This is a huge setback for scientific research:
Congress voted Monday to cut federal funding for the superconducting monkey collider, a controversial experiment which has cost taxpayers an estimated $7.6 billion a year since its creation in 1983.
The collider, which was to be built within a 45-mile-long circular tunnel, would accelerate monkeys to near-light speeds before smashing them together. Scientists insist the collider is an important step toward understanding the universe, because no one can yet say for certain what kind of noises monkeys would make if collided at those high speeds.
“It could be a thump, a splat, or maybe even a sound that hasn’t yet been heard by human ears,” said project head Dr. Eric Reed Friday, in an impassioned plea to Congress. “How are we supposed to understand things like the atom or the nature of gravity if we don’t even know what colliding monkeys sound like?”….
Construction of the collider’s acceleration mechanism was delayed for years, as scientists couldn’t decide how to get the monkeys up to smashing speed. Last month, it was finally decided that the collider would employ a system in which the monkeys run through the tunnels chasing holographic projections of bananas. “Monkeys love bananas,” Reed said, “and they’re willing to run extremely fast to get them.”
(via The Onion, of course)
Is this post by the real Daniel Florien, or by Guest Blogger Jesse Galef? Will Galef posts carry his own byline?
It’s by The Real Dan Florien. Jesse’s name will be in the post and he’s starting tomorrow.
The Real Dan Florien(tm) or the pirated Hong Kong version?
You can only tell the difference by turning me upside down and looking for the origin stamp.
I think the doctor already did that when you first came out.
and looking for the origin stamp
666
Was the purpose of the experiment to prove that they could not be accelerated into evolved human beings, perhaps? Could we put Ray Comfort in there instead?
Before finding Unreasonable Faith, I never heard of Ray Comfort. Would that I never had! Now that idiot haunts random, senseless moments of my days and nights.
I suppose that’s appropriate, considering that most of what he says appears to be senseless. Some day I’d like to talk to him face to face, to find out if he’s really ignorant, and simply can’t comprehend what people have said to him on the numerous occasions his misstatements about basic biology have been corrected, or if he’s just a totally disingenuous moneygrubbing fraud, like Ken Ham. I honestly can’t tell which is more likely.
There’s a rather disappointing debate between thunderf00t and Ray Comfort on Youtube. Unsurprisingly, Ray puts on a reasonably good show, being that that is what he does, but somewhat surprisingly, thunderf00t does not put on a very good show, apparently because that is not what he does (live, anyways. His videos are outstanding). Ray still comes off looking like a complete idiot to any reasonable person, but I suspect Creationists will probably see him as the winner somehow.
Oh gawd, I think he really is.
But then I am naive in some ways.
(Incapable of imagining or conceiving how deceitful and money-grubbing and crass some people can be.)
Well, you can just bet Luddite Creationists were behind this worthy effort being canceled!
Well then the jokes on them. Smashing monkees was never the real project. It was all about perfecting the Holographic Bananna Technology! MuHahaHA.
Now they’ll be sorry!
I was having a conversation that went similarly to this over dinner a few days ago.
N: I suppose security at the LHC would have to be tight, otherwise you might have some redneck sneaking in to collide a gopher and a duck at relativistic speeds.
B: Ew. It’d be fun to see, though. What if they fused at an atomic level?
A: It’d be a gophuck!
N: And of course, sooner or later, one of the scientists would decide to enter the chamber and test the process on himself…
B: Right, like in The Fly. He steps into the accelerator with the gophuck…
N: And a moment after the collision, his assistant walks in, and screams “Noooooooo! He’s gophucked himself!”
…and why haven’t I been invited to one of your dinner parties? That’s my kind of conversation!
If you’re ever in Calgary, you’re invited. :)
This all took place at a Japanese restaurant with a Chinese name. We discovered, at the back of the menu, that the restaurant offered a “Bukkake Platter.” It was an odd sort of evening.
(Sadly, no one’s curiosity was strong enough to justify ordering the platter.)
I’ll have to remember that story for my next Freethinker meetup. I’m new to the group but I met a few characters already who’d really appreciate it and would adore me forever for sharing it. har har.
Wow now that is one weird idea for an experiment. Who came up with this some creationist? LOL
One of my particle physics professors had a cartoon to that effect on her office door.
The cleaners were discussing how much harder their jobs were now that that the LHC had been handed over to the biologists. There was a little screen below the viewing window (covered from the inside with a big splat) which said “Experiment 8.3- badgers”
Sorry, I have that annoying tendancy to explain cartoons I’ve seen to people, usually losing the humour in the translation!
Monkey colliding is immortal, despicable, and promotes inter-species hatred and bigotry. Thank Zues for giving Congress the foresight to cut the funding.