Product Description
A chronological list of Bigfoot (Sasquatch) sightigs and encounters from 1818 to 2004 in North America. Representative stories of encounters are included with many drawings and photos. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Customer Reviews:
Worth the buy.......2007-09-06
I liked the book. It had quite a few encounters that I had not read about before. In the second part of the book you will find in brief outline the different sightings by date, but you can browse through it very quickly to find the sightings in your state. I recommend adding this to your library. The only thing that I didn't like about it is that it has included stories that link bigfoot to UFOs. I think they could have been left out.
Invaluable Resource.......2007-01-25
The Bigfoot Casebook (both the original and the updated version)is a great resource for anyone who studies the Bigfoot phenomena. Whether a field researcher, or of the more Fortean variety, the individual interested in Bigfoot needs this book. In fact, anyone who is interested in Bigfoot who is serious about research needs this book.
This book is also fun for the person who is curious about Bigfoot, even if not a researcher.
Whatever you fall on the scale of interest, the book is an excellent resource.
While the book is a useful research tool, it isn't pedantic, or difficult to read. The person who's curious about Bigfoot and enjoys reading about Bigfoot or Sasquatch will find this enjoyable.
Casebook doesn't delve deeply into any one particular Bigfoot case; that's not the purpose of the book. It's an excellent guide to specific dates, locations, etc. of Bigfoot activity/sightings.
One thing I personally appreciated was the inclusion of so-called "paranormal Bigfoot" events; those encounters involving UFOs, Bigfoot, and other anomalous phenomena.
Bigfoot Casebook gives a history of Bigfoot sightings, and presents a time line and context of sightings that any Bigfoot researcher, as well anyone with a more casual interest, will find usefull and enjoyable.
Casebook is very informative.......2007-01-16
This book is great for the person who would like to know more about bigfoot. It is broken down into sections where it describes certain aspects of what bigfoot is like, and why he is next to impossible to see. It almost gives you a feeling of what bigfoots thought process might be. It then gives a chronological description of encounters with bigfoot throughout recorded history. I would defintely recommend this book.
Bigfoot Casebook Updated: Sightings and Encounters from 1818 to 2004.......2007-01-08
I found the first addition back in the 80's at the public library and the copy was very tattered and worn. I loved it. I searched for years and finally found a used copy about 6yrs ago. I was very excited to see the updated version. Very good read. Lots of info on sightings. I was a bit disappionted that the updated didn't cover more sightings, but still a must for anyone with an intrest in Bigfoot.
Disappointed in this book but it does have information.......2006-11-29
I ordered this book because Amazon recommended it to go with Sasquatch: Legend meets Science by Jeff Meldrum. I almost wish I hadn't gotten the book because it isn't as good as I'd expected. I had in the past read some UFO/Bigfoot stories, you get a lot of that here too.
Just over half the book is a recounting of sightings/ encounters of creatures from all over the U.S. from 1818-2004. This includes not just the classic Bigfoot from Washington/Oregon but all sorts of creature sightings. I found it to be somewhat interesting reading but found that many of the cases were something like "June 1870 John Smith in Ohio saw a "hairy man" in the back forty last night" with a few other details. Most of the cases were very skimpy but some were detailed.
Some interesting pictures are included (including some bad photos of creatures, one dead) but these usually don't have anything to do with the text and are sometimes more interesting.
Section 2 of the book is a chronological listing, not updated past 1980, of cases. This is followed by a short bibliography, a magazine list and some online sources- this last could be the best part of the book.
Book Description
"Kanzi
offers any number of crucial insights into the workings of the mind."––The New York Times Book Review
The remarkable story of the "talking" ape who is proving animals can think
Though he cannot physically speak, Kanzi understands an impressive amount of spoken English and communicates by punching symbols on a special keyboard. This book tells Kanzi's incredible story and explores its intriguing ramifications.
SUE SAVAGE-RUMBAUGH (Decatur, Georgia) is one of the world's leading ape-language researchers. ROGER LEWIN (Cambridge, Massachusetts) is the author of 12 books, including co-authorship of the best-selling Origins with Richard Leakey.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting and Partly Convincing.......2006-07-26
This book makes plausible claims that some bonobos have learned to handle language in a way that is approximately as sophisticated as that of a two year old human. But their anecdotal evidence is somewhat hard to evaluate, and they didn't quite convince me that they were careful enough to rule out the possibility that their biases caused them to overestimate the sophistication of Kanzi's understanding.
The book is a bit long-winded about research that Savage-Rumbaugh did before working with Kanzi, and I was a bit disappointed that the book didn't provide more of the anecdote about Kanzi that made the book worth reading. But those anecdotes convinced me that much more is going on than some authors such as Pinker had led me to believe. I still hope for better evidence that will help clarify how much bonobos can understand. But that will be hard, and I don't know how it should be done.
Thought provoking and charming.......2006-07-22
Animal intelligence is a huge interest of mine. I have read many books about the intelligence of primates, ocean mammals, and birds. This was one of my favorites. Although the author talks about her background and inspiration for a bit longer than I wanted to read at the beginning of the book, she really does a good job in describing her experiences with common and bonobo chimpanzees. The book is a pleasent read and describes both anectodal and scientific based experiences. The anecdotal bits really give you an insight into interactions with chimps and make you feel as if you know the individuals.
This book should create earthquakes.......2005-01-03
As heartbreaking as it is eye-opening, this is an account of trying to conceptually reinsert humans into nature as much as it is the story of remarkable apes. Savage-Rumbaugh convincingly presents not only the bonobo Kanzi, but also his sister Panbanisha and the common chimpanzees Sherman and Austin, as persons in every sense but the arbitrary one of species. Tragically, the author provides a sense of the rich life our cousins lead beneath our noses at the precise moment any opportunity to know these people called apes in their own milieus is being exterminated. Read the book and pass it on.
Important but Defensive.......2000-01-10
This is an important, if somewhat defensive book. I would have been much more interested to read more about Kanzi's day to day behavior and to see some actual scientific data instead of the story of the investigator's scientific publishing woes. Nevertheless, this book should be read widely and it's message that we humans are not as unique as we like to think needs careful consideration by all scientists and the general population.
