Word: sebeoks
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...most intriguing proposals came from Thomas Sebeok, a professor of semiotics at Indiana University. Sebeok called for the creation of an "atomic priesthood" to pass along, over the millenniums, rituals and legends that would explain the dangers of waste dumps. Such forms of communication, said Sebeok, could contain "the veiled threat that to ignore the mandate would be tantamount to inviting some sort of supernatural retribution." The task force cautioned that "there is controversy among historians over the efficacy of oral transmission as a method for accurately conveying information over long time periods" but suggested further study of the technique...
...equally serious criticism has been made by Linguist Thomas Sebeok and his wife. Anthropologist Donna Jen Umiker-Sebeok, both at Indiana University. In the introduction to a collection of reports and essays on primate language experiments to be published this month under the title Speaking of Apes (Plenum: $37,50), they maintain that much of what passes for language skill in apes can be explained by the "Clever Hans effect"-a phenomenon named for a turn-of-the-century German circus horse that astounded audiences by tapping out with his hoofs the correct answers to complex mathematical and verbal problems...
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