Someone told me that some scientists who taught primates to use sign language were forced to euthanize them after the experiment was complete.

The fear was that the primates, if they ever escaped or were released, would teach others in the wild and you'd have intelligent monkeys after a number of generations!

Huh? Real or not?

__________________
My son is my universe.

I don't know, but that seems... very suspicious, to me. I kinda doubt that that would be the reason to euthanize them, if they were euthanized.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

hmmmmmmm. Planet of the Apes anyone?

__________________
Aim high (but don't blow yourself up)!- Homer Hickam

In Soviet Russia, UFO report you!- Phil Plait

Carl Sagan may have seen a pale blue dot, but I see a sapphire.- Doug Phillips, Discovering Alabama.

Clear skies Maksutov.

So how can the euthanized Washoe and friends still be signing away at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute?

__________________
0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

D'uh, stupid. It's a CONSPIRACY.

(No offense meant, was meant in jest. Please don't hurt me. Please.)

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

I'm curious--when do they think the experiment is deemed "complete"? (Anyone know if Koko's still alive?)

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

http://www.koko.org/foundation/

Apparently she has a vocabulary of over a thousand words - seems to be alive and well. I am very skeptical of the story of primates being euthanized for the reason stated. I understand Koko's language ability to be about equal to that of a two or three year old child, and she is by far the most extensively language-trained primate in the world. The website indicates some hope that she will bear offsping soon, so I suppose it would be interesting to watch what she is able to pass on to him/her/it when/if the time comes.

__________________
If I'm wrong, you probably asked me the wrong question.

The vast majority of signing chimps live in an open chimp habitat "island" where they're well-cared for and where many continue to sign to one another.

A few of the chimps have tried teaching it to the non-signing chimps present on the island, but with little success.

Yeah, I would've guessed something like that. Of course, a guess is conjecture and I would've seemed a fool if I was wrong.

Yeah... that's it...

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

Could this have happened in another country? I mean, after all, here in America there aren't families of apes running around in the wild for them to hook up with. I didn't get a lot of details from the purveyor of this story.

But what would happen if you let enough of them loose? I know, I know, Planet of the Apes. But could, over time, "little success teaching fellow primates" evolve into a new language and give rise to a second civilization?

__________________
My son is my universe.

I think it would have to take a while before you got a second civilization. This is assuming we'd even let them exist after they started developing (Though I know a lot of people would want to, since they might very well be curious to see what happens).

However, it would take centuries, I believe, before you got much out of it.

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

This is what I'd expect, and why I think there would be little concern that it would lead to a sudden development of chimpanzee civilization (and would it really be a big problem if it did?). When teaching chimps sign language, they're well rewarded for learning, so they have a strong motivation. Once they've learned a bit, they may have some understanding of the fact that language has its uses. But to get outside chimps to learn it, they'd have to somehow show its usefulness without the artificial reward for learning it, and I think that would be a long, slow process, even with a jump start.

I highly doubt it. If they started developing into society, we'd be there to help them along anyways, so our influence on them would be strong enough to make sure that they won't develop a completely different set of ideals and start killing us :P

__________________
There are few left who
Stare at the skies with wonder
Wishing to know more;
The clouds still drift by above
But the eyes below are blind.
--Laura Lundberg

Check out my writing, maybe.

OOoooo! More meat and potatoes for the sci-fi writer in me. Imagine after a few chimps escape from the lab with a copy of something from Karl Marx, or The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Then check on them again after 1,000 years.

Oooooo!

__________________
My son is my universe.

I recall a short story involving chimpanzee language research with an experiment of unprecedented size, using simple devices that would convert the input into equivalent English sentences rather than using sign language. It turns out that one chimp, "Billy", who had at first seemed very promising, had to be released from the experiment and returned to the wild, because he was now only spouting nonsense. Things like, "Doobie are gnaw doobie. Daddies tea quest shun."

Just give him a typewriter and a couple years and he might write a play. Could he get an infinate amount of friends? `:]

__________________
"If they put me on a postage stamp tell them to use the young Bender"
--Bender

One of my favorite old Bob Newhart bits was about the thing where you put a thousand monkeys in a room with typewriters and eventually they would turn out all the great books. He said that of course there would have to be guys to monitor this. And here is a scene from the day in the life of one of them.

"Hey, Ed, come look at this. I think we got something here."

Yeah, I think this is famous or something."

"It says:
To be or not to be,
that... is... the... gzornenplat."

As they say, "necessity is the mother of invention." The problem is, chimp sign language isn't a necessity, but a habit, and habits die out over time when they're not needed. Currently, on the chimp island, there is a habit of signing, but there is no need.

Thus, it will die out over time.

Good point, GB.

__________________
My son is my universe.

He'll just leave home.

"You never sign, you never write. They break your heart. Did I turn off the stove?.....Yes...."

Given that chimps, like humans, learn a lot by imitation, I suspect there's a chance that the sign language might survive through children.

Just a thought...