Outstanding glimpse into the mind of our closest relative........1996-07-15
This wonderful book by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and Roger Lewin forces the reader to reevaluate what it means to be human. Kanzi is a remarkable ape that has revolutionized our understanding of how our closest relatives think, how our common ancestors may have evolved, and why we may not be as different as once supposed. Roger and Sue's collaboration is very readable and conveys the excitement of Sue's scientific research and Kanzi's remarkable talents
Book Description
For years, scientists and researchers have studied, speculated about, and searched for an enigmatic creature that is legendary in the annals of American folklore. Now, learn the truth about...
BIGFOOT!
In this fascinating and comprehensive look at the fact, fiction, and fable of the North American "Sasquatch," award-winning author Loren Coleman takes readers on a journey into America's biggest mystery -- could an unrecognized "ape" be living in our midst? Drawing on over forty years of investigations, interviews, and fieldwork on these incredible beasts, Coleman explores the modern debates about these powerful, ape-like creatures, why they have remained a mystery for so long, and what we can learn about ourselves from these animals, our nearest cousins!
From reports of Bigfoot's existence found in ancient Native American traditions, to the controversial Patterson-Gimlin film of a Bigfoot in the wild, to today's Internet sites that record the sightings almost as soon as they occur, Coleman uncovers the past, explains the present, and considers the future of one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in the natural world.
Customer Reviews:
You should own this book........2007-09-06
As with most books by Loren Coleman, this book is very much worth having. Once I got to reading it I had a hard time putting it down. It not only discusses bigfoot but North American Apes. I'm not a big book reviewer who can give an in depth review of what I have read but I can say that if you are into bigfoot and cryptozoology that you will not be disappointed.
Still Going In The 21st Century.......2007-04-17
Long one of the most respected researchers of Bigfoot, Mr. Coleman comes out with one of the best works of the early years of this century on the subject. Many hours of fascinating reading. I can't seem to get enough of this stuff. Though I can't say I agree with him and others recent doubts about the famous Yale, British Columbia capture of "Jacko" back in 1884. A story that always seemed to have a ring of truth to it.
And a big drive, way back, its gone...............2007-01-19
Loren Coleman knocks it out of park with this one. Great job Loren! If you are interested in the mystery of Bigfoot than this book is the one for you my friend...
Cryptozoology Must Have.......2006-11-10
An accessible, interesting read, this book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in cryptozoology or natural mysteries. Coleman's prose is witty, and down-to-earth. His conclusions are fact-based and logical. The list of Bigfoot "hot spots" is worth the price of the book.
A good book by a man with a passion for the subject.......2006-06-24
Loren Coleman is a writer who believes what he writes, and has spent a life time in persuit of the the truth of bigfoot. I found the book to be well written and informative. It was not a white wash of the subject either. There was enough skeptical information presented in this book to make even hard core believers think hard before accepting rumors and stories as true. The book gave information on various bigfoot like creatures that don't fit the common bigfoot mold, without becoming disjointed. It's a very interesting subject that will never be fully settled until a bigfoot, alive of dead is found and studied
Book Description
They sought out the strange.
They investigated the inexplicable.
They had one hell of a hangover.
On an odyssey of oddities that would take them all to the very limits of their imagination (and inebriation), bestselling author Nick Redfern teamed up with professional monster-hunters Jonathan Downes and Richard Freeman. For six weeks in the summer of 2001, the intrepid-yet-hard-partying trio rampaged across the remote wilds of Great Britain in hot pursuit of werewolves, lake monsters, giant cats, ghostly devil dogs, and ape-men. Their adventures led them deep into ancient forests, into the dark corridors of a mansion hiding a wild man, and to the shores of the legendary Loch Ness -- along the way encountering all manner of curious characters, including witches, government agents, and eyewitnesses who claim to have seen monsters firsthand. And only at journey's end did the hard questions posed at the start of their quest begin to reveal some mind-bending answers. That monsters truly do exist in our world. And that we are responsible for their existence!
Whether you're seeking a glimpse into the bizarre reaches of reality, or just looking for a good time, Three Men Seeking Monsters is a uniquely gonzo trek with a trio of adventurers who pushed themselves to the edge -- and went right over it.
Download Description
"They sought out the strange. They investigated the inexplicable. They had one hell of a hangover. On an odyssey of oddities that would take them all to the very limits of their imagination (and inebriation), bestselling author Nick Redfern teamed up with professional monster-hunters Jonathan Downes and Richard Freeman. For six weeks in the summer of 2001, the intrepid-yet-hard-partying trio rampaged across the remote wilds of Great Britain in hot pursuit of werewolves, lake monsters, giant cats, ghostly devil dogs, and ape-men. Their adventures led them deep into ancient forests, into the dark corridors of a mansion hiding a wild man, and to the shores of the legendary Loch Ness -- along the way encountering all manner of curious characters, including witches, government agents, and eyewitnesses who claim to have seen monsters firsthand. And only at journey's end did the hard questions posed at the start of their quest begin to reveal some mind-bending answers. That monsters truly do exist in our world. And that we are responsible for their existence! Whether you're seeking a glimpse into the bizarre reaches of reality, or just looking for a good time, Three Men Seeking Monsters is a uniquely gonzo trek with a trio of adventurers who pushed themselves to the edge -- and went right over it. "
Customer Reviews:
You cannot say it's not entertaining.......2006-10-14
During the summer of 2001, Nick Redfern, a British ufologist and author, went on a six-week adventure together with his two friends Jonathan Downes and Richard Freeman from The Centre for Fortean Zoology, a British cryptozoological organization. Redfern was in the middle of moving to America, but his friends weren't going to allow him to leave without a last great adventure together. Initially they "only" planned on investigating a creature known as The Man Monkey of Ranton, but it soon became apparent that the British Isles hade many more mysteries for the adventurous trio. Accompanied by various punk rock and enormous quantities of beer the three companions traveled the countryside in a car they named The Mystery Machine and interviewed all sorts of people, ending up in one bizarre situation after the other.
After having had a strange encounter with a witch, spent a night in a mysterious mansion, searched for werewolves, monkey men, the Loch Ness monster, devil dogs, giant cats, and so on, something becomes clear to them. Is it possible that some, perhaps all, of those strange beings that are seen from time to time all over world have some sort of paranormal origin? Instead of being "normal" physical beings, is it possible that they're in fact psychic manifestations, who feed on emotional reactions of human beings and come from an alternative or parallel dimension? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Hmm... does this sound a little too out there for you? Well, don't worry. This book is highly entertaining, nonetheless.
