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| No words to describe monkeys’ play |
| 2003-05-09 |
| Way off topic Fred, but I know Rantburgers like to keep up to date with scientific advances. Delete at will... A bizarre experiment by a group of students has found monkeys cannot write Shakespeare. Lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth wanted to test the claim that an infinite number of monkeys given typewriters would create the works of The Bard. A single computer was placed in a monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo to monitor the literary output of six primates. But after a month, the Sulawesi crested macaques had only succeeded in partially destroying the machine, using it as a lavatory, and mostly typing the letter "s". Sulawesi monkeys? They used Sulawesi monkeys? Oh fer C*****'s sake! Everyone knows red-bellied tamarins are the most literally gifted of all the primate species. The project, by students from the university's MediaLab Arts course, received £2,000 from the Arts Council. Money. Well. Spent. Director of the university's Institute of Digital Arts and Technology (i-DAT), Mike Phillips, denied the project was a disaster and said they had learned "an awful lot Was one line of "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" too much to ask? Illiterate hippies. But towards the end of the experiment, their output slightly improved, with the letters A, J, L and M also appearing. However, they failed to come up with anything that remotely resembled a word. Do you speak Monkey? No? Then how the hell do you know what they were trying to say?! A bit of cultural relativism wouldn't have been amiss here, BEEB Paignton Zoo scientific officer Dr Amy Plowman said: "The work was interesting but had little scientific value, except to show that the 'infinite monkey' theory is flawed." Erm, how many less than "infinite" is six monkeys? I thought they were supposed to have infinite time, too. You proved nothing! Oh, yeah, you should have had an infintely large research grant, too. OK. The results of the experiment formed part of a larger project developed by i-DAT. They have been published in a limited edition book entitled Notes Towards The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Authors: Lee Muir & Rhys Uss-McCack |
| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #15 "Of course, if they'd used cheese-eating surrender monkeys instead, they might well have ended up with something by Molière." --James Taranto, "Best of the Web" |
| Posted by: Mike 2003-05-09 14:51:56 |
| #14 as was pointed out years ago, the infinite monkeys typing Shakespeare as a model of evolution (generally stated by detractors of evolution) is not accurate to begin with. The whole point of evol is that while the genetic changes may be random, which ones survive are not. Therefore a more accurate model would be one where a group of monkeys at random type a document the length of Hamlet. An editor, playing the role of natural selection, would then review the work and keep those letters that matched up to Hamlet. The monkeys would then have another go. Sooner or later they would eventually get Hamlet - and sooner than one might think. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-05-09 14:12:13 |
| #13 Damn, thanks, Mojo! I learned something new today! What, that programmers do really elaborate April Fools Day jokes? ;) |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-05-09 13:44:20 |
| #12 My 7 year old suggested that his golden comet chicken Henrietta do a little "hunt and peck" on the keyboard and we will see what we get. Got to wait till she finishes her daily egg laying first. This monkey business above reminds me of a cartoon in a magazine. Dog sitting at desk, typwriter before him. Man standing over dog, frowning, reading typed page. Caption reads, dog: "sure it's doggerel, what did you expect?" |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-05-09 12:43:33 |
| #11 Ms Plowman's comment about the infinite monkey theory being flawed is revealing. She is identified as a scientific officer, which, I presume, means that she has some training in science and, perhaps, math and specficially probability theory. As I recall, the "theory" is that an infinite number of monkeys, given enough time, would recreate Shakespeare. The theory may or may not be flawed. But this "test" of the theory is obviously flawed. To conclude that six monkeys equate to an infinite number of monkeys is quite a leap. The duration of the experiment was not provided, but I'd wager that it was rather limited. In short, it was no test whatsoever. Do I care whether monkeys can create Shakespeare? No. Was this a test or a publicity stunt? That's a self-answering question. But Ms. Plowman's comment has the air of a good deal of contemporary "expert" explication. It reveals absolutely nothing about the issue at hand, but a good deal about the credibility of the expert. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-05-09 12:33:12 |
| #10 Wow, but that story had me laughing! Thanks for getting my day started on the right foot. |
| Posted by: ColoradoConservative 2003-05-09 10:12:04 |
| #9 cx cjhfd asdlaje lae fuf hhluurh Call Me Ishmael adsfithy598u;q5 451j fgja;sd;f8454589704ksjdf dsfu234l adfasudsf8432 dsafsdfas asdf3452345;k dsf 10,000 Monkeys At Typewriters everywhere after 10 years Thanks Nat Lamp |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-05-09 10:02:17 |
| #8 *blinks* WTF??? *looks through site*. Damn, thanks, Mojo! I learned something new today! Hmm. Actually the significance of the appearance of the letter "s" may be illusory: The key may have been stuck. Hey guys! Perhaps your next pass at the problem could be financed by manufacturers of Harsh Environment and Mil Spec computer laptop manufacturers: Our grunts are now too computer literate to REALLY field test such equipment, and the substitutes work only for bananas, which are only slightly more expensive than peanuts. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2003-05-09 10:00:09 |
| #7 Didn't monkeys form Jimmy Carter's foreign policy? That's what I've heard. I believe he still uses a few as advisors. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-05-09 10:00:01 |
| #6 They were however able to reproduce most of Red Ken's and Galloways' speeches verbatim |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-05-09 09:56:40 |
| #5 Well, they must not be using the right protocol: rfc2795 - The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS) |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-05-09 09:50:37 |
| #4 Obviously gross speciesism. Expecting other species to conform to human norms and values. Oddly at one point, the letters R A C H E L C O R R I E were typed, but apparently they have no meaning. |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-05-09 09:27:39 |
| #3 Whoa! The results are being printed in a limited-edition book? I'd better rush out and buy several copies , and put even more money into their pockets! Just curious, will the limited edition books be signed by the monkeys as well? |
| Posted by: Dripping sarcasm 2003-05-09 11:01:00 |
| #2 I've got to to think that the invinite monkey theory is still viable. It's just to early to make a case for or against. Couldn't a stronger, more powerful, computer be procured. Lets give this "ground breaking" scientifific excercise a chance. |
| Posted by: Lucky 2003-05-09 10:20:11 |
| #1 Wow, but that story had me laughing! Thanks for getting my day started on the right foot. |
| Posted by: ColoradoConservative 5/9/2003 10:12:04 AM |