![]() ![]() Nevertheless, there was enough mystery about the place that it became the focus of "dark, deep speculation, wild exaggeration and tall tales shamelessly told around a thousand campfires," the late Times-Union columnist Bill Foley wrote in 1998. Subsequent directors were far less publicity-shy and offered tours, Dewsbury said. The lab was named after Yerkes when he retired in 1941. ![]() Orange Park had the right climate for chimps, could be reached by railroad and had plenty of inexpensive land available, Dewsbury said. "It's amazing to me they landed in this little, dried-up Southern town," Irwin said. While Yerkes, who Dewsbury called "one of the most important psychologists of his century," wanted to avoid publicity, he didn't exactly hide the subject of his research.įaye Irwin, an Orange Park historian who has written a monograph on Yerkes' life, said the professor liked to dress one of his favorite chimps, named Judy, in a pink outfit and take her with him when he drove to the post office. A health food store, The Granary, occupies a house that pre-existed the Monkey Farm and served as home to the laboratory's superintendant. Orange Park High School and the Foxwood subdivision now cover some of the land Yerkes acquired, while some of the original buildings still stand as part of an office park. The title of Dewsbury's book comes from the name the Orange Park locals gave the facility, which was on the south side of Kingsley Avenue, then a narrow dirt road. "That's more than a belief, it's a certainty," said Dewsbury, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Florida. Dewsbury, the author of the 2006 book "Monkey Farm: A History of the Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology, Orange Park, Florida, 1930-1965," said he has heard the rumor, but is sure it never happened. "I said there is a persistent rumor it happened."ĭonald A. In the course of the documentary, University of Albany psychology professor Gordon Gallup says a "credible source," a former professor he declined to name, said he witnessed the birth of a such a creature at the Yerkes center in the 1920s.īut the Yerkes center didn't exist in the 1920s and, in a telephone interview this week, Gallup was more measured. Testing in 1996 finally proved Oliver had no human DNA. ![]() The documentary is mostly about Oliver, a chimpanzee born about 1960, whose appearance and behavior had led some to speculate that he might be a hybrid created by impregnating a female chimp with human sperm. It was as if Yerkes, who died in 1956, was anticipating the documentary, "Humanzee," made for the Discovery Channel and aired this week on its sister Science Channel. "Far too often it results in misunderstanding, unenlightened criticism or, worse still, ridicule." "It is true we do not court publicity," Yerkes wrote in 1930, the year the facility that would eventually be named for him opened. Yerkes, a Yale psychology professor, chose sleepy Orange Park as the location for a new primate research center, he deliberately tried to keep the operation low-key. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |