UH Hilo
University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo
First published in Skeptical Inquirer vol. 9, 1985,
348-356.
- Claims of the paranormal are supported in many ways. Personal
reports ("I was kidnapped by extraterrestrials"), appeals
to puzzling everyday experiences ("Did you ever get a phone
call from someone you had just dreamed about?"), and references
to "ancient wisdom" are a few. Citations of actual scientific
results are usually limited to ESP experiments and a few attempts
to mystify further the already bizarre discoveries of modern physics.
But the New Age is upon us (we're told and New Age authors like
Rupert Sheldrake (1981) and Lyall Watson (1979) support their
new visions of reality with scientific documentation. Sheldrake
has a bibliography of about 200 listings, and Watson lists exactly
600 sources. The sources cited are mostly respectable academic
and scientific publications. The days of "[unnamed] scientists
say" and "Fred Jones, while walking alone in the woods
one day . . ." are gone. Or are they?
I teach college courses in epistemology, in the philosophy of
science, and in pseudoscience and the occult. Students in these
courses naturally bring to class examples of remarkable and paranormal
claims. During the past few years one such claim has become especially
popular, the "Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon." This phenomenon
was baptized by Lyall Watson, who documents the case with references
to five highly respectable articles by Japanese primatologists
(Imanishi 1963; Kawai 1963 and 1965; Kawamura 1963; and Tsumori
1967). Watson's discussion of this phenomenon covers less than
two pages. (Except where noted, all references to Watson are to
pages 147 and 148.) But this brief report has inspired much attention.
Following Watson, a book (Keyes 1982), a newsletter article (Brain/Mind
Bulletin 1982), and a film (Hartley 1983) have each been created
with the title "The Hundredth Monkey." In addition we
find a journal article entitled "The 'Hundredth Monkey' and
Humanity's Quest for Survival" (Stein 1983) and an article
called "The Quantum Monkey" in a popular magazine (Science
Digest 1981. Each relies on Watson as the sole source of information
on the remarkable and supernatural behavior of primates.
The monkeys referred to are indeed remarkable. They are Japanese
macaques (Macaca fuscata), which line in wild troops on several
islands in Japan. They have been under observation for years.
During 1952 and 1953 the primatologists began "provisioning"
the troops - providing them with such foods as sweet potatoes
and wheat. The food was left in open areas, often on beaches.
As a result of this new economy, the monkeys developed several
innovative forms of behavior. One of these was invented in 1953
by an 18-month-old female that the observers named "Imo."
Imo was a member of the troop on Koshima island. She discovered
that sand and grit could be removed from the sweet potatoes by
washing them in a stream or in the ocean. Imo's playmates and
her mother learned this trick from Imo, and it soon spread to
other members of the troop. Unlike most food customs, this innovation
was learned by older monkeys from younger ones. In most other
matters the children learn from their parents. The potato-washing
habit spread gradually, according to Watson, up until 1958. but
in the fall on 1958 a remarkable event occurred on Koshima. This
event formed the basis of the "Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon."
- The Miracle on Koshima
- According to Watson, all of the juveniles on Koshima were
washing their potatoes by early 1958, but the only adult washers
were those who had learned from the children. In the fall of that
year something astounding happened. The exact nature of the event
is unclear. Watson says:
. . . One has to gather the rest of the story from personal anecdotes
and bits of folklore among primate researchers, because most of
them are still not quite sure what happened. And those who do
suspect the truth are reluctant to publish it for fear of ridicule.
So I am forced to improvise the details, but as near as I can
tell, this is what seems to have happened. In the autumn of that
year an unspecified number of monkeys on Koshima were washing
sweet potatoes in the sea. . . . Let us say, for argument's sake,
that the number was ninety-nine and that at eleven o'clock on
a Tuesday morning, one further convert was added to the fold in
the usual way. But the addition of the hundredth monkey apparently
carried the number across some sort of threshold, pushing it through
a kind of critical mass, because by that evening almost everyone
was doing it. Not only that, but the habit seems to have jumped
natural barriers and to have appeared spontaneously, like glycerine
crystals in sealed laboratory jars, in colonies on other islands
and on the mainland in a troop at Takasakiyama.
A sort of group consciousness had developed among the monkeys,
Watson tells us. It had developed suddenly, as a result of one
last monkey's learning potato washing by conventional means. The
sudden learning of the rest of the Koshima troop was not attributable
to the normal one-monkey-at-a-time methods of previous years.
The new phenomenon of group consciousness was responsible not
only for the sudden learning on Koshima but for the equally sudden
acquisition of the habit by monkeys across the sea. Watson admits
that he was forced to "improvise" some of the details
- the time of the day, the day of the week, and the exact number
of monkeys required for the "critical mass" were not
specified in the scientific literature. But by evening (or at
least in a very short period of time) almost everyone (or at least
a large number of the remaining monkeys) in the colony had suddenly
acquired the custom. This is remarkable in part because of the
slow and gradual mode of acquisition that had typified the first
five years after Imo's innovation. Even more remarkable was the
sudden jumping of natural boundaries, apparently caused by the
Koshima miracle.
(to top of page)
Documentation
In this section I investigate the relations between Watson's description
of the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon and the scientific sources
by which he validates it. To be sure, we must not expect too much
from the sources. Watson has warned us that the complete story
was not told and that he was 'forced to improvise the details."
But we should expect to find some evidence of the mysteriousness
of the Koshima events of 1958. In particular, we should expect
to find evidence of an episode of sudden learning within the troop
at this time (though perhaps not in one afternoon) and evidence
of the sudden appearance of potato washing on other troops sometime
soon after the Koshima event. We also have a negative expectation
of the literature; it should fail to report certain important
details. It will not (we expect) tell us the exact number of monkeys
washing potatoes prior to or after the event of 1958, nor will
it provide us with an explanation of how the post-event Koshima
learners were able to acquire their knowledge. After all, it is
Watson's claim that the event produced paranormal learning of
potato washing. These three expectations will be tested against
the literature. Was there a sudden event at Koshima? Did acquisition
at other colonies follow closely the Koshima event? Does Watson
improvise details only when the cited literature fails to provide
adequate information? The following comments will be restricted
to the literature on macaques actually cited by Watson.
Almost all of the information about the Koshima troop appears
in a journal article by Masao Kawai (1965); the other articles
are secondary on this topic. Kawai's article is remarkably detailed
in its description of the Koshima events. The troop numbered 20
in 1952 and grew to 59 by 1962. (At least in the numerical sense,
there was never a "hundredth monkey" on Koshima.) Watson
states that "an unspecified number" of monkeys on Koshima
had acquired the potato-washing habit by 1958. Actually this number
was far from unspecified. Kawai's data allowed the reader to determine
the dates of acquisition of potato washing (and two other food
behaviors), as well as the dates of birth and genealogical relationships,
of every monkey in the Koshima troop from 1949 to 1962 (Figure
1, pp. 2-3, and elsewhere in the paper). In March 1958, exactly
2 of 11 monkeys over 7 years old had learned potato washing, while
exactly 15 of 19 monkeys between 2 and 7 had the habit (p.3).
This amounts to 17 of 30 non-infant monkeys. There is no mention
in this paper (or in any other) of a sudden learning event in
the fall of 1958. However, it is noted that by 1962, 36 of the
49 non-infant monkeys had acquired the habit. So both the non-infant
population and the number of potato washers had increased by 19
during this four-year period. Perhaps this is what suggested to
Watson that a sudden event occurred in the fall of 1958. And perhaps
(since one can only surmise) this idea was reinforced in Watson's
mind by the following statement by Kawai: "The acquisition
of [potato washing] behavior can be divided into two periods;
before and after 1958"(p.5).
