book reviews lowing, with ape fan clubs, newsletters, prime-time television spots and so on. Many New in paperback of the researchers invested years of time and energy — as well as emotional attachment — Memory Distortion: How Minds, Brains Time’s Arrow and Archimedes’ Point: in their studies. Indeed, their subjects were and Societies Reconstruct the Past New Directions for the Physics of Time sometimes treated not so much as targets of edited by Daniel L. Schacter by Huw Price scientific investigation but rather as family Harvard University Press, $17.95, £11.95 Oxford University Press, £9.99 members. It is this paradox that lies at the “Provides an outstanding multidisciplinary “An attempt to grapple with the... problems of heart of Fouts’s story. perspective on memory accuracy”, Martin A. the arrow of time with a high degree of analytical At the start of Next of Kin, Fouts mentions Conway, Nature 380, 214 (1996). care”, John D. Barrow, Nature 383, 228 (1996). the ethical problem of raising a human child in a chimpanzee family. But then, as if the Atmosphere, Climate, and Change Stars as Laboratories for ethical concerns evaporate, he swiftly turns by Thomas E. Graedel and Paul J. Crutzen Fundamental Physics: The to the fascination of raising a chimpanzee in W. H. Freeman/Scientific American Library, Astrophysics of Neutrinos, Axions, a human family, and his own childhood $19.95, £15.95 and Other Weakly Interacting “experiments” with cross-fostering duck- “A wonderful introduction to the intricacies of a Particles lings to domestic cats. After spending years modern science relevant to serious questions by Georg G. Raffelt experimenting with Washoe and several confronting humankind”, P. Brimblecombe, Chicago University Press, $42, £33.50 other chimpanzees, though, he suddenly Nature 375, 202 (1995). “An extensive and expert review… a detailed realizes he has done something unethical. compendium of results for the serious student”, Driven only by his intellectual curiosity, he The Most Beautiful Molecule: The Michael L. Cherry, Nature 384, 128 (1996). has failed to consider what such experiences Discovery of the Buckyball would be like for a chimpanzee held captive by Hugh Aldersey-Williams The Most Beautiful Molecule: The without maternal nurture, sex, play, social Wiley, $16.95 Discovery of the Buckyball politics and so on. Fouts retreats from “Very well-written and rewarding... an excellent by Hugh Aldersey-Williams science and plunges into alcoholism account”, Philip Ball, Nature 372, 514 (1994). Wiley, $16.95 He eventually emerges from his depres- “Very well-written and rewarding... an excellent sion with a renewed sense of energy, guided Science at the Bar: Law, Science, and account”, Philip Ball, Nature 372, 514 (1994). by a desire to uncover, and ultimately abol- Technology in America ish, what he perceives as an international dis- by Sheila Jasanoff Bright Paradise: Victorian Scientific aster: highly inappropriate housing facilities Harvard University Press, $17.95, £11.95 Travellers for primates. The rest of the book tells of “This is a perceptive and elegantly written book by Peter Raby Fouts’s fight for the care and well-being of on how science and law interact both to produce Princeton University Press, $14.95 primates in captivity, of his continued strug- knowledge and to resolve conflict”, George J. “Extremely readable”, D. E. Allen, Nature 383, gle with research and of the findings that Annas, Nature 379, 501 (1996). 491 (1996). emerged from his studies. Sociopolitical saga apart, there are vari- and empirical inaccuracies. Fouts thinks that the throat, forming the adult-like configura- ous scientific nuggets dispersed throughout human language is primarily a cultural phe- tion. The visual and auditory modalities are the book. The reader is treated to observa- nomenon. Given all the evidence of dedicated used for communication in early develop- tions of chimpanzees teaching their young linguistic brain areas, universal grammar, ment. When words are strung into sentences, bits of ASL, deceiving Fouts for a Coke, sign- highly constrained sequences of language it is not because of a mature vocal tract, but ing about the grief of losing a baby, using development and so on, one simply cannot because of a computational mechanism suf- mirrors to put on make-up and clothes, and ignore the importance of biology. He argues ficiently developed to allow recombination. signing among themselves about the day’s in favour of human languages emerging from Further, Fouts’s view that all primate events. One cannot help but be amazed by all a gestural form, a claim soundly rejected by vocalizations (that is, those produced natu- of this. Yet Fouts is out of touch with several many authors, including Steven Pinker, rally as part of the species-typical repertoire) areas he discusses, and apparently forgets Derek Bickerton and Philip Lieberman. If are processed by the emotional areas of the that his research rests on that of others. For gestural languages were dominant, why brain is also incorrect, as demonstrated by example, we find no mention of Premack’s don’t we see any remnants today? Why has no recent neurophysiological studies on rhesus work with chimpanzees. Uniquely for his culture ever taken a gestural form of lan- macaques showing involvement of the audi- time, Premack focused on the conceptual guage as its first and dominant form of com- tory cortex. abilities of animals rather than their capacity munication? Why aren’t gestural signals The book is therefore both fascinating to acquire the formal structure of language; it dominant to vocal signals in most non- and infuriating. Fascinating because it tells was in this guise that Premack mocked the human primates? of the trials and tribulations of trying to imaginary syntax-carrying chicken. Fouts claims that the dominant form of communicate with another species. Infuri- And, as it turns out, this is precisely where communication for human infants is ating because the distinction between evi- work on captive apes and other animals has through facial expressions and hand ges- dence and impression are blurred, and moved, due in part to the critical blows dealt tures, rather than vocal signals, because because profound philosophical and psy- by linguists, psycholinguists and philoso- human infants are born with a chimpanzee- chological problems are often dealt with phers to studies of ape semantics and syntax. like vocal tract that does not become fully superficially. In the acknowledgments, Fouts Tetsuro Matsuzawa is also not mentioned adult-like until about two to three years of showers “thank-yous, hugs, and pant-hoots and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, one of the lead- age, when words are strung together into . . . to the five people who inspired [the] book: ers in this field, receives a one-sentence nod. sentences. None of this is correct. Infants cry Washoe, Loulis, Moja, Tatu, and Dar”. And yet, like Premack, both have generated from birth and soon after begin to make People? How interesting. fantastic findings about the conceptual abili- communicative gurgles, raspberries and Marc D. Hauser is in the Departments of ties of chimpanzees and bonobos. laughing sounds. Babbling emerges at just Psychology and Anthropology, Harvard University, Next of Kin is also replete with conceptual about the age that the larynx descends into Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.

NATURE | VOL 390 | 20 NOVEMBER 1997 Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1997 247