So sorry--Steve Black commented on my warm and bold statements, not Chris Green! But hey, they're both from Canada, right? Joan
> I appreciate Chris Green's comments on my "warm and bold" statements > regarding Washoe. Paul, relative to your question about the structural > difference between the brains of humans and lower primates, Fouts provides > very convincing and intriguing support that the difference is not all that > much and that primates brains have developed on a continuum based on the > demands placed on them and the activities they became involved in. The > case he provides about how the use of tools as well as gestures is a > nature precedent to the use of language is particularly fascinating. But > I'm basing this on my recall of a book I read a couple of years ago so > will provide direct quotes from his book about this topic tomorrow as it > was one of the more fascinating segments of his book, "Next of Kin." > > As a side-bar, I so wish that many of you would read this book!! I mean, > come on, it's written by a scientific academic colleague (Roger is an > experimental psychologist) who has spent his life-time working with Washoe > and her foster children and their use of sign language. While many of > Rogers anecdotes are quite poignant and amusing, he never loses his > scientific rigor relative to his methods of collecting data as well as > insisting on having the necessary data to make certain conclusions. Am I > doomed to be the only one on this listserv to have read one of the most > important and fascinating books about language and chimpanzees??!! BTW, > bet most of the criticisms of Washoe will come from folks who never spent > any time with him nor have read Fout's book. So much easier to critique > from one's ivory tower. > > Joan > Joan Warm Bold > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > >> At 9:07 AM -0600 11/5/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >>>In the light of the passing of Alex the thinking parrot and Washoe the >>>talking chimp (and since when did the New York Times start writing >>>obituaries for animals, anyway?), and (I seem to recall) Joan Warmbold's >>>warm and bold endorsement of their keepers' claims, I offer the >>> following >>>recent on-line piece as a counter opinion: >>> >>>e-Skeptic newsletter >>>Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 >>>Aping Language: A skeptical analysis of the evidence for nonhuman >>> primate >>>language >>> >>>by Clive Wynne >>>http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-10-31.html#feature >> >> Sure that it's not (in the words of PDQ Bach (Peter Schickele) a >> bargain counter opinion? >> >> As I had anticipated, the article leans heavily on Herb Terrace's book >> NIM. >> Some background: >> Terrace didn't sour on ape language until after his funding for the >> NIM project suffered nonrenewal. >> He started questioning the ape language work after he was unable to >> continue his participation in it. >> Further, Nim's (his chimp subject) verbal progress has been >> criticized (sorry, no citation, it's been a long time) as more >> limited than usual because much of the training was done by students >> who had a high rate of turnover. Not a good situation for teaching >> language to anyone. >> Of course his criticisms of Washoe, Kanzi, et al could still be >> valid, but it puts them in context. >> >> A more general criticism: >> I'd like to see skeptics apply the same criteria to human behavior as >> they do to nonhuman. >> How many humans can be said to 'understand' grammar (define >> 'understand)? >> Think of your students! >> How many of the supposed qualitative differences between chimp and >> human language behavior boil down to an assumption that certain >> cognitive processes are involved in human behavior because it's human >> behavior? This is where skepticism comes in. >> Hank Schlinger has been fighting this battle in Skeptic magazine. >> No question that human behavior is vastly more complex than ape, but >> the parsimonious assumption should be that this difference is >> quantitative until proven otherwise. >> There is some interesting data on possible emergent processes in >> human language behavior in the behavioral literature (see equivalence >> class formation and relational framing) -- we're still trying to sort >> out whether these phenomena can be derived from basic operant >> conditioning principles common to all animals, or whether they >> constitute a true instance of an emergent phenomenon. >> >> I'm still waiting for a convincing demonstration that the structures >> of human brains differ from those of nonhuman primates in other than >> extent. >> Function is a more difficult question; there's the problem of >> demonstrating that functional (MRI) differences are causes of >> behavioral differences rather than effects of them. >> Since no one I know denies that behavior is mediated by the brain one >> would expect differences in brain and behavior to be correlated. >> -- >> The best argument against Intelligent Design is that fact that >> people believe in it. >> >> * PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] * >> * Psychology Dept Minnesota State University * >> * 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 * >> * http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~pkbrando/ * >> --- > > > > > > --- > > ---
