Comments on: Documentary Tells the Tale of Nim Chimpsky, the Chimp Raised as a Human

By: Walter Benesch

Walter Benesch — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:01:59 +0000

Hess’ book is so inaccurate about who moved in with Nim at Delafield that it must raise questions about the rest of the book. It appears that Hess is too interested in making up stories about volunteer’s sexual relations that she ignores the facts. The fact that Walter was reported by Terrace as living on the 2nd floor and Amy on the 3rd is completely ignored and Hess has those two as a “couple” in the same 3rd floor room. Interesting since they had met shortly before the move into Delafield and never dated (Walter had a relationship with another woman at that time). Also the temper tantrum has Bill T. coming to the rescue when he was not in the house at the time.
Such errors must raise questions about the accuracy of the rest of the book. As far as can be determine by one who was involved, the literary license taken has taken a serious story out of the realm of fact into historical fiction.

By: Awesomeness

Awesomeness — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 12:37:29 +0000

I think this is really cool!
If only my hamster would speak, i would be the happiest in the world!

By: matt

matt — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 11:09:30 +0000

We already talk to animals and they talk back, dogs can talk in half dozen words to us same as cats with expressions and guestures.

Think of a conversation, we say hello then chat about what we did at the supermarket then say goodbye.

Do you honestly think a dog cares about what it didnt do at your supermarket. A dog will say hello, say goodbye and stare blankly for the rest and perhaps wonder what you got for him at the market.

You could probably train your dog to talk about the weather because it would be interested and i put it out there for people to try it. Im sure it will be able to regurgitate the correct weather for walks after a while.

Also what sort of conversations do you want with your pet, perhaps chatting over the latest release movies, what you might prepare for dinner, a real friend is what you need instead of a talking toy.

As far as i know some monkeys groups have been identified with cultures and to have culture you need to communicate and to communicate you need grammer/syntax so any arguement to say dolphins are the only beings with grammar are probably short-sighted. It would be better to say you have read articles saying dolphins use grammar than to rule out every living thing on the planet the studies never looked at.

By: Wesley

Wesley — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 03:13:38 +0000

In all the studys I’ve read, the only animals other than humans that actually appear to be pretty good at using language and that have no problem with grammer are… dolphins!
It’s true. If we could break the language barrier between man and dolphin, that would be pretty cool…

By: Dog lover

Dog lover — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 02:34:29 +0000

My dog is a mutt and his mix of breeds are Tibetan spaniel, kelpie, fox terrier, black Labrador and after a year of coming home to him and saying ‘hello’ to my dog Jimbo (3 years old at the time), I went away for two weeks and upon my return Jimbo raced out to greet me followed by my mum and he said ” arrow” , both of us heard it and told him what a good boy he was, he sounded like an impersonation of an asian, he can also say ” um” for ‘come’ and ” Rup” for ‘hurry up’ . He is a very smart, sweet dog.

By: nick

nick — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 01:08:53 +0000

If they could talk, would we be capable of understanding it?

By: Kevin R. Bridges

Kevin R. Bridges — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 23:41:20 +0000

Language, in humans, is nearly impossible to avoid. Not all parents actively teach their child to speak, but nobody, excluding those with certain handicaps, grow up mute.

You can strain to teach an animal to talk, though, and end up with results that are ambiguous, and controversial, but only to those that already think animals should be able to talk.

If they could talk, they would.