BORN TO THE KOOL-AID
17th DECEMBER 2005 |
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We scare me. Do we scare you, too?
The following article was written by a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow who is also a much-published science author and lecturer, and an associate fellow at Morse College, Yale University. Yale University! It should be safe to assume he's had quite an education, non? And yet...
Please read along with me, and then let us despair: |
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CHILDREN LEARN by MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO. CHIMPS DON'T.
by Carl Zimmer
New York Times
December 13, 2005
I drove into New Haven on a recent morning with a burning question on my mind. How did my daughter do against the chimpanzees?
A month before, I had found a letter in the cubby of my daughter Charlotte at
her preschool. It was from a graduate student at Yale asking for volunteers for
a psychological study. The student, Derek Lyons, wanted to observe how 3- and
4-year-olds learn. I was curious, so I got in touch. Mr. Lyons explained how his
study might shed light on human evolution.
His study would build on a paper published in the July issue of the journal
Animal Cognition by Victoria Horner and Andrew Whiten, two psychologists at the
University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Dr. Horner and Dr. Whiten described the
way they showed young chimps how to retrieve food from a box.
The box was painted black and had a door on one side and a bolt running across
the top. The food was hidden in a tube behind the door. When they showed the
chimpanzees how to retrieve the food, the researchers added some unnecessary
steps. Before they opened the door, they pulled back the bolt and tapped the top
of the box with a stick. Only after they had pushed the bolt back in place did
they finally open the door and fish out the food.
Because the chimps could not see inside, they could not tell that the extra
steps were unnecessary. As a result, when the chimps were given the box,
two-thirds faithfully imitated the scientists to retrieve the food.
The team then used a box with transparent walls and found a strikingly different
result. Those chimps could see that the scientists were wasting their time
sliding the bolt and tapping the top. None followed suit. They all went straight
for the door.
The researchers turned to humans. They showed the transparent box to 16 children
from a Scottish nursery school. After putting a sticker in the box, they showed
the children how to retrieve it. They included the unnecessary bolt pulling and
box tapping.
The scientists placed the sticker back in the box and left the room, telling the
children that they could do whatever they thought necessary to retrieve it.
The children could see just as easily as the chimps that it was pointless to
slide open the bolt or tap on top of the box. Yet 80 percent did so anyway. "It
seemed so spectacular to me," Mr. Lyons said. "It suggested something remarkable
was going on."
It was possible, however, that the results might come from a simple desire in
the children just to play along. To see how deep this urge to overimitate went,
Mr. Lyons came up with new experiments with the transparent box. He worked with
a summer intern, Andrew Young, a senior at Carnegie Mellon, to build other
puzzles using Tupperware, wire baskets and bits of wood. And Mr. Lyons planned
out a much larger study, with 100 children.
I was intrigued. I signed up Charlotte, and she participated in the study twice,
first at the school and later at Mr. Lyons's lab.
Charlotte didn't feel like talking about either experience beyond saying they
were fun. As usual, she was more interested in talking about atoms and
princesses.
Mr. Lyons was more eager to talk. He invited me to go over Charlotte's
performance at the Yale Cognition and Development Lab, led by Mr. Lyons's
adviser, Frank C. Keil.
Driving into New Haven for our meeting, I felt as if Charlotte had just taken
some kind of interspecies SAT. It was silly, but I hoped that Charlotte would
show the chimps that she could see cause and effect as well as they could. Score
one for Homo sapiens.
At first, she did. Mr. Lyons loaded a movie on his computer in which Charlotte
eagerly listened to him talk about the transparent plastic box.
He set it in front of her and asked her to retrieve the plastic turtle that he
had just put inside. Rather than politely opening the front door, Charlotte
grabbed the entire front side, ripped it open at its Velcro tabs and snatched
the turtle. "I've got it!" she shouted.
A chimp couldn't have done better, I thought.
But at their second meeting, things changed. This time, Mr. Lyons had an
undergraduate, Jennifer Barnes, show Charlotte how to open the box. Before she
opened the front door, Ms. Barnes slid the bolt back across the top of the box
and tapped on it needlessly. Charlotte imitated every irrelevant step. The box
ripping had disappeared. I could almost hear the chimps hooting.
Ms. Barnes showed Charlotte four other puzzles, and time after time she
overimitated. When the movies were over, I wasn't sure what to say. "So how did
she do?" I asked awkwardly.
"She's pretty age-typical," Mr. Lyons said. Having watched 100 children, he
agrees with Dr. Horner and Dr. Whiten that children really do overimitate. He
has found that it is very hard to get children not to.
If they rush through opening a puzzle, they don't skip the extra steps. They
just do them all faster. What makes the results even more intriguing is that the
children understand the laws of physics well enough to solve the puzzles on
their own. Charlotte's box ripping is proof of that.
Mr. Lyons sees his results as evidence that humans are hard-wired to learn by
imitation, even when that is clearly not the best way to learn. If he is right,
this represents a big evolutionary change from our ape ancestors. Other primates
are bad at imitation. When they watch another primate doing something, they seem
to focus on what its goals are and ignore its actions.
As human ancestors began to make complicated tools, figuring out goals might not
have been good enough anymore. Hominids needed a way to register automatically
what other hominids did, even if they didn't understand the intentions behind
them. They needed to imitate.
Not long ago, many psychologists thought that imitation was a simple, primitive
action compared with figuring out the intentions of others. But that is
changing. "Maybe imitation is a lot more sophisticated than people thought," Mr.
Lyons said.
We don't appreciate just how automatically we rely on imitation, because usually
it serves us so well. "It is so adaptive that it almost never sticks out this
way," he added. "You have to create very artificial circumstances to see it."
In a few years, I plan to explain this experience to Charlotte. I want her to
know what I now know. That it's O.K. to lose to the chimps. In fact, it may be
what makes us uniquely human.
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| Carl Zimmer
bio http://www.carlzimmer.com/author.html |
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| http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/13/science/13essa.html |
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Quandary Uno: in the above article, the author and referenced "scientists" epitomize [and then glorify] an instinctive behavior which keeps us in chains. As it is behavior I see all around me, every day, rather than behavior particular to said author and referenced "scientists," and as my direct approach is often misconstrued as "unkind" [my dilly-dally days are well behind me], I would prefer the protagonists remain anonymous. But to make them so in this arena would be copyright infringement, and so I am left no choice. [Don't take it personally, boys!]
Nteenth NERVOUS BREAKDOWN
Is it just me? Am I the only person immediately overcome by waves of horror, knowing that the author is allowed to "explain this experience" not only to impressionable children, but to unsuspecting adults perusing the pages of the New York Times? Academia's most shameful and closely-guarded secret is that the formally-educated mind is dutifully programmed to travel faster than the speed of cognition...
"I want her to
know what I now know. That it's O.K. to lose to the chimps. In fact, it may be
what makes us uniquely human." Am I mistaking sarcasm for satisfaction? Don't know about you, dear Reader, but. Were a child of mine discovered to be so "uniquely human" I would freak! out! Then hyperventilate. Beg God and my child to forgive me. Have my tubes tied [since I obviously can't be trusted to parent properly]. And then I would not rest until all evidence of my inexcusable dereliction had been erased.
We're told there is "evidence that humans are hard-wired to learn by
imitation, even when that is clearly not the best way to learn." Okay. That's cause for alarm. Even more alarming [given the circumstances], "she's pretty age-typical" seems but a euphemism for "she stays with the herd [even when it's headed over a cliff]."
Then comes:
"The children could see just as easily as the chimps that it was pointless to
slide open the bolt or tap on top of the box. Yet 80 percent did so anyway. [cut to] The
children understand the laws of physics well enough to solve the puzzles on
their own." Is this not frightening?! [Like we didn't already know but were clinging to the hope that it's nowhere near 80%] These children turn into adults who are perfectly content to engage in pointless ritual, to trust and look to authority rather than themselves, and to act against their own best interests in a quest for approval [which is highly over-rated, by the way. What does a rational adult desire most..."Daddy's" approval? or a paper trail. The bossman's approval? or decent working conditions and wages. Our docile and compliant peers' approval? Or an end to the carnage, within our borders and beyond].
But here's the kicker:
"Not long ago, many psychologists thought that imitation was a simple, primitive
action compared with figuring out the intentions of others. But that is
changing. 'Maybe imitation is a lot more sophisticated than people thought.'"
Say what?!
Oh, right. Silly me...I keep forgetting. Everything "uniquely human" is [unquestionably] something in which we can [and should!] take pride. The same would hold true, of course, with regard to all that is "uniquely American" [or at least it would if one wanted approval].
If chimps, at an early age, are able to discern another's intentions, and learn to act in their own best interest [and in accordance with new knowledge], while we humans, from an early age, instinctively prefer to relinquish independent thought and self-governance [and to act in accordance with authority] in exchange for little more than approval, well -- WHEW! How lucky for us "science" will confirm our intuitive certainty that such behavior [mindlessly following orders] is "a lot more sophisticated" than we thought!
Good thing, too, because we're tired of evolving. That's hard work. So we'd have to work hard. And that's work! Hard work. Fuggedabowdit.
Previous generations earned the species a well-deserved rest, and "911" was Americans' reprieve. Hallelujah, we don't ever have to Think again. We've got "scientists" and politicians and CEOs and doctors and generals and lobbyists and all kinds of "authorities" perfectly willing to do our Thinking for us. Which allows us to concentrate on important stuff, like XBoxes, and shopping...putting yellow ribbons on our cars...sharing and vociferously defending uninformed opinions...daydreaming about the Rapture, and how much fun it'll be to see everyone we don't like writhing in unbearable pain, their souls condemned for all Eternity. There's plenty to keep us busy!
If the above article is an example of the "enlightenment" which falls from ivory towers and bursts forth from hallowed halls, what hope have we that the Average Joe and Josie might one day Awaken? Especially if we can rely upon "science" to approve our heavy slumber [and upon "scientists" to assure us we've never been more alert (nor delightful)]. Publicly, anyway.
Do such "scientists" acknowledge less flattering and more reasonable conclusions behind closed doors? Are they busting a gut, privately, secure in the knowledge that at least 80% of us are savoring their kool-aid?
People unable to discern others' intentions, people uninterested in new knowledge, and people in desperate need of approval are a people who'll say nothing when war crimes are committed in their name [and a people who'll say anything in defense of said war crimes, no matter how ludicrous and easily disproven by fact]. They're a people who will tacitly agree to remain silent when elections are stolen. A people who'll first accept and then insist that straightforward questions are "disrespectful" when directed toward authority. Hell, they're a people who'll believe in "cakewalks" and "liberations" when even a chimp can see mayhem and occupation on the horizon...Rb
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