Because, even though the trio end up in bizarre situations and discuss freaky ideas, the level of discussion still remains both sober (except for the beer...) and reasonable. Each chapter begins with lyrics from a song by the Ramones and the dialogue is filled with great humor. It might not be the most scholarly book in the world, but it sure is entertaining.
So I'm really glad I got the chance to read it.
Scooby Doo-ish activities.......2005-10-27
This book is like sneaking into a graveyard at night, you find that, yes it is spooky, but nothing much exciting really occurs. I found the book to lack any revelation other than some tall tales I hadn't heard before, which Redfern seems to leave with the reader as the reward for buying his book. It's a light read and more about his two buddies hanging out with him drinking than any serious adventure. This would of been the type of adventure you probably would of liked to have had in college, so it's not unentertaining...but I would not see this as a must buy unless you feel Nick needs the donation.
A fun book.......2005-05-02
Whether you believe in monsters or not this is a very enjoyable book to read. I happen to like the Hunter S.Thompson school of writing and this book was a little gem.
A Rollicking Good Time For All.......2004-09-27
Mr. Redfern and his merrie band of British fortean eccentrics takes us on a journey the likes of which we have not seen since the days of Dr. Johnson sojourning to the north or the askew tales of Laurence Sterne. These blokes are the kind that you'd like to know for serious drinking and tale telling round a fireplace. Yet their historical research is sound, students of local fortean folklore will note. I find the tulpa theory neither "tired" nor overworked in throwing light on incidents of the unexplained. What Mr. Redfern & company do is synthesize the "passport to magonia' ideas of Jacque Vallee with the trickster/metamind theories of John Keel along with their own experiences while on this madcap road trip. The tulpa idea has merit and is worthy of further exploration. The cast of characters encountered in this work range from the frighteningly memorable to the freakish and pathetic. On the whole this is not a scholarly exploration of the paranormal, but if you're as weary as I am of anal retentive pontification or blind belief as with most paranormal books today, this is refreshing & fun.
Great read for adolescents... not so good for adults..........2004-08-01
A childhood friend bought this book for me purely out of nostalgia and I grudgingly read it over the course of a weekend.
As a kid, I really enjoyed reading monster and UFO books. Tales of Bigfoot and Yeti fascinated me. As I got older these sorts of books fell out of style with me, mainly because by the time I entered High School I had gained a fairly good grasp on the scientific process and skepticism.
Looking back I realize that my youthful fascination with this type of literature had more to do with an over all fascination with Science Fiction and Fantasy. I consider these books to be ?reality fantasy? ? completely unverifiable, yet spooky stories best to be read for the fun of it and not to be taken seriously.
The book puts forth the tired Tupla theory, which is that strange creatures and UFOs are not physical but rather are thought projections. As the book tells it, there is a realm of immaterial sprits all around us who somehow feed off our emotions by visual manifesting themselves as Aliens, Werewolves and Wild Men. It?s very contrived to say the least and ultimately causes the book to fail. Not once throughout the book does the author mention mental illness, hallucinogenic drugs or other more down to earth causes for some of the phenomena he recounts, although he does mention that some eye witnesses may have been influenced by works of fiction and over obsessive imaginations. Still, the author cannot escape painting himself into a corner of discredit due to a simple lack of believability.
What I enjoyed most about this book were the exact things I enjoyed about other Fortean style literature as a child: the chilling second hand accounts of strange sightings and events. Sadly, this book is only partly about historical accounts of Wild Men and Unexplained Big Cats. The majority of the book is an amateurish attempt at recounting drunken (and possibly drug induced) misadventures of a trio of English misfits.
At times, the book is very bloated as the author meanders off subject to relate a nightmare or other experience he or someone he knew had. Overall, the book could probably be cut to half the size and made infinitely more readable. I?ve personally read better self published works before and I?m led to wonder if the editor was asleep at the wheel on this one, or perhaps thought the readership wouldn?t be expecting too much anyway.
I give the book two stars instead of one because I think that young readers ? perhaps middle school age ? would enjoy it. Over all, the book isn?t too poorly written, although the author?s habit of starting each chapter off with a lyric from a Ramones song grew old quickly and flags him as having poor style.
Average customer rating:
- Look Who's Talking
- An excellent resource for understanding ape communication.
- Brilliant and Original
- There's nothing 'personal' here!
- thought-provoking and compelling
|
Apes, Language, and the Human Mind
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh ,
Stuart G. Shanker , and
Talbot J. Taylor
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0195109864 |
Book Description
Current primate research has yielded stunning results that not only threaten our underlying assumptions about the cognitive and communicative abilities of nonhuman primates, but also bring into question what it means to be human. At the forefront of this research, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh recently has achieved a scientific breakthrough of impressive proportions. Her work with Kanzi, a laboratory-reared bonobo, has led to Kanzi's acquisition of linguistic and cognitive skills similar to those of a two and a half year-old human child. Apes, Language, and the Human Mind skillfully combines a fascinating narrative of the Kanzi research with incisive critical analysis of the research's broader linguistic, psychological, and anthropological implications. The first part of the book provides a detailed, personal account of Kanzi's infancy, youth, and upbringing, while the second part addresses the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological issues raised by the Kanzi research. The authors discuss the challenge to the foundations of modern cognitive science presented by the Kanzi research; the methods by which we represent and evaluate the abilities of both primates and humans; and the implications which ape language research has for the study of the evolution of human language. Sure to be controversial, this exciting new volume offers a radical revision of the sciences of language and mind, and will be important reading for all those working in the fields of primatology, anthropology, linguistics, philosophy of mind, and cognitive and developmental psychology.
