For those of you who have seen it
What, if anything, did you learn about human nature after watching this?
sharevery heartbreaking story...
Nim was born in 1973.. so the testing took place almost 40 years ago...
so I have a little forgiveness...as we still do frontal lobotomies and electric shock therapy on humans...we are not as 'advanced' as we would like to think.
from my understanding most animal testing conducted today is on mice and rats...
a difficult ethical dilemma... some new medicines have saved human lives... so on one hand it is useful.
The original project leader was definately a narcissist...sleeping with his students..and should have been disciplined out...
the original family was very loving.. but woefully unprepared for a wild animal to be in their home... thankfully nothing bad happened to any of the children.
reminds me of documentary 'Dogs Decoded', in which there was a discussion of a study on foxes... where aggressive foxes were separated out..and after 5 generations.. non aggressive foxes similar to dogs were produced...interesting if that has been done with chimpanzees. we are not prepared for aggressive behaviour from wild animals in our homes...
I was very happy that Nim had Bob that loved him...and also the director of LEMSIP(which did the medical testing) that saved as many chimps as he could...
including 2 companions for Nim...
I believe the "experiment" was ill-conceived from the start.
The idea of Nurture vs Nature is one thing, but to take a wild animal away from its mother at such a young age and toss it in with a completely different species is ridiculous.
You bring up an excellent point with Dogs Decoded. I haven't seen it myself, but when I was telling a friend about Project Nim, he told me about Dogs Decoded. I can't say much about it, but from what he told me, they basically did a forced evolution to see if they could breed the results that they wanted and they succeeded.
If something similar had been done with chimps, you might one day get the same results, but with Nim, to me it seemed an exercise in what NOT to go.
I was appalled at Herb's casual attitude towards Nim and the female volunteers. I don't care that it was the 70's; his behavior is still repugnant. Nim suffered horribly from Herb's blasé attitude and abrupt decisions about where and how Nim should be "cared" for.
When it came to the photo-op that Herb staged, I was enraged and in tears. That, by far, was one of the cruelest, most self-centered scenes I have ever witnessed. Nim had been dumped in that scary place, going from a house to a cage, abandoned by all his care-givers all at once, and then a year later, Herb decides to show up for all of 10 minutes and then leave again was so callous and so awful.
Nim wasn't a human being, but he was a feeling, thinking creature that deserved much kinder treatment than what he received.
Goblin Cannonball: I hit something! Yes?!? No?!?