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Silent Partners: The Legacy of the Ape Language Experiments
Reports on the fates of the apes who took part in the celebrated ape language experiments, recounts the scientific methods, aims, and competition that marked the experiments, and explores ethical questions central to animal research
- GenresNonfictionScienceAnimals
208 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
64 people want to read
About the author
Eugene Linden
30 books119 followersI've spent my entire writing career exploring various aspects of one question: Why is it that after hundreds of thousands of years one relatively small subset of our species has reached a point where its fears, appetites, and spending habits control the destiny of every culture, every major ecosystem, and virtually every creature on earth? What happened that enabled us to seize control in a blink of an eye?
I began scratching at this question in my first book, Apes, Men and Language, published over 40 years ago. In that book I explored the implications of some experiments from the 1960s that showed that chimpanzees could use sign language in ways similar to the way we use words - to express opinions and feelings, to make specific requests, and to comment on the events of their day. Since the moral basis of our rights to use nature as so much raw material is deeply entangled with the belief that we are the lone sentient beings on the planet, I wondered what it would mean if it turned out that other animals possessed higher mental abilities and consciousness? I never expected that the scientific establishment and society would say "oops, sorry," but I also never imagined that the issue would turn out to be as fraught and contentious as it has.
That first book was the result of a curious turn of events. My first major journalistic assignment was an investigation of fragging (attacks by enlisted men on their officers) in Vietnam. That article, "The Demoralization of an Army: Fragging and Other Withdrawal Symptoms," was published as a cover story in Saturday Review in 1971. It got a good deal of attention, and a few publishers contacted me about possibly writing a book. I was eager to do that, but a few publishers lost interest when they learned that I wanted to write about experiments teaching sign language to apes and not Vietnam. Dutton gamely stayed on, however, and "Apes" is still in print in some parts of the world.
Since that first book, I've revisited and explored animal thinking in several books and many articles. In Silent Partners: The Legacy of the Ape Language Experiments, I looked at what happened to the animals themselves in the aftermath of the experiments as the chimps were whipsawed by a society that shifted back and forth between treating them as personalities and commodities. I wrote articles for National Geographic, TIME, and Parade, among other publications about animal intelligence as the debate progressed at its glacial pace.
Then, in the 1990s, I had an epiphany of sorts. I'd heard a story about an orangutan that got hold of a piece of wire and used it to pick the lock on his cage, all the while hiding his efforts from the zookeepers. Here seemed to be a panoply of higher mental abilities on display, unprompted by any rewards from humans, and it occurred to me that, if animals could think, maybe they did their best thinking when it served their purposes, and not some human in a lab coat. Out of this flash came two more books, The Parrot's Lament: Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence and Ingenuity, and, The Octopus and the Orangutan: More Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence, and Ingenuity, as well as a few more articles for TIME, Parade, and Oprah among other publications. I've found this approach to thinking about animal intelligence both liberating and fun, and I intend to explore this a good deal more.
The question of what makes us different than other creatures was but one aspect of my career-long efforts to understand how we have come to rule the planet. At the same time that I was exploring the question of higher mental abilities in animals I also began to think about how our notions our notions of our own specialness related to the consumer society. If intelligence, language and consciousness gave us dominion, it was the consumer society that gave us the tools to exploit nature for our own benefit. I've developed my thoughts on the nature and origins of consumer societies in four b
I began scratching at this question in my first book, Apes, Men and Language, published over 40 years ago. In that book I explored the implications of some experiments from the 1960s that showed that chimpanzees could use sign language in ways similar to the way we use words - to express opinions and feelings, to make specific requests, and to comment on the events of their day. Since the moral basis of our rights to use nature as so much raw material is deeply entangled with the belief that we are the lone sentient beings on the planet, I wondered what it would mean if it turned out that other animals possessed higher mental abilities and consciousness? I never expected that the scientific establishment and society would say "oops, sorry," but I also never imagined that the issue would turn out to be as fraught and contentious as it has.