Customer Reviews:
Look Who's Talking.......2007-07-20
Things were not going well at the Yerkes Regional Primate Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Biologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh was attempting to train the female bonobo Matata to associate a handful of visual symbols ("lexemes") with familiar objects. But Matata was not cooperating. She just did not seem to get the point of the exercise, and furthermore she had a youngster to care for. For his part, the young bonobo Kanzi did what any child would do, alternately clinging to his mother and running wild in the room. He was constantly demanding his mother's attention, but showed little interest in the task she was struggling to learn. That is, until one day when Matata was gone and Kanzi demonstrated to the researchers that he had already mastered his mother's lessons and then some. From that point, Kanzi became the focus of Savage-Rumbaugh's research; but instead of using standard behavioral techniques, her research team taught Kanzi simply by interacting with him. Thus began the first attempt to teach language to a young bonobo in a naturalistic fashion.
Kanzi is now generally considered to be the most linguistically developed of all language-trained great apes. According to the authors, he has mastered the full complement of 256 lexemes in the artificial language Yerkish, expressly designed for ape language research. He can combine these symbols to express novel concepts, and he also uses gestures to help clarify intended meanings. But his most impressive accomplishment is that he can also understand spoken English, performing similarly to a two-and-a-half-year-old child. Kanzi cannot speak, though, because bonobos, like other great apes, lack the anatomical structures for producing speech sounds.
The book "Apes, Language and the Human Mind" consists of four chapters. The first, called "Bringing up Kanzi" and written by Savage-Rumbaugh, is an entertaining and highly readable account of how Kanzi learned to communicate with humans. Savage-Rumbaugh's approach is strongly anthropomorphic, and she attributes human-like intentions and motivations to the apes she works with. It is hard to discern to what degree this anthropomorphism is appropriate, since humans are prone to attribute intentionality to all sorts of things--cars, computers, the weather--that clearly have no mentality whatsoever. On the other hand, it is often not difficult to imagine being in Kanzi's position, as for example when Kanzi refuses to camp out in a tent with the researchers, choosing instead to return to the lab, where he can watch TV and sleep in a bed.
The second chapter, penned by Shanker, discusses the philosophical ramifications of ape language research. Anyone who is not a philosopher will find this chapter extremely tedious, but the take-home message is actually quite interesting. The view that humans are qualitatively different from all other species goes back only to Descartes, who argued that only humans (and supernatural beings such as angels and gods) have minds. Before that, the standard view was the Great Chain of Being, which saw all existence as a hierarchical structure with graded differences in mentality from mineral to plant to animal to human to divine. On that view, humans are still intellectually superior to apes, but not categorically so. Cartesian dualism is appealing to those--as for example primate researchers--who, as part of their livelihood, regularly treat apes in ways that would be considered unethical with humans. Furthermore, Cartesian dualism is likely appealing to the ordinary person because, in our modern lifestyle, we no longer interact very much with other species, and what animals we do domesticate are intentionally bred for their docility (that is, stupidity). One has to wonder, though, how many hunters, stalking their prey, view their quarry as mindless automata.
The third chapter, by Taylor, outlines the ongoing and often vitriolic debate over whether trained apes actually "have" language or not. Cases such as that of "Clever Hans," the mathematical horse, illustrate just how easy it is to unintentionally train animals to respond to subtle cues. Furthermore, humans naturally attribute mental processes to others, so it is important to test language-trained apes in an objective manner. However, skeptics of ape language research categorically reject the possibility that apes could have some linguistic ability, so there is no evidence that could ever convince them otherwise. This is a wholly unscientific stance for scientists to take. Although the null hypothesis should be that apes do not use language, the skeptic must nevertheless grant some criterion that, if observed, would be sufficiently convincing that some primates can indeed communicate intentionally with a symbolic system.
In the fourth chapter, Savage-Rumbaugh considers what the data from ape language research tells us about the nature of human language, language acquisition, and the relationship of humans to other species. If apes can learn language, this means that language is not a uniquely human instinct, as Pinker argues. But if language acquisition and processing are based on general cognitive abilities that humans share with other primates--and perhaps with many other species as well--then why do only humans have language in their natural state? Regardless of the eventual answer to that question, ethical issues are also raised by primate language research. That is, if a non-human primate truly exhibits the cognitive abilities of a two-to-three-year-old human child, does that not then imply that non-human primates deserve the same rights that we accord human children? Researchers who regularly sacrifice primates on the altar of science do not want to even acknowledge the validity of this question.
If five centuries of science have taught us anything, it is humility. We are not special. We are not at the center of the universe. Yet the scientist who accepts the heliocentric solar system, geologic time, the evolution of species and our common ancestor with the other great apes only a few million years ago nevertheless staunchly insists that humans are still special when it comes to language and cognition. Maybe, as her critics claim, Savage-Rumbaugh is over-interpreting the data. But given the trend of science toward greater humility, it is not unreasonable to think that humans are not special when it comes to language and thought either.
An excellent resource for understanding ape communication........2007-01-09
When Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and others first began suggesting that apes (chimpanzees and bonobos) had better communication skills than language experts would credit, she and the others were soundly denounced by a scholarly community who suggested she and the others were fooled by the clever Hans phenomenon or were making up their evidence. As evidence from her research accumulated, cognition theorists, linguists, and the like continued to reject her methods and results. But eventually, the evidence that some apes have some skills comparable to human language skills became insurmountable.
This book is in three parts, written by a primatologist, philosopher, and a rhetoric and language scholar. Each takes the academic community to task at a different level. Savage-Rumbaugh presents her evidence that apes demonstrate communication (even language) skills. Stuart Shanker and Talbot Taylor examine the logic and rhetoric her arguments as compared to the arguments of her detractors, demonstrating that Savage-Rumbaugh's work is as serious and valid as that of the others', and demonstrating (at least to my satisfaction) that the arguments of her detractors are specious.
The ramifications of this book and several others like it are significant. It says a great deal about the nature of human communication and language if bonobos can use the same processes as children to come to human language.
As time passes, the value of a book may ebb. This is a 1998 book in a time when events happen quickly . . . it is for that reason, alone, that I give the book only 4 stars.
Brilliant and Original.......2000-01-05
This brilliant and original book demonstrates that symbolic representation is the basic substance of language, and shows once and for all that language is not an exclusively human achievement. Savage-Rumbaugh's serendipitous discovery that the critical period for language acquisition in bonobos is in early infancy renders all earlier language experimentation with apes obsolete. Contrary to Chomsky and Pinker, grammar is a high level embellishment to language, rather than the foundation of communicative skill. The philosophical commentaries on Savage-Rumbaugh's work by Shanker and Taylor bring out the revolutionary implications of her findings, and provide a new and more sophisticated point of view on the continuities and discontinuities between ourselves and our nearest relatives. It's good to see contemporary science finally replacing the 17th century perspective of many linguists.
