this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2025
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Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of SCIENCE? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
37 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Feel free to remove this, mods, if it's too tangential to modern science, but I thought the community might find this early nature vs. nurture hypothesis amusing

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[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Something tells me the results were displeasing

[–] [email protected] 107 points 1 day ago (2 children)

He caught one of the nursemaids speaking G*rman to the infant and the experiment had to be aborted. RIP

[–] [email protected] 29 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I think after it's born, it's just a murder.

And, honestly, calling it "the experiment" is pretty rough.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

As opposed to what? ''That time they intentionally prevented infants from teaching important foundational skills that crippled them for life because they had severe misunderstandings about how language works''?

[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I didn't even know they had GPS that long ago.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That is a really good joke.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

I don't get it... German joke?

[–] [email protected] 26 points 22 hours ago

Garmin, the GPS company

[–] [email protected] 10 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe a Garmin joke? Even though it’s spelled with an i not an e, like the asterisk censored word in the comment?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 19 hours ago

Ah yes, Girman

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

According to Wikipedia:

"The experiments were recorded by the monk Salimbene di Adam in his Chronicles, who was generally extremely negative about Fredrick II (portraying his calamities as parallel to the Biblical plagues in The Twelve Calamities of Emperor Frederick II) and wrote that Frederick encouraged 'foster-mothers and nurses to suckle and bathe and wash the children, but in no ways to prattle or speak with them; for he would have learnt whether they would speak the Hebrew language (which he took to have been the first), or Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, or perchance the tongue of their parents of whom they had been born. But he laboured in vain, for the children could not live without clappings of the hands, and gestures, and gladness of countenance, and blandishments.'"

So, as you'd expect of someone raised without any formal language, other means of communication were necessary.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

But he laboured in vain, for the children could not live without clappings of the hands, and gestures, and gladness of countenance, and blandishments.

Am I the only one who interpretes this as "well, they died"?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

It sounds to me it's saying you had to do things like clap your hands to get their attention, gesture to communicate what you wanted them to do, and that you had to do so kindly and patiently or else they may not respond well. Alternatively, maybe it was the children who had to clap their hands and gesture, but then I'm not sure how they'd speak blandishments (kind, gentle encouragements, like "good job!") to others.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Just looked it up. They all died quickly. It's literally just "they couldn't live without it."

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

No, this passage is describing the care they needed.

It doesn't make any sense as an interpretation to jump right to death if you look at what the passage actually says. They died because they couldn't clap their hands? They died because they or their caretakers didn't smile enough (gladness of countenance)? They died because they didn't get enough gentle encouragement from their caretakers (blandishments)?

This was from a list of fucked up things Frederick II did written by a guy who hated him. If the kids had died as a result of the experiment, surely it'd say so. It's just saying the experiment was a a failure (labors were in vain) because of course they did not spontaneously start speaking Hebrew, Greek, Latin and instead had to rely on nonverbal communication.

If someone says "I can't live without my phone," they aren't going to literally drop dead one day if they forget it at home.

If you have a source laying around for info on the kids' deaths, I'd take it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

https://signsmag.com/2018/09/fredericks-experiment/

The babies literally died for want of touch

https://vocal.media/history/the-king-who-isolated-infants-to-determine-which-language-adam-and-eve-originally-spoke-i13l0c1o

The emperor’s experiment, however, ended in tragedy. Deprived of emotional and social interaction, the infants did not develop any language and eventually died.

https://www.historyanswers.co.uk/kings-queens/emperor-frankenstein-the-truth-behind-frederick-ii-of-sicilys-sadistic-science-experiments/

Tragically for those involved, Frederick never got an answer to the question he posed, and the original language of mankind remained hidden from him. The children, starved of any form of affection, warmth and basic interaction, died, quite simply, of a lack of love.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Iirc, they did, yes

[–] [email protected] 28 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I would be very impressed of any of them were still alive 800 years later

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I’ve been looking for a foster-mother nurse to suckle me my whole life.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 22 hours ago

Bonk.