• Question: Do you think, with training like babies animals could learn to talk? Or any other human trait?

    Asked by anon-181546 on 7 Jun 2018.
    • Photo: Daniel Rhodes

      Daniel Rhodes answered on 7 Jun 2018:

      I think it depends what you mean by talk. If you mean talk like us, then almost certainly not, but if you mean communicate information to each other, then they already do! All across the animal kingdom we see examples of animals communicating, for example bees dance to tell each other where a good site for a hive is, and mammals like dolphins and whales have complex communicative abilities.
      I think in the past we as a species used to make the mistake of thinking that our behaviour is unique and special, but everywhere we look we find examples of complex social behaviours that we were considered uniquely ‘human’. So for example, chimpanzees will engage in war like behaviour (including night time sneak attacks), ants and termites will take slaves, and on the more positive side, wild dogs in africa (and a number of other animals) have been observed voting to decide where and when to hunt.

    • Photo: Ashley Akbari

      Ashley Akbari answered on 7 Jun 2018:

      Communications come in many forms – there is already circumstances of orangutans communicating via sign language with humans, and other animals like dolphins/dogs communicating via actions – but i agree with Daniel that talking as we do would more likely be down to a technological aid.

    • Photo: Lauren Burns

      Lauren Burns answered on 8 Jun 2018:

      There are lots of evidence about training animals to sign-language communicate with humans, mainly apes and orangutans (Koko the Ape, and Chantek the Orangutan are two – you could probably find YouTube videos of them communicating!). However, as has been said, there are other ways of communicating, like actions or through conditioning of dolphins and dogs. Or, if you just wanted something that mimics human speech, there are many birds that have the hearing and vocal ability to do this!

    • Photo: Hannah Farley

      Hannah Farley answered on 10 Jun 2018:

      Lots of simpler organisms would probably struggle with more advanced human behaviours but that’s a bit like evaluating a fish on whether it can climb a tree – we are best at different things. Humans are smart and super good at communicating, recording what we do and say and think, and sharing knowledge. But we’d be outswam/run/climbed/jumped by other species, and there are probably species that are better than us at communication (e.g. whales singing across miles of ocean).

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