Of Myths and Monkeys: A Critical Look
a Critical Mass
By Maureen O'Hara
The 'Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon' was invented by
Lyall Watson, a writer on paranormal subjects, in his
1979 book Lifetide, and was subsequently elaborated
upon by New Age author Rupert Sheldrake in A New
Science of Life (1982), and Ken Keyes, a human-
potential movement guru whose 1982 book The
Hundredth Monkey sold a million copies. By quoting the
more marginal of each others' theories as if they were
established scientific facts, and by 'puffing' each others'
books with glowing back-cover testimonials, these three
writers managed to convince an entire generation of
New Age readers that telepathy in monkeys had been
accepted by science since the 1950s-a staggering
assertion. The first published skeptical evaluation of this
myth was written by psychologist Maureen O'Hara, who
criticized the story in the July 1983 Association of
Humanistic Psychology Newsletter and again in the
Winter 1985 Journal of Humanistic Psychology. The
response from many of her colleagues was one of
hostility. They regarded her concern for objective truth
as petty; their counterreplies paraphrased the New Age
Axiom "if it feels good, it must be true".
Even though the 'Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon' is
now little more than a infrequently cited footnote to the
history of odd 1980s beliefs, the confusion between
speculation and proven fact, prevalent even in scholarly
circles, remains, unfortunately, alive and well in the
1990s. This confusion is often deliberately reinforced by
writers and public figures whose motivation is to push a
particular theory or belief system, and by publishers who
have found that representing sensationalistic claims as
science sells books and magazines.
The following article originally appeared in Whole Earth
Review 52 (1989) and is reprinted, with Dr O'Hara's
kind permission, from The Fringes of Reason (New York:
Harmony, 1989) pp 182-86. The substance of these
preliminary remarks has been adapted in large part
from the introduction by Ted Shultz, the book's editor.
The Hundredth Monkey provides us with a case study
through which to examine the deterioration in the quality
of thought and scholarship among those people who
participate in what has become known as the 'New Age'
or 'Human Potential' community. I believe that this
deterioration may ultimately result (if it has not already)
in discrediting humanistic science altogether, leaving us
with nothing more than faddism and a rag-bag of
pseudoreligious and pseudoscientific superstition.
Because I believe that a humanistic view of persons and
their communities has never been more necessary in
order to counterbalance the galloping alienation in human
life, I view this trend toward superstition with real alarm.
Lyall Watson does not tell us the monkey tale in his book
Lifetide because he is interested in studies of behavior
propagation in macaqueshe is merely using the story to
support his conviction about human consciousness, that
when a certain 'critical mass' of people believe in
something, suddenly the idea becomes true for everyone.
There can be no doubt that ideas and attitudes can spread
rapidly through a community from time to time.
Evidence of this exists everywhere. Perhaps this monkey
story and the rapidity with which it passed from
pseudoscientific speculation, through dubious editing,
word of mouth transmission by superstars in the human
potential movement, into popular New Age superstition,
makes a far better case study of the very phenomenon
than the monkey research putatively demonstrates.
This process is widely known and effectively
manipulated by those wishing to influence large numbers
of people. Hitler was terrifyingly successful in
convincing an entire people (at least a critical mass) of
the reasonableness of this 'final solution'. Teenage culture
in our own country offers nonstop demonstration of new
fads that emerge, spread through the group to become a
critical mass, and disappear, all in a matter of weeks.
Madison Avenue advertisers pay high salaries to those
psychologists who become adept at manipulating the
mass psyche to form critical mass, as do the Defense
Department and politicians running for office. The means
by which critical mass is achieved, however, is not in any
way mysterious. It is a matter of telecommunication, not
telepathy.
There are major contradictions in the present idealization
of critical massseen not only in the Hundredth Monkey
story, but in the ideologies of such organizations as EST,
Bhagwan Rajneesh, and the 'Aquarian conspirators'. In
promoting the idea that, although our ideas are shared by
only an enlightened few (for the time being), if we really
believe them, in some magical way what we hold to be
true becomes true for everyone, proponents of the critical
mass ideal ignore the principles of both humanism and
democratic open society. The basis for openness in our
kind of society is the belief that, for good or ill, each of
us holds his or her own beliefs as a responsible
participant in a pluralistic culture. Are we really willing
to give up on this ideal and promote instead a monolithic
ideology in which what is true for a 'critical mass' of
people becomes true for everyone? The idea gives me the
willies.
Pseudoscience, Science, and Ambivalence
How could such a profoundly nonhumanistic idea
become so popular among people who consider
themselves the harbingers of a 'New Age'? I think the
answer lies, at least in part, in the renewed infatuation
with science and its shadow, pseudoscience. In the past
ten years of so, we have seen the image of nuclear
physicist shift from Dr Stangelove-like creators of the
most terrifying death devices in history to their present
status as darlings of the so-called 'new paradigm'
consciousness. When we saw the physicists as on 'their
side', we rejected everything they did. Now that they are
on 'our side', we quote them at breakfast. Books like
Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics have the New Age
community convinced that physics is just some kind of
Taoism with numbers.
