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"In the animal behavior popular press, battle
lines are being drawn. On one side are the anthropomorphists, authors like
Jeffrey Masson, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Peter Singer, and Jane Goodall,
who believe animals experience life just like we do… same emotions, … capacity
for language, same HUMANITY... "
The opposition includes the reviewer and
"authors like Stephen Budiansky, Marc Hauser,
and Clive Wynne. ... argue that intelligence is not a single thing, but a
many-splendored thing; animals are all intelligent in very different ways."
"In all instances, the animals' actual behavior
is shown to be much more intricate than anthropomorphism allows for. Pigeons
are able to find their way home using a variety of tools unavailable to us
limited humans; an acute sense of smell, ability to see polarized light, and
even perception of magnetic fields may contribute to pigeon orientation."
and
"Wynne examines the body of ape sign-language
literature and finds it lacking. A fundamental question scientists must always
ask themselves is, "Can this data be explained with a simpler mechanism?"
Can an ape seeming to use language to ask for food be explained by simple
associative learning -- make this gesture with your hand, get a banana? Almost
all "statements" made by apes, whether through sign language or computer keyboards,
are single words, double words, or repetitious concatenations. The chimpanzee
Nim's longest "statement" is, "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange
give me eat orange give me you." Communication is clearly happening -- Nim
wants an orange -- but true grammatical language is just as clearly not happening.
No grammar or comprehension of grammar has been shown in any ape language
studies."
This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Developing Nations license.
E-mail: Mark Plimsoll