> Interesting you should bring this subject up - I would like to mention the
> book "Demonic Males - Apes and the Origins of Human Violence" by Richard
> Wrangham and Dale Peterson. It's quite an excellent and fun read, and also
> goes into quite a lot of depth regarding our cousins, the other great apes. In
> the discussion about Bonobos, it is mentioned that their vocabulary, at least
> in understnding what humans say, is thus far proven unlimited. They seem to
> understand human speech perfectly well. I wonder if their language processing,
> in a physical sense, is close to ours or quite different (within the limits of
> our genetic differences of course). I also wonder if teaching systems work in
> a similar fashion despite diferences, or becasue of similarities in the
> language processing makeup.
>
>
>
> Also, finally getting through with Dennet's _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_. Holy
> shit, it is pretty convincing. I have had to revise at least a dozen notions I
> had about everything from: Mathematics as a human descriptive system, to
> pattern definition, hell, lots of stuff. If anyone here has not read it, THE
> READ IT ASAP
>
>
> Sodom
>
Two books that I would regard as NECESSARY reading for the topics
addressed here are ORIGINS OF THE MODERN MIND by Merlin Donald and
THE SYMBOLIC SPECIES by Terrence W. Deacon.
> Eva-Lise Carlstrom wrote:
>
> > Some time ago, somebody posted here that some researchers had tried
> > applying the same intensive techniques that have been used to teach apes
> > sign language to teaching humans with Down syndrome, and managed to
> > offset their apparent handicap. The poster of that claim did not remember
> > a source for it. Serendipitously, I have just discovered the probable
> > source in an editorial in the current (Jul/Aug 98) _Analog_ magazine. In
> > his article "King of the Hill (No Matter What)", Stanley Schmidt discusses
> > attitudes toward the possibility of non-human intelligence (animal or
> > computer). In a section on the language ability of apes, he says that Sue
> > Savage-Rumbaugh, a researcher who worked with bonobos (pygmy chimps),
> > later tried applying the same techniques to retarded humans and got the
> > same impressive results. According to Schmidt, this is detailed in
> > chapter seven of Savage-Rumbaugh and Roger Lewin's book _Kanji: The Ape at
> > the Brink of the Human Mind_, which he recommends all of and particularly
> > the first chapter.
> >
> > --Eva,
> > making delayed footnotes to other people's posts
> >
> > PS: It was not I who called avocados a vegetable. However, since
> > "vegetable" is a general term for plant substances, *and* also a more
> > specific food term for plant foods generally treated in a savory rather
> > than sweet fashion, I'd call it an acceptable use, despite their botanical
> > fruithood.
>
>
>