Ready your best missives of hate mail, because today I woke up and chose violence.
Today’s Moment of Science… Koko the gorilla couldn’t fucking talk.
Communication via sign language with non-human primates has been attempted over the years to various degrees of non-success. A chimpanzee named Washoe learned thirty-four signs in about two years, a good deal of those signs being some variation of “open the goddamn fridge now” and “bitch, fucking feed me.” Nim Chimpsky produced over 20,000 sequences of gestures before researchers realized he was merely mimicking them, likely to get a treat. He knew about 125 signs. In his old age, he attacked multiple researchers and killed a poodle.
And then there was Koko.
The fable of Koko I grew up with is that she learned sign language by the time she was a year old, had a kitten she loved, formed a close friendship with Robin Williams, and had stern warnings for humanity about what we were doing to the planet. When she passed away a few years ago an NPR headline said “Koko The Gorilla Dies; Redrew The Lines Of Animal-Human Communication.”
She was also into nipples to the point where shit got weird.
Yes, there are some wonderful videos from The Gorilla Foundation of Koko ostensibly communicating via sign language with her constant companion, Francine Patterson. But we have to ask a few more questions, lest we believe our own eyes.
What does it mean to functionally know a language? What differentiated Koko’s system of communication from, for instance, your pup’s methods of signaling that he’s about to shit the carpet?
Far less than I expected.
Some people who worked with Koko would argue that it’s entirely different, that Koko was the “first of her species to have acquired a human language.” Which is, at best, a sincere exaggeration, if not outright bullshittery. If all they’d claimed that they’d made strides in interspecies communication using gestures similar to ASL, the claims would have benefited from a hint of legitimacy.
CNN’s sending camera crews for a talking ape though, not “communication via gestures.”
A list of criticisms have been levied at the claims made by Koko’s trainers. She never exhibited anything resembling grammar. As with Nim Chimpsky, it often seems that Koko is mimicking or responding to researchers. Her trainer referred to her signing as ‘Gorilla Sign Language,’ a version of ASL modified for the great ape. As such, only a small handful of people controlled the world’s access to Koko’s speech.
Hooboy. There was some creativity in their interpretations.
Koko came up with the wrong word? Ooh, you silly gorilla, such a sense of humor! She wouldn’t say a word until prompted several times? That must mean she’s stubborn and not that she doesn’t fucking speak the language. String words together nonsensically, and it could be interpreted that she’s thinking abstractly or that she’s invented a new word. It depended on how her team decided to read the tea leaves that day.
There’s a commercial of Koko giving a warning to humanity about climate change. There are 21 jump cuts in a video that’s a bit over a minute, cutting sometimes after Koko’s given just one sign. I’m not sure it’s altogether believable that she’s “acquired a human language” if, given all the time in the world to prepare a video to show her abilities, this was the best they could do.
In 2014, a number of allegations surfaced about the Gorilla Foundation. Koko’s diet was unhealthy and included candy, chocolate, and non-alcoholic beer. She didn’t get nearly enough activity. She was fed about a hundred supplements a day recommended by a naturopath. Also, the organization was sued by two former employees because of Patterson’s alleged requests that staff show their nipples to the areola-obsessed Koko. Fucking yikes.
So do you still think Koko could talk? Or did Koko know a few gestures and have trainers working really hard to make it look like she could talk?
This has been your daily Moment of Science, pretty sure the only way to sort this out is to hand infinite typewriters to infinite gorillas.
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Nonsense and poppycock! Koko spoke fluent GSL (Gorilla Sign Language)!
Just as, if given sufficient beans and prunes, speak fluent mud volcano.
Or something.
The idea that this ape could speak has been met with considerable skepticism over the years. Most commonly, it was suggested that it’s just another example of the “clever Hans” phenomenon (google it) and people who know sign language have pointed out that Koko’s signing is not nearly as smooth or clear as her handlers claim. As far as I know, those criticisms still stand, and now it’s too late to do any work to address them.