Cal Poly Dave
08-14-2007, 08:10 AM
[note from moderator: due to the longevity of this post, some excerpts have been removed]
ive heard david talk about this theory on the radio before and i decided to search for the story online so i could revisit it and share it with friends. then i discovered that the story may be a little embellished. the first part is the story of the 100th monkey and the second part is an article by elaine myers.
http://www.wowzone.com/monkey.htm
the 100th monkey
by ken keyes jr.
the japanese monkey, macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years.
in 1952, on the island of koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. the monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.
an 18-month-old female named imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. she taught this trick to her mother. her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.
this cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.
then something startling took place. in the autumn of 1958, a certain number of koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known. let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on koshima island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.
then it happened!
by that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. the added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!
but notice: a most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea...colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.
thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.
from the book "the hundredth monkey" by ken keyes, jr.
the book is not copyrighted and the material may be reproduced in whole or in part.
___________
we were also forwarded the following article that "puts a new light on this popular story"
the hundredth monkey revisited
by elaine myers
the story of "the hundredth monkey" has recently become popular in our culture as a strategy for social change. lyall watson first told it in lifetide (pp147- 148), but its most widely known version is the opening to the book the hundredth monkey, by ken keyes. (see below.) the story is based on research with monkeys on a northern japanese island, and its central idea is that when enough individuals in a population adopt a new idea or behavior, there occurs an ideological breakthrough that allows this new awareness to be communicated directly from mind to mind without the connection of external experience and then all individuals in the population spontaneously adopt it. "it may be that when enough of us hold something to be true, it becomes true for everyone." (watson, p148)
however, when i went back to the original research reports cited by watson, i did not find the same story that he tells. ...... here is how the real story seems to have gone.
up until 1958, keyes' description follows the research quite closely, although not all the young monkeys in the troop learned to wash the potatoes. by march, 1958, 15 of the 19 young monkeys (aged two to seven years} and 2 of the 11 adults were washing sweet potatoes. up to this time, the propagation of the innovative behavior was on an individual basis, along family lines and playmate relationships. most of the young monkeys began to wash the potatoes when they were one to two and a half years old. males older than 4 years, who had little contact with the young monkeys, did not acquire the behavior.
by 1959, the sweet potato washing was no longer a new behavior to the group. monkeys that had acquired the behavior as juveniles were growing up and having their own babies. this new generation of babies learned sweet potato washing behavior through the normal cultural pattern of the young imitating their mothers. by january, 1962, almost all the monkeys in the koshima troop, excepting those adults born before 1950, were observed to be washing their sweet potatoes. if an individual monkey had not started to wash sweet potatoes by the time he was an adult, he was unlikely to learn it later, regardless of how widespread it became among the younger members of the troop.
in the original reports, there was no mention of the group passing a critical threshold that would impart the idea to the entire troop. the older monkeys remained steadfastly ignorant of the new behavior. likewise, there was no mention of widespread sweet potato washing in other monkey troops.
from: http://www.context.org/iclib/ic09/myers.htm
ive heard david talk about this theory on the radio before and i decided to search for the story online so i could revisit it and share it with friends. then i discovered that the story may be a little embellished. the first part is the story of the 100th monkey and the second part is an article by elaine myers.
http://www.wowzone.com/monkey.htm
the 100th monkey
by ken keyes jr.
the japanese monkey, macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years.
in 1952, on the island of koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. the monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.
an 18-month-old female named imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. she taught this trick to her mother. her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.
this cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.
then something startling took place. in the autumn of 1958, a certain number of koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known. let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on koshima island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.
then it happened!
by that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. the added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!
but notice: a most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea...colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.
thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.
from the book "the hundredth monkey" by ken keyes, jr.
the book is not copyrighted and the material may be reproduced in whole or in part.
___________
we were also forwarded the following article that "puts a new light on this popular story"
the hundredth monkey revisited
by elaine myers
the story of "the hundredth monkey" has recently become popular in our culture as a strategy for social change. lyall watson first told it in lifetide (pp147- 148), but its most widely known version is the opening to the book the hundredth monkey, by ken keyes. (see below.) the story is based on research with monkeys on a northern japanese island, and its central idea is that when enough individuals in a population adopt a new idea or behavior, there occurs an ideological breakthrough that allows this new awareness to be communicated directly from mind to mind without the connection of external experience and then all individuals in the population spontaneously adopt it. "it may be that when enough of us hold something to be true, it becomes true for everyone." (watson, p148)
however, when i went back to the original research reports cited by watson, i did not find the same story that he tells. ...... here is how the real story seems to have gone.
up until 1958, keyes' description follows the research quite closely, although not all the young monkeys in the troop learned to wash the potatoes. by march, 1958, 15 of the 19 young monkeys (aged two to seven years} and 2 of the 11 adults were washing sweet potatoes. up to this time, the propagation of the innovative behavior was on an individual basis, along family lines and playmate relationships. most of the young monkeys began to wash the potatoes when they were one to two and a half years old. males older than 4 years, who had little contact with the young monkeys, did not acquire the behavior.
by 1959, the sweet potato washing was no longer a new behavior to the group. monkeys that had acquired the behavior as juveniles were growing up and having their own babies. this new generation of babies learned sweet potato washing behavior through the normal cultural pattern of the young imitating their mothers. by january, 1962, almost all the monkeys in the koshima troop, excepting those adults born before 1950, were observed to be washing their sweet potatoes. if an individual monkey had not started to wash sweet potatoes by the time he was an adult, he was unlikely to learn it later, regardless of how widespread it became among the younger members of the troop.
in the original reports, there was no mention of the group passing a critical threshold that would impart the idea to the entire troop. the older monkeys remained steadfastly ignorant of the new behavior. likewise, there was no mention of widespread sweet potato washing in other monkey troops.
from: http://www.context.org/iclib/ic09/myers.htm