 The Hundredth Monkey Effect
by Flip Schrameijer
The story of the 100-th monkey is about a sudden and wondrous spread of knowledge. It goes like this.
A colony of monkeys lives on a tropical island. They aren’t really hungry, but the most delicious fruits fall from the trees on the beach and are covered in sand. The monkeys hate sand between their teeth, so they can’t eat this delicacy. Then one of them makes a great discovery: it rinses the fruit with water. Other monkeys do the same and: yummy!
Over some six years, more monkeys learn this trick and then it suddenly happens. As soon as a hundred monkeys have learned to clean their fruit with water, all at once the whole group knows! Not only that: on the neighbouring unreachable islands, all monkeys are now washing their fruit.
If knowledge can spread spontaneously, that is without the help of eyes or ears, and without telephones, Internet, TV or whatever technology, this is truly spectacular. Obviously, some sort of transmission – or whatever you should call it – must be at work. Telepathy (mind reading at a distance), a collective unconscious or something else which science cannot explain.
One thing, however seems necessary for this sudden leap to the whole community: an idea or a skill must be shared by a certain number of people (or monkeys). A ‘critical mass’, such as, in this case, a hundred.
In the same way followers of the Maharishi Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation, seem to believe that only one percent of the people are needed to make a big change. As soon as this 1% practices their meditation, all people will suddenly see the light. This would be the beginning of a New Age of peace, prosperity and happiness for all.
Is this Bullshit or not?
The 100-th monkey phenomenon is usually presented as a scientific fact. And indeed biologists were involved who observed macaque monkeys for some thirty years on the Japanese island of Koshima.
 The miracle happened in the Spring of 1958. Japanese scientists gave these monkeys sweet potatoes and put them on the beach. They wanted to discourage the monkeys from raiding the farms on the island for food. It is even known that an 18-month old monkey called Imo invented the rinsing of the potato in 1952. This and much more was extensively published in scientific journals by at least five Japanese biologists. But nothing about the 100-th monkey miracle.
Because the story of the hundredth monkey is not true. It is a myth, brought into the world by dr. Lyall Watson in his book Lifetide. A Biology of the Unconscious from 1979. In it Watson writes:
"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…"
It is a myth, but not a lie, because Watson doesn’t say this story is scientifically proven. A hundred is - ‘let us say’ – just a nice number, nothing more. According to the Japanese scientists the macaque group numbered less than sixty. Even by 1962 not all members had learned the trick.
Dr Ron Amundson of the university of Hawaii wrote a very critical article about the 100-th monkey story. (See article). Watson defended his writings, saying several Japanese biologists had witnessed the phenomenon, but were reluctant to speak about it, since they feared ridicule by other scientists.
 One of Amundsons colleagues asked the Japanese scientists, but none of them ever confirmed such stories were indeed going around. Moreover, none of them observed that suddenly all monkeys practiced this rinsing skill. There aren’t any reports of monkeys on other islands doing the trick.
The 100-th monkey phenomenon is a clear case of scientific bullshit.
 Should scientists investigate the supernatural?
Does this mean a true scientist cannot or should not be interested in subjects such as the collective unconscious, ‘memories’ from ‘previous lives’ or telepathy? Not at all. There are many reasons to do research on such topics.
One is to rid science of nonsense such as the Hundredth Monkey-business in which a fantasy is presented as a scientific fact. Another is exposing fraud such as bending teaspoons through the power of the mind, something the famous Uri Geller claims he can do. (For criticism, among many others: look here. Gellers own website: here)
A very different reason to be interested in research of the ‘paranormal’ is the belief that things are possible which disagree with generally accepted laws of physics and other sciences. If you could prove, for instance, that telepathy is possible, you could cause a scientific revolution (see: Anomaly!) and be world famous for many, many years. Just like Copernicus or Charles Darwin.
Right away you could win a million dollars, which is the reward the James Randi Educational Foundation will give to ‘anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.” (Apply here).
So let's get on with it! You need little more than a few curious people, a telephone directory and two stopwatches.
Telepathy Experiment>>
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