A Tiny Mathematical Proof Against Evolution [AKA - Million Monkeys Can't Type Shakespeare]

Nutters.org ^ | 13-Dec-1995 | Brett Watson

[Southack]

There is a recurring claim among a certain group which goes along the lines of "software programs can self-form on their own if you leave enough computers on long enough" or "DNA will self-form given enough time" or even that a million monkeys typing randomly on a million keyboards for a million years will eventually produce the collected works of Shakespeare.

This mathematical proof goes a short distance toward showing in math what Nobel Prize winner Illya Prigogine first said in 1987 (see Order Out of Chaos), that the maximum possible "order" self-forming randomly in any system is the most improbable.

This particular math proof deals with the organized data in only the very first sentence of Hamlet self-forming. After one examines this proof, it should be readily apparent that even more complex forms of order, such as a short story, computer program, or DNA for a fox, are vastly more improbable.

So without further adue, here's the math:

[in_troth]

Depends on how long it takes for him (and his progeny) to evolve into shakespeare!

[ThinkLikeWaterAndReeds]

This does prove that monkeys can type as well as white men can jump but doesn't address the process of evolution. You did hit on monkeys though, and that is a great start to argue for evolution. Throw away your calculator and apply reason.

[in_troth]

It isn't that monkeys would recreate stuff because they are smart enough to come up with it or that they would even understand it, it's that one day some monkey would RANDOMLY type out those words (of whatever text) in the exact order.

[Southack]

"Assuming the generation is entirely random. Like a chemical process, there are rules, which monkeys notoriously ignore."

Are you claiming that the Monkey is not a chemical process?

[Cu Roi]

The nature of the 32-key keyboard (convenient function of 2) the assume in their experiment is also important. If the simplified keyboard is based on the QWERTY model, the monkeys have better odds, since the most letters most used in English are in near middle and the monkeys are most likely to hit them.

[Mr. Lucky]

More orderly states arise from less orderly states ALL THE TIME

Just not by accident.

[FreePaul]

I believe the saying that an infinite number of monkeys,

That's the term I've always heard used. I guess that wouldn't fit with the "proof" in this article. Oh well! We'll just have to wait a bit longer.

[NetValue]

"Information is the product of intelligence, not chance. "

If DNA is considered "information" it too is the product of intelligence, i.e., an intellect higher than man's. Once you cross this threshhold, you can appreciate the near perfection of a movable thumb, stereo vision, language, and writing and contemplate the intellect of the designer.

[FreePaul]

...will now claim it was the orangutan who wrote Hamlet.

It was an infinite number of monkeys. You orangutangs keep trying to take credit for it.

[freedomlover]

Did you type that? ;)

[general_re]

You've hit on the right answer, but nobody's paying attention. There's no fitness check. If we posit an environment with selective pressures, where a sentence that is more like the final sentence is favored over a sentence that is less like the final product, then we will very, very quickly arrive at the final sentence - within 40 or 50 generations.

The error in the original post is the assumption that every attempt is a fresh attempt, where we throw everything out from the last run and make a random stab in the dark. If that were the case, the article would be correct. But it isn't - evolution is an additive process, where the last generation represents the starting point for the next generation.

[f.Christian]

Some of the early evolutionists remind me of the guy with homemade wings jumping off of the rocks--cliffs...

I saw a documentary once about this scientist came up through experimenting with worms and insects..."photo-lightism" because they were attracted to light---yeah plants too!

Evolution is social--intellectual public masturbation...with straight faces and---red you know what!

You rub--throw them bone--fossils and they start talking....hearing voices---seeing make-up believe things.

And the USSC certifies it--barbarism as our national science-religion and don't they all act like it too---apes-goons!

[Doomonyou]

Assuming the generation is entirely random. Like a chemical process, there are rules, which monkeys notoriously ignore.

Well use humans instead of monkeys. They know how to type (Rules). If the humans never heard of Shakespeare, Would they be able to produce Hamlet any quicker?

[freedomlover]

No, no, the orangutan wrote It takes a Village.

[Grit]

"It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times." -- C. Montgomery Burns reading the output of his 1000 monkeys at 1000 typewriters.

[Sir Gawain]

the problem with this analogy is that it only makes one attempt -- ie, there is no re-evaluation -- to use the parlance of genetic algoriths, no fitness function. that is a key part of the iteration: make random guesses, check for fitness, modify highest fitting etc... I'd like to see what the chances are if these monkeys had some appropriate fitness function. something based on an english dictionary.

So you're saying this accident called evolution somehow learned from its mistakes?

[sharktrager]

Actuallt, the QWERTY keyboard is an attempt to spread commonly used letters, and was done to keep typewriters from jamming. This can be seen by noting the positioning of the vowels.

Of course, it's also possible the keyboard was arranged by a monkey.

[ladyrustic]

Fetuses developing, and plants growing are not the same thing as order arising from disorder. A fetus is not disordered in any way; nor are seeds or seedlings. Order does not arise by chance from disorder and persist in this universe. Quite the opposite- things that exhibit some order tend to grow more disordered.

[RightWhale]

The monkey is that substance, which exists in itself, that is, exists independently of any other conception.

A million monkeys will ignore a million typewriters until one monkey takes a typewriter, at which time they will all want that typewriter.

[RightWhale]

Would they be able to produce Hamlet any quicker?

Ah, but they did produce Hamlet.