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As is frequent by the media and animal enthusiasts there is a bias towards emphasizing evidence that fits your desires and beliefs, but ignoring the evidence th

As is frequent by the media and animal enthusiasts there is a bias towards emphasizing evidence that fits your desires and beliefs, but ignoring the evidence that does not. The evidence that this chimp could use language via manipulation of "plastic magnetic tokens that varied in size and color to represent words" is weak, and the structure of the tokens made it appear to carry meaning even when randomly selected and placed, according to several experts in the field I spoke to at a conference some years ago on the matter.

curiouser2 7y ago
I agree, fuck this dumbass chimp.
Svoka 7y ago
Usually it is a good idea to refer to original work for methodology, not a heart warming journalistic report.
ALittleLight 7y ago
I also found the quote below to be weak evidence. Especially because the second paragraph makes it seem like "choosing the correct solution" (of two options) was more of a probabilistic thing. For one researcher she usually chose one thing and for another researcher she typically chose another. Does that mean she was solving the problem for her preferred person and prove theory of mind? Seems weak. "To have a theory of mind is to be able to attribute purpose, intention, beliefs, desires, and other attitudes to both oneself and another person or animal. In order to test whether Sarah could understand that people had thoughts that differed from her thoughts, she was presented with short video tapes where a human actor in a cage was trying to perform a task, like trying to get some bananas that were inaccessible. After watching the video Sarah was shown two pictures, one that would allow the actor to reach his goal (a box) the other not (a key). She successfully solved the problems for the actor. But there was some concern that she was putting herself into the position of the actors, which would be a pretty exciting cognitive feat on its own, but wouldn’t show that she attributed attitudes to the actors. So she was presented with more videos, one in which the actor was her favorite caretaker and another in which the actor was someone she didn’t really like. Sarah selected the right responses more often for the actor she liked, and the wrong responses for the actor she didn’t much care for."
- dmurray 7y ago
  Agreed, it seems like there's an equally good argument for the opposite conclusion (that this experiment makes her less likely than we would have thought). Something like: she's good at mindlessly mimicking things, and pays more attention to the video when it's the trainer she likes.

curiouser2 7y ago

I agree, fuck this dumbass chimp.

Svoka 7y ago

Usually it is a good idea to refer to original work for methodology, not a heart warming journalistic report.

ALittleLight 7y ago

I also found the quote below to be weak evidence. Especially because the second paragraph makes it seem like "choosing the correct solution" (of two options) was more of a probabilistic thing. For one researcher she usually chose one thing and for another researcher she typically chose another. Does that mean she was solving the problem for her preferred person and prove theory of mind? Seems weak. "To have a theory of mind is to be able to attribute purpose, intention, beliefs, desires, and other attitudes to both oneself and another person or animal. In order to test whether Sarah could understand that people had thoughts that differed from her thoughts, she was presented with short video tapes where a human actor in a cage was trying to perform a task, like trying to get some bananas that were inaccessible. After watching the video Sarah was shown two pictures, one that would allow the actor to reach his goal (a box) the other not (a key). She successfully solved the problems for the actor. But there was some concern that she was putting herself into the position of the actors, which would be a pretty exciting cognitive feat on its own, but wouldn’t show that she attributed attitudes to the actors. So she was presented with more videos, one in which the actor was her favorite caretaker and another in which the actor was someone she didn’t really like. Sarah selected the right responses more often for the actor she liked, and the wrong responses for the actor she didn’t much care for."

dmurray 7y ago
Agreed, it seems like there's an equally good argument for the opposite conclusion (that this experiment makes her less likely than we would have thought). Something like: she's good at mindlessly mimicking things, and pays more attention to the video when it's the trainer she likes.