r brains.”
Scientists are stunned that a monkey can visually recognise its own species? And what’s this got to do with “pre-existing concepts in their brains”? If a monkey picks out red cards from a bunch of colours, does this mean it has a pre-existing concept of red in its brain? And out foraging for food – if it grabs a banana, does it mean it has a pre-existing concept of a banana?
Sadly I’ve been unable to find further details of this amazing breakthrough, but I did find this, from three years ago, showing that the contribution of these busy little Paignton macaques to the advancement of knowledge is nothing new:
Lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth wanted to test the theory that an infinite number of monkeys given typewriters would create the works of Shakespeare.
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”. […]
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.”
Hmm. Sounds like this Dr Amy Plowman is a few pre-existing concepts short of having a clue.
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