So Kawai does not give a time of year, a day of the week, or even
the season for any sudden event in 1958. But he does at least
identify the year. And is Kawai mystified about the difference
between pre- and post-1958 acquisition? Is he "not quite
sure what happened"? Is he reluctant to publish details "for
fear of ridicule?" No. He publishes the whole story, in gothic
detail. The post-1958 learning period was remarkable only for
its normalcy. The period from 1953 to 1958 had been a period of
exciting innovation. The troop encountered new food sources, and
the juveniles invented ways of dealing with these sources. But
by 1958 the innovative youth had become status quo adults; macaques
mature faster than humans. The unusual juvenile-to-adult teaching
methods reverted to the more traditional process of learning one's
food manners at one's mother's knee. Imo's first child, a male
named "Ika," was born in 1957 (pp.5,7). Imo and her
former playmates brought up their children as good little potato-washers.
One can only hope that Ika has been less trouble to his Mom than
Imo was to hers. Kawai speaks of the innovative period after 1958
as "pre-cultural propagation" (p.8). (This latter term
does not indicate anything unusual for the monkey troops. The
troops under normal circumstances have behavior as genuinely "cultural".)
So there was nothing left unsaid in Kawai's description. There
was nothing mysterious, or even sudden, in the events of 1958.
Nineteen fifty-eight and 1959 were the years of maturation of
a group of innovative youngsters. The human hippies of the 1960s
now know that feeling. In fact 1958 was a singularly poor year
for habit acquisition on Koshima. Only two monkeys learned to
wash potatoes during that year, young females named Zabon and
Nogi. An average of three a year had learned potato washing during
the previous five years (Table 1, p.4). There is no evidence that
Zabon and Nogi were psychic or in any other way unusual.
Let us try to take Watson seriously for a moment longer. Since
only two monkeys learned potato washing during 1958 (according
to Watson's own citation), one of them must have been the "Hundredth
Monkey." Watson leaves "unspecified" which monkey
it was, so I am "forced to improvise" and "say,
for argument's sake" that it was Zabon. This means that poor
little Nogi carries the trim metaphysical burden of being the
"almost everyone in the colony" who, according to Watson,
suddenly and miraculously began to wash her potatoes on that autumn
afternoon.
Watson claims that the potato-washing habit "spontaneously"
leaped natural barriers. Is there evidence of this? Well, two
sources report that the behavior was observed off Koshima, in
at least five different colonies (Kawai 1965, 23; Tsumori 1967,
219). These reports specifically state that the behaviors was
observed only among a few individual monkeys and that it had not
spread throughout the colony. There is no report of when these
behaviors occurred. They must have been observed sometime between
1953 and 1967. But there is nothing to indicate that they followed
closely upon some supposed miraculous event on Koshima during
the autumn of 1958, or that they occurred suddenly at any other
time, or that they were in any other way remarkable.
In fact there is absolutely no reason to believe in the 1958 miracle
on Koshima. There is every reason to deny it. Watson's description
of the event is refuted in great detail by the very sources he
cites to validate it. In contrast to Watson's claims of a sudden
and inexplicable event, "Such behavior patterns seen to be
smoothly transmitted among individuals in the troop and handed
down to the next generation" (Tsumori 1967, 207).
(to top of page)
Methodology of Pseudoscience
The factual issue ends here. Watson's claim of a "Hundredth
Monkey Phenomenon" is conclusively refuted by the very sources
he cites in its support. He either failed to read or misreported
the information in these scientific articles. But Watson's own
mode of reasoning and reporting, as well as the responses he has
inspired in the popular literature, deserve attention. They exemplify
the pseudoscientific tradition. Consider the following:
1. Hidden sources of information: Watson informs us that the scientific
reports leave important data "unspecified." This is
simply false. But, more subtly, he tells us that most of the researchers
are still unsure of what happened and that those who "so
suspect the truth are reluctant to publish it for fear of ridicule."
In one fell swoop Watson brands himself as courageous, explains
why no one else has dared report these miraculous phenomenon,
and discourages us from checking the cited literature for corroboration.
