MovieChat Forums > Project Nim (2011) Discussion > For those of you who have seen it

For those of you who have seen it


What, if anything, did you learn about human nature after watching this?

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I've just seen it.
And that's what I think about this film :
This film is so sad for this poor Nim, for his mother Carolyn (they took six of her babies at 15 days before Nim), for the people who really loved him... A film about the crazyness of certains scientists which are playing at a doctor frankenstein game and who gave them permission to play with the life of a being alive. I wish these people (Herb) to finish in a cage like Nim.
Hopefully, some people have been concerned by the life of Nim and they saved him from a laboratory.


And sorry for my English which is not very good, I'm from Belgian and I speak French. I hope that you understood all of my argument.

Have a great New Year !

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What I took away from the film:

- Chimps are not human, not even close. So we should stop treating animals like humans - it leads to disaster (both for the animals and the humans involved). The woman who took Nim into her family as a baby was suicidal to enter his cage. Let's not forget that the woman with the first face transplant in the world had been left completely disfigured by, yes, a chimpanzee.
- Yes, animal research for medical purposes is cruel and it should be properly controlled and made as painless an experience for the animal as possible. (Although, as the LEMSIP boss pointed out, it's a fallacy to believe animal research can be done humanely.)
- But whether we like it or not, when we or a loved one is dying of cancer or Alzheimer's, we appreciate that there are drugs around that may alleviate the pain or may, one day, cure these diseases. Animal testing is, unfortunately, a necessary element in this process.

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I'm still unclear about a couple of things related to Project Nim specifically:

Do you think Project Nim itself was worthwhile?
Was it unethical?
Bad science?

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"Do you think Project Nim itself was worthwhile?"

I think one needs to look at the historical context. During the time of Project Nim, there was an ongoing debate among linguists, anthropologists and others whether language was inherent only to humans. This was the position of Noam Chomsky. To prove or disprove Chomsky's claim, Herbert S. Terrace chose to do Project Nim with a chimp called Nim Chimpsky (get it?).

There had been a similar study done earlier (Project Washoe), which had already established that chimps could learn sign language but it didn't prove that chimps could actually form sentences. I think it was a genuine scientific question that Terrace wanted to explore but it is difficult to say whether it was "worthwhile" (which is true for a lot of experiments and science projects).

"Was it unethical?"

The project itself was not unethical in my view. Where ethics do come in, however, was what happened with Nim afterwards. It is obviously wrong to treat a chimp like a human and then, a few years later, stick him in a cage. This is something that no-one seemed to have given any thought to: What do you do with the guinea pig once it's served its purpose?

"Bad science?"

Sloppy science more like. The project seemed to be lacking in scientific structure and discipline straight from the start. It also appeared that the scientists themselves were not fluent in sign language. They also combined the teaching of signs with the giving of food and other rewards to Nim, thereby distorting the results.

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The idea that chimps are 98.7% similar to humans is bad science. It may be more accurate to say that the building blocks are 98.7% similar, but the way those blocks are assembled is more or less a mystery to us (which is why we don't all live forever, yet).

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"The idea that chimps are 98.7% similar to humans is bad science."

No, it's bad re-telling of science. Anyone who says it that way is wrong. Humans and chimpanzees are ~ 98% 'genetically' similar. What people read into and mis-remember or misunderstand is the problem.

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The 98% number mostly relates to protein-coding DNA. We used to think that this was the only stuff that mattered, but it now seems that the long-ignored non-coding DNA also plays an important role -- perhaps as a mechanism for controlling how each protein is expressed.

Indeed, many scientists think non-coding DNA may be where most of the action is really happening, and some are already studying the differences between chimps and humans in this part of our DNA (which makes up around 97% of the total!).

It's likely we'll see much bigger differences to chimps and other living organisms once we fully understand all of this other stuff.

This makes sense on an intuitive level -- because chimps don't look like they're 98% similar to us. (Well, I've got some friends who look like they might be 98% similar to a chimp, but that's another story... )

Truth is that we don't yet have the knowledge to compare ourselves genetically to any other organisms.

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Just to set the record straight: the woman who had the first face transplant wasn't from a chimpanzee attack. It was a terrified dog that bit off her face in the attempt to wake her up after she had taken an overdose of sleeping pills.

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Just to set the record straight: the woman who had the first face transplant wasn't from a chimpanzee attack.

I stand corrected. The woman who was attacked by a chimp was the third person in the U.S. to receive a full face transplant.

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Thank you for being brave enough to post comments in a non-native language.

Bonne année et bonne santé to you, too!



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humans will play god every chance they get. they do shoddy, pointless science on creatures who only want to live. some humans think that the quality of their life will be improved through the study of other life forms, but they are all stained permanently by their involvement in the trafficking of misery. and those who are not humbled by their mistakes, may god have mercy on their soul.

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yes, calvincrack...perfectly stated!! Grabbed the words directly from my head!!

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Thank God for Bob. Everyone should be lucky enough to have just one, good, authentic friend in life as Bob was to Nim. I thought it was very interesting, in the end, that of all those women that cared for, nurtured and professed to be so concerned with his welfare not one of them stepped up in his time of need. Is there a lesson in that? Perhaps.

Other than that, not much else surprised me. I have been alive long enough that much of the self-serving, self-centered behavior exhibited is fairly typical and to be expected. And I found Nims life to be not so different from most in that there were good times and bad times and at least he was in a good place with companions when he died.

There is No Gene for the Human Spirit.

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+1 for what TheSummer2012 said.

Generally speaking, i feel humans try to relate with other animals (most without reasonable scientific understanding). Humans therefore tend to project their concept of humanity (and the universe) on other animal species which have none.
Also, even seen in this thread, religion/belief and science are not good bed fellows and when combined create a distorted view about the space we live in.


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It amazing that one simple sentence 'nothing exists until it can be proven to exist' could have caused such an uproar in human consciousness.

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YES!! so wisely expressed. and kinda deep!! Never thought abut that until reading your post. Precisely!!

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1)That this Herb professor of my @ss is a giganormous piece of sh*t and if there really was a justice he would spend the rest of his life on a wheelchair thinking about his lost knee-pans.
2) All the rest specific to human nature was already known to me, just watch the news for a couple of days ...

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We humans have an undeniable desire/necessity in life to relate and be related to (i.e. socialize) whether it is with one another or a dog or cat or snake or chimp.
We'll always seek out connections/communication whether its with animals or aliens, its in our nature to push boundaries and see another in our perceivable image..

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