Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker
I should have mentioned - She was "talking to" the chimp while she was nursing him, and according to the things she said, it was clear that she expected that when he was well - after he survived because of her intervention - there was a good chance he would go back and fight again to become the leader. This was apparently based on her experience and prior observations.
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Well, my initial reaction to this was, talking to him like he could understand her...that's just weird! We all do that with our pets though so I guess it isn't
that weird.
It does seem somewhat unprofessional though. I still don't think she did anything wrong necessarily...but she definitely isn't maintaining objectivity. I guess if she were really there trying to gather accurate data, she would have no choice but to let things unfold naturally.
It is a very interesting discussion though. I saw a video a few months ago that showed gorillas at war. One gorilla was attacked by 3 or 4 other gorillas and was clearly getting hurt. There was no intervention afterwards by the people recording it that I know of. In another part of the video, a group of gorillas were trying to get to another gorilla that had climbed up a tree looking for safety. I've never seen anything like it...it was terrifying to watch. It was very violent in the most primal sense of the word. I knew that if I had been there witnessing it, there is no way I could have been objective and just let the injured gorillas die at the end...and I wasn't even emotionally invested in them. Jane, apparently, had a long standing relationship with the chimps...I can understand how she would want to save them if they were injured...regardless, it does call into question her ability to gather accurate data and the validity of her research.