Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Scientist With Special Standing at Great Ape Trust of Iowa, made the following remarks after Missouri State University, her alma mater, conferred upon her the honorary Doctor of Science degree during the May 16, 2008, commencement. She graduated from the university in Springfield in 1970.
"I went into a field that was never anticipated at the time I graduated, a field that only came into existence in 1969, and a field that quickly became mired in debate. It is a field that has yet to make its true impact felt around the world, the field that came to be called 'ape language.'
"What is ape language and why does it matter? It is the study of whether or not our closest living relatives, the great apes, can acquire language. Why does it matter? It matters for many reasons, the first of which is that it has forced humans to actually try and determine what language really was. Was it just words and grammar, or fundamentally something much deeper? Did we require the capacity to reason in order for us to have language? Or in acquiring language from our culture, did we also acquire the capacity to reason, to think and finally to assume moral responsibility for all of our actions? Did language enable us to become cultural beings, or was it culture itself that enabled us to acquire language?
"Second, it matters because we divide our categories of our natural world into those of man, animal, vegetable and mineral. Man is the singular creature with reason, rights and morality. Animals are creatures that lack these capacities and can therefore be bought and sold as property, farmed and manufactured as 'products' – just as can objects, minerals, etc.
"Man was credited with the capacities of reason and morality – because he had language and because he makes the tools. These became objects which he sold and traded as commodities. If animals were to have language and were to make tools – if they were found to reason and think – and to express their intentions, plans and goals, could we continue to trade them as commodities?
"By dividing the world into four categories of things – man, animal, vegetable, mineral – we thus determined how we should treat that world in which we lived. We make it natural or "common sense" to conclude that anything non-man should fall into a different class of things and, therefore, justifiably be treated differently than ourselves. Categories matter.
"But our man/animal distinction may be fatally flawed. The more scientists come to learn and understand the great apes, the more we find our old categories falling into ruin. We now know that we share with some apes nearly 99 percent of our DNA, the code all living beings utilize to pass bodily form from one generation to the next. We are, in fact, really a genera of five great apes, related in the following order from most distant to nearest: orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, bonobo, and human being.
"Even more puzzling to us is this fact: Chimpanzees and bonobos are more closely related to us than they are to the other great apes, the gorilla and the orangutan.
"Thus, if genes matter, and they do, then do how do we justify the categories 'man' and 'animal' when there are two species of animals living on the planet today that are genetically more like us than they are like any other living animal? Such scientific findings have thrown our old simplistic categories into a state of confusion. The field of 'ape language' presses that confusion further and harder still.
"What if we learned that bonobos and chimpanzees, the apes most like us, could speak, reason, make tools and had codes of morality? Should we admit them into the realm of humankind? Or should we now make five categories: humans, nonhumans with human abilities, all other animals, vegetables, and minerals?
"Ape language is on the way to changing the categorical divide of Man versus Animal. As this barrier falls, it will necessarily be followed by deep changes in all other aspects of our daily lives. Because this has been a fundamental category in our minds for so very long, we cannot predict the outcomes, but they have the potential to stagger the mind. They will bring about a seismic shift, equivalent to 7 or 8 on the Rictor scale. All lesser prejudices will quickly fall, and humanity will begin to understand, in a scientific way, what it means, and what it requires, to make a human mind."
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Great Ape Trust of Iowa is a scientific research facility in southeast Des Moines dedicated to understanding the origins and future of culture, language, tools and intelligence. When completed, Great Ape Trust will be the largest great ape facility in North America and one of the first worldwide to include all four types of great ape – bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans – for noninvasive interdisciplinary studies of their cognitive and communicative capabilities.
Great Ape Trust is dedicated to providing sanctuary and an honorable life for great apes, studying the intelligence of great apes, advancing conservation of great apes and providing unique educational experiences about great apes. Great Ape Trust of Iowa is a 501(c) 3 not-for-profit organization and is certified by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). |
Great Ape Trust is certified by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums
