3 ms·
Don’t get me wrong, this is very interesting, but there is something very funny about the idea that “give a chimpanzee stuff and see if they like it” is academi
by JoelMcCracken 8mo ago
Don’t get me wrong, this is very interesting, but there is something very funny about the idea that “give a chimpanzee stuff and see if they like it” is academic research.
This could absolutely be a headline on The Onion.
- Razengan 8mo ago"Breaking: Animals Have Preferences"
- khana 8mo ago[dead]
- dmix 8mo ago> But he’s also very interested in “the impact of crystals on the history of art and the history of mind,” This made my eyes roll a bit.
- indoordin0saur 8mo ago[flagged]
- that_lurker 8mo agoHave Americans tried giving them crystals
- indoordin0saur 8mo agoOur scientists know not to give them that sort of power. Who knows what horrors we could see should the lower primates gain clairvoyance or telekinesis.
- panzagl 8mo agoThe study was in Spain- do European countries have the same sort of backlash to this stuff? Is there a province in Spain that has the equivalent to 'the senator from Indiana' that is the stereotypical anti-NSF figure in US politics? Genuinely curious about this.
- omegared8 8mo agoSure seems stupid on first glance but most science seems pointless. It’s only when several loosely interconnected ideas that prove something MIGHT be commercially viable do we find out that it was the first curious question that … again seems stupid… was the seed of inivation
- buttermeup 8mo agoWhat are some examples of questions that at first seemed stupid yet became brilliant when connected with other seemingly stupid ideas?
- Retric 8mo agoA lot of early work into physics seemed like dumb questions at the time. When taken to the extreme “Do heavy objects fall faster?” tells you quite a bit about how the world works. And critically people intuited the wrong answers to many such questions before careful experimentation.
- buttermeup 8mo agoObviously we have the benefit of hindsight, but “do heavy objects fall faster” doesn’t seem like a stupid question to me in the same way that “do chimpanzees like crystals” does.
- Retric 8mo agoI think we can call them both stupid in they are malformed. Let go of a feather and brick on the ISS gets a different result than doing so on top of Mount Everest. Similarly understanding chimpanzees behavior is a deeper question here noticing some chimps find some crystals interesting in some situations and moving on.
- chao- 8mo agoRather than a singular "question" that seems stupid, consider prime numbers. People toyed with prime numbers for centuries, asking all sorts of questions, with little-to-no impact on the vast majority of humans. Fast forward to the age of telecommunications: suddenly massive innovations in cryptography are being built on knowledge of prime numbers that previously was a novelty.
- iberator 8mo agoImagine if monkeys could communicate using crystals. That would be interesting - human - animal language! Research could lead into shit like cows TELLING us when feeling sick or know something etc. Food production, pets, police animals - a lot of potential uses. The same as literally chemistry and rocks gave us transistors. Almost no study is crazy. Playing with glass gave us telescopes and microscopes.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- manarth 8mo agothere is something very funny about the idea that “give a chimpanzee stuff and see if they like it” This is the premise behind the "Ignobel prize" – awards for scientific research which at first-glance may appear to be an April Fool's prank, but genuinely advance the cause of scientific research. "the extent to which a certain kind of lizard chooses to eat certain kinds of pizza" "what a nursing baby experiences when the baby’s mother eats garlic" "some real plants imitate the shapes of neighboring artificial plastic plants" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize https://improbable.com/ig/winners/ https://improbable.com/ig/winners/
- pinkmuffinere 8mo agoI love the ignoble prizes, receiving one is a bucket-list item for me! I’ll need to step up my game though and do more weird things, I’m hoping I can put this off till the last 5-10 years of my career.
- pseudohadamard 8mo agoThat was my reaction as well, they're really shooting for an Ig Nobel with this one.
- khana 8mo ago[dead]
- kayo_20211030 8mo agoGreat comment. It's bananas. Chimps like bananas too, right?