Watson got the real story from "personal anecdotes and bits
of folklore among primate researchers. . . ."Those of us
who don't hobnob with such folks must trust Watson. The technique
was effective. Of the commentaries I have found on the Hundredth
Monkey Phenomenon, not one shows evidence of having consulted
the scientific sources cited by Watson. Nonetheless, each presents
Watson's fantasy as a scientifically authenticated fact. Nor is
additional information available from Watson. I have written both
to Watson and to his publishers requesting such information and
have received no reply.
2. Aversion to naturalistic explanations: The fact is that potato
washing was observed on different islands. Watson infers that
it had traveled in some paranormal way from one location to another.
Like other aficionados of the paranormal, Watson ignores two plausible
explanations of the concurrence of potato washing. First, it could
well have been an independent innovation - different monkeys inventing
the same solution to a common problem. This process is anathema
to the pseudoscientist. The natives of the Americas simply could
not have invented the pyramids independent of the Egyptians -
they just didn't have the smarts. In more extreme cases (von Daniken,
for example) a human being is just too dumb to invent certain
clever things - extraterrestrial must have done it.
Watson assumes that Imo was the only monkey capable of recognizing
the usefulness of washing potatoes. In his words, Imo was "a
monkey genius" and potato washing is "comparable almost
to the invention of the wheel." Monkeys on other islands
were too dumb for this sort of innovation. But keep in mind that
these monkeys didn't even have potatoes to wash before 1952 or
1953, when provisioning began. Monkeys in at least five locations
had learned potato washing by 1962. This suggests to me that these
monkeys are clever creatures. It suggests to Watson that one monkey
was clever and that the paranormal took care of the rest. A second
neglected explanation is natural diffusion. And indeed Kawai reports
that in 1960 a potato washer named "Jugo" swam from
Koshima to the island on which the Takasakiyama troop lives. Jugo
returned in 1964 (Kawai 1965, 17). Watson does not mention this.
The Japanese monkeys are known to be both clever and mobile, and
either characteristic might explain the interisland spread of
potato washing. Watson ignores both explanations, preferring to
invent a new paranormal power.
3. Inflation of the miracle: As myths get passed along, everyone
puffs them up a bit. The following two examples come from second-generation
commentaries that quote extensively from Watson. Nevertheless,
even Watson's claims are beginning to bulge. First, the primatologists'
reports had mentioned that only a few isolated cases of off-Koshima
potato-washing were observed. Watson reports this as the habit's
having "appeared spontaneously . . . in colonies on other
islands. . . ." Not actually false, since the few individuals
were indeed in other colonies (though only individuals and not
whole colonies adopted the behavior. Following Watson, Ken Keyes
reported that, after the hundredth Koshima monkey, "colonies
of monkeys on other islands . . . began washing their sweet potatoes"!
(Keyes 1982, p.16). From Keyes, one gets the image of spontaneous
mass orgies of spud-dunking. A second example: Regarding the primatologists'
attitudes toward the events of 1958, Watson reports only that
they are "still not quite sure what happened." But the
primatological confusion quickly grows, for Science Digest (1981)
reports "a mystery which has stumped scientists for nearly
a quarter of a century." In these two particular cases, Watson's
own statements are at least modest. They're not what one would
call accurate, but not exorbitantly false either. By the second
generation we find that "not quite sure what happened"
becomes "stumped for nearly a quarter of a century,"
and the habit that appeared in individuals within colonies of
monkeys become a habit of colonies of monkeys. Please keep in
mind that the second generation relies only on Watson for its
information; even Watson's none-too-accurate report has been distorted
- and not, needless to say, in the direction of accuracy.
4. The paranormal validates the paranormal: The validity of one
supernatural report is strengthened by its consistency with other
such reports. Watson's commentators show how this works. Keyes
supports the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon by its consistency with
J.B. Rhine's word at Duke, which "demonstrated" telepathy
between individual humans. "We now know that the strength
of this extrasensory communication can be amplified to a powerfully
effective level when the consciousness of the 'hundredth person'
is added" (Keyes 1982, 18). Elda Hartley's film "The
Hundredth Monkey" invokes Edgar Cayce. And in a remarkable
feat of group consciousness, four of the five secondary sources
emphasize the similarities between Watson's Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon
and Rupert Sheldrake's notion of the "morphogenetic field."