This new infatuation with science is a shallow one, easily
swayed by tricks of the pseudoscience trade such as
theorizing wildly in scientific-sounding language,
sprinkling speculative discussion with isolated fragments
of real data regardless of relevance, confusing analogy
with homology, breaking conventional rules of evidence
at will, and extrapolating from one level of reality into
others wherein different principles operate.
I do not wish to imply that pseudoscience necessarily
stems from a conscious effort to deceive. More often than
not, crossing the line from science to pseudoscience
comes from ignorance and inexperience, and the
popularity of pseudoscience is with an audience equally
ignorant and inexperienced. Because this audience is not
equipped to evaluate claims of scientific validity, they
instead accept them on faith.
One standard trick of the pseudoscience trade, for
example, is to emphasize whatever affiliations to
established science the writers have or had. It is to great
advantage if the writer can be referred to as a scientist
associated with a prestigious university with a wide
reputation for scientific excellence. It matters not tot the
purveyors of pseudoscience whether or not the 'scientists'
referred to have been in a lab for years, or if, when they
were, it was in a field even remotely relevant to the
subject at hand.
An August 1981 Brain/Mind Bulletin account of the
Hundredth Monkey story refers to Lyall Watson as a
biologist: the monkey story follows. The bibliography of
Watson's book contains not one reference to any
scientific research, biological or otherwise, that he has
published, yet his other books, on the occult, are listed. It
is not difficult to imagine a rather different response from
the reader if Brain/Mind Bulletin had introduced the
monkey story by referring to Watson as a writer on the
occult.
Another example of 'authority transfer' can be found in
Tom Cooper's review of the film, The Hundredth
Monkey, which appeared in the May 1983 issue of the
Association for Humanistic Psychology Newsletter. In
asserting that the Hundredth Monkey thesis is
"substantiated" he says, "Rupert Sheldrake, the
Cambridge scientist, reports that when one group of rats
was taught " The implication here is clear and
misleading. The statement conveys the impression that
Sheldrake (a) is currently on the faculty at Cambridge;
(b) does scientific research there; (c) knows a lot about
rats; (d) is 'reporting' on his own research.
If we look at Sheldrake's own book, A New Science of
Life, we find that he was once a scholar at a Cambridge
College, and is described as currently a consultant at an
international research institute in India. His research is on
the physiology of tropical plants. Again, the impact
would be very different if Cooper had written, "Rupert
Sheldrake, tropical plant physiologist in an Indian crop
research center, says that when one group of rats " This
kind of 'credentialeering' is obviously intended to give
credibility to scientific-sounding propositions. Such
authority-borrowing works because institutions such as
Cambridge University and disciplines such as biology
have, despite occasional, widely publicized aberrations,
lived up to their reputations for reliability.
Another characteristic of pseudoscience is its profound
ambivalence toward the scientific establishment. Despite
his identification as a biologist, Watson's work carries
within it clear evidence of his ambivalence. On one hand,
he uses research findings to try to support his conviction
about critical mass theory in human events. One the other
hand, he suggests that the scientific community is less
than honest when he tells us that these same researchers
were reluctant to publish what they suspected was the
truth. He panders to the popular distrust of science by
suggesting that this reluctance was due to fear of ridicule
by, one assumes, the scientific community.
Those who engage in pseudoscience want it both ways.
They want the authority of science but are unwilling to
abide by the rules by which the scientific community
earned its authority in the first place. Pseudoscientists
and their publishers may actually use criticism of their
ideas by the scientific community as evidence that they
are important because they are controversial. They seem
to reason that because Einstein was controversial, anyone
who is controversial must be an Einstein. On the jacket
of the US Paperback edition of Sheldrakes's A New
Science of Life is the prod claim that the British scientific
journal Nature had suggested that the book was "the best
candidate for burning there has been for many years". As
the designers of trade-book jackets are well aware, such
outbursts by the scientific establishment only enhance a
work's attractiveness to a generation of lay people fed up
with the excesses of 'more orthodox than thou' attitudes
of the scientific establishment.
This ambivalence toward establishment science strikes an
immediate and comforting chord in the minds of a public
that is not only ambivalent about science, but largely
ignorant. It is difficult for the uninitiated to distinguish
between good science, bad science, and pseudoscience.
Appraisal becomes especially difficult when isolated
pieces of scientific knowledge are abstracted from their
contexts within the broad, interwoven fabric of scientific
thought. It is context that make knowledge out of data.
This is true not only for sciences, but for all areas of
advanced knowledge such as art, Zen, medicine,
psychotherapy and so on. This makes a book like Capra's
Tao of Physics almost impossible to evaluate adequately.
