Project Nim on BEEBFOUR

[mrswarbouys]

Wasn't it utterly tragic? It seems they did a few of these awful nature v nurture experiments in the 70's, and not just on animals. Nim grew to be less a cuddly subject and more of a wild animal than the egotistical college professor thought he'd be, and after a entire life of being humanised and taught to sign, he was simply chucked away.

I saw this a while back and it causes me to rant last night when my son spotted the announcement it would be on again.

My memory is of a bunch selfish, unaware human adults and the only person I respected was (unexpectedly) the scientist who ran an animal experimentation lab.

I'm still ranting , apologies for errors!

I agree funnyossity, at least he had a degree of honesty about what he was doing. Bob I liked too, whist having the least resources to help and care he was there for Nim. The others, most of all Prof' Terrace and the rich hippy family, seemed to feel guilt but did virtually nothing about it.

The hippies really got to me, but that's my issue, man!

Who was Bob?

I saw this a while ago - heartbreaking . That idiot hippy mother should never have been allowed near him. And to see Nim in a cage for experiments, signing away and not understanding what was happening to him, just awful. Though as for the idiot professor who thought it was a great idea to stick a wild animal in a family and see what happened, words fail me. Did they not have to write proper project proposals in those days?

He only really had one friend that stuck by him (Bob?).

I watched this about a year ago and it left me feeling very depressed about the human species. What happened Nim was so cruel and to subject him to that in the name of science/education is depressing.

I flicked it on and off the other night, I couldn't watch it again. [Sad]

Terrace seemed to be a bit of a bully really. Up his own arse with his Harvard credentials and doing quite a bit of shagging along the way. The hippy woman with the earth mother complex got my piss boiling too.

WTF did those people think would happen? I've just read that most scientists agreed Prior to "Project Nim" that interspecies communication was science fiction anyway and not a subject for research. There'd been many ape-language projects going back as far as the 1920's.

Just shows the arrogance of those involved, in particular the tosser Terrace.

In the end it wasn't about what chimpanzees are capable of - it showed us what humans are capable of, and we were definitely found wanting.