That first book was the result of a curious turn of events. My first major journalistic assignment was an investigation of fragging (attacks by enlisted men on their officers) in Vietnam. That article, "The Demoralization of an Army: Fragging and Other Withdrawal Symptoms," was published as a cover story in Saturday Review in 1971. It got a good deal of attention, and a few publishers contacted me about possibly writing a book. I was eager to do that, but a few publishers lost interest when they learned that I wanted to write about experiments teaching sign language to apes and not Vietnam. Dutton gamely stayed on, however, and "Apes" is still in print in some parts of the world.
Since that first book, I've revisited and explored animal thinking in several books and many articles. In Silent Partners: The Legacy of the Ape Language Experiments, I looked at what happened to the animals themselves in the aftermath of the experiments as the chimps were whipsawed by a society that shifted back and forth between treating them as personalities and commodities. I wrote articles for National Geographic, TIME, and Parade, among other publications about animal intelligence as the debate progressed at its glacial pace.
Then, in the 1990s, I had an epiphany of sorts. I'd heard a story about an orangutan that got hold of a piece of wire and used it to pick the lock on his cage, all the while hiding his efforts from the zookeepers. Here seemed to be a panoply of higher mental abilities on display, unprompted by any rewards from humans, and it occurred to me that, if animals could think, maybe they did their best thinking when it served their purposes, and not some human in a lab coat. Out of this flash came two more books, The Parrot's Lament: Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence and Ingenuity, and, The Octopus and the Orangutan: More Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence, and Ingenuity, as well as a few more articles for TIME, Parade, and Oprah among other publications. I've found this approach to thinking about animal intelligence both liberating and fun, and I intend to explore this a good deal more.
The question of what makes us different than other creatures was but one aspect of my career-long efforts to understand how we have come to rule the planet. At the same time that I was exploring the question of higher mental abilities in animals I also began to think about how our notions our notions of our own specialness related to the consumer society. If intelligence, language and consciousness gave us dominion, it was the consumer society that gave us the tools to exploit nature for our own benefit. I've developed my thoughts on the nature and origins of consumer societies in four b
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January 26, 2025
A SOMBER ACCOUNT OF THE AFTERMATH OF THESE EXPERIMENTS
Author Eugene Linden wrote in the Preface to this 1986 book, “When I wrote ‘Apes, Men and Language’ twelve years ago, I quoted a statement of Carl Jung’s: … ‘[Man] knows how to distinguish himself from other animals … The possibility of comparison and hence of self-knowledge would arise only if he could establish relations with quasi-human mammals inhabiting other stars.’ Back then I was very taken with the irony that … there were creatures right here on earth---apes like Washoe and Lucy and Ally—who offered the means of comparison… that Jung wished for… I expected that a variety of minds … would begin to integrate this information, and that this … would produce a great harvest of new ideas about the nature and origins of both language and intelligence… I, too, was swept up in the spirit of the times. But today… we are still ignoring ‘quasi-human mammals’ that might tell us who we are. And back here on earth some of the apes involved in these experiments have paid a price as we have turned away from them.”
