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The Ape's Reflexion.
The Ape's Adrian J. The Ape's Dial FIRST First Edition, First Printing. Not price-clipped. Published by Dial Press, 1979. Octavo. Hardcover. Book is very good with light toning and spotting on pages. Dust jacket is very good with light shelf wear. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Sag Harbor, New York.Seller 329116 Science & Nature We Buy Books! Collections - Libraries - Estates - Individual Titles. Message us if you have books to sell!
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
Adrian J. Desmond
18 books15 followersAdrian John Desmond (born 1947) is an English writer on the history of science.
He studied physiology at University College, London, and went on to study history of science and vertebrate palaeontology at University College London before researching the history of vertebrate palaeontology at Harvard University, under Stephen Jay Gould. He was awarded a PhD in the area of the Victorian-period context of Darwinian evolution.
Desmond is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Biology Department at University College London.
He studied physiology at University College, London, and went on to study history of science and vertebrate palaeontology at University College London before researching the history of vertebrate palaeontology at Harvard University, under Stephen Jay Gould. He was awarded a PhD in the area of the Victorian-period context of Darwinian evolution.
Desmond is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Biology Department at University College London.
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January 27, 2025
A NOTED SCIENCE WRITER LOOKS AT THE ‘APE LANGUAGE’ EXPERIMENTS, AND MORE
Author Adrian Desmond wrote in the first chapter of this 1979 book, “Human genes are an embarrassment. This creature … must now face an ugly genetic fact: his genes so closely resemble the chimpanzee’s as to render them sibling species… The genetic ammunition comes at a timely moment. The man/ape debate… is once more in full ideological swing. Reformist psychologists are fighting to implement Darwin’s long-overdue program… by rehabilitating … the chimpanzee… Morphologists … too are finding ape genes only marginally less embarrassing, simply because the human’s ... genetic blueprint palpably fails to reflect the manifold physical difference separating ape from man. We and Washoe’s kind do not LOOK like sibling species… At first glance, the genes say this degree of man/ape distinction is impossible… in their wake come quieter, more profound questions… ‘How close really are the “sibling” protagonists, man and ape?’ … A problem so multi-layered and of such overriding importance to man---and chimpanzee---deserves no snap answer, nor the slightest concession to traditional sensitivities.” (Pg. 13-14)
He reports, “ape trainers are open to the savage criticism… that they are simply picking out the random gems because they happen to make more sense to us. So I began looking at the warts. Not surprisingly, Washoe’s more telling slips do show up the way she understood some words… it is easy to see how Washoe might have been led on by the ASL [American Sign Language] action for ‘flower,’ which enacts the motion of smelling a bloom. But other intriguing possibilities open up. It could point to one way in which she was trying to classify (or conceptualize) her world, by smell… For Washoe nature might take on quite a different hue, in which case her words would be invested with a peculiarly pongid nuance of meaning. As long as species structure reality according to different conceptual frameworks, words can never have identical meanings for both.” (Pg. 33)
He acknowledges, “The fact that apes frequently do make mistakes is played down, yet Nim combined one of his favorite talking points, banana,’ with all manner of words---sorry, drink, tickle, toothbrush, hand and handcream. It seems far-fetched that on each occasion he was trying to say something profound. Yet one cannot dismiss even apparently ludicrous combinations like ‘banana toothbrush,’ and ‘banana toothbrush me’ which crop up in Nim’s conversation.” (Pg. 39)
He recounts, “[Herbert] Terrace’s Columbia group set about replicating the Washoe phenomenon. They posed the baseline question ‘Can an ape create a sentence?’, then sought the evidence that a chimpanzee could distinguish ‘me tickle you’ from ‘you tickle me’ and use the underlying format to generate novel sentences: ostensibly a simple goal, yet they spent five years, and exhausted 60 sign-language trainers only to obtain an equivocal answer.” (Pg. 46)
