http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=33830


in reply to Genetic Programming or breeding Perls

I think I can pretty safely say that no number of monkeys, under any circumstances, will ever reproduce a single Shakespeare novel... since he was a playwright, and not a novelist. Sorry to nitpick. :-)

Ay, mistress, and Petruchio is the master;
That teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long
- Shakespeare

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
RE: RE: Genetic Programming or breeding Perls
by Thomax (Novice) on Oct 05, 2000 at 15:48 UTC
    I believe your statement is false. Shakespeare was a human. Humans are primates. Primates are monkeys. Thus, a monkey did in fact write all Shakespearean novels! Imagine what any number of monkeys, under any circumstance could do! Now who's nitpicking? :-) cheers, Thomax "What find I here? Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god Hath come so near creation?" -- Shakespeare (Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice)
      Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou - The Tempest :-)

      As tilly kindly pointed out, only some primates are monkeys, and humans are not amongst these.

      Some people might still say that, "a monkey did in fact write all Shakespearean novels". Predicating a quality (written by a monkey) to a non-existent object (a Shakespearean novel) is logically problematic. And these problems are very interesting, though I'm sorry to say that I no longer remember them well enough to speak knowledgeably about them.

      In any case, it doesn't matter. Let's say a monkey did write all Shakespearean novels (in which case so did each of the squirrels in my yard... and indeed, they wrote themselves, too. The novels that is, not the squirrels). Still, I said a monkey would never reproduce a single Shakespeare novel, and that holds true.

      It interests me, however, that in the same post you claim both to be a monkey and to be picking nits... at least you seem well-groomed. ;-)

      Now, God help thee, poor monkey! - Macbeth

        Yes, you can claim anything about the individual members of the empty set and you are always correct (saying "there are 3 members of the empty set" doesn't count because you are talking about the collected members, not the individual members). Saying "All X are Y" is the same as "No X are not Y" or "there are no X that are not Y" which is always true if there are no X, period.

        But I think that "monkey" is common English usage for "primate". "Monkey" has a more precise meaning in biology, a fact that I completely ignore unless I'm dealing with on-duty biologists. (:

                - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

        Did Shakespeare actually write novels, though? That's the real question here, if you ask me.

        And is a Shakespearean novel different from a novel written by Shakespeare? Arguably, "Shakespearean" would mean "written at the time of Shakespeare" or "written in the style of Shakespeare", either of which would mean that Shakespeare's own novels (if, in fact, he wrote any, which I suspect he didn't) would, by definition, be Shakespearean.

        Whew!

      Actually monkeys are primates but not the other way around.

      The primates include lemurs, monkeys, and apes. The apes are the ones without tails, and we are apes. Among the great apes the chimpanzee and bonobo are closest, then we join in, then gorillas, and the orangutang is more distant. This is measuring by percentage of genetic material that is the same.

      Yes, you heard it right. We are biologically more similar to chimps than either we or chimps are to gorillas.

        Making three groups of the primates, you'd do better to refer to prosimians, rather than lemurs. Prosimians include various lemurs, dwarf lemurs, cifaks, pottos, aye-ayes, bush babys, tarsiers, lorises, and probably a few other families I'm forgetting. Some of these have tails, some of them don't.

        In case you're wondering, I know such things because I had a girlfriend once who was really into prosimians. And actually, they are pretty cool.

      (Monkeys have prehensile tails. Apes do not. Shakespeare might be counted as an ape, but for some minor taxonomical differences.)