He explains in the first chapter, "These chimps have suffered various fates. Lucy... went to the jungles of Africa ... Washoe... is still the subject of ... studies." (Pg. 5) “During the past two years, I have spent some time catching up on the apes I first met fourteen years ago… I have gone back to … where Washoe, Lucy, and many other chimps first made their gestures… and I have gone to Africa to see how well Lucy has adapted to the wild. What I have seen has been disquieting… also because of what I have been forced to perceive as the frail underpinnings of science and human judgments… The ebullience that greeted news that chimps had learned sign language is certainly gone. With few exceptions, the participants have been exhausted if not embittered by their experiences with sign-language experiments and the passions those experiments aroused. Few of them want to look back.” (Pg. 7)
He recounts, “The Gardners [Allen and Beatrice] took their share of criticism over the years, some of it unfair, some of it deserved… but their initial work … provides the bedrock of this field… But because the issues they were addressing were sensitive ones, everything about the project, from the Gardners’ methods to their data, is fraught with drama and controversy.” (Pg. 11)
He observes, “You watch the give and take, the facial expressions, the verbal tics, etc., that the chimp makes as it tries to get its meaning across, and you KNOW that something more than rote learning is going on. But it is exasperatingly hard to pin down in words and data.” (Pg. 22)
He states, “During the time Roger [Fouts] worked with Washoe, he has used her in a number of experiments… Fouts is quite frank about his reasons for abandoning highly structured situations. He was constantly frustrated by the fact that, looking for one thing, he would see the chimps demonstrating something more interesting and yet entirely outside the experimental design. Consequently he now sees himself more as a reporter who tries to record what Washoe and her friends are doing.” (Pg. 31)
He says of Francine (‘Penny’) Patterson and Koko, “Penny suffers from a credibility problem not unlike that which bedevils Roger Fouts. Both are suspect because of the passion with which they defend their animals… Since 1978 she has had no affiliation with any university, or any government funding agency. She has gradually built up a little kingdom for herself and her gorillas in a secluded spot of … Calfiornia. She raises money to support her work through a newsletter and private donations… her reputation suffers because her proprietary behavior lends a sinister connotation to her lone wolf status. Still, Penny is utterly devoted to Koko…” (Pg. 38-39)
He suggests, “It is my feeling that the ascendancy of what might be called the negative view of ape language experiments followed not so much from any clear-cut reading of the data as from a loss of energy and heart among the proponents who had to contend with these ambiguities.” (Pg. 43)
He reports, “[Herbert] Terrace examined a film, ‘Teaching Sign Language to the Chimpanzee: Washoe,’ taken of Washoe during her time with … the Gardners… Terrace argued in 'Science' magazine and elsewhere that the film showed that Washoe’s sign combinations were imitations of her teachers’ signs. Of the 39 minutes of film... Terrace chose to examine 35 seconds… Terrace claims … Washoe no more understand the interactive nature of language than did Nim… Fouts, along with three other psychologists… took the trouble to examine the same snippet of film and Terrace’s critique… Thus something as simple as 24 frames of a film designed to show Washoe’s ability to make signs is used as proof of two different realities. Where does that leave us?” (Pg. 48-49)
He laments, “while Terrace was perhaps its most visible critic, the rehabilitation of ape language research in the eyes of other scientists, funding agencies, and the public is more than just a simple matter of Herb Terrace’s saying that he was wrong. At the present time it is unclear whether it is too late to rescue language studies with apes from the quagmire.” (Pg. 52-53) Later, he adds, “a polarization occurred in both the pro and con camps. It was not a matter of Terrace’s positing a separate reality form everybody else but rather a question of everybody’s defensively retreating into the version of reality they believed to be reality.” (Pg. 64)
He states, "Fouts arranged for a truck [to take Washoe to] Gentle Jungle in Riverside, California." (Pg. 80) He points out, “The irony of all this is that Washoe, by biting [Karl] Pribram, contributed in some measure to the melancholy fate of her peers. Still, she can’t be held to blame. Nor does her behavior reflect on her intellectual capacities. She may have acted from time to time like a ‘wild and dangerous animal,’ but so do many people.” (Pg. 85)
He suggests, “Penny and her partner … have alienated themselves from virtually every institution and person that might help them. This alienation has been, in my view, unnecessary, and it is sadder because Koko is the most remarkable ape I have ever met… Her future is threatened, not by the prospect of abandonment but rather by the very intensity of Penny’s devotion.” (Pg. 88)
He notes, “only those who have visited Koko… have seen the real Koko. Visitors see a gorilla who uses her several hundred word vocabulary to tell stories, escape blame, make jokes, tell fibs… and relate to her human and gorilla companions… [There are] hundreds of conversations Koko has carried on over the years, all recorded … [that] Penny and her parade of assistants maintain… But few of these conversations have been published, and those that have are regarded with skepticism. Koko has simply not had the impact that she should have had.” (Pg. 92)
He comments, “I sympathize with Penny for not wanting to open her work to people like [Thomas] Sebeok and Terrace. Having someone tour the country saying that you are a fraud before they have even visited your experiment does not create a desire to have them visit your experiment… [But] for Penny to husband her data so closely implies to those who do not know her that she has something to hide. This impression is compounded by the fact that Penny has on occasion stretched her interpretations of Koko’s gestures.” (Pg. 94-95)
He concludes that Janis Carter, the 'de facto owner' of many of the apes, “decided there was no justification for keeping Lucy in captivity, [and] she went to extremes to attempt to give Lucy her birthright---life as a wild chimp… she fought about what she perceived to be unnecessarily callous treatment of the chimps… as Lucy’s owner, she decided that it was in Lucy’s best interest that signing should abruptly stop… were another Janis Carter to have observed Lucy as the pitiful, hairless wreck she describes Lucy as being… would this Janis Carter have reacted as harshly … to the circumstances at the Institute of Primate Studies[?]” He adds, “although Janis has devoted her life to Lucy, she has also used Lucy’s life to achieve her own fulfillment.” (Pg. 165-167)
He adds, "Nim's material future is secure---the Fund for Animals has enough money to pay his keep in perpetuity..." (Pg. 174)
This is a sobering account, that anyone seriously studying the ‘ape language’ experiments should read.
