In2HiDef
07-27-2011, 06:40 AM
The chimp they tried to turn into a human: An extraordinary experiment in which scientists raised a chimpanzee as their child... with chilling results
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2018391/The-extraordinary-experiment-chimp-raised-human-child.html#
By Tom Leonard (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Tom+Leonard)
Last updated at 12:46 PM on 25th July 2011
The woman volunteer thought Nim was coming to hug her, but instead the young chimp lunged, biting so deep into her cheek that his fangs pierced her mouth.
As she clutched her bleeding face, the little ape was beside himself, using the same piece of sign language again and again to attract her attention. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he repeated.
This haunting recollection is one of many contained in a riveting new film, Project Nim, by the director of the Oscar-winning Man On Wire, about one of the most bizarre scientific experiments of recent times.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/07/25/article-2018391-0D24AE9B00000578-470_634x533.jpg Monkey business: Nim is taught sign language by volunteer Joyce Butler
British film-maker James Marsh’s latest subject undertakes a journey every bit as astonishing as tightrope artist Philippe Petit’s walk on a wire strung between the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Centre.
Nim was a chimp that was raised as a human child in order to test out the radical theory that man and his closest relative could learn to talk to each other.
Tragically, as Marsh’s film relates through a mixture of archive footage, re-enactments and interviews with those who took part in the early-Seventies experiment, this is a tale that ultimately says more about human arrogance than simian intelligence.
For those who have been charmed by the recent tale of Digit, the gentle adult gorilla that shares the marital bed of the devoted French couple who look after him, here is a much darker side to man’s attempts to bond with his ape cousins.
A helpless pawn ripped — quite literally — from his mother’s breast, Nim was a victim of the naïve, hippy- culture-infused world of early-Seventies New York.
He fell into the clutches of a hapless band of woolly social scientists who gave him human clothes, human food and enough doting young lady volunteers to send his simian hormones haywire. If it were not for what happened later, it could have been a Woody Allen comedy.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/07/25/article-2018391-0D25C2CE00000578-785_634x459.jpg 'A heartless Doctor Doolittle': Professor Herb Terrace takes Nim for a ride
Project Nim began in November 1973 with Nim’s birth at a primate research centre in Oklahoma. He spent just a few days in the arms of his real mother before she was knocked out with a tranquilliser dart and her screaming baby was handed straight to his delighted new, human, mother.
Nim had been selected by Herb Terrace, an ambitious psychology expert at New York’s Columbia University, to prove a premise that was ‘way out’ even for the Seventies: that a chimp raised as a human and taught sign language could learn to communicate in grammatical sentences. Finally, man might understand what animals were thinking — and perhaps vice versa.
Terrace, a small, mustachioed man with a huge ego, had named the little creature Nim Chimpsky — a pun on Noam Chomsky, the famous thinker who insisted that only humans have the capacity for language
He'd go 'into attack'... he had to draw blood
However, Terrace thought differently and had chosen Stephanie LaFarge, a former student and lover, to bring up Nim in the large Manhattan townhouse she shared with her self-confessed ‘rich hippy’ writer husband, Wer, and their seven children.
But it was a disastrous decision — Stephanie never bothered trying to discipline Nim. She did not take any notes on the experiment and did not keep a log of Nim’s progress, but she did breastfeed him and give him alcohol and puffs on her cannabis joints.
He was encouraged to lay waste to their expensive home and wind up his rival for her affections, Stephanie’s husband. Home movie footage shows the little creature, a blur of black and white in his romper suit, charging around as Stephanie recounts dreamily how she let him explore her naked body as he moved into puberty.
‘I never felt sexually engaged with him,’ she recalls, which is a blessing at least. Yes, it certainly was the Seventies.
The snapshots of those halcyon early days would grace any family album — baby having a nap, playing with the cat, trying out the lavatory (with sporadic success) or simply staring adoringly into the smitten eyes of the women who queued up to cuddle him.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/07/25/article-2018391-0D25C2D600000578-490_634x469.jpg Meal time: The animal eating with one of the volunteers. The chimp was given the name Nim Chimpsky - a pun on Noam Chomsky, the famous thinker who insisted that only humans have the capacity for language
Chimp throats cannot reproduce human speech, so the idea was to teach him sign language. ‘Drink’ was the first sign he learned, followed by ‘eat’, ‘me’, ‘Nim’ and ‘hug’. Volunteer Jenny Lee remembers his heart-warming empathy. ‘Whenever you were upset he would come over and sit with you and kiss the tears away,’ she says.
