*shock* feral children

[Shoyru_Lover]

If you guys have about 45 minutes to spare, check out this documentary I am watching about feral children who were discovered: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsfvSWljqpc

It's quite amazing and somewhat confronting. What do you guys think about this? Apparently it is true - and it is quite scary - where do we draw the line that this person is human? Are we human by biology or by conditioning?

On a side note, I've been watching documentaries lately from "An Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore which was quite amazing, and the hilarious "Spellbound"; a documentary about the spelling bee competition in the States. Hilarious.

Imagine you were brought up by animals or without any contact with humans. What would you be like? Would you be wild forever or would you have any chance of readjusting and once again entering the human world? In 2001 the world was stunned by film of a Ukrainian girl who had been brought up by dogs.

Oxana lived from the age of three to eight with a pack of dogs that protected and cared for her. The remarkable footage showed her crawling on all fours, eating, drinking and even barking like a dog. Mindshock has followed her progress since then, as she struggles with the complexity of language and has slowly moved from the community of dogs back towards human society. This film tells her story and shows her first meeting with her father since he abandoned her to live with the animals.

Shown on Channel 4 in the UK on 17th July 2006 (Last in the series) ...

[ahoteinrun]

I've seen this, and it is true. It's quite frightening and saddening that people allow their children to live like this. There were cases in India quite a few years ago of girls raised by wolves. When they were brought into captivity they couldn't speak, they barely learned a few years and they died quite quickly after. It's horrible.

[Nikita]

We studied this a bit in Psychology last year while learning about child development and conditioning. The girl close the half way in the video (Genie) was actually one of the cases we looked at and learned a bit more about.

[Twinkle]

We studied this a bit in Psychology last year while learning about child development and conditioning. The girl close the half way in the video (Genie) was actually one of the cases we looked at and learned a bit more about.

Same. *high fives* I find all this incredibly interesting but it makes me wonder what has to happen for these cases to develop. As inrun says, why would anyone leave their child to live in that way?

[Miyu]

I can't watch that one now.. but I did see a show about the same subject on the History or Discovery Channel here in the states.. it could be the same. It is definately a sad subject and a hard on as well. Do you try to bring them to civilization and make them human? Or do you continue to treat them as what they have been raised to be?

[hakojo]

That reminds me of this (fictional) book I read in 3rd grade about a girl who got lost in a storm and was raised by dolphins....I think it was called The Music of Dolphins or something like that, and it was really interesting. The writing was fantastic, too.

[mazil]

I think it's sad that the children have obviously been abandoned, but I don't think it's a bad (or horrible) thing that they have survived in the way they have. We might see it as living a lesser life, but it is a life. And it's sweet that the animals have taken them in.

It's interesting to wonder whether it's actually beneficial to these children to remove them from their animal world. I saw a documentary about the girl Oxana in India, and it certainly was a struggle for her. She went back to visit the dogs often, because she felt more comfortable around them, I think. Sure, it'd be a harder and shorter life... but who's to say what is better?

It's The Jungle Book all round, too
*runs around with Baloo*

[matchbow]

Yeah, i learned about feral children in my anthro class. they're awesomely useful to learn about human development and when it can cap off, but it's an evil thing to induce. hence its being referred to as the forbidden experiment

[smudgeoffudge]

This doesn't seem real...it is so weird.. I think a human is a human even if they are not acting human. They still have rights.
How did she ever learn to talk and behave like a human? I thought after a few years without love and socialization it is hard for people to learn language? I thought that the critical years for absorbing and learning language was when a person was a child.

Anyway, I wonder if she can understand dogs more than another person could understand dogs. That is, could she tell use what dogs were "saying"?

Some people claim they can actually communicate with animals, that animals actually are smarter that most people give them credit for, and that they have feelings, dreams and desires just like humans. I do believe some animals have ways of communicating with one another and that they might even have words for things.

I wonder if someone raised with animals is actually able to tell us things about animals that we don't know?

[Asthaloth]

Technically speaking they are a divergent race.
But then again, technically speaking so are native Americans so...

[Twizzler0171]

This doesn't seem real...it is so weird.. I think a human is a human even if they are not acting human. They still have rights.
How did she ever learn to talk and behave like a human? I thought after a few years without love and socialization it is hard for people to learn language? I thought that the critical years for absorbing and learning language was when a person was a child.

Anyway, I wonder if she can understand dogs more than another person could understand dogs. That is, could she tell use what dogs were "saying"?

Some people claim they can actually communicate with animals, that animals actually are smarter that most people give them credit for, and that they have feelings, dreams and desires just like humans. I do believe some animals have ways of communicating with one another and that they might even have words for things.

I wonder if someone raised with animals is actually able to tell us things about animals that we don't know?

Well... by the age of two, you have quite a few words of the human language down, I believe. Perhaps she was able to go off of that.

I was wondering that as well! I found it interesting that Oxana's bark sounded more like an actual dog's than if we were to do it. Most of us probably couldn't get it to sound as real (at least, I can't. haha). Perhaps she does understand the dog language...? I wonder if anyone has asked her that.

[Ginger Harp Seal Pup]

I watched a bit of it, but had to turn it off because I lost interest. I felt sorry for the girl, Oxana, but one question. Why was she fully clothed when she was with the dogs? Wouldn't she be at least naked? Or was the footage a reconstruction and she was only acting like she used to for the documentary?

[Pixa]

I actually watched that whole series of programmes (Mindshock, I think there was another about people who could not control themselves during sleep) when they were broadcast in the UK. They were a very interesting yet disturbing. There was a story of a man who left his daughter with no social interaction, on a different portion of the programme, and she sat in a room, in darkness, with nobody talking to her, as the mother and brother were not allowed to, and were scared of the father.. One day, the mother, who was scared of the father, tried to escape with the girl. A neighbour saw it and rang authorities, where the father was arrested, but later committed suicide.

I didn't watch the video again, as I remembered most of it, but I'm pretty sure, she abandoned by her mother? I think one of her parents died. And one was an alcoholic, and abandoned her. I think I remember that her father cared for her... heh, maybe I'm a little sketchy. Anyway, they tried to rehabilitate her with the normal world, but she found it very hard to understand emotions. I think she was learning the language.