There's nothing 'personal' here!.......1999-10-06
I wonder if the reader from Austin, Texas, read the same book as I did! I could find no trace of any personal attacks (nor personal glorifications, for that matter) in this highly original, provocative and exceptionally well-argued book. Interdisciplinary collaborations on complex themes are notoriously difficult to pull off, but this team has succeeded admirably. The philosophical analysis of the significance of the bonobo ape research for our currently dominant ways of thinking about language, communication and animal capacities is strikingly original. Certainly, these authors do not hold back from exploring the wider significance of their proposed interpretations, but there is a wealth of well-documented and rigorous argument here to support their contentions, and not a shred of evidence of -animus- against those whose views they dispute. A serious and significant book for everyone interested in animal cognition.
thought-provoking and compelling.......1998-08-24
This is a rewarding book, especially in its middle two chapters. After the scene-setting of ch. 1, in which we learn just what the Bonobo ape Kanzi can do as far as communicating with a human is concerned, ch. 2 gives us a protracted survey of the Cartesian tradition of thinking about the 'mental' and hence communicative lives of animals, showing the degree to which writers like Pinker, and indeed many of us, are, largely due to an outmoded view of ourselves, caught up in a fallacy about the status of animals vis-à-vis humans which needs to be replaced with a saner outlook. In ch. 3 we are given an insight into the rhetorical strategies of those who perpetuate the Cartesian view, and shown to what extent such strategies may be motivated less by a search for truth than by the socio-politico-economic imperative of our exploitation of the animal world. The authors then proceed to show that arguments which have been used to bolster the 'existential gap' view in fact are incapable of supporting the notion that humans themselves have the exclusive and proprietary capacities which Cartesian thinkers have attributed to them. That is, (a) the evidence which such thinkers use purportedly to prove the existence of various capacities in humans is shown to be equally in evidence in at least one kind of animal, but (b) the evidence which is used purportedly to disprove these capacities in animals is shown in fact to be inadequate to prove the existence of those capacities in humans. In other words, as is further suggested in the final chapter, we have no logical or evidential basis for maintaining the Cartesian view, and the implications for our own human behavior are accordingly far-reaching.
Book Description
This book looks back at the simpler versions of mental life in apes, Neanderthals, and our ancestors, back before our burst of creativity started 50,000 years ago. When you can't think about the future in much detail, you are trapped in a here-and-now existence with no "What if" and "Why me?" William H. Calvin takes stock of what we have now and then explains why we are nearing a crossroads, where mind shifts gears again. The mind's big bang came long after our brain size stopped enlarging. Calvin suggests that the development of long sentences--what modern children do in their third year--was the most likely trigger. To keep a half-dozen concepts from blending together like a summer drink, you need some mental structuring. In saying "I think I saw him leave to go home," you are nesting three sentences inside a fourth. We also structure plans, play games with rules, create structured music and chains of logic, and have a fascination with discovering how things hang together. Our long train of connected thoughts is why our consciousness is so different from what came before. Where does mind go from here, its powers extended by science-enhanced education but with its slowly evolving gut instincts still firmly anchored in the ice ages? We will likely shift gears again, juggling more concepts and making decisions even faster, imagining courses of action in greater depth. Ethics are possible only because of a human level of ability to speculate, judge quality, and modify our possible actions accordingly. Though science increasingly serves as our headlights, we are out driving them, going faster than we can react effectively.
Customer Reviews:
Savannah spear chucker to Shakespeare.......2004-10-17
Always a lively and informative read, Calvin has capped his many fine works on the human intellect with this book. Never hesitant to propose novel ideas, he incorporates fresh thinking on the cause of our consciousness. "Stories around the campfire" depicts his theme - the campfire for cooking meat and the narratives exchanged among the diners. The meat implies hunting and the conversation implies speech and complex thinking. Only humans engage in these practices - how did that come to be? In this provocative and compelling book, Calvin answers this and other questions with his usual expressive style. Abetted by explanatory diagrams and photographs, he takes us back to a distant time in searching for our origins. We learn what makes us unique among primates and are given a view of possible future paths.
No work in anthropology can ignore our primate relatives. Calvin's opening chapter asks "what is it like to be a chimpazee?" This query raises the point of similarities and differences among primate species. Apes have fair-sized brains and useful "hands". While some hunt, some use tools and all vocalise, only humans developed those capacities fully to create complex societies and learn to write books - or plays and poetry. All fossil evidence, plus genetics, Calvin reminds us, indicate our origins lay close to what chimpanzees exhibit today. How did we change from a forest-dwelling ape to one living in nearly every habitat and babbling expressively?
For Calvin, environment shifts are a major driving force in evolution - perhaps none more so than in the case of human evolution. Variations in climate drives adaptation, and our ape-like ancestors were challenged by some severe, and possibly abrupt, shifts. More than simply more or less frequent rainfall, these changes modified whole habitats. Our ancestors had to relocate, shift lifestyles or both. Calvin argues that the shift meant a new existence, a new diet plus gaining some additional skills.
The new diet was meat. With the human brain consuming 20 per cent of the body's resources just to "tick over", a high protein source is a necessity. Primates are mostly vegetarian, with chimps adding some termites and the occasional monkey for dinner. Shrinking rainforests reduced available fruits and nuts, leaving meat as a more significant diet item for the new ape. There are two ways of obtaining meat - scavenging it or hunting it. Scavenging means waiting for leftovers or chasing away predators. Either is risky. Active hunting is more direct, but requires complex skill sets involving vision, muscle coordination, memory capacity and predictive skills. The act of spear-throwing, which Calvin calls a "structured suite" had to be a "package deal" of muscle functions directed by a developing cortex. To Calvin, the "package deal" implies a sudden rise in evidence for complex human cognition. With bipedalism a foundation, the new ape could build thinking capacity with tool-making, spear throwing for meat to feed the demanding processor of these activities. Only after the mind was able to handle involved thinking could language emerge, adding to the brain's capacity, while furthering more cognitive development.
Calvin recognises the sudden apparent rise in complex thinking of fifty thousand years ago as a given. Many recent fossil finds, plus weapons, cave paintings and linguistic analysis support the notion. While it has taken some time for anthropologists to accept that sudden burst in symbolic thought, it is now the consensus view. The causes of "the Great Leap Forward" remain obscure and debateable. Calvin's proposal will assuredly add to that debate. Not the least of his critics will be the "gender feminists" who abhor biological causation in any form. Yet it's clear his scenario suggests males, as hunters, drove the "cognitive explosion". He anticipates the strident chorus that will greet his proposal, but dismisses it easily. With his engaging style and solid experience in neurobiology, this book will bring new focus to our intellectual roots.
[stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Ontario]
NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME.......2004-09-18
For a short book, (fewer than 200 pages), Dr. Calvin provides a wealth of information from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, and a HUGE bibliography. He approaches evolutionary cognitive development from the standpoint of a neurobiologist.
He has excellent, entertaining quotes to begin and finish many chapters, and nice illustrations. He provides brief (one paragraph) chapter summaries in the Table of Contents. I read that first, and reread individual chapter summaries before and after each chapter. In chapter 8, he discussed this structured, obsessive, pattern-seeking behavior of mine.
Here is the plot: 7 million yrs ago, we emerged from the apes. Bt 160,000 yrs ago, we were homo sapien. By 50,000 yrs ago, we were homo sapien sapien - same physique, same sized brain, just soft-wired more elegantly. Dr. Calvin says, "It's just in the last 1% of that up-from-the-apes period that human creativity & technological capabilities have really blossomed. It's been called 'The Mind's Big Bang'."
How did this happen?
On page 153, he listed 5 candidates, all of which he said were probably operative, but he has a favorite. (Interestingly, he leaves out Matt Ridley's favorite from THE RED QUEEN; that it's all about the battle between the sexes.) In Dr. Calvin's theory, "Evo-Devo," he relies on syntax development and spear-throwing skills as catalysts to the "Mind's Big Bang," and spends a lot of of time explaining his thoughts. He is obviously very well informed about language development. I won't try to explain this complex theory here, but I did think it had merit. I thought, however, that for the crown jewel of his book, it was not presented clearly enough.
I began to wonder where gene change was going to fit in. As I read, I searched for indications that the current brand of natural selection was in play. In one segment, he suggested what sounded exactly like vertical transmission of memes, although he didn't call them memes. He extrapolated this into the future, saying, "a number of present day human abilities have some potential for future elaboration even without natural selection." I couldn't help but wonder what Richard Dawkins would think about this. It sounded awfully Lamarckian to me.
As the plot unfolded, the existing product (our minds) was shown to be jury-rigged and unfinished, in evolution's usual fashion...so, as humans, we have tendencies to misinterpret in our own favor, rationalize, use faulty logic, wage war, etc. In short, we are "NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME."
This book is well-written, extensively researched, and entertaining, about a subject in which informed speculation appears to be the state of the art. Too bad we don't have hard evidence for the "how" of evolutionary cognitive function such as what mitochondrial DNA is to geneology.
I recommend this book highly, and am inspired to read more on the subject, probably from books he mentions. Because his charts in chapter 8 were unclear, I give him a 4.
The rise of "beyond the apes" intelligence.......2004-08-25
The central event in this book is the human mind's so-called "big bang" which occurred some 90,000 to 50,000 years ago.
(These are neurobiologist William Calvin's numbers from page 111 where he notes that "it now appears that humans were behaviorally modern before the last great Out of Africa" which is now understood as taking place between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago, as determined by the latest tweaking of the mitochondrial DNA dating data.)
Professor Calvin leads up to this event by starting with the proto ape that was our ancestor (and the ancestor of modern apes) that lived some seven million years ago. He takes us from that ape's jungle habitat to the woodlands, where our ancestors learned to walk upright, to the savannahs where they ran down, killed and ate large game animals. Somewhere along the way we got smart. But, Calvin wonders, did we get smart enough?
He sees a disconnect between our abilities and the world we have inherited. He asks: "Where does mind go from here, its powers extended by science-enhanced education and new tools--but with its slowly evolving gut instincts still firmly anchored to the ice ages?" Are we just a "rough-around-the-edges prototype, the preliminary version that evolution never got a chance to further improve before the worldwide distribution occurred?" (p. 178)
In other words, are we using Stone Age instincts to cope with Information Age problems? It is interesting to note that in psychologist Keith Stanovich's recent book The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin (2004) he is concerned with the same problem from an entirely different point of view. He writes about the "potential mismatches between the cognitive requirements of the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation and those of the modern world."
Of course the problem, as both writers point out, is that cultural evolution out-sprints the biological so that our genotypes are still in the woodlands and on the savannahs as the ice ages come and go while our phenotypes have to deal with traffic jams, weapons of mass destruction, and the paperwork for our HMOs.
One of Calvin's more intriguing ideas comes from his dictum that "behavior invents and...New form follows new function." (p. 159) He argues that the higher intellectual functions of humans came from the development of a "structured suite" of brain machinery that "is shared in part with some nonintellectual functions." (p. 94) He sees "accurate throwing" as part of this structured suite, and argues that learning to hit a moving target (say a small animal), because it involved several parts of the body (hand, wrist, arm, shoulder--and eyes and legs for that matter) in close coordination, several parts of the brain were used simultaneously as well. Consequently a "structured suite" developed in the brain that later was used for the development of symbolic language. What he is saying is that, the syntax of language--that is, the "something" does "something" to "something": the subject-verb-object structure of language that works so magically for us--actually came from the body's experience running down game in Africa.
I think Calvin is on to something here because that syntactic structure which is common to people everywhere, regardless of what language they speak, mirrors the action of the world. What is important in the environment is what is being done or what is happening (the verb), by whom and to whom (or what): the bull gores the lion; the monkey peels the fruit, the wind blows the tree down, etc.
