Be they dolphins, apes, or even birds, long term encounters with individuals from certain species have shown us that communication beyond this basic level is, indeed, possible. Take, for instance, Akeakamai and Phoenix, two dolphins from the Kewalo Basin Marine mammal Laboratory in Hawaii that were heavily studied in the 1980's.
Akeakamai and Phoenix are asked to create a trick and do it together. The two dolphins swim away from the side of the pool, circle together underwater for about ten seconds, then leap out of the water, spinning clockwise on their long axis and squirting water from their mouths, every maneuver done at the same instant. "None of this was trained," [Louis] Herman says, "and it looks to us absolutely mysterious. We don't know how they do it - or did it." (National Geographic, March 2008)
Clearly, some brand of complex communication was conducted between the two, but they can't conceptually communicate the same thing to humans other than by "proving" the transaction with a final product, right? Maybe. Maybe not. Take Kanzi, the famous bonobo that has, for the past 20 years, regularly communicated with his handlers in Des Moines, Iowa. Given and taught to use a picture-filled keyboard, Kanzi has, at this point, learned 348 unique symbols that correspond to objects and ideas. Using this keyboard, Kanzi does appear to communicate quite handily with human beings.
Once...on an outing in a forest by the Georgia State University laboratory where he was raised, Kanzi touched the symbols for 'marshmallow' and 'fire.' Given matches and marshmallows, Kanzi snapped twigs for a fire, lit them with the matches and toasted the marshmallows on a stick. (Smithsonian, November 2006)
Though no animal yet had acquired complex and varied vocalization ability (at least none that corresponds to words we accept and understand), this does not seem to be requisite for complex and varied conceptual speech, be it between members of other species or between humans and other species, at least with the aid of communication tools.
There remain, however, detractors.
Many linguists argue that these bonobos are simply very skilled at getting what they want, and that their abilities do not constitute a language. "I do not believe that there has ever been an example anywhere of a nonhuman expressing an opinion, or asking a question. Not ever," says Geoffrey Pullum, a linguist at the University of California at Santa Cruz. (Smithsonian, November 2006)
In all fairness, though, isn't being "skilled at getting what they want" the reason humans express opinions? Sure, Kanzi doesn't have anything to say about the Obama/Hillary question, but neither does he have any investment in it. Humans, American ones, in particular, of course do, because they tend to want one of the two in office for a variety of self-interested reasons. Even seemingly altruistic motivations have self-interest at their core, for as any sacrificing individual would readily attest, doing things that help other people tends to make the acting person feel good. Talk about selfish! But what if the animal DID have something that it was invested in? Would it have an opinion then? Consider the case of Alex, an African gray parrot from Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
"Wanna go tree," Alex said in a tiny voice. Alex had lived his entire life in captivity, but he knew that beyond the lab's door, there was a hallway and a tall window framing a leafy elm tree. He liked to see the tree, so [Irene] Pepperberg put her hand out for him to climb aboard. She walked down the hall into the tree's green light. "Good boy! Good birdie," Alex said, bobbing on her hand. (National Geographic, March 2008)I recall my first apartment, post-college, on the infinitely relaxing slopes of south Redondo Beach, overlooking the expansive Pacific. My room was in the back of the unit with windows that afforded a detailed view of the neighboring building's white stucco. The front, however, was wrap around glass windows with a deck that, even a mile distant from the water, seemed to hang over the ocean. I liked my room, but where I really wanted to be, and generally ended up, was on that deck, stretched out on the ancient couch that the previous tenants had forgotten to take with them. I like to think that I had an opinion about the "deck vs. bedroom" question and that I, daresay, was even skilled at operating on that opinion in order to align my day in favor of it. Uniquely human? "Wanna go tree" sounds distinctly similar to the thought I had (regular intoxication at this point in my life would have rendered any vocalization markedly similar, I am sure), substituting "tree" with "deck," of course. What is different about Alex's preference for the tree over his cage? Is this not the hallowed, human opinion rearing its head, if for no other reason than to help Alex get what he wants?
There is a dangerous side effect to the human belief that we are different from the rest of the species of animal and plant on the planet. It allows our ego to be more than merely individual, but also to propagate itself as a species-wide ego that places humanity on a pedestal that oversees and has, by this right, rule to dominate all other things as it sees fit. Such a point of view places humanity at increasing discord with its surroundings which, as the surprisingly "intelligent" species of the planet have started to show, humans are not especially removed from. Similarities abound and, in an honest comparison, incredibly overwhelm the differences between man and the other species. What people view as distinct differences between themselves and apes, or even something as "different" as an insect, become a litany of carbon-based life-form commonalities in the broad, universal drama. To suggest that a cellularly complex creature like an ape is bereft of the "opinions" that the equally complex human is subject to having seems like a desperate attempt to keep the socialized, human control hierarchy extended onto all we see, rather than leaving it in our own tribal circles, where it belongs. Pressing such a system onto the rest of the Gaia organism allows humanity to exploit and destroy his surroundings without moral worry thanks to his self-appointed, divine position.
We should take the time to count the similarities, to drop the focus on the "contrast" and pay a bit more attention to the "compare" portion of the famous, English teacher equation. We might learn something all the greater thanks to this line of thinking. We watch the chimpanzee eat fruit, leaves, and hunt for arboreal game, as we sit and open our packaged "food" oddities, all the while wondering at their strangely "human" facial expressions and actions. All we can record is this one difference, ignoring the multiform commonalities that should suggest something to us about simple things, like food choices, that we take for granted. Or should this, rather, be our world, conformed to our needs? Shall we bring the chimpanzee in line with his superior? The bonobo?
Kanzi and the other bonobos spend evenings sprawled on the floor, snacking on M&M's...as they watch DVD's they select by pressing buttons on a computer screen. (Smithsonian, November 2006)
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| Kanzi, taking on some of his trainer's physical attributes... |
Despite all Kanzi's speech abilities, he seems unable to recognize healthy and evolutionarily appropriate food from that which is less so, something that is, perhaps, responsible for his deleterious appearance in comparison to wild bonobos:
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| Strike a (human) pose. |
Then again, humans don't necessarily excel in this area either:
I told you it was all about commonalities.
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| "We may not look like you, but we are just like you." |
The most important scientific revolutions of all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.
Stephen Jay Gould
