Chimps ape man

Abstract

“Researchers have for the first time taught apes how to speak. Two animals, a pygmy chimp and an orang-utan, have been able to hold conversations with humans.” The report in the Sunday Times on 25 July was crystal clear, its unambiguity strengthened by the headline: “Scientists teach chimpanzees to speak English.” (What next? French? Gaelic?)Contrast this with the Daily Telegraph the next day. “A female chimpanzee has constructed a sentence using the voice of a male scientist in a new demonstration of the language skills of apes,” wrote science editor Roger Highfield. Was he being unduly circumspect? Why such a contrast between assertion and restraint?Both accounts were based on work by Sue and Duane Savage-Rumbaugh at Georgia State University, Atlanta. Both attracted the eye and challenged the mind. Yet Highfield's version demonstrated how, in skilled hands, caveats and context need not make an article any less interesting than a more flashy piece. The Guardian coverage was equally circumspect.In this case caution seemed necessary on two grounds. Firstly, we have been here before. Twenty years ago, in his book Nim: A Chimpanzee Who Learned Sign Language, Herbert Terrace described his disappointment on discovering that he had been a victim of the ‘Clever Hans’ syndrome. Reviewing videotapes apparently showing him conversing with Nim, Terrace realised that the chimp had simply learned to please him — like Hans, a horse which astounded spectators earlier this century by tapping out answers to simple sums. Both had in fact picked up subconscious promptings from their trainers. Terrace probably also ‘recognized’ signs made by Nim that were random rather than meaningful.Both the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph highlighted this background and longstanding disputations on the subject. Highfield, in addition, reported the opinion of some sceptics that animal language experiments are motivated by ideology linked with the animal rights movement.The other reason why some journalists were restrained in their approach to the story stems from the Savage-Rumbaughs' experimental system. According to the Sunday Times, 14-year-old chimp Panbanisha spoke constantly, saying things like “Please buy me a hamburger” and (on a very hot day) “I want to buy a pool.” She made these requests, however, not by speaking but by using a keypad with 400 symbols, each linked to a voice synthesizer.Reporting Savage-Rumbaugh's claims, several newspapers described the apparently impressive use by Panbanisha and her 19-year-old colleague Kanzi of words such as ‘it’, ‘is’ and ‘to’. Yet the Guardian concluded that scientific opinion remained divided as to whether chimps could really communicate.The Daily Telegraph was particularly sceptical: “Labelling a button with a symbol or calling it a word does not necessarily make it a language when an ape pushes it,” Highfield wrote. “They may not have learned anything more sophisticated than how to press the right button to get the hairless apes on the other side of the console to dole out bananas.”Coverage in the USA — where the research took place — was considerably thinner, and more guarded than many of the UK stories. The reason was not difficult to discern: US reporters are well aware of the many similar claims which they have publicized in the past. Recalling a NOVA television programme in 1994 (‘Can chimps talk?’), the Minneapolis Star Tribune concluded: “The issue wasn't resolved then, and it isn't now.”The Press Journal in Florida began its account: “Computer technology has enabled chimpanzees to construct sentences for the first time in spoken English … A computer system attached to a voice synthesizer is allowing chimps to use sophisticated words in the composition of sentences to hold simple conversations with humans.” But this version also ended prudently: “Savage-Rumbaugh's latest step is another twist in a 20-year argument: researchers have been trying to settle arguments about where language comes from and why, by testing the communication of apes. The advances have been dramatic, but also tantalizing. The question is not whether animals can communicate, but whether their brains actually understand the symbolic logic of language.”Why, then, did UK newspapers in general make such a fuss? The answer lies in the media ritual of follow-my-leader. The catalyst was the Sunday Times piece — not itself triggered by a press release or publication of a new research paper but perhaps related to an up-coming book by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh. The notion of chimpanzees talking (English) to scientists tweaked the antennae of news editors, and they demanded the story too. Science correspondents in turn had to oblige, despite any reservations.One can only imagine their irritation on reading the Sunday Times article which began “Researchers have for the first time taught apes how to speak…”, only to find 400 words later that “Rumbaugh has been given a US government grant for a project to see if great apes can be given the power of true speech.” Pardon?