But it didn’t last. Laura-Ann Petitto, a pretty Columbia researcher recruited to the project, recalls turning up at the house to find ‘utter chaos’. She was particularly appalled to find Stephanie fixated by Nim’s penchant for what is delicately known as self-abuse.
Finally, realising things had gone awry, Terrace moved Nim to a big empty house in the suburbs where Laura-Ann became his new ‘mum’ and the band of helpers swelled.
By now, the chimp was becoming famous. New York magazine put him on its front cover in 1975 under the headline ‘First Message From The Planet of the Apes’ and he was filmed for the children’s TV show Sesame Street. He now knew the hand signs for words such as ‘napkin’ and ‘dress’.
Jumping 25ft from a second-floor window, the chimp grabbed his favourite female and started pounding her head into the pavement
The publicity-hungry Terrace rejoiced — ‘I had a chimpanzee who was making history’ — but Nim was also getting bigger and more aggressive.
If any of ‘his people’ showed the slightest signs of vulnerability — even just accidentally turning their back to him too quickly — the hair would rise on his arms and, Laura-Ann recalls, he’d ‘go into attack . . . he had to draw blood’. She still has the scars, running down her arms, to prove it.
Nevertheless, in his own way, Nim was devoted to her — and very jealous of her affections. Laura-Ann had begun an affair with Terrace and one day, as she packed up to leave after a language session with Nim, the chimp showed what he thought of her disloyalty.
Jumping 25ft from a second-floor window, he grabbed his favourite female and started pounding her head into the pavement. It took four men to get him off.
‘He wasn’t my child, he wasn’t my baby,’ she said in the film, her voice still quivering at the memory. ‘You can’t give human nurture to an animal that could kill you.’
But still the gallant band behind the experiment persevered. Renee Falitz, a small but plucky professional sign language teacher, became Nim’s new mother figure until he one day sank his fangs deep into her cheek. When Nim was finally allowed to see her again and immediately reached for her face, she was off. ‘It was like breaking up with a bad boyfriend,’ she recalls.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/07/25/article-2018391-01B7616F00000578-915_634x458.jpg Critically-acclaimed: The documentary was made by the same British director behind the 2008 film Man On Wire, about tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring high-wire performance between New York's Twin Towers in 1974
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2018391/The-extraordinary-experiment-chimp-raised-human-child.html#
By Tom Leonard (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Tom+Leonard)
Last updated at 12:46 PM on 25th July 2011
The woman volunteer thought Nim was coming to hug her, but instead the young chimp lunged, biting so deep into her cheek that his fangs pierced her mouth.
As she clutched her bleeding face, the little ape was beside himself, using the same piece of sign language again and again to attract her attention. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he repeated.
This haunting recollection is one of many contained in a riveting new film, Project Nim, by the director of the Oscar-winning Man On Wire, about one of the most bizarre scientific experiments of recent times.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/07/25/article-2018391-0D24AE9B00000578-470_634x533.jpg Monkey business: Nim is taught sign language by volunteer Joyce Butler
British film-maker James Marsh’s latest subject undertakes a journey every bit as astonishing as tightrope artist Philippe Petit’s walk on a wire strung between the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Centre.
Nim was a chimp that was raised as a human child in order to test out the radical theory that man and his closest relative could learn to talk to each other.
Tragically, as Marsh’s film relates through a mixture of archive footage, re-enactments and interviews with those who took part in the early-Seventies experiment, this is a tale that ultimately says more about human arrogance than simian intelligence.
For those who have been charmed by the recent tale of Digit, the gentle adult gorilla that shares the marital bed of the devoted French couple who look after him, here is a much darker side to man’s attempts to bond with his ape cousins.
A helpless pawn ripped — quite literally — from his mother’s breast, Nim was a victim of the naïve, hippy- culture-infused world of early-Seventies New York.
He fell into the clutches of a hapless band of woolly social scientists who gave him human clothes, human food and enough doting young lady volunteers to send his simian hormones haywire. If it were not for what happened later, it could have been a Woody Allen comedy.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/07/25/article-2018391-0D25C2CE00000578-785_634x459.jpg 'A heartless Doctor Doolittle': Professor Herb Terrace takes Nim for a ride
Project Nim began in November 1973 with Nim’s birth at a primate research centre in Oklahoma. He spent just a few days in the arms of his real mother before she was knocked out with a tranquilliser dart and her screaming baby was handed straight to his delighted new, human, mother.