The spontaneous recognition of the similarities between Watson
and Sheldrake seems to have leaped the natural boundaries between
the four publications! Now there's a miracle! (Surely independent
invention or natural diffusion couldn't account for such a coincidence.)
(to top of page)
Conclusions
I must admit sympathy for some of the secondary sources on the
Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon. This feeling comes from the purpose
for which the phenomenon was cited. Ken Keyes's book uses the
phenomenon as a theme, but the real topic of the book is nuclear
disarmament. Arthur Stein's article and (to a lesser extent) the
Hartley film are inspired by Keye's hope that the Hundredth Monkey
Phenomenon may help may help prevent nuclear war. The message
is that "you may be the Hundredth Monkey" whose contribution
to the collective consciousness turns the world away from nuclear
holocaust. It is hard to find fault in this motive. For these
same reasons, one couldn't fault the motives of a child who wrote
to Santa Claus requesting world nuclear disarmament as a Christmas
present. We can only hope that Santa Claus and the Hundredth Monkey
are not our best chances to avoid nuclear war.
Watson's primary concern is not prevention of war but sheer love
of the paranormal. His book begins with a description of a child
who, before Watson's eyes, and with a "short implosive sound,
very soft, like a cork being drawn in the dark," psychically
turned a tennis ball inside out - fuzz side in, rubber side out
- without loosing air pressure (p.18). Just after the Hundredth
Monkey discussion, Watson makes a revealing point. He quotes with
approval a statement attributed to Lawrence Blair: "When
a myth is shared by a large number of people, it becomes a reality"
(p. 148). This sort of relativist epistemology is not unusual
in New Age thought. I would express Blair's thought somewhat differently:
"Convince enough people of a lie, and it becomes the truth."
I suggest that someone who accepts this view of truth is not to
be trusted as a source of knowledge. He may, of course, be a marvelous
source of fantasy, rumor, and pseudoscientific best-sellers.
I prefer epistemological realism to this sort of relativism. Truth
is not dependent on the number of believers or on the frequency
of published repetition. My preferred epistemology can be expressed
simply: Facts are facts. There is no Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon.
(to top of page)
Follow-up
I began investigating the "Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon"
in August 1984 with a letter to Lyall Watson, the author of the
"phenomenon," addressed in care of his publisher, Simon
and Schuster. I asked for more information about the group consciousness
of monkeys reported by Watson in Lifetide. Neither this nor a
later letter to the publisher has ever received a reply. My study
was published in the Summer 1985 Skeptical Inquirer. Boyce Rensberger,
a Washington Post science writer, and subsequently a recipient
of CSIOCP's 1986 Responsibility in Journalism Award, picked up
the story. He also approached Simon and Schuster, who declined
to put him in touch with Watson. Rensberger (1985) quoted Watson's
editor as saying that Watson "is a distinguished and eminent
scholar who, I have to say, does have some weird ideas."
No news there.
Watson has now broken the silence. Ted Schultz, an editor for
Whole Earth Review, managed to contact him. According to Schultz,
Watson was "quite happy to respond to Amundson's analysis
of his monkey tale." The response was published, in the Fall
1986 "Fringes of Reason" issue of Whole Earth Review
(and reprinted in Schultz 1989). Although he begins with a swipe
at "self-appointed committees for the suppression of curiosity,"
Watson deals "in good humor" with my critique of the
Hundredth Monkey. My article was "lucid, amusing, and refreshingly
free of the emotional dismissals" that, he says, CSICOP is
prone to. I wish I could be proud of this distinction.
