Koko the gorilla could NOT use sign language.

JonesBones

JonesBones

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The media is still perpetuating this hoax now that this bag of fur has croaked. From CNN. Says this thing "mastered" sign language. Absolute nonsense.

(CNN)Koko, the gorilla who mastered sign language and showed the world what great apes can do, has died.

She died Tuesday in her sleep at age 46, The Gorilla Foundation said in a statement.
"Koko touched the lives of millions as an ambassador for all gorillas and an icon for interspecies communication and empathy," the release said. "She was beloved and will be deeply missed."

Good thread on this:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=65071

I mean, this "scientist" was the biggest fraud and had their mind made up. Ok, when cocoa, that is why I call it, says "nipple", she means "people" because they sound a like. Think of that. lol.

There is too much to really go into here so just read that thread. The "conversations" this hairbag had with humans are long and stupid. Make no sense unless the human post hoc adds an explanation. And the ape never used sign language. Not any recognizable kind but a supposed personal kind by this person and their trainer. And an ASL person who was there said they saw no signs where these "scientists" did. They made shit up.
 
One of the most damning critiques of the claims of the early primate sign language researchers, which is reported in Pinker, comes from a deaf signer on the team that worked with Washoe -- the only person on that team who was a native speaker of the ASL that they were supposed to be teaching the chimp:

Every time the chimp made a sign, we were supposed to write it down in the log ... they were always complaining because my log didn't show enough signs. All the hearing people turned in logs with long lists of signs. They always saw more signs than I did ... I watched really carefully. This chimp's hands were moving constantly. Maybe I missed something, but I don't think so. I just wasn't seeing any signs. The hearing people were logging every movement the chimp made as a sign. Every time the chimp put his finger in his mouth, they'd say "Oh, he's making the sign for drink," and they'd give him some milk ... When the chimp scratched itself, they'd record it as the sign for scratch ... When [the chimps] want something, they reach. Sometimes [the trainers would] say, "Oh, amazing, look at that, it's exactly like the ASL sign for give!" It wasn't.
 
Have you always loved shitting on anything fun?
 
I think it is mostly bullshit too, but there was that time she destroyed her room and blamed it on Michael (Male Gorilla). That was a big breakthrough. No one coached her to lie.
 
Linguistics professor Bert Vaux, who has lectured on Koko in his class, Social Analysis 34: Knowledge of Language, responded to early claims that Koko was a songwriter, saying, “This scheme is consistent with what [The Language Instinct author Steven] Pinker accuses the animal trainers of doing with Koko and the other ‘talking’ animals – taking utterances of limited content and coherence and augmenting them with more fluid pronouncements from the imaginations of the human handlers.”

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2002/11/21/gorillas-in-the-mix-the-simian/
 
Damn that coco!! Even in death she sucks and hurts all of us...
 
IloveTHIS said:
Have you always loved shitting on anything fun?
Click to expand...

falsehoods are fun? sorry to destroy your illusions. did she touch your heart? lol

The entire media is perpetuating a scientific fraud.
 
No one said she mastered sign language.
 
I’m no ape expert but I’m pretty sure I see the ASL sign for rustled in the OP.
 
tenor.gif
 
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