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SPEAKING OF APES, (Contemporary Topics in Immunobiology)

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Thomas Albert Sebeok (1920-2001) was an American (born in Hungary) semiotician and linguist, and critic of many of such experiments. (He is also editor of the book, The Clever Hans Phenomenon: Communication With Horses, Whales, Apes, and People (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences).) This large book gathers work from many of the primary researchers, including Sebeok himself, Winthrop N. Kellog, Herbert Terrace, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Duane Rumbaugh, Roger Fouts, R. Allen and Beatrice Gardner, and even Noam Chomsky.

In the introductory essay, it is noted that "this sort of personal involvement in the outcome of the training and testing could be due to the trainer's relationship to the project itself, as well as to the appealing chimpanzee or gorilla subjects which figure in it... The principal investigators themselves, of course, require success in order to obtain continued financial support for their project, as well as personal recognition and career advancement... it is immediately clear to an outside visitor to any of the ape 'language' projects ... that the animals are surrounded by a dedicated group of enthusiastic workers, one that constitutes a tightly knit social community with a solid core of shared beliefs and goals in opposition to outside visitors... In fact, it is difficult to imagine a skeptic being taken on as a member of such a 'team.'" (pg. 7)

It is noted, "Many of the signs used by ASL-trained chimpanzees are also iconic in nature ... and it is often difficult to ascertain from reports alone whether the behavior of these chimpanzees is in fact significantly different from Viki's, or is merely the writer's interpretive ASL-to-English gloss, which creates a difference in the mind of the reader... virtually all reports of informative messages are anecdotal in nature and are rendered contextually appropriate by rich interpretations made after the fact." (pg. 372-373)

The final essay concludes pessimistically, "If things stay as they are, it looks as though the dream of a dialogue with chimpanzees based on the computerized Yerkish will soon come to an end." (pg. 447)

In the essay by Noam Chomsky, he states, "it is not very surprising that careful study should confirm the traditional belief that there are striking qualitative differences between humans and other species in 'capacity for language,' given the enormous selectional advantages conferred by language." (pg. 439)