Science Circle focuses on disciplines touched by research trajectory

Des Moines, Iowa – March 30, 2009 – Once a month, scientists from across Iowa get together to discuss the latest developments in ape research – Great Ape Trust’s breakthrough ape language and cognition research, as well as seemingly unrelated topics, such as robotics and artificial intelligence.

The dialogue takes place during Great Ape Trust’s monthly Science Circle meetings, which have been restructured to formalize The Trust’s research trajectory based on the corpus of scientists Dr. Duane Rumbaugh, Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and William M. Fields. As part of the restructuring, scientific colleagues from more than a dozen disciplines that could be involved in the ape language research are invited to participate.

Great Ape Trust is an internationally respected scientific research institute in Des Moines, Iowa, studying the origins and future of culture, language, tools and intelligence. Forming the backbone of The Trust’s inquiry is a colony of seven bonobos (Pan paniscus), including the world-famous Kanzi and his half-sister, Panbanisha. Great Ape Trust Founder Ted Townsend brought the bonobos and the scientists who study them to Des Moines to expand and advance what he calls “a profound method of inquiry into how a brain creates a mind.”

“Such a bold goal is possible here by building on the corpus of language research begun by Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Dr. Duane Rumbaugh and Mr. Bill Fields,” Townsend said. “This is the reason for the institution’s existence.”

The pioneering research by Savage-Rumbaugh, a scientist with special standing, and her Great Ape Trust colleagues – Rumbaugh, scientist emeritus, and Fields, director of research ­– has challenged longstanding paradigms about how language is acquired. The corpus includes not only the current research with Kanzi and Panbanisha, but also findings from Rumbaugh’s LANA Project, in which a chimpanzee demonstrated that she could discriminate between lexigram symbols on a keyboard and associate them with ideas; Savage-Rumbaugh’s research with chimpanzees Sherman and Austin,  which overcame the issue of human cuing; and Savage-Rumbaugh’s co-rearing study of a chimpanzee and bonobo, Panpanzee and Panbanisha, in which the scientist investigated species variables in receptive competence for spoken English.

“The Science Circle’s role is invaluable to empowering this fascinating work,” Townsend said. “Open dialogue among well-prepared colleagues, thoughtful critiques and creative program design all contribute to accelerating our fundamental research trajectory. It is quite appropriate to challenge this corpus; it is not reasonable to ignore it.”

Great Ape Trust scientists, researchers and research assistants, ape caretakers and administrative staff members are encouraged to attend the Science Circle meetings. Fields said he structured the Science Circle meetings to encourage a free exchange dialogue among all those interested in ape language research, whether they’re affiliated with Great Ape Trust or another institution, and to invite new collaborations with scientists of the brain and mind, including those working in the areas of physics, robotics and artificial intelligence, artists and musicians.

“Our research is necessarily trans-disciplinary, encompassing experimental psychology, linguistics, cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, philosophy,” Fields said. “The question of language simply cannot be influenced by a single discipline. We cannot get past issues of culture, language, tools and consciousness unless we bring all of these influences to bear.”

Ape language research is an ever-evolving field. Rumbaugh studied learning using language, while Savage-Rumbaugh and Fields studied language. “That’s the difference between ape-language research before 1977 and after,” Fields said. “Now that we’ve shifted to studying language, it’s important to open it to all those disciplines.”

Since the first restructured Science Circle meeting was held in January, presentations have been made by colleagues from Iowa State University, University of Iowa, Simpson College and Buena Vista University, as well as Great Ape Trust scientists and students collaborating in research with The Trust’s bonobos and orangutans.

Dr. Jill Pruetz, an Iowa State University anthropologist whose discoveries in a group of savanna chimpanzees in Senegal have garnered international acclaim, said the Science Circle meetings contribute greatly to science literacy in Iowa.

“To have this group of scholars together is amazing,” Pruetz said. “This is the level of discussion and discourse you get at professional meetings; it’s like a mini conference.”

Pruetz, who teaches or mentors several Iowa State Ph.D. candidates working at Great Ape Trust, said the Science Circle meetings provide rare accessibility to students to some of the world’s leading experts in primatology today.