# Monkeys, typewriters **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 15, 2012, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954 "2012-05-15T02:33:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954/21 "2012-05-15T20:24:58Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I think you’re missing the OP’s point, which is that a “handful of monkeys,” plus evolution plus time, produced the human race, which produced Shakespeare himself who produced the works of Shakespeare. If evolution were just a matter of random variation, there would be a meaningful comparison here. But evolution is not just a matter of random variation; the _natural selection_ aspect of it is kind of important. The monkeys at the typewriters (or, indeed, any other sort of randomizer) provide no analogue for that. ---
**Author:** ![Mikeisskeptical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@Mikeisskeptical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikeisskeptical)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954/22 "2012-05-15T21:05:12Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > If evolution were just a matter of random variation, there would be a meaningful comparison here. But evolution is not just a matter of random variation; the _natural selection_ aspect of it is kind of important. The monkeys at the typewriters (or, indeed, any other sort of randomizer) provide no analogue for that. Again, think you’re kinda missing the point. I was intending to highlight the non-random nature of natural selection by comparing it to a well known thought experiment regarding randomness. I am not suggesting that selection is random. Exactly the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954/23 "2012-05-16T20:36:27Z")
Furthermore, the common ancestor of all things commonly regarded as “monkeys” is also an ancestor of humans. And even the common-language distinction between “apes” and “monkeys” is fairly recent, and doesn’t exist in most languages: One can find plenty of references to chimpanzees or gorillas as “monkeys”. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954/24 "2012-05-16T21:35:57Z")
> [@Mikeisskeptical](#): > > Also I think that trying to do this experimentally is missing the point of the thought experiment. Yes, but _not_ trying to do it experimentally is missing the point of the Dope. Typing monkeys are cool. You know what would suck? Assuming a 128-character English-language ASCII character set, 127 out of 128 times the monkeys got everything perfect down to the last letter of the last play, they would still fuck up. That would be really frustrating to watch. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Man\_With\_The\_Golden\_Gun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_With_The_Golden_Gun)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954/25 "2012-05-16T22:13:23Z")
How long would it take for these monkeys to type “If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954/26 "2012-05-16T23:32:32Z")
> [@Double\_Foolscap](#): > > I’d be more interested in the monkeys which _almost_ create Shakespeare, but for a few key words. Setting _Romeo and Juliet_ in Swindon, for example, or replacing the speech Catherine gives at the end of _Taming of the Shrew_ with an impassioned polemic on the use of primates in thought experiments meant to demonstrate infinity. You’d get that, and letter-perfect Shakespeare with the original Elizabethan spellings of all the words, and Shakespeare with modern spellings, and a great deal else, but, see post #6. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954/27 "2012-05-17T00:05:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You’d get that, and letter-perfect Shakespeare with the original Elizabethan spellings of all the words, and Shakespeare with modern spellings, and a great deal else, but, see post #6. Meh, you can find it usingGoogle. All you’d have to do is type the whole thing in. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954/28 "2012-05-17T02:54:41Z")
> [@Mikeisskeptical](#): > > Again, think you’re kinda missing the point. I was intending to highlight the non-random nature of natural selection by comparing it to a well known thought experiment regarding randomness. I am not suggesting that selection is random. Exactly the opposite. Well maybe that is what you were thinking, but there is absolutely no hint of it in your OP. You certainly seemed to be comparing or even equating the evolutionary process that produced Shakespeare with the random process of monkeys battering at typewriters. If there has been misunderstanding it is because you utterly failed to make yourself clear, not because others have been obtuse or uncharitable in interpreting your words. In any case, the standard (not to say, true) explanation of why Shakespeare was able to produce his works in much less than infinite time makes no appeal to evolution. He could do it because he (like other humans, but unlike monkeys) understood language, and the meanings of words and sentences. No significant randomness was involved. Shakespeare’s plays were intelligently designed, by Shakespeare. One might then want to ask, how is it that a being like Shakespeare, capable of using and understanding language, and thus of intelligently designing things, could come into existence? Presumably (at least, I presume) the answer to that is that it came about through evolution via natural selection (both a capacity and a propensity to use language do seem to be innate in homo sapiens). Unfortunately, although no doubt true, that is a piss-poor answer as things stand, because the fact is that we still really have very little idea how human language, and the sorts of complex cognition that it enables, evolved, or even how it could have evolved. It remains one of the great scientific mysteries. There are speculations and much research, but, as yet, nothing approaching a satisfactory account of the matter. So, at our present state of understanding, evolutionary theory does very little to explain how the works of Shakespeare were possible. Sure, Shakespeare existed, and had the sort of body and brain he had, thanks to evolution by natural selection, but so what? That does not explain his plays; heck, it does not even explain how I am able to make this post, or you were able to make yours. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954/29 "2012-05-17T03:05:35Z")
> [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](#): > > You know what would suck? Assuming a 128-character English-language ASCII character set, 127 out of 128 times the monkeys got everything perfect down to the last letter of the last play, they would still fuck up. That would be really frustrating to watch. I do not know about that. We do not know what Shakespeare wrote down to the last letter, not even close. We do not have his manuscripts, and some of the printed works from his time, or soon after, exist in multiple versions. All the earliest versions are almost certainly riddled with errors. Furthermore, even if we did have the manuscripts we would probably find that they were subject to much revision between and even during performances. There is, and probably never was, a definitively correct-down-to-the-last-letter text. It is not fair to hold a bunch of monkeys to a standard more strict than that applied to Shakespeare himself. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954/30 "2012-05-17T03:51:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > One can find plenty of references to chimpanzees or gorillas as “monkeys”. What about orangutangs? ---
**Author:** ![Double\_Foolscap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@Double\_Foolscap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Double_Foolscap)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954/31 "2012-05-17T10:34:43Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You’d get that, and letter-perfect Shakespeare with the original Elizabethan spellings of all the words, and Shakespeare with modern spellings, and a great deal else, but, see post #6. I’ve got a foolproof method of sorting it. What you do is, you get a _second_ group of monkeys to proofread and report back to their monkey line managers, who then report to their monkey divisional supervisor, who then report back to their monkey regional director, who compiles a report to present to the board. Of monkeys. ---
**Author:** ![Mikeisskeptical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@Mikeisskeptical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikeisskeptical)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954/32 "2012-05-17T13:12:11Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Well maybe that is what you were thinking, but there is absolutely no hint of it in your OP. You certainly seemed to be comparing or even equating the evolutionary process that produced Shakespeare with the random process of monkeys battering at typewriters. If there has been misunderstanding it is because you utterly failed to make yourself clear, not because others have been obtuse or uncharitable in interpreting your words. the only thing the OP states is that ‘monkeys’ given enough time produced the works of Shakespeare. This is a fact. It makes no mention of the mechanisms involved, rather it assumes that the reader will know that biological and eventually cultural evolution are responsible. It was a trifling observation, a joke. It might not be particularly clever or funny, but it seemed it after a few beers, so I shared it. Nobody’s perfect right? Ambiguity of meaning is an frequent theme of humour, therefore, if my trivial point is open to misinterpretation, I make no apologies. ---
**Author:** ![Mikeisskeptical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@Mikeisskeptical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikeisskeptical)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954/33 "2012-05-17T14:32:13Z")
The OP could be translated as ‘isn’t it funny that we have this thought experiment about monkeys bashing on typewriters to produce the works of Shakespeare when the actual origin of the works of Shakespeare could, at a push, be described as monkeys being left to their own devices for a comparatively short period of time. Perhaps the vast improbability we assign to the event in our thought experiment should caution us to not think naively about what is possible, when things are often not as random as they seem.’ It is saying nothing more than this. It’s not suggesting that monkeys would ever produce Shakespeare again by these means, nor is it making any point about infinity, or the validity of the original thought experiment. It’s blatantly not making any claim that the Works of Shakespeare are a product of natural selection alone, I think that criticism is trite and facile. If you didn’t interpret it the same way it was intended, quel dommage. I honestly don’t care. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monkeys-typewriters/621954.md?page=1)