This story is about an experiment that was conducted to see how human an animal could become. A social worker and a social psychiatrist adopted a baby chimpanzee and from the day the chimpanzee came home they treated it as though it was human. They named the chimp Lucy and by one year old she was dressing herself and eating at the dinner table with silverware. A male chimpanzee was introduced to Lucy however she did not show interest in him. Lucy also learned sign language to talk to her parents and a graduate student that the couple had been using to teach Lucy.
Once Lucy became older and stronger the parents knew that soon they would no longer be able to control her so the brought Lucy along with a collage graduate to Africa to release her into the wild. They brought her to a wildlife sanctuary but Lucy would not let go. She began showing signs of stress such as loss of hair so the graduate decided to stay a couple more weeks to try and get Lucy more comfortable with the wild. That few weeks turned into three years. Eventually she brought Lucy and other monkeys that had arrived to an island and after a few months Lucy became acquainted with her new surroundings and left the camp that was set up for the college graduate. A few months later she returned to find poachers had killed the Lucy.
Transition was hard for Lucy because she had been socialized to act and feel like a human. She would have arguments on the island with the college grad because she did not want to go. Lucy showed us about the connections we share with apes and chimpanzees. She demonstrated the potential that chimpanzees have for becoming more human like and developing human traits. She also showed that we came from a common ancestor because she has the same ability to learn as humans do, due to the fact that she has similar structures as humans. I want to learn more about the similarities of the brain that we share with chimpanzees and how they react to situation such as a confrontations or a puzzle. I also want to learn more about the progressions is the brain that let chimpanzees learn.
