But Lyn argues that animals trained by humans provide valuable insights.
The fact that the bonobos were taught by humans has been used to dismiss their ability, according to Lyn, as if they were somehow tainted. Language research with parrots and dolphins and other animals has been discounted for the same reason. But Lyn argues that animals trained by humans provide valuable insights. If creatures with different brains and different bodies can learn some humanlike communicative skills, it means that language should not be defined as wholly human and disconnected from the rest of the animal world. Moreover, whereas language may be affected by biology, it is not necessarily determined by it. With the bonobos, it was culture, not biology, that made the critical difference.