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It’s hard to decide who’s truly brilliant; it’s easier to see who’s driven, which in the long run may be more important.
1968 there was the bizarre Australian pharmaceutical case.
Then the RSPCA stepped in and put a stop to it on the grounds that it represented cruelty to animals; the job was turned over to a human operator, for whom it did not, apparently, represent cruelty.
(Amy, who had been taken to the zoo to view other gorillas, recognized them but was haughty, calling them “stupid gorillas” once she found that when she signed to them, they did not reply.)
John Bates, to say in 1977 that “we are producing an educated animal élite which demonstrates the same snobbish aloofness that a Ph.D. shows toward a truck driver.… It is highly unlikely that the generation of language-using primates will be skillful ambassadors in the field. They are simply too disdainful.”
Tied to facts, a hostage to reality.”
“The purpose of life,” Munro said, “is to stay alive. Watch any animal in nature—all it tries to do is stay alive. It doesn’t care about beliefs or philosophy. Whenever any animal’s behavior puts it out of touch with the realities of its existence, it becomes extinct.
