Herbert Terrace: The Selfish Professor

    After watching 'Project Nim' for my summary assignment, I kept thinking one thing over and over again, Herbert Terrace is a real a-hole. He is the professor that started Project Nim, an experiment that asked “Can a chimp learn to communicate with humans after being raised as a human child?” Now you may be wondering why I have such a distaste for this professor. Herb Terrace is a disgraceful professor that doesn’t take blame for his actions and doesn’t care for anyone but himself. During this project, he sexually manipulates one of Nim’s teachers and when the experiment ends, he has no care for Nim’s future treatment. 

Ok, so one of the main reasons I dislike this guy is how he manipulates one of Nims handlers, Laura-Ann Petito. She was a student at the University and after meeting Herb she decided to join the project. She began helping teach Nim sign language and when Nim began living at the college, Laura becomes Nim’s main handler. Now through various interviews, Herb and Laura hint that they had some kind of relationship. Eventually, Laura describes how she and Herb had sex but after Herb wished to have no relationship. Herb is dismissive of the topic so I have no doubt in my mind that Herb used his position and manipulation to hook up with Laura. When Laura quits Nim attacks her as she’s leaving so all in all Herb caused a lot of unnecessary damage just for sex with a student. 

After Nim attacks more teachers, Herb decides to end the project to avoid legal trouble. Another reason I dislike Herb is that he deems the project a failure even though Nim had a huge sign language vocabulary. He deemed it a failure because Nim couldn’t use proper grammar. For example, Nim would sign “Give Nim Banana” instead of “Give me the Banana.” Sounds good professor, many teachers wasted their valuable time teaching Nim sign language every day and got bit constantly so you can deem Nim a failure. So after the experiment, instead of finding a proper home for Nim to adapt to, the professor convinces the Doctor he bought Nim from to take him back. Nim had never seen another Chimp in his life and now he’s being sent to live in a cage surrounded by hundreds of Chimps. Herb admits to “feeling bad” for doing that but I just can’t believe him. If you feel bad now then you definitely knew that was the wrong situation you were putting Nim in the first place. Eventually, Herb actually visited Nim at the Institute but that was purely a camera stunt since he brought an entire crew for one day of filming. When Nim saw him he started hugging him and screaming joyously, thinking he was finally going home. Nope, Herb left the very next day on a plane and Nim became more depressed. 

So yeah I think these are pretty good reasons to deem this guy a selfish a-hole. He sexually manipulates people, ends a project because he’s scared of being sued, and gives no care for the monkey he forced to be raised by humans. Herb obviously started this project on a whim, didn’t carefully plan out situations that might occur, and when he got scared he just deemed the project a failure and used it to make money through books and television. I know I have no room to talk but I believe this is not how a Professor should conduct his projects.