Hello Friends,

A good friend gave me the link to the below video. It's an interesting scientific experiment that wants to discover if monkeys (primates) are smarter then humans or if they make the same mistakes humans do.

Laurie Santos experiments with what she calls "monkeynomics" and the conclusions are very interesting.

The video isn't a youtube one so you'll have to click on the link to watch it but I can assure you it's fascinating, quite enjoyable and well worth watching.

Here's some info on the experiment and Laurie Santos.

Laurie Santos looks for the roots of human irrationality by watching the way our primate relatives make decisions. A clever series of experiments in "monkeynomics" shows that some of the silly choices we make, monkeys make too.

Speakers Laurie Santos: Cognitive psychologist

Laurie Santos runs the Comparative Cognition Laboratory (CapLab) at Yale, where she and collaborators across departments (from psychology to primatology to neurobiology) explore the evolutionary origins of the human mind by studying lemurs, capuchin monkeys and other primates. The twist: Santos looks not only for positive humanlike traits, like tool-using and altruism, but irrational ones, like biased decisionmaking.

In elegant, carefully constructed experiments, Santos and CapLab have studied how primates understand and categorize objects in the physical world -- for instance, that monkeys understand an object is still whole even when part of it is obscured. Going deeper, their experiments also search for clues that primates possess a theory of mind -- an ability to think about what other people think.

Most recently, the lab has been looking at behaviors that were once the province mainly of novelists: jealousy, frustration, judgment of others' intentions, poor economic choices. In one experiment, Santos and her team taught monkeys to use a form of money, tradeable for food. When certain foods became cheaper, monkeys would, like humans, overbuy. As we humans search for clues to our own irrational behaviors, Santos' research suggests that the source of our genius for bad decisions might be our monkey brains.

"Through a series of groundbreaking experiments, Santos has seen in her primates a humanlike propensity for hoarding, larceny, and competitiveness. By exploring the inner lives of primates, she has offered persuasive evidence that monkeys are capable of sophisticated insight, complex reasoning, and calculated action."

Linda Marsa, Discover

Watch the video here.

Shalom,

Peter

That's great Peter.

I will return when I have more time. It's a worthwhile subject.

Has anybody suggested that we've been electing these creatures to high office for years?

Roger

Quote:

That's great Peter.

I will return when I have more time. It's a worthwhile subject.

Has anybody suggested that we've been electing these creatures to high office for years?

Roger

Hi Peter,

I had also noticed how monkeys are very good at putting their foot in their mouth.

Roger

Hi Peter

That an interesting subject