Hundredth monkey effect

The principle of the " hundredth monkey " ("The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon" or "The Hundredth Monkey Effect" ) is a modern myth that is spread from 1979 as an example of collective consciousness, but is based on wrong again given research sources on the collective and learning behavior.

Myth

In 1958, scientists observed on the Japanese island of Kojima a group of monkeys. Finally, the researchers began to give animals as food sweet potatoes. Gradually spread among the animals, the ability to wash the potatoes before eating. Until one day, another monkey learned to wash.

What then allegedly happened in 1979 describes the botanist and New Age author Lyall Watson said: " With the addition of this hundredth monkey the number but exceeded apparently a sort of threshold, a certain critical mass, because on the evening of the same day it did almost the entire rest of the herd. And not only that: the behavior pattern even seems to have skipped natural barriers and - similar Glyzerinkristalle in hermetically sealed test tubes - even in colonies on other islands as well as a squad ... to have occurred spontaneously on the mainland. "

The self- development author Ken Keyes took up the story in 1983 and explained how this could happen ". , If a critical number reaches a certain awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind " So the hundredth monkey is a type of paranormal learning process have triggered. Watson concluded even more radical: "If only enough of us hold something to be true, then it is true for all. " An explanation for the phenomenon to deliver the morphogenetic fields described by Rupert Sheldrake. By this he means invisible energy fields that are joined together by the living creatures and energetic information would be transported.

Watson took less than two pages of text, Keyes was enough for a half, to portray the alleged mystery. Thus the myth was born. In particular, by marketed in more than 1 million copies book by Keyes, the myth spread around the world and is still used today as an alleged scientific fact in the esoteric and self-fulfillment literature.

Criticism

" Watson has he cites scientific papers either did not read correctly or sound is distorted ," was the verdict of philosophy lecturer and skeptic Ron Amundson and called this mixture of free improvisation of facts and hints of conspiracy theory " the classic pseudo-scientific approach ". Also Masao Kawai, head of the Japanese behavioral scientists who had the monkey population studied for several decades, Watson called representations of the study results several times as wrong.

Watson, in his book himself, as he came to his interpretation of the story: Since the scientists are up to now not quite sure what had happened, he had to the operations " of personal anecdotes and ... circulating stories piece together " and was forced to " the details to improvise ." Mainly because "those who guessed the truth, feel free to make them public, for fear of prey of ridicule to fall. " In 1986, he realized in a response to Amundson the scientific criticism of his representation at, described his theory as mere metaphor, stressing instead their socio- cultural relevance as a strategy for social change. But also in the social science context his thesis remained controversial. The psychologist Maureen O'Hara pointed to the context of the spread of " super-individual " opinions and totalitarian ideologies: The replacement of one's thought of individuals through a collective consciousness mean the end of plurality of opinion and thus a shift in the foundations of human coexistence. And for Elaine Myers is " The hundredth monkey " no more than an example of the propagation of a paradigm shift.

Yet even critics like Amundson cherish sympathy for quite some propagators of this myth. Ken Keyes real subject is nuclear disarmament and the goal of the Hundredth Monkeying Inner Aid Project is - as common as it may sound - "to bring benefit to all of world society without prejudice or bias" "bring ( good deeds for all over the world without prejudice ").

Background

In apes, which should have shown such a behavior, it is Japanese macaques that are studied by Japanese researchers since the early 1950s. After the scientists had begun to give them sweet potatoes, behavioral changes were visible in the population. Initially had a single cub began to wash the dirty potatoes, this technique soon spread among the other pups, then gradually also on some older monkeys. Finally, this behavior could also be observed in colonies outside the island - one washing monkey swam was over. "Monkey see, monkey do".

That was for the researchers so far an amazing process, learn as usually juveniles behavior of older people and not vice versa. For a " sudden leap learning " there is no evidence in the research reports. This is so important for the mythologists 1958 is for the scientists even a turning point, but only as a transition from the innovation phase ( before 1958 ) to the phase of normality ( after 1958 ): The pups were now grown up, and so learned again the young animals their behavior by the ancients as before. In the sources there is also an indication as to how many members of the tribe of monkeys on Koshima had: 1962 there were 59 animals. So it has also given numerically never a " hundredth monkey ".