Watson continues: "I accept Amundson's analysis of the origin
and evolution of the Hundredth Monkey without reservation. It
is a metaphor of my own making, based--as he rightly suggests--on
very slim evidence and a great deal of hearsay. I have never pretended
otherwise. . . . I based none of my conclusions on the five sources
Amundson uses to refute me. I was careful to describe the evidence
for the phenomenon as strictly anecdotal and included citations
in Lifetide, not to validate anything, but in accordance with
my usual practice of providing tools, of giving access to useful
background information."
It should be remembered that the "five sources" I used
to "refute" him were the identical five sources that
Watson provides as "tools" and "access" in
his original discussion of the phenomenon.
Watson goes on to complain about my conclusion that the Hundredth
Monkey Phenomenon does not exist. He still thinks the phenomenon
is real but admitting that it didn't happen on Koshima. This is
like saying that the "Geller Effect" is real, while
claiming that Uri Geller himself has no special powers. Well,
okay. Show us a real example.
Watson is unhappy about my description of his work as "pseudoscience."
He admitted all along, he says, that the Hundredth Monkey story
was anecdotal. This is approximately a half truth. Watson did
admit in Lifetide that he had to "gather the rest of the
story from personal anecdotes and bits of folklore." (This
was because, he said, the scientists were afraid to publish the
truth "for fear of ridicule.") He then specifically
stated that certain crucial details were missing from the scientific
reports. He went on to describe the events on Koshima, "improvising"
the detail. The miraculous result were stated in two sentences,
followed by a citation reference.
The details said by Watson to be missing were not missing. He
falsely reported on the scientific evidence available--available,
in fact, in his own citations.
Watson responds to my claim that his own documentation refutes
him by explaining that his citation references were not meant
as documentation at all, but as "tools." (Perhaps being
refuted by your own tool is less painful than being refuted by
your own documentation.) Here it should be noted that the citations
were presented in exactly the format used to provide documentation
for factual claims, both in scientific and in informal writing.
Lifetide is peppered with raised reference numbers, each following
a factual statement made in the text. The Chicago Manual of Style
refers to this format as "notes documenting the text, and
corresponding to reference numbers in the text." Does Watson
anywhere warn us that his citations do not document the text--that
they actually contradict the text? Does he warn us that they are
merely "tools"? No. We are told only that the raised
numbers "refer to numbered items in the bibliography."
As an "eminent scholar" and "holder of degrees
in anthropology, ethology, and marine biology" (Whole Earth
Review's description), Watson must be assumed to understand the
use of scientific citations. The meaning of a reference citation
is not something each author simply invents for himself. It does
not mean "documentation" for some writers and "tools"
for others. Watson uses a format that implies documented support
for a factual claim. He now says that he didn't really mean it
that way.
I submit that this technique is pseudoscientific in the strictest
sense. It falsely presents the appearance of science. Watson could
have admitted that he made a mistake in his citations (or that
he never read them in the first place). Instead he excuses himself
by saying that the references were merely "tools." They
just looked like scholarly citations.
Watson owes an apology to the thousands of people who took his
claims to be reports of fact, rather than "hearsay"
and "anecdotes." None of Watson's published commentators
thought he was presenting "hearsay" about potato-washing
monkeys. If I made a mistake by taking him seriously, so did everyone
else. Let it be known that the hundreds of scientific-looking
citations in Watson's books are not intended to support his factual
claims. They are "tools." They look, for all the world,
like scientific documentation. But it is all an illusion.
(to top of page)
Postscript
My only regret in the writing of 'Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon"
is that I didn't have the nerve to call it something like "Spud-Dunking
Monkey Theory Debunked," Boyce Rensberger's priceless title
in the Washington Post.
Reaction to the paper amazed me. I had underestimated the influence
of the Skeptical Inquirer, and Rensberger's article certainly
helped to spread the word. But besides that, I had no idea that
the Hundredth Monkey had become such a compelling image in New
Age thought, not only in the United States but around the world.