He states, “For [Noam] Chomsky, man alone had an innate language potential; the ‘deep structures’ of the universal grammar were embedded somewhere in the neocortical wiring. He wondered how else could we explain the child’s fluency, creativity and familiarity with grammatical intricacies which even professional linguists have a devilishly difficult time analyzing. Stranger still, the child grasps them in the first years of life, as though he had an innate expectancy of encountering them. No, argued Chomsky: language is not the product of a learned series of reinforced responses.” (Pg. 86)
He notes that Duane Rumbaugh, etc al., working with a chimp named Lana, “were understandably jubilant. ‘Lana would read and write! After only six months of formal training, she was further ahead in the acquisition of language-relevant skills than we had originally thought she might ever be.’ But could she REALLY ‘read’ and ‘write’ in any meaningful way? True, she could accurately punch out an invariant sequence which her TRAINERS translated as ‘Please machine give…’ but that said nothing for her comprehension. Her sentence ‘Please machine give fruit period’ looks grander than it is… how do we know that the second lexigram corresponded in her mind with the machine she was operating?” (Pg. 98-99)
He recounts, “Darwinians … were emphasizing the gradual transmutation of brute into man by barely perceptible steps---hence the … upgrading of apes… [Darwin] admitted in 1873 that he would gladly have avoided the whole subject (he tried his best---the ‘Descent [of Man]’ skims over language, ‘The Expression of the Emotions in Man an Animals' skirts the intractable subject completely). On specifics, Darwin pleaded ignorance… ‘He who is fully convinced, as I am, that man is descended from some lower animal, is almost forced to believe a priori that articulate language has been developed from inarticulate cries.’” (Pg. 129)
He summarizes, “Today’s disheartening situation might be parodied as follows: The ‘establishment’ denies apes language almost on a point of honor, and is confronted by ape sympathizers, arguing indignantly that the last bastion has fallen… I applaud well-meaning attempts to demolish arrogance … But it is suicidal to demand a fair hearing for apes and then break all the commandments by measuring them with a HUMAN yardstick, when they can only come off second best.” (Pg. 153-154)
He concludes, “Extending the umbrella of our ethics, or morals, or even politics, to the chimpanzee meets with no better success than dismissing human warfare as glorified chimpanzee brutality. Both deny the chimpanzee’s sovereign existence by totally misconstruing Darwinian nature. Man is no longer the measure of Creation.” (Pg. 244)
This book will interest some who are seeking an overview [albeit 45 years old] of the ‘ape language’ experiments, and related ‘animal welfare’ issues.
Author Adrian Desmond wrote in the first chapter of this 1979 book, “Human genes are an embarrassment. This creature … must now face an ugly genetic fact: his genes so closely resemble the chimpanzee’s as to render them sibling species… The genetic ammunition comes at a timely moment. The man/ape debate… is once more in full ideological swing. Reformist psychologists are fighting to implement Darwin’s long-overdue program… by rehabilitating … the chimpanzee… Morphologists … too are finding ape genes only marginally less embarrassing, simply because the human’s ... genetic blueprint palpably fails to reflect the manifold physical difference separating ape from man. We and Washoe’s kind do not LOOK like sibling species… At first glance, the genes say this degree of man/ape distinction is impossible… in their wake come quieter, more profound questions… ‘How close really are the “sibling” protagonists, man and ape?’ … A problem so multi-layered and of such overriding importance to man---and chimpanzee---deserves no snap answer, nor the slightest concession to traditional sensitivities.” (Pg. 13-14)
He reports, “ape trainers are open to the savage criticism… that they are simply picking out the random gems because they happen to make more sense to us. So I began looking at the warts. Not surprisingly, Washoe’s more telling slips do show up the way she understood some words… it is easy to see how Washoe might have been led on by the ASL [American Sign Language] action for ‘flower,’ which enacts the motion of smelling a bloom. But other intriguing possibilities open up. It could point to one way in which she was trying to classify (or conceptualize) her world, by smell… For Washoe nature might take on quite a different hue, in which case her words would be invested with a peculiarly pongid nuance of meaning. As long as species structure reality according to different conceptual frameworks, words can never have identical meanings for both.” (Pg. 33)
