From the obituary of the Johannesburg-born ‘adventurer and explorer’ Lyall Watson, who died this week, and was known for making up things as he went along:
His most famous contribution to paranormal debate was the hundredth monkey theory, proposed in the 1979 book “Lifetide: A Biology of the Unconscious” and enthusiastically embraced by New Age thinkers. Japanese scientists studying macaques on the island of Koshima, he wrote, found that members of the colony took to washing sweet potatoes left by the researchers before eating them. When enough macaques engaged in this behavior — say, 99 — the addition of one more monkey would create a critical mass, and the practice spread not only throughout the tribe but also, telepathically it seemed, to colonies on other islands. Under withering criticism from skeptics, who showed that the facts behind the theory were wrong, Mr. Watson conceded in The Whole Earth Review that the hundredth monkey theory was “a metaphor of my own making,” a way of suggesting how mechanisms other than natural selection might work in evolution. “It might have come to be called the Hundredth Cockroach or Hairy Nosed Wombat Phenomenon if my travels had taken me in a different direction,” he wrote. And besides, he added, it still might be true.
The full obit here.
