Re: Adopted by Chimps
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Apparently not. Stories of wolf children, and children adopted by monkeys, all show them becoming exactly like their adopted species. There is apparently no ordinary human consciousness, and it doesn't develop until months or years in human company.
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Every so often I see a story on the care taken to get wild animals raised by humans to be able to survive back in the bush. Typically these are mammals, so they're not born alone on a beach like turtles and seem to need some species-based learning after birth to become a real bear or raccoon.
Still, many animals adopted by humans seem to retain a large amount of innate traits, and in deference to Pinker et al I'm wondering how much of our being human would hold with ape siblings rather than our usual apish ancestors.
luckyme
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