Daily Star
After a famous philosopher said only humans use language to communicate with each other, psychologist Herbert S. Terrace decided to put his theory to the test.
Professor Terrace sent two-week old chimp Nim – a pun on the philosopher Noam Chomsky’s name – to live alongside the family and children of research assistant Stephanie LaFarge.
LaFarge was told to raise Nim like a son which she did, even breast-feeding him, potty training him and eventually letting Nim smoke weed and drive.
Nim was taught sign language and thrived, learning as many as 125 signs.
Chimpsky became a celebrity in his own right, appearing on the cover of magazines and was mentioned on TV like the space animals which became famous during the same era.
Project Nim seemed to be a landmark experiment with ground-breaking implications for Chomsky’s theory about the communication of different species.
But unlike Terrace’s rigid scientific approach, LaFarge and her hippy friends who raised Nim had a more loving approach.
She didn’t keep records of Nim’s every move as requested and was forgiving of his aggression, which included lots of biting and scratching.
Chimps are five times stronger than humans of the same height, and Nim was no different.
When he became too big to look after in a domestic setting, the scientists decided they’d had enough.
At only four years old, Nim dangerously attacked a caretaker and the experiment was swiftly brought to an end.
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