October 13, 2000

8:52 AM

Girls can't throw?They found that men had a better aim than women, but male and female monkeys were about equal
posted by owillis (8 comments total)

I wonder if the monkeys who were cut from the study are going to sue the scientists? *ducks*
posted by remo at 12:50 PM on October 13, 2000

girls can throw, they just can't aim.

men get practice aiming every day.

rcb
posted by rebeccablood at 12:56 PM on October 13, 2000

Does this mean we'll soon be seeing monkeys in Major League Baseball? This would have been a better study, I think, if they had the men and women throwing monkeys. I'd have paid to watch that.
posted by Doug at 1:11 PM on October 13, 2000

Somewhere on the straightdope.com Cecil challenges that old myth and says its because no one teaches young girls how to throw properly as compared to boys. You only 'throw like a girl' until you learn otherwise. I think the monkey study pretty much backs this up.

I'd link to it but I can't find the article. Oh well. Crappy search engine.

posted by skallas at 1:54 PM on October 13, 2000

rcb: It's not like most men aren't willing to let the women have access to the equipment. =)
posted by thirteen at 2:05 PM on October 13, 2000

I think skallas is probably right. Did they attempt to control for the amount of ball-throwing that each individual had experienced in childhood? It seems to me that in many cases, boys are more encouraged to play ball and to practice throwing and such than girls. Might that have something to do with the results?

Personally, I never played ball much as a kid, and I'm a pretty bad aim myself. About the only thing I can do well is throw gum wrappers in the trash can from across the room...
posted by daveadams at 2:34 PM on October 13, 2000

The researchers made 25 human volunteers and 17 capuchin monkeys attempt to throw balls or stones into a bucket placed either 3 or 6 metres away.

That was their conclusive study? What was this, a primary school project? Thats so dodgy, I'm speechless. I am without speech.
posted by aki at 8:15 PM on October 13, 2000

Okay, I just tried this study and, you know, the monkies throw better than me.

Damn.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 3:02 AM on October 14, 2000