Whores in the news: They say that the best things in life are free But.
Scientists have trained capuchin monkeys how to use money, says a new column,
Freakonomics, in the New York Times.
And I can't think a lead-in that doesn't telegraph the punchline, so just read on:
Do the capuchins actually understand money? Or is [Yale behavioral economist Keith] Chen simply exploiting their endless appetites to make them perform neat tricks?
Several facts suggest the former. During a recent capuchin experiment that used cucumbers as treats, a research assistant happened to slice the cucumber into discs instead of cubes, as was typical. One capuchin picked up a slice, started to eat it and then ran over to a researcher to see if he could ''buy'' something sweeter with it. To the capuchin, a round slice of cucumber bore enough resemblance to Chen's silver tokens to seem like another piece of currency.
Then there is the stealing. Santos has observed that the monkeys never deliberately save any money, but they do sometimes purloin a token or two during an experiment. All seven monkeys live in a communal main chamber of about 750 cubic feet. For experiments, one capuchin at a time is let into a smaller testing chamber next door. Once, a capuchin in the testing chamber picked up an entire tray of tokens, flung them into the main chamber and then scurried in after them -- a combination jailbreak and bank heist -- which led to a chaotic scene in which the human researchers had to rush into the main chamber and offer food bribes for the tokens, a reinforcement that in effect encouraged more stealing.
Something else happened during that chaotic scene, something that convinced Chen of the monkeys' true grasp of money. Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of money, after all, is its fungibility, the fact that it can be used to buy not just food but anything. During the chaos in the monkey cage, Chen saw something out of the corner of his eye that he would later try to play down but in his heart of hearts he knew to be true. What he witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token in for a grape.)
Beautiful, isn't it? Reminds me of the story Nabokov has his very unreliable narrator, Humbert Humbert, tell: Parisian scientists try to teach a monkey to draw. Finally the monkey picks up the charcoal, and sketches the bars of his cage.
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>> posted by John Psmyth
• 6/07/2005 06:30:00 PM
•
3 comments
3 Comments:
Glad to see that Yale is in the news again. Of course, they won't like it when my novel puts them in the news, but you may enjoy it. Freya says you're essential reading. I'm intrigued.
this is very funny. too bad we can't seem to aim our energies into researching something that could actually improve our lives, like cheap desalination of ocean water.
Y'know, cheap desalination of sea water wouldn't improve *my* life one iota, which is probably why most Western researchers are focussed on other problems (e.g. Jello versus Grapes). However, I bet there are some folks out there with more altruistic intentions, God love 'em. Check out ewb.ca sometime. Enjoyed this article immensely JP, and was glad to find a free copy of the entire thing elsewhere online. The combo jail-break and bank-heist continues to make me smile.
