Here we were, spending all this taxpayer money teaching chimps a few hundred signs. They had no clue as to how this would illuminate our understanding of human linguistic development. Or the evolution of language. Proxmire had no idea that this research might enhance the way we teach language to retarded or handicapped children. There was no understanding of the revolutionary results of our work, and how it revealed for the first time the mind of an ape--and how it helped us understand what it means to be human.