Hundredth Monkey Effect

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The “Hundredth Monkey Effect” is a supposed phenomenon in which a learned behaviour spreads instantaneously from one group of monkeys to all related monkeys once a critical number is reached. By generalisation it means the instant, paranormal spreading of an idea or ability to the remainder of a population once a certain portion of that population has heard of the new idea or learned the new ability. The story behind this supposed phenomenon originated with Lyall Watson, who claimed that it was the observation of Japanese scientists. Such an observation did not exist (e.g. Myers 1985, Amundson 1985, 1991). One of the primary factors in the promulgation of the myth is that many authors quote secondary or tertiary (or worse) sources who have themselves misrepresented the original observations.

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[edit] Popularization of the claim

The story of the “Hundredth Monkey Effect” apparently originated with Lyall Watson in his 1979 book Lifetide. In it he claimed to describe the observations of scientists studying macaques (a type of monkey) on the Japanese island of Koshima in 1952. Some of these monkeys learned to wash sweet potatoes, and gradually this new behavior spread through the younger generation of monkeys—in the usual fashion, through observation and repetition. However, Watson claimed that the researchers observed that once a critical number of monkeys was reached—the so-called hundredth monkey—this previously learned behaviour instantly spread across the water to monkeys on nearby islands.

This story was further popularized by Ken Keyes, Jr. with the publication of his book The Hundredth Monkey. Keyes presented the “Hundredth Monkey Effect” story as an inspirational parable, applying it to human society and the effecting of (positive) change therein. Since then, the story has become widely accepted as fact, and has even appeared in books written by some educators.

The content of the book by Keyes was a substantive treatise on the effects of nuclear war on the planet and the devastation caused thereon.

[edit] The original research

In 1985, Elaine Myers re-examined the original published research in “The Hundredth Monkey Revisited” in the journal In Context. In her review she found that the original research reports by the Japan Monkey Center in Vol. 2, 5, and 6 of the journal Primates are insufficient to support Watson’s story. In short, she is suspicious of the existence of “Hundredth Monkey” phenomenon; the published articles describe how the sweet potato washing behavior gradually spread through the monkey troop and became part of the set of learned behaviors of young monkeys, but she doesn’t agree that it can serve as an evidence for the existence of a critical number at which the idea suddenly spread to other islands.

However, the story as told by Watson and Keyes is popular among New Age authors and personal growth gurus and has become an urban legend and part of New Age mythology. Also, Rupert Sheldrake has cited that a phenomenon like the "Hundredth Monkey Effect" would be an evidence of Morphic fields bringing about non-local effects in consciousness and learning. As a result, the story has also become a favorite target of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and was used as the title essay in The Hundredth Monkey: And Other Paradigms of the Paranormal published by them in 1991.

In his book Why People Believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer explains how the urban legend started, was popularised, and has been discredited.

[edit] The effect discredited

An analysis of the appropriate literature by Ron Amundson, published by the Skeptics Society, revealed several key points that demystified the supposed effect.

Unsubstantiated claims that there was a sudden and remarkable increase in the proportion of washers in the first population were exaggerations of a much slower, more mundane effect. Rather than all monkeys mysteriously learning the skill it was noted that it was predominantly younger monkeys that learned the skill from the older monkeys through the usual means of imitation; older monkeys who did not know how to wash tended not to learn. As the older monkeys died and younger monkeys were born the proportion of washers naturally increased. The time span between observations were in the order of years.

Claims that the practice spread suddenly to other isolated populations of monkeys ignore the fact that at least one washing monkey swam to another population and spent about four years there. It is also to be noted that the sweet potato was not available to the monkeys prior to human intervention: it is not at all surprising that isolated populations of monkeys started to wash potatoes in a similar time frame once they were made available.

[edit] Cultural references

This phenomenon is referenced in the comic Y: The Last Man and is suggested to be related to the phenomenon that is at the core of the series (the sudden, simultaneous death of almost every male mammal on the planet).

Karl Pilkington mentioned it in one of his monkey news items on the Ricky Gervais Show, XFM, on the 16th of August 2003.

[edit] Sources

  • Ron Amundson, “The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon,” Skeptical Inquirer, Summer 1985, 348-356. Reprinted in The Hundredth Monkey—And Other Paradigms of the Paranormal, edited by Kendrick Frazier, Prometheus Books, 1991, ISBN 0-87975-655-1 (see online version under External links).

[edit] See also

[edit] External links