April 17, 2007
NOR WILL THE BLINDMAN DESIGN YOUR WATCH (via jd watson):
Classic monkey business (BOB BROCKIE, 4/17/07, Stuff)
They say that given a hundred typewriters and enough time, a hundred monkeys will write Shakespeare's complete works.To test this idea, a team at the University of Plymouth, England, got a (PndStlg)2000 grant from the British Arts Council, shut six Sulawesi crested macaque monkeys with a computer keyboard in an enclosure at a Devon zoo for a month, and filmed what happened.
The alpha male bashed hell out of the computer with a stone and the other monkeys did little else but urinate and defecate on the keyboard. Nevertheless, the monkeys did produce the equivalent of five pages of type with a predilection for the letter S. One researcher said that proved the monkeys were not hitting the keyboard at random, so were part of the way towards literacy. Defending the expenditure, a lecturer said the filmed experiment made very stimulating and fascinating viewing and was cheaper to produce than reality TV, but there was no sign of Shakespeare.
No one truly believes in infinity. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 17, 2007 9:50 AM
Are you saying God is finite?
Posted by: Joseph Hertzlinger at April 17, 2007 10:18 AM"bashed hell out of the computer with a stone and the other monkeys did little else but urinate and defecate on the keyboard"
Well, that explains the Daily Kos.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at April 17, 2007 11:27 AMI think he's saying that God ininfinite. And he's right about infinity. Even in simple mathemeatics, most people just can't grasp how different infinities are from all the numbers we normally use.
But this also demonstrates how a cliche becomes a substitute for rational thought, as the whole "monkeys and typewriters" remise completely ignores the simplist of facts, like that words are not made up of random collections of letters. (Now if they put the monkeys in front of a giant keyboard with Chinese ideographs...)
But lthis does demonstrate how Rationalism works, where an invalid premise is followed to whatever absurd conclusion that can be derived from it.
The alpha male bashed hell out of the computer with a stone and the other monkeys did little else but urinate and defecate on the keyboard.
Sounds like a lot of big corporate offices out there.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at April 17, 2007 11:36 AMAre they sure that the monkeys weren't pissed that there was only ONE computer and keyboard for the ENTIRE troop? MY kids would get pissed too, AND would sabotage the computer to prevent "the other" from using it.
Civilization is inherently creationist....
Posted by: Gera;d at April 17, 2007 12:10 PMNothing I haven't wanted to do to a computer.
Posted by: Mikey![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://brothersjuddblog.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 17, 2007 12:55 PM
This is the funniest thing I've read in a week.
Or, as the monkeys at the keyboard might put it: ldiow=v98 shcoeirnvo 43smt27.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at April 17, 2007 3:48 PMNote that nearly the first thing Rationalists did adfter "killing" God (Alpha&Omega) who had provided usd with the notion of a finite Creation, was propose the Big Bang, which made the Universe finite. No one believes in infinity.
Posted by: oj at April 17, 2007 8:03 PM