Why can’t we talk to the animals?

As a sci-fi nut, I've often thought that we're unlikely to be able to talk to aliens if we can't even manage a crude dialogue with intelligent animals on earth (not even our closest relatives in the ape family.) Sure, we can instruct a dolphin to put a ball through a hoop, but we've made almost no progress in understanding their speech. Stuff like this[1] suggests that some information is being conveyed between whales, but does it qualify as language?<p>And what about our definition of 'language'? It's not the same as it was a a millennium ago. James Gleick's book "The Information" talks about the fundamental changes in human thought that came about after the development of writing. We think completely differently now that we have a concept of stored ideas. Could it be that writing has made it impossible for us to communicate with animals that don't have it?<p>But a lack of altruism as a possible reason, though? Fascinating. Chimpanzees have developed tool use and even a way of 'teaching' other chimps what they've learned[2]. Is this contradictory?<p>[1]<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9457000/9457855.stm" rel="nofollow">http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9457000/945...</a> [2]<a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/688904/posts" rel="nofollow">http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/688904/posts</a>

I don't buy it.<p>Look at a pack of lions or African dogs hunting. They engage in lots of kinds of cooperative behavior. But, you say, they only do so because there is something in it for themselves? Well the same is true for most humans.<p>If you want something more than idle speculation, I'd suggest reading up on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOXP2" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOXP2</a> for a gene that we KNOW is needed for speech in us, which differs in close relatives.

This article seems very narrow and at least a bit wrong. I talk with a Gorilla on occasion (yeah, literally,) and she talks back. Her name is Koko. She understands much spoken English and uses a variant of ASL to speak back. She talks about her life and what's going on with her on that particular day. She wants to know about my life and what's going on with me. She talks about other people and her mate Ndume. She's self conscious at times and gregarious and fun at times. She enjoys watching television and even has favorite movies.<p>And Koko isn't the only one. There are other apes that speak with humans regularly and richly. But beyond that, we also know from decades of research on gorillas in their native habitat that they have a very rich gestural language that they depend on for survival. It's that native gestural language, it's thought, which makes it so easy for apes to pick up sign language as a means to talk with humans.

Interesting research, although it seems like it has a very narrow view of what talking means. I can't speak chicken, but I have been around them enough to know that they have several different sounds that can be combined to mean different things, such as predator approaching, behave, etc.

This seems to contradict results that show animals have a sense of fairness, like <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_morals.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_moral...</a> .

I think the idea that animals don't have altruistic abilities is incorrect. Besides the occasional news stories of animals doing seemingly altruistic things (sometimes even for other species), the common act of an animal raising it's young is inherently altruistic.

"virtually all of mankind’s greatest achievements, such as science, religion and government, are based fundamentally on cooperation"<p>Science isn't based on cooperation at all, maybe some scientific accomplishments have been the result if cooperation, there's an awful lot of that has been done by individuals.<p>And listing religion as one of mankind's greatest achievements is ludicrous, and cooperation had nothing to do with it.