Biggest Waste Of Public Money?

sarah_webinc · 05-13-2003

What is the biggest waste of public money you can think of? I remember a while back in the States watching a program about a gov't program to measure the rate ketchup flows from the bottle.
I thought that was pretty bad until I read this today:

Students spend public money to find monkeys don't write Shakespeare

A group of students spent £2,000 of taxpayer's money to find out monkeys can't write Shakespeare.

The students from Plymouth University left a computer in a monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo in Devon for four weeks.

They were researching the theory of whether an infinite number of monkeys, given an infinite number of typewriters would eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare?

The results of this trial involving six Sulawesi crested macaque monkeys showed they couldn't, reports The Guardian.

In fact the six - Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan - produced just five pages of text between them, primarily filled with the letter S.

There were greater signs of creativity towards the end, with the letters A, J, L and M making fleeting appearances, but they wrote nothing even close to a word of human language.

"It was a hopeless failure in terms of science but that's not really the point. It wasn't actually an experiment as such, it was more like a little performance," said Geoff Cox, of Plymouth University's MediaLab, who designed the test.

The project - which was paid for with £2,000 of Arts Council money - was intended to emphasise differences between animals and machines, he went on. "The monkeys aren't reducible to a random process. They get bored and they sh*t on the keyboard rather than type."

The computer was protected with a perspex box, with holes for the monkeys to poke fingers through to hit the keys.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_77845...rld.animaltales

05-13-2003	#1
sarah_webinc Members Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: American In London Posts: 966	What is the biggest waste of public money you can think of? I remember a while back in the States watching a program about a gov't program to measure the rate ketchup flows from the bottle. I thought that was pretty bad until I read this today: Students spend public money to find monkeys don't write Shakespeare A group of students spent £2,000 of taxpayer's money to find out monkeys can't write Shakespeare. The students from Plymouth University left a computer in a monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo in Devon for four weeks. They were researching the theory of whether an infinite number of monkeys, given an infinite number of typewriters would eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare? The results of this trial involving six Sulawesi crested macaque monkeys showed they couldn't, reports The Guardian. In fact the six - Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan - produced just five pages of text between them, primarily filled with the letter S. There were greater signs of creativity towards the end, with the letters A, J, L and M making fleeting appearances, but they wrote nothing even close to a word of human language. "It was a hopeless failure in terms of science but that's not really the point. It wasn't actually an experiment as such, it was more like a little performance," said Geoff Cox, of Plymouth University's MediaLab, who designed the test. The project - which was paid for with £2,000 of Arts Council money - was intended to emphasise differences between animals and machines, he went on. "The monkeys aren't reducible to a random process. They get bored and they sh*t on the keyboard rather than type." The computer was protected with a perspex box, with holes for the monkeys to poke fingers through to hit the keys. http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_77845...rld.animaltales __________________ Special Boards Design Deal: 100 Banners = $799 ! Make 50% commissions promoting our pills! - sarah@webinc.com for details.