAL

Nadia Kohts is remembered in Russia as a pioneer of the study of animal cognition. She was the wife of Alexander Fiodorovich Kohts, founding director of Moscow's State Darwin Museum; her full name was Nadezhda Nikolaevna Ladygina-Kohts. To explore her past, I recently visited the museum.

Ironically, the first display one encounters is a life-size statue of Lamarck, the French evolutionist whose views -- now largely discredited -- differed sharply from Darwin's. Lamarck is