The article has been reprinted in Australia and in Sweden (where
it was translated into "Der Hundreden Apen"). It was
discussed in the British science magazine New Scientist (1985),
and I was interviewed on Australian Public Radio (an interview
arranged by the good people of the Australian Skeptics). It has
even received friendly attention from sources one would normally
expect to be sympathetic to the New Age, such as East-West Journal
(1985) and Whole Earth Review. (Discussion and related articles
from the Fall 1986 Whole Earth Review were reprinted in Fringes
of Reason, Schultz 1989). There was even a kindly word from Douglas
Groothuis (1988) in a book advising conservative Christians about
how to confront New Age beliefs. To my knowledge, the only negative
reaction was Lyall Watson's gentle scolding of my narrow-mindedness
(in Schultz 1989). The moral of the story seems to be that many
of the thousands of people who heard the Hundredth Monkey myth
were already skeptical about it. Nevertheless, practically no
one had bothered to chase down its origin and check its credentials.
The notable exception to this complacency was Maureen O'Hara,
a humanistic psychologist who had independently critiqued the
Hundredth Monkey (see O'Hara 1986). She was more tolerant than
I of Watson's myth-making, laying most of the blame on Watson's
commentators. But she eloquently exposed a crucial fallacy in
the New Age acceptance of mass consciousness, a fallacy I had
missed. New Age aficionados consider mass consciousness to be
"empowering" to individuals, since "you may be
the Hundredth Monkey." O'Hara points out the foolishness
of this "empowerment." An individual whose beliefs are
in the minority is already out-Hundredth-Monkeyed by the opinion
of the majority. Moreover, the conviction that beliefs alone can
affect social change provides a perfect excuse for complacency.
Why bother to engage in political activism when it's just as effective
to sit comfortably at home and believe things? I was especially
gratified to see the same point recognized in a local Kansas newspaper;
my refutation of Watson was celebrated by the Wellington News
in an editorial entitled "Individually Responsible."
As I already confessed, I'm no heroic crusader for rationality.
I studied the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon because my students
forced me into it. Our complacency in the face of such nonsense
simply allows the nonsense to spread. Other myths may not be as
easy to burst as the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon, but we'll never
know until we try.
(to top of page)
References
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Special Issue: 'A New Science of Life.'"
East-West Journal. 1985. Monkey Business, November, p.13.
Groothuis, Douglas R. 1988.
Confronting the New Age. Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Hartley, Elda (producer). 1983.
The Hundredth Monkey (film
and videotape). Hartly Film Foundation, Inc. Cos Cob, Conn.
Imanishi, Kinji. 1963. Social behavior in Japanese monkeys. In
Primate Social Behavior, Charles A Southwick, ed. Toronto:
Van Nostrand.
Kawai, Masao. 1963. On the Newly-acquired behaviors of the natural
troop of Japanese monkeys on Koshima island.
Primates,
4:113-115.
Kawai, Masao. 1965. On the newly-acquired pre-cultural behavior
of the natural troop of Japanese monkeys on Koshima Islet.
Primates,
6:1-30.
Kawamura, Syunzo. 1963. Subcultural propagation among Japanese
macaques. In
Primate Social Behavior, Charles A. Southwick,
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Keyes, Ken, Jr. 1982.
The Hundredth Monkey. Coos Bay, OR:
Vision Books.
New Scientist. 1985. Making a monkey out of Lyall Watson.
July 11, p.21.
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Whole Earth Review,
Fall. Reprinted in Schultz, 1989.
Rensberger, Boyce. 1985. Spud-dunking monkey theory debunked.
Washington Post, July 6.
Schultz, Ted, ed. 1989.
Fringes of Reason: A Whole Earth Catalog.
New York: Harmony Books.
Science Digest. 1981. The quantum monkey. Vol.8: 57.
Sheldrake, Rupert. 1981.
A New Science Life. Los Angeles:
J.P. Tarcher.
Stein Arthur. 1983. The "Hundredth Monkey" and Humanity's
Quest for Survival.
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7: 29-40.
Tsumori, Atsuo. 1967. Newly acquired behavior and social interactions
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