Another of Calvin's pet ideas is that education "perhaps more than any of the imagined genetic changes" is what will best help us cope with the challenges of the modern world. (p. 184) He argues that if children are exposed to "structured stuff" at younger ages, and if they can "softwire their brains to better handle" such stuff, "the more precocious children will soon double the amount of structured speech heard by the next generation." (p. 154)
Of course our brains are still being "softwired" after we leave the womb and for some many months afterwards as our experiences serve to strengthen certain neurons and discard others. It seems, however, that Calvin is getting at something larger here, a kind of quasi-Lamarckian accelerated evolutionary process. Indeed I think he intends this example as a possible explanation for the "big bang" that took place in the Pleistocene. To be honest I have no idea whether he is right or not. Certainly it is an interesting idea.
Interesting is this comment from page 104: "[M]uch of [our] higher intellectual function seems half-baked, what you ordinarily see in a prototype rather than a finished, well-engineered product. Perfection you don't get, not from Darwinian evolution...But culture...can sometimes patch things up, if society works hard enough."
This is my first experience with reading Calvin, and I can say that reading this book is like engaging in a conversation with a wise and learned man who likes to share his ideas.
Interesting to a weekend "scientist".......2004-08-05
Dr. Calvin has done an excellent job detailing the history of how mind development may have transpired over the last several hundred thousand years. While I have no formal education on the subject, I was able to easily comprehend and enjoy most of the book. There are a few chapter towards the middle and the end where he seems to go off on technical tangents that are rather dull and long winded. But the first several chapters concerning early forms of the mind are incredibly enlightening and make for good reading. He also does a commendable job of speculating about future "expansions" of the minds ability, which he believes we are on the brink of. The only other complaint I have is that the good doctor lets his current political opinions taint his message substantially, particularly towards the end of the book. I was disappointed in that. But overall it was a good book, but I will bet there are better on the market, although I haven't had the good fortune to sample any others just yet.
Thought provoking yet personable .......2004-08-03
This is a thought provoking yet personable survey of the evolution of our species' mental abilities. I read it after I'd written my book, "Concept: A ProtoTheist Quest for Science-Minded Skeptics", else I might have used some of his ideas in my chapters eight and nine (I do reference two of his earlier books). He elaborates and illustrates many of the concepts (tho' sometimes he uses `concept' were I'd use `percept'). However he largely ignores the functions of the pre-, sub- and un-conscious, yet speculates on "The Future of the Augmented Mind." Also, while he mentions on pages 171-2 "the evolutionary trajectory we've been on," he doesn't elaborate (as I do in chapter eleven) and thus has difficulty sustaining his optimism about our future.
Book Description
The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates is a comprehensive study of the astonishing variety of puzzling primates that are being reported by eyewitnesses around the world - but that science has failed to recognize. This fully illustrated volume not only contains the references, range maps, and typical footprints that appeared in the first edition, but it also contains a new, complete index and new preface that updates the discoveries made since this book was first published. "The thousands of worldwide sightings of unclassified bipedal primates, including the Yeti, may be confusing because these sightings entail more than one species. This field guide attempts to sort out the different creatures, coming up with a classification of eight possible mystery primates. But this book makes no real attempt to persuade skeptics of the existence of any of them. It's sort of speculative taxonomy, but I think it is one of the most useful texts in the ongoing controversy over Bigfoot." - Kevin Kelly, Whole Earth Review "If only one of these creatures is verified by naturalists, it would be a biological sensation...The book is well-researched with a good bibliography." - William Corliss, Science Frontiers "This book looks like any other field guide you might pick up. It has drawings, maps, tracks, descriptions of the organisms, and the details of the most prominent sightings or evidence....Anyone interested in folk zoology - especially anyone interested in how legends and animal lore intersect with modern scientific research - would find this to be an intriguing volume....It is an extensive...catalog of all the variations on the 'mystery primate' theme organized geographically and annotated extensively." - Andrew J. Petto, Reports of the National Center for Science Education
Customer Reviews:
Fantastic..!.......2007-08-12
This book is THE book to buy, if one just resently got interested in hominology. The book describes multible different Bigfoot like creatured out there, all combined with sighting-stories ... big mistake including the merbeings though, wtf? What does mermaids have to do with abominable snowmen?!!
Even though the book is brilliant, it is way to short. Almost 50% of the book are pictures, all 50 some mentioned animals are shown in drawings, and most of the written ones leave huge blank spaces.
But all in all, a good book, I love it enyway!
Covers Every Inhabited Continent.......2006-07-23
Bigfoot, Yeti, Yowie, Orang Pendek, and Agogwe. All the most recognizable names in the world of mystery Cryptozoological primates are here. But the not so recognizable names really sale this book. Names like the Jimbra, Ngoloko, Tjangara, and the Tano Giant. And then there are those you may be a little more familiar with, like the Alma and the Didi. How about the Chinese Wildman, or the Yeren? Whether familiar or not, its probably mentioned in this guide. But that is also one of the shortcomings of the Field Guide; so many subjects, too few eyewitness accounts. My one reason for not giving it a 5 star rating. Hopefully more page additions are forthcoming in future revisions.
Coleman hits another homerun!!! .......2006-04-17
This book, originally released in 1999, was controversial for the sheer number of different species covered in it. Perhaps the most controversial classification was the oceanic primates, or "mer-beings." This book is not exactly a "straight" reprint of the original volume from 1999; there is a new preface in the beginning and a new index in the back. The rest of it is the original 1999 material, but a good deal of it is relevant to the present-day reports, and the book can be very useful for those searching for these animals. The illustrations are very well-done from other's descriptions (and in some cases, photos and film) and show a diversity of sizes and shapes and colors in these mysterious primates. I do highly recommend this volume (both versions) to give the reader an idea of the different hairy bipeds around the globe.
Mysterious Primates of the Earth.......2006-04-17
This is the best book for reading about the myths or facts of the mysterious sightings of humaniod apes from around world. In addition to the wonderful facts there is also many great pictures to identify any of these wonderful elusive beasts.
Book Description
What can the study of young monkeys and apes tell us about the minds of young humans? In this fascinating introduction to the study of primate minds, Juan Carlos Gomez identifies evolutionary resemblances--and differences--between human children and other primates. He argues that primate minds are best understood not as fixed collections of specialized cognitive capacities, but more dynamically, as a range of abilities that can surpass their original adaptations.