Author Eugene Linden wrote in the Preface to this 1986 book, “When I wrote ‘Apes, Men and Language’ twelve years ago, I quoted a statement of Carl Jung’s: … ‘[Man] knows how to distinguish himself from other animals … The possibility of comparison and hence of self-knowledge would arise only if he could establish relations with quasi-human mammals inhabiting other stars.’ Back then I was very taken with the irony that … there were creatures right here on earth---apes like Washoe and Lucy and Ally—who offered the means of comparison… that Jung wished for… I expected that a variety of minds … would begin to integrate this information, and that this … would produce a great harvest of new ideas about the nature and origins of both language and intelligence… I, too, was swept up in the spirit of the times. But today… we are still ignoring ‘quasi-human mammals’ that might tell us who we are. And back here on earth some of the apes involved in these experiments have paid a price as we have turned away from them.”
He explains in the first chapter, "These chimps have suffered various fates. Lucy... went to the jungles of Africa ... Washoe... is still the subject of ... studies." (Pg. 5) “During the past two years, I have spent some time catching up on the apes I first met fourteen years ago… I have gone back to … where Washoe, Lucy, and many other chimps first made their gestures… and I have gone to Africa to see how well Lucy has adapted to the wild. What I have seen has been disquieting… also because of what I have been forced to perceive as the frail underpinnings of science and human judgments… The ebullience that greeted news that chimps had learned sign language is certainly gone. With few exceptions, the participants have been exhausted if not embittered by their experiences with sign-language experiments and the passions those experiments aroused. Few of them want to look back.” (Pg. 7)
He recounts, “The Gardners [Allen and Beatrice] took their share of criticism over the years, some of it unfair, some of it deserved… but their initial work … provides the bedrock of this field… But because the issues they were addressing were sensitive ones, everything about the project, from the Gardners’ methods to their data, is fraught with drama and controversy.” (Pg. 11)
He observes, “You watch the give and take, the facial expressions, the verbal tics, etc., that the chimp makes as it tries to get its meaning across, and you KNOW that something more than rote learning is going on. But it is exasperatingly hard to pin down in words and data.” (Pg. 22)
He states, “During the time Roger [Fouts] worked with Washoe, he has used her in a number of experiments… Fouts is quite frank about his reasons for abandoning highly structured situations. He was constantly frustrated by the fact that, looking for one thing, he would see the chimps demonstrating something more interesting and yet entirely outside the experimental design. Consequently he now sees himself more as a reporter who tries to record what Washoe and her friends are doing.” (Pg. 31)
He says of Francine (‘Penny’) Patterson and Koko, “Penny suffers from a credibility problem not unlike that which bedevils Roger Fouts. Both are suspect because of the passion with which they defend their animals… Since 1978 she has had no affiliation with any university, or any government funding agency. She has gradually built up a little kingdom for herself and her gorillas in a secluded spot of … Calfiornia. She raises money to support her work through a newsletter and private donations… her reputation suffers because her proprietary behavior lends a sinister connotation to her lone wolf status. Still, Penny is utterly devoted to Koko…” (Pg. 38-39)
He suggests, “It is my feeling that the ascendancy of what might be called the negative view of ape language experiments followed not so much from any clear-cut reading of the data as from a loss of energy and heart among the proponents who had to contend with these ambiguities.” (Pg. 43)
