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Next of Kin by Roger Fouts Book Response 1. A) The single most important thing that I learned from reading this book was more of a realization than anything. Before I started this class and before I was introduced to this amazing book, I was one of those people who thought that all living things other than us humans were far below us in intelligence and all other aspects of life. I didn’t want to hear from anyone about how apes were so similar to us and that they are actually intelligent and can communicate with us and their own kind. My argument was: look at the world around us, no other living organism on this planet has ever been able to create a world like ours. While this is true, primates and even other animals not so similar to us, can and do communicate and they do have their own worlds in which they interact with each other. I had heard of chimpanzees and other primates being able to communicate through American Sign Language but I thought it was just an attempt at fame by a few crazed scientists. I, like many of Fouts’ critics, believed the chimpanzees were just trained to make the gestures and, when prompted, perform them for people. I was obviously wrong and this class and book, in particular, shamefully put me in my place. In the beginning of the book when Washoe was first learning ASL through conditioning techniques (Fouts 77), she began picking up signs from other humans, like ‘smoke’ when she saw matches (Fouts 79), and without any teaching or prompting, she used them in context in front of other humans. I couldn’t believe what I was reading and I realized that I was a typical stereotype of Fouts’ critics and represented the belief of most Chomskians at the time, language is a totally different learning process and completely separate from other learned skills and abilities (Fouts 92-93). B) This book had a huge effect on me both intellectually and emotionally. I had been so closed-minded before. I just was not willing to listen to anyone who had to say anything about apes and humans being ‘next of kin’. It took this book, which I was forced to read, to open my mind and I discovered a different world that I had shut out before. Primates could actually converse in a language, use grammar, and communicate ideas or feelings not only to humans but also to their own kind. As if this weren’t amazing enough, I learned that not only can apes be taught sign language and use it in everyday life, but they can teach it to their own kind as Ally and Washoe demonstrated with Loulis. For example, when Washoe taught Loulis Blindman’s Bluff or Peekaboo within the first few days together (Fouts 246). This book also opened up my perspective on our relation to other primates. I always knew that humans were genetically very similar to other apes such as the chimpanzee, there was no disputing this fact, it was scientifically proven.
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