In a lively overview of a distinguished body of cognitive developmental research among nonhuman primates, Gomez looks at knowledge of the physical world, causal reasoning (including the chimpanzee-like errors that human children make), and the contentious subjects of ape language, theory of mind, and imitation. Attempts to teach language to chimpanzees, as well as studies of the quality of some primate vocal communication in the wild, make a powerful case that primates have a natural capacity for relatively sophisticated communication, and considerable power to learn when humans teach them.
Gomez concludes that for all cognitive psychology's interest in perception, information-processing, and reasoning, some essential functions of mental life are based on ideas that cannot be explicitly articulated. Nonhuman and human primates alike rely on implicit knowledge. Studying nonhuman primates helps us to understand this perplexing aspect of all primate minds.
Customer Reviews:
Very interesting comparison nicely written.......2006-08-09
p. 20 "...one of the crucial tenets of the book. The behavioral flexibility associated with prolonged development is the result of flexibility in forming representations of the world. My argument is that a crucial characteristic of primates is their ability to construct representation of the physical and social world and mediate their behavior by means of those representations."
p. 23 "The debate about continuity of human and nonhuman primates cognition critically hinges on the notion of representation."
Studying perception - show surprise = "look for longer". This can be used to compare age development and species development. Example: adult rhesus monkey with 12 month old child on a certain task.
p. 45 "...human adults typically tend to perceive first the global outline of a stimulus and only secondarily its local details." This is different for different primates and p. 47 "These results are potentially very important. They point to the possibility of different "cognitive styles" present in different primate species otherwise endowed with similar perceptual abilities."
P. 54 Monkeys prefer watching other monkeys to other things. (I find this interesting in relating it to dogs that prefer to bark at other dogs in the neighborhood then people or cars, but also bark at cats. Even puppies prefer to watch other dogs to watching other things.) Monkeys also learn from watching others solve problems. (p. 55) (Some skills cats and dogs can reach in two weeks compared to human infants around 8 or 9 months! (p. 68) (I wonder if it is because the dogs can still smell the object that is hidden.) I no sooner thought this then the next paragraph refers to tests that avoided olfactory cues. (notes up to page 74.)
Average customer rating:
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Animal Bodies, Human Minds: Ape, Dolphin, and Parrot Language Skills
William A. Hillix , and
Duane M. Rumbaugh
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0306477394 |
Book Description
Several books chronicle attempts, most of them during the last 40 years, to teach animals to communicate with people in a human-designed language. These books have typically treated only one or two species, or even one or a few research projects. We have provided a more encompassing view of this field. We also want to reinforce what other authors, for example Jane Goodall, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Penny Patterson, Birute Galdikas, and Roger and Deborah Fouts, so passionately convey about our responsibility for our closest animal kin.
This book surveys what was known, or believed about animal language throughout history and prehistory, and summarizes current knowledge and the controversy around it. The authors identify and attempt to settle most of the problems in interpreting the animal behaviours that have been observed in studies of animal language ability.
Customer Reviews:
Enjoyable, lucid survey with misleading oversimplifications.......2003-03-24
Even 12 years after it was published, McCrone's first book remains a lucid introduction to the workings of the human brain, the history of its evolution, and the role of language in the development of self-consciousness and intelligence. He discusses how the brain evolved over millions of years, then he narrows his focus to examine how, during the last 40,000 years, language and self-awareness enhanced the brain's capabilities (through a process he calls "cultural evolution"). With its lack of jargon, "The Ape That Spoke" could be read by non-scientists interested in pursuing the far more exhaustive (and perhaps intimidating) studies by the likes of Steven Pinker or Antonio R. Damasio.
The reader should be aware, however, that McCrone's survey is occasionally reductive or misleading. Its most noticeable shortcoming, as the author himself admits on his own Web site, is that the book is "pretty sketchy on the neurological underpinnings of consciousness." (His later books attempt to address this disparity.) Second, readers must be very attentive to the endnotes in order to differentiate between scientific findings and McCrone's frequent speculation. Third, the book often presents tentative scientific conclusions as established fact and skirts the heated debates among scientists regarding language, consciousness, and intelligence. (His neglect of neurological studies only exacerbates this weakness.)
Finally, and perhaps most important, McCrone repeatedly uses the concept of "evolution" when he means "progress," "change," or "development." (Two examples selected from dozens: "Language gave early man just such a way to evolve and pass on complex ideas." "But now technology is starting to open the door to rapid mental evolution.") Even McCrone acknowledges that such oversimplification is not always useful when talking about something as complex as evolution, "where an effect can be its own cause and . . . where stable patterns emerge as what works outlasts what does not." Yet he nevertheless persists in using "evolution" in its metaphorical sense. Such vagueness may be appropriate for some topics, but it is certainly confusing in a book on evolution and language. In particular, as Stephen Jay Gould notes in "Full House," the term "cultural evolution" should be abandoned altogether, since societal transformation, unlike evolutionary change, can occur--and regress--both rapidly and deterministically (e.g., humans can easily and radically influence the direction of their culture and still remain human, but they cannot alter the genetic makeup they collectively inherited from evolutionary processes!).
Keeping in mind these caveats and shortcomings, diligent readers might still find McCrone's survey a useful introduction to more accurate and complex works on the topic.
College students.......2003-03-13
I read this book for a book review I had to do for my "Mind Brain and Behavior" class in college. It was a very simple book to read and understand. I dont neccessarily agree with all McCrone has to say, but he does do an excellent job at making his ideas clear to the reader. I also enjoyed the fact that he had stories, etc. to help the average reader understand it more.
Very Understandable!.......2001-11-20
Regardless of what the other 'scientist' says, I found it very helpful for the person that is just beginning their understanding of linguistic anthropology. It is very understandable and makes clear some of the mysteries of the human brain. I, too, am a scientist but found this book very helpful for my students.
Too Journalistic.......2000-11-22
While this book brought up some interesting topics, it was too journalistic to be considered a serious scientific commentary. Maybe if it had been written by a scientist, or if I wasn't a scientist, I would have enjoyed it more. I did find it reasonably interesting, but not particularly compelling. I get the idea that this sort of psycho-babble is becoming popular, and pseudo-informed books like this are ten-a-penny. Science for the masses maybe, but not for the scientific.
Says it all.......2000-03-03
I just want to echo bilge's comments. I, too, picked this book up in a overstock bin and found it compelling and fascinating. If you can get a hold of a copy, buy it!
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