He acknowledges, “The fact that apes frequently do make mistakes is played down, yet Nim combined one of his favorite talking points, banana,’ with all manner of words---sorry, drink, tickle, toothbrush, hand and handcream. It seems far-fetched that on each occasion he was trying to say something profound. Yet one cannot dismiss even apparently ludicrous combinations like ‘banana toothbrush,’ and ‘banana toothbrush me’ which crop up in Nim’s conversation.” (Pg. 39)
He recounts, “[Herbert] Terrace’s Columbia group set about replicating the Washoe phenomenon. They posed the baseline question ‘Can an ape create a sentence?’, then sought the evidence that a chimpanzee could distinguish ‘me tickle you’ from ‘you tickle me’ and use the underlying format to generate novel sentences: ostensibly a simple goal, yet they spent five years, and exhausted 60 sign-language trainers only to obtain an equivocal answer.” (Pg. 46)
He states, “For [Noam] Chomsky, man alone had an innate language potential; the ‘deep structures’ of the universal grammar were embedded somewhere in the neocortical wiring. He wondered how else could we explain the child’s fluency, creativity and familiarity with grammatical intricacies which even professional linguists have a devilishly difficult time analyzing. Stranger still, the child grasps them in the first years of life, as though he had an innate expectancy of encountering them. No, argued Chomsky: language is not the product of a learned series of reinforced responses.” (Pg. 86)
He notes that Duane Rumbaugh, etc al., working with a chimp named Lana, “were understandably jubilant. ‘Lana would read and write! After only six months of formal training, she was further ahead in the acquisition of language-relevant skills than we had originally thought she might ever be.’ But could she REALLY ‘read’ and ‘write’ in any meaningful way? True, she could accurately punch out an invariant sequence which her TRAINERS translated as ‘Please machine give…’ but that said nothing for her comprehension. Her sentence ‘Please machine give fruit period’ looks grander than it is… how do we know that the second lexigram corresponded in her mind with the machine she was operating?” (Pg. 98-99)
He recounts, “Darwinians … were emphasizing the gradual transmutation of brute into man by barely perceptible steps---hence the … upgrading of apes… [Darwin] admitted in 1873 that he would gladly have avoided the whole subject (he tried his best---the ‘Descent [of Man]’ skims over language, ‘The Expression of the Emotions in Man an Animals' skirts the intractable subject completely). On specifics, Darwin pleaded ignorance… ‘He who is fully convinced, as I am, that man is descended from some lower animal, is almost forced to believe a priori that articulate language has been developed from inarticulate cries.’” (Pg. 129)
He summarizes, “Today’s disheartening situation might be parodied as follows: The ‘establishment’ denies apes language almost on a point of honor, and is confronted by ape sympathizers, arguing indignantly that the last bastion has fallen… I applaud well-meaning attempts to demolish arrogance … But it is suicidal to demand a fair hearing for apes and then break all the commandments by measuring them with a HUMAN yardstick, when they can only come off second best.” (Pg. 153-154)
He concludes, “Extending the umbrella of our ethics, or morals, or even politics, to the chimpanzee meets with no better success than dismissing human warfare as glorified chimpanzee brutality. Both deny the chimpanzee’s sovereign existence by totally misconstruing Darwinian nature. Man is no longer the measure of Creation.” (Pg. 244)
This book will interest some who are seeking an overview [albeit 45 years old] of the ‘ape language’ experiments, and related ‘animal welfare’ issues.
April 10, 2014
Interested but now dated book on what constitutes a human language and whether it can be taught to other great apes like chimpanzees, gorillas or orangutans. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ap... for a brief update on the subject.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews