Typing Monkeys: History of an Idea by Wesley R. Elsberry 1999/11/01 It is difficult to find the originators of certain concepts which pass quickly into general use. The analogy of monkeys typing at random on typewriters and eventually reproducing copies of literary works is one such concept. In tracking down who might have originated the concept, we will find people who definitely use or reference it, as well as variants of how it is expressed. We will also explore limitations upon who might have originated the concept or when the concept might reasonably have been first told to a general audience. The first referenced use of the analogy that I have been able to substantiate is by Sir Arthur Eddington in 1927 (published in 1929). [Quote] If I let my fingers wander idly over the keys of a typewriter it might happen that my screed made an intelligible sentence. If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters they might write all the books in the British Museum. The chance of their doing so is decidedly more favourable than the chance of the molecules returning to one half of the vessel. [End Quote - Arthur S. Eddington. The Nature of the Physical World: The Gifford Lectures, 1927. N.Y., Macmillan, 1929.] This usage places an upper bound upon the introduction of the analogy. Anyone who could not possibly have originated the analogy before 1927 is out of the running, since Eddington's usage implies a cultural currency for the analogy. On the other end of the scale, no one would originate such an analogy before the introduction of the typewriter, and the likelihood that such an analogy would be made remains vanishingly low until such time as typewriter usage is generally understood within the culture. The first machine arguably akin to the modern typewriter received a French patent in 1833. Various inventors made improvements and prototypes, but the first commercially successful typewriter only went into production in 1873 (the Sholes-Glidden-Soule' machine manufactured by Remington). It is likely that awareness of typewriters and their manner of operation did not become a commonplace in culture until some years after 1873. Formulation of the analogy There are variants in the form of the analogy. In its most general form, one would say that one or more monkeys using typewriters over long periods of time or infinite time would eventually produce copies of one or more known literary works. Actual usage instantiates various values which may eventually help narrow down the origination of the analogy. Eddington's usage yields up the distinctive phrasing of "army of monkeys", "strumming" for how the monkeys operate the typewriters, and "all the books in the British Museum", but leaves unspecified how long the activity might go on. Sir James Hopwood Jeans uses the analogy. [Quote] Into such a universe we have stumbled, if not exactly by mistake, at least as the result of what may properly be described as an accident. The use of such a word need not imply any surprise that our earth exists, for accidents will happen, and if the universe goes on for long enough, every conceivable accident is likely to happen in time. It was, I think, Huxley who said that six monkeys, set to strum unintelligently on typewriters for millions of millions of years, would be bound in time to write all the books in the British Museum. If we examined the last page which a particular monkey had typed, and found that it had chanced, in its strumming, to type a Shakespeare sonnet, we should rightly regard the occurrence as a remarkable accident, but if we looked through all the millions of pages the monkeys had turned off in untold millions of years, we might be sure of finding a Shakespeare sonnet somewhere amongst them, the product of the blind play of chance. [End Quote - JH Jeans, 1930, The Mysterious Universe, 1st edition, The MacMillan Copany, New York and At the University Press, Cambridge, England, 163 pp., p.4] The Jeans usage and the Eddington usage agree on some particulars and disagree on others. Jeans specifies six monkeys, which I believe most people will agree is several fewer than an army as given by Eddington. The monkeys are said to strum their typewriters by both, and the books in the British Museum are said to be copied eventually in both scenarios. It is interesting that Jeans goes on to also mention a Shakespeare sonnet as another by-product. Jeans, though, obviously credits someone else for the origination of the analogy. Jeans does not give a reference for his attribution of the concept to "Huxley". Nor does Jeans specify *which* "Huxley" to whom the analogy should be attributed. The 1930 edition of the work does not list "Huxley" in its index. The 1932 edition contains an index entry which reads "Huxley, T. H., 4", although the text on page 4 (as quoted above) is no more specific as to which Huxley is referenced than it was in the first edition. Possible Originators Three possible originators of the analogy will be examined here. First, one collector of instances of use of the typing monkey analogy speculates that Emile Borel may have begun the analogy sometime around 1910. This is possible, given the bracketing of dates of the introduction of the typewriter and the dates at which Eddington and Jeans utilize the analogy. However, there does not appear to be any solid positive evidence that Borel did originate the analogy. If we take seriously Jeans' recollection of family name, two further possibilities arise for originator of the analogy: Julian Huxley and Thomas Henry Huxley. Both were active writers within the period in question (1873 to 1927). Both may have had cause to consider the issues which the typing monkeys analogy touches upon. Again, positive evidence is lacking to implicate one of the other of these two candidates. However, one can argue that the likelihood that Thomas Huxley was the originator of the analogy is far lower than for either Borel or Julian Huxley. This argument is a variant of proving a negative. While I can examine many sources that do not yield a use of the analogy, all it would take is one overlooked instance that did so document to overturn the argument. That being said, an examination of collections of Thomas Huxley's essays and autobiographies online reveal no trace of the typing monkeys analogy. An examination of index entries in Adrian Desmond's two-volume biography of Huxley likewise reveals no evidence of Thomas Huxley having used or originated the typing monkeys analogy. Given the fact that the analogy is one of the more colorful and memorable pieces of rhetoric deployed concerning random processes, it would be puzzling as to why if Thomas Huxley originated it, it does not appear prominently in one or more common sources of Thomas Huxley's writings or description of his life. Further, Desmond's biography reveals that at age 55 (in 1880), Thomas Huxley preferred to continue to write via pen and ink while his fellow Secretary of the Royal Society was practising use of a "newfangled machine", a typewriter. If Thomas Huxley did originate the analogy, it likely would have postdated 1880 and his exposure to such machines at the Royal Society. But if the typewriter was a new technology in 1880, it would hardly have been suitable then for making an analogy whose purpose would be to edify a general audience, who might well be mostly comprised of those whose exposure to and understanding of such machines was nil to slight. The evidence for Julian Huxley being the originator of the typing monkeys analogy is marginally better than for Borel, but only because Jeans offhandedly attributes it to "Huxley" and it appears that the other famous Huxley, Thomas, is likely not to have originated it. Suspicious Attributions of Use or Origination While any attribution to a source predating 1833 is certainly invalid, attributions in the period 1833 to 1873 could be remotely possible. The general argument that anyone using the analogy in this period would have been speaking outside the usual experience of his audience, though, makes this possibility very remote indeed. Some anti-evolutionary sources not only attribute the analogy to Thomas Huxley but also specify its introduction as occurring at the famous 1860 debate which featured speakers including Thomas Huxley and Bishop "Soapy" Sam Wilberforce. This attribution is not just suspicious, but very likely risible. A less egregious case of attribution can be found in an essay by William Dembski. [Quote] In line with the Parable of the Cube let us recall Thomas Huxley's simian typists. Thomas Huxley was Charles Darwin's apologist. Darwin's theory of speciation by natural selection sought at all costs to avoid teleology. The appeal of Darwinism was never, That's the way God did it. The appeal was always, That's the way nature did it without God. Thus one looked to chance, not intelligence, to render Darwinism plausible. Huxley's simians were to provide one such plausibility argument. Huxley claimed that some huge number of monkeys typing away on typewriters would eventually (where "eventually" was a very long time) type the works of Shakespeare. If one assumes the monkeys are typing randomly, not favoring any keys, and not letting one key stroke influence another, Huxley's claim is a simple consequence of a fundamental theorem in probability known as the Strong Law of Large Numbers. Indeed, given enough time one can expect the monkeys to type all the great works of literature, though the bulk of their output will be garbage. [End Quote - WA Dembski, http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_convmtr.htm] If Dembski had ended there and simply critiqued the concept as he went on to do, there would be little significance to whether the attribution to Thomas Huxley were true or false. But Dembski went beyond critique of the concept to critique of the originator, and thus this issue becomes significant as a matter of scholarship. [Quote] Let me put it this way. Huxley's example presupposes an intelligence familiar with the works of Shakespeare. At the same time Huxley wants to demonstrate that random processes, the typing of monkeys, can account for the works of Shakespeare. Thus Huxley's example is supposed to show that the works of Shakespeare can be accounted for apart from the person of Shakespeare. Huxley wants it both ways. An intelligence must be on hand to know when the monkeys have typed Hamlet, and yet Hamlet is to stand in need of no author. This is known as having your cake and eating it. Polite society frowns on such obvious bad taste. [End Quote - WA Dembski, http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_convmtr.htm] When making such a claim about a historical figure, it pays to have firm documentation that the premise is true. I emailed William Dembski around October 25th, 1999 asking for his documentation that Thomas Huxley was the actual originator or user of the analogy. To this date, I have not yet received any such positive documentation of either use or origination of the analogy by Thomas Huxley. Given the negative nature of the claim that Dembski makes, it seems hardly fair to make such derogatory comments on scant to nonexistent evidence. Acknowledgements Much of the literature search reported here was conducted by Paul Heinrich.