He reports, “[Herbert] Terrace examined a film, ‘Teaching Sign Language to the Chimpanzee: Washoe,’ taken of Washoe during her time with … the Gardners… Terrace argued in 'Science' magazine and elsewhere that the film showed that Washoe’s sign combinations were imitations of her teachers’ signs. Of the 39 minutes of film... Terrace chose to examine 35 seconds… Terrace claims … Washoe no more understand the interactive nature of language than did Nim… Fouts, along with three other psychologists… took the trouble to examine the same snippet of film and Terrace’s critique… Thus something as simple as 24 frames of a film designed to show Washoe’s ability to make signs is used as proof of two different realities. Where does that leave us?” (Pg. 48-49)
He laments, “while Terrace was perhaps its most visible critic, the rehabilitation of ape language research in the eyes of other scientists, funding agencies, and the public is more than just a simple matter of Herb Terrace’s saying that he was wrong. At the present time it is unclear whether it is too late to rescue language studies with apes from the quagmire.” (Pg. 52-53) Later, he adds, “a polarization occurred in both the pro and con camps. It was not a matter of Terrace’s positing a separate reality form everybody else but rather a question of everybody’s defensively retreating into the version of reality they believed to be reality.” (Pg. 64)
He states, "Fouts arranged for a truck [to take Washoe to] Gentle Jungle in Riverside, California." (Pg. 80) He points out, “The irony of all this is that Washoe, by biting [Karl] Pribram, contributed in some measure to the melancholy fate of her peers. Still, she can’t be held to blame. Nor does her behavior reflect on her intellectual capacities. She may have acted from time to time like a ‘wild and dangerous animal,’ but so do many people.” (Pg. 85)
He suggests, “Penny and her partner … have alienated themselves from virtually every institution and person that might help them. This alienation has been, in my view, unnecessary, and it is sadder because Koko is the most remarkable ape I have ever met… Her future is threatened, not by the prospect of abandonment but rather by the very intensity of Penny’s devotion.” (Pg. 88)
He notes, “only those who have visited Koko… have seen the real Koko. Visitors see a gorilla who uses her several hundred word vocabulary to tell stories, escape blame, make jokes, tell fibs… and relate to her human and gorilla companions… [There are] hundreds of conversations Koko has carried on over the years, all recorded … [that] Penny and her parade of assistants maintain… But few of these conversations have been published, and those that have are regarded with skepticism. Koko has simply not had the impact that she should have had.” (Pg. 92)
He comments, “I sympathize with Penny for not wanting to open her work to people like [Thomas] Sebeok and Terrace. Having someone tour the country saying that you are a fraud before they have even visited your experiment does not create a desire to have them visit your experiment… [But] for Penny to husband her data so closely implies to those who do not know her that she has something to hide. This impression is compounded by the fact that Penny has on occasion stretched her interpretations of Koko’s gestures.” (Pg. 94-95)
He concludes that Janis Carter, the 'de facto owner' of many of the apes, “decided there was no justification for keeping Lucy in captivity, [and] she went to extremes to attempt to give Lucy her birthright---life as a wild chimp… she fought about what she perceived to be unnecessarily callous treatment of the chimps… as Lucy’s owner, she decided that it was in Lucy’s best interest that signing should abruptly stop… were another Janis Carter to have observed Lucy as the pitiful, hairless wreck she describes Lucy as being… would this Janis Carter have reacted as harshly … to the circumstances at the Institute of Primate Studies[?]” He adds, “although Janis has devoted her life to Lucy, she has also used Lucy’s life to achieve her own fulfillment.” (Pg. 165-167)
He adds, "Nim's material future is secure---the Fund for Animals has enough money to pay his keep in perpetuity..." (Pg. 174)
This is a sobering account, that anyone seriously studying the ‘ape language’ experiments should read.
September 1, 2011
has some good background information
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews