The theorem about "endless monkeys" who could write "War and Peace" if they hit the random keys of a typewriter long enough interested British scientists - they decided to test whether ancient people could have invented tools by accident.
The bow and arrow, the wheel, and other relatively complex tools and implements, could have appeared by accident, that is, as a result of a long process full of trial and error.
So, according to the publication Nature Human Behavior, British anthropologists who decided to test their assumptions experimentally believe.
“It is generally accepted that sophisticated instruments have appeared thanks to the large brains that humans have. But we have proven that you don’t have to understand how something complex works to create it,”says Maxim Dereks of the University of Exeter.
Derex's scientists conducted an experiment with volunteers who needed to "improve" the operation of a simple mechanical installation, consisting of wheels, rails, spokes and weights. The inventors had to make the wheel roll on the rails as fast as possible.
“The task was quite simple, but almost no one coped with it. And yet, by passing on the results of their labor to the next volunteers, the subjects eventually improved their trial and error setup. The same process could have led to the creation of the first complex tools in ancient times,”says Derex.
Kolesnikov Andrey
