Lucy, a chimp who was raised as a human(vt.co)
vt.co
Lucy, a chimp who was raised as a human
http://vt.co/animals/stories/story-lucy-chimp-raised-human/
14 comments
It's believed that anatomically modern humans did not speak for many thousands of years.
Who believes that? It beggars belief that there would be evolutionary pressure to develop the machinery for speech if intermediate steps were not being put to progressively better uses.
This depends on your definition of speech I guess. Many animals have vocal capabilities to create complex enough sounds that they could conceivably construct perceptible human phonetics (not least parrots), but they don't do so naturally in the wild. They do however all communicate with each other in some form, much of it vocal; does that constitute "speech"?
While it seems patently obvious to us now, in the 21st century, that raising a chimpanzee apart from other chimpanzees is a bad idea, I don't think it was as obvious in the 1970's as the article makes out. Lucy had already been separated from her mother at a young age before the researchers ever met her, so it's not like a "natural" situation was even possible at that point. Now we have people who know what is possible and what is not, in regards to chimpanzee rehabilitation, but I think it was not so clear at the time.
What a heartwarming ending...
It's interesting to me just how alienated from male chimps that she never mated with any of them. My impression was that female chimps are much less selective or resistant to sex.
It's interesting to me just how alienated from male chimps that she never mated with any of them. My impression was that female chimps are much less selective or resistant to sex.
> What a heartwarming ending...
You must have read a very different article from the one I just read or skipped at least half of the second to last paragraph.
Or... this was just some unobvious sarcasm with questionable purpose.
You must have read a very different article from the one I just read or skipped at least half of the second to last paragraph.
Or... this was just some unobvious sarcasm with questionable purpose.
I thought the ellipsis would be enough to represent sarcasm, but I guess not. lol
Definitely not from my perspective
Well when you've lived your life only developing sexual attraction to humans, then expected to screw chimps, you probably wouldn't want that at all.
Can't blame her
Can't blame her
Lucy’s end really pisses me off. How can there be such cruel pieces of sh*t living in our world.
Great piece, but I was struck with a thought about the researcher’s name.
Maurice Temerlin - that last name is so close to “Tamerlane”, the mongol ruler that I wonder if there’s any correlation at all or would it just be a coincidence that the names seem similar?
Maurice Temerlin - that last name is so close to “Tamerlane”, the mongol ruler that I wonder if there’s any correlation at all or would it just be a coincidence that the names seem similar?
This isn't a very good article, but the story is interesting. Also about it:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/401/transcript
https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/91706-lucy
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/401/transcript
https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/91706-lucy
Think of how remarkable it would be if Chimpanzees in captivity began to speak. This would mean chimpanzees have the language capacity but, in every observed chimp, it simply never occurred to them to use it?
It’s about as likely as finding a flightless bird somewhere and teaching it to fly.