Apes Capable of Communication/Language

Apes Capable of Communication/Language

Francine Patterson & Wendy Gordon, President & research assistant, The Gorilla Foundation, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 59

Koko is not alone in her linguistic accomplishments. Her multi-species family includes Michael, an eighteen year old male gorilla. Although he was not introduced to sign language until the age of three and a half, he has used over 400 different signs. Both gorillas initiate the majority of their conversations with humans and combine their vocabularies in creative and original sign utterances to describe their environment, feelings, desires and even what may be their past histories. They also sign to themselves and to each other, using human language to supplement their own natural communicative gestures and vocalizations.

Sign language has become such an integral part of their daily lives that Koko and Michael are more familiar with the language than are some of their human companions. Both gorillas have been known to sign slowly and repeat signs when conversing with a human who has limited signing skills. They also attempt to teach as they have been taught.
APES CHALLENGE “LANGUAGE” AS A DFENENSE FOR THE SPECIES BARRIER

Francine Patterson & Wendy Gordon, President & research assistant, The Gorilla Foundation, 1994, The Great Ape Project: equality beyond humanity, eds. Cavalieri & Singer, p. 61

Many of those who defend the traditional barrier between Homo sapiens and all other species cling to language as the primary difference between humans and other animals. As apes have threatened this last claim to human uniqueness, it has become more apparent that there is no clear agreement as to the definition of language. Many human beings—including all infants, severely mentally impaired people and some educationally deprived deaf adults of normal intelligence—fail to meet the criteria for ‘having language’ according to any definition. The ability to use language may not be a valid test for determining whether an individual has rights. But the existence of even basic language skills does provide further evidence of a consciousness which deserves consideration.
USE OF HUMAN SYNTAX IN LANGUAGE NOT MORALLY RELEVANT

Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics, Princeton, 1996, Animal Rights: the changing debate, ed. Robert Garner, p. 10

Following Chomsky, many people now mark this distinction by saying that only humans communicate in a form that is governed by rules of syntax. (For the purposes of this argument, linguists allow those chimpanzees who have learned a syntactic sign language to rank as honorary humans.) Nevertheless, as Bentham pointed out, this distinction is not relevant to the question of how animals ought to be treated, unless it can be linked to the issue of whether animals suffer.
HUMANS COMMUNICATE EMOTIONS NON-VERBALLY – LANGUAGE NOT A PRECONDITION FOR CAPACITY TO SUFFER

Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics, Princeton, 1996, Animal Rights: the changing debate, ed. Robert Garner, p. 10

Indeed, as Jane Goodall points out in her study of chimpanzees, when it comes to the expression of feelings and emotions, humans tend to fall back on non-linguistic modes of communication which are often found among apes, such as a cheering pat on the back, an exuberant embrace, a clasp of hands, and so on…SO there seems to be no reason at all to believe that a creature without language cannot suffer.

Apes and Humans Share DNA

Lindsey Linfoot, Committee of Management and Members of the Humane Society of Western Australia 2002. “Submission on the Draft Policy on the Use of Non-Human Primates in Medical Research”. Committee of Management and Members of the Humane Society of Western Australia. http://www.avwa.com.au/subprimates.pdf

However, we believe that this type of reasoning must also applied to all the other species collectively grouped together as “non-human primates”. Applying rules to one species of non-human primate and not to all the others draws parallels to discrimination within the human race. It could be argued that one race is inferior to another therefore it is acceptable to subject them to medical research, albeit “humanely”. Alternately, people who suffer from mental disabilities could also be considered as experimental models because they may not be able to adequately communicate their wishes. Both arguments hint of terrible regimes that have come and gone and are, thankfully, considered repugnant in our modern society !In a paper by Goodman, Morris it is pointed out “The other new paradigm rejects the traditional anthropological view that we humans are greatly different from all other animal species. Instead, the molecular view emphasizes how much we hold in common with other species, especially with our sister-group the common and bonobo chimpanzees.” And furthermore “….in terms of the DNA and paleontological evidence on primate phylogeny, a temporal based phylogenetic classification of primates that describes in an objective, nonanthropocentric way the taxonomic place of humankind among the primates.”3Clearly suggesting that the human race belong not above or below but amongst the classification of “primates” and there is no difference between “non-human” and “human” primates within the classification.\
CHIMPANZEES ARE CLOSER GENETICALLY TO HUMANS THAN TO OTHER APES

Lindsey Linfoot, Committee of Management and Members of the Humane Society of Western Australia 2002. “Submission on the Draft Policy on the Use of Non-Human Primates in Medical Research”. Committee of Management and Members of the Humane Society of Western Australia. http://www.avwa.com.au/subprimates.pdf

Steven M. Wise, Professor Animal Rights Law at the Harvard Law School, 2000, “Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals” Questia p. 131-132

Each half-rung is composed of one of four kinds of protein called a "base," or nucleic acid. The double strand of DNA hangs together because each half-rung of the DNA ladder is attracted to its opposite and complementary half-rung like a magnet to iron filings. Our DNA and that of chimpanzees is more than 98.3 percent identical. That means that, on average, more than 983 out of every 1,000 base pairs along every double strand of DNA in both species lie in the same sequence. But we're actually more closely connected than that. Scientists have realized that chimpanzees and humans have a lot more DNA in their cells than they could possibly need. A lot of it doesn't do anything; it's "junk DNA." Of the DNA that actually does something, humans and chimpanzees share, on average, more than 995 of the same base sequences along every double strand of DNA, or more than 99.5 percent. Investigators now believe that humans and chimpanzees may differ by only several hundred genes out of approximately 100,000. A mere fifty genes may control differences in our cognition. We apes (more on that as well) probably differ by only four or five base pairs for every thousand that populate the double strands of DNA and one out of every five hundred genes.