Nim had been selected by Herb Terrace, an ambitious psychology expert at New York’s Columbia University, to prove a premise that was ‘way out’ even for the Seventies: that a chimp raised as a human and taught sign language could learn to communicate in grammatical sentences. Finally, man might understand what animals were thinking — and perhaps vice versa.
Terrace, a small, mustachioed man with a huge ego, had named the little creature Nim Chimpsky — a pun on Noam Chomsky, the famous thinker who insisted that only humans have the capacity for language
He'd go 'into attack'... he had to draw blood
However, Terrace thought differently and had chosen Stephanie LaFarge, a former student and lover, to bring up Nim in the large Manhattan townhouse she shared with her self-confessed ‘rich hippy’ writer husband, Wer, and their seven children.
But it was a disastrous decision — Stephanie never bothered trying to discipline Nim. She did not take any notes on the experiment and did not keep a log of Nim’s progress, but she did breastfeed him and give him alcohol and puffs on her cannabis joints.
He was encouraged to lay waste to their expensive home and wind up his rival for her affections, Stephanie’s husband. Home movie footage shows the little creature, a blur of black and white in his romper suit, charging around as Stephanie recounts dreamily how she let him explore her naked body as he moved into puberty.
‘I never felt sexually engaged with him,’ she recalls, which is a blessing at least. Yes, it certainly was the Seventies.
The snapshots of those halcyon early days would grace any family album — baby having a nap, playing with the cat, trying out the lavatory (with sporadic success) or simply staring adoringly into the smitten eyes of the women who queued up to cuddle him.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/07/25/article-2018391-0D25C2D600000578-490_634x469.jpg Meal time: The animal eating with one of the volunteers. The chimp was given the name Nim Chimpsky - a pun on Noam Chomsky, the famous thinker who insisted that only humans have the capacity for language
Chimp throats cannot reproduce human speech, so the idea was to teach him sign language. ‘Drink’ was the first sign he learned, followed by ‘eat’, ‘me’, ‘Nim’ and ‘hug’. Volunteer Jenny Lee remembers his heart-warming empathy. ‘Whenever you were upset he would come over and sit with you and kiss the tears away,’ she says.
But it didn’t last. Laura-Ann Petitto, a pretty Columbia researcher recruited to the project, recalls turning up at the house to find ‘utter chaos’. She was particularly appalled to find Stephanie fixated by Nim’s penchant for what is delicately known as self-abuse.
Finally, realising things had gone awry, Terrace moved Nim to a big empty house in the suburbs where Laura-Ann became his new ‘mum’ and the band of helpers swelled.
By now, the chimp was becoming famous. New York magazine put him on its front cover in 1975 under the headline ‘First Message From The Planet of the Apes’ and he was filmed for the children’s TV show Sesame Street. He now knew the hand signs for words such as ‘napkin’ and ‘dress’.
Jumping 25ft from a second-floor window, the chimp grabbed his favourite female and started pounding her head into the pavement
The publicity-hungry Terrace rejoiced — ‘I had a chimpanzee who was making history’ — but Nim was also getting bigger and more aggressive.
If any of ‘his people’ showed the slightest signs of vulnerability — even just accidentally turning their back to him too quickly — the hair would rise on his arms and, Laura-Ann recalls, he’d ‘go into attack . . . he had to draw blood’. She still has the scars, running down her arms, to prove it.
Nevertheless, in his own way, Nim was devoted to her — and very jealous of her affections. Laura-Ann had begun an affair with Terrace and one day, as she packed up to leave after a language session with Nim, the chimp showed what he thought of her disloyalty.
Jumping 25ft from a second-floor window, he grabbed his favourite female and started pounding her head into the pavement. It took four men to get him off.
‘He wasn’t my child, he wasn’t my baby,’ she said in the film, her voice still quivering at the memory. ‘You can’t give human nurture to an animal that could kill you.’
But still the gallant band behind the experiment persevered. Renee Falitz, a small but plucky professional sign language teacher, became Nim’s new mother figure until he one day sank his fangs deep into her cheek. When Nim was finally allowed to see her again and immediately reached for her face, she was off. ‘It was like breaking up with a bad boyfriend,’ she recalls.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/07/25/article-2018391-01B7616F00000578-915_634x458.jpg Critically-acclaimed: The documentary was made by the same British director behind the 2008 film Man On Wire, about tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring high-wire performance between New York's Twin Towers in 1974