Those adept at physics don't understand orientalism;
those well versed in Taoist philosophy can say little about
the physics. The people so swallow Capra's speculations
usually can critique neither. If they like what they read,
they accept it as fact.
One concrete consequence of this ubiquitous
ambivalence toward science can be seen in the rejection
of training in science and logical thinking by some
would-be humanistic psychologists and other aspiring
agents of change. Without such training these people,
regardless of their heart-felt commitment to
transformation, have practically no basis on which to
evaluate claims made in the name of science.
Anyonecrackpot, charlatan, genius, or sagemust be
dealt with in the same way (believed or disbelieved)
solely on the basis of personal opinion. Personal opinion
then becomes equated with knowledge and can be
asserted without embarrassment.
The result is that the human potential movement has
come dangerously close to creating the conditions for the
establishment of yet another orthodoxy resting on
unproved articles of faith and taken-for-granted
definitions, axioms and concepts. Humanistic science
loses ground each time it hands over authority to
pseudoscientists and speculative myth builders.
Good Myths and Bad Myths
On two occasions (both gatherings of humanistic
psychologists) when the monkey story was told, I tried to
raise some of the issues raised here. When I suggested
that the Hundredth Monkey story lay in the realm of
mythic thought, not scientific, the response was the same;
the speakers were unimpressed. "myths are as true as
science", was the response. "It's a metaphor" as another.
P.B. Walsh's comment in the November 1983
Association for Humanist Psychology Newsletter was
characteristic: "Science or myth, the Hundredth Monkey
is a metaphor that exactly fits " and later , "As metaphor
it speaks to our empowerment."
As to the assertion that myths are as true as science, I
take the point. But there is more that has to be said, for
although they might both be 'true', they are not true in the
same way. These respondents either do not know this or
do not think it matters much. But, of course, it matters a
great deal and I believe that it is urgent that we learn to
recognize the difference. Casually interchanging myth,
science, and metaphor robs each of these realms of its
unique power to deepen our understanding of the word,
to orient out science, and to inform our actions. Women
and ethnic minorities well know the consequences of
wrapping a myth together with science. It is especially
pernicious, as any Nazi holocaust survivor can confirm,
when a bad myth is wrapped up with bad science.
My objection to the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon,
then is not that it is myth, but that it is bad myth, and that
it draws its force not from the collective imagination, but
by masquerading as science. It leads us, (as I have tried
to show) in the direction of propaganda, manipulation,
totalitarianism, and a worldview dominated by the
powerful and persuasivein other words, business as
usual.
When I was first drawn into humanistic science, I was
well aware that I was attracted to its myth. I know of
very little actual 'data' that could support a belief in the
possibility of a humane global collective, composed of
free, responsible, rational people capable of purposeful
action, critical thought, creativity, and individual
conscience. Of course I knew this to be an idealized myth
standing in sharp contrast to the indignities that are the
actual daily experience of all but a privileged few. Even
so, I think it is a good myth and has the psychological
power to mobilize us and to orient our search for
knowledge about ourselves.
Over the past 15 years , this myth has guided my studies
and those of my colleagues (and at times has required
acts of faith as great as any religion would demand) as
we have tried to discover, as all science does, if this
mythic possible world could, in fact, be an actual world;
and if not, why not? So far we have discovered little that,
in my judgment, gives much grounds for the current New
Age optimism that the transformation is just around the
corner, It is a testimony to the sustaining power of the
humanistic myth that we did not give up our research
long ago and open a restaurant.
In contrast, I most emphatically cannot agree that the
'Hundredth Monkey myth empowers". In fact, I believe it
to be a betrayal of the whole idea of human
empowerment. In this myth the individual as a
responsible agent disappears; what empowers is no
longer the moral force of one's beliefs, not their empirical
status, rather, it is the number of people who share them.
Once the magic number is reached curiosity, science, art,
criticism, doubt and all other such activities subversive of
the common consensus become unnecessary or even
worse. Individuals no longer have any obligation to
develop their own worldview within such a collectiveit
will come to them ready-made from those around. Nor
are we called on to develop our arguments and articulate
them for, by magic, those around us will catch them
anyway. This is not a transformational myth impelling us
toward the fullest development of our capacities, but one
that reduces us instead to quite literally nothing more
than a mindless herd at the mercy of the 'Great
Communicators'. The myth of the Hundredth Monkey
Phenomenon is more chillingly Orwellian than Aquarian.
{PRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=Virtual"}
Inspired in the 1960s by the works of Abraham Maslow,
Carl Rogers, Gregory Bateson, and others, Maureen
O'Hara cut short a career in biology and became a
humanistic psychologist in order to participate in "the
creation of a precise humanistic science" with the goal
of "a humane global collective, composed of free,
responsible, rational people capable of purposeful
action, critical thought, creativity, and individual
conscience." Today she is alarmed by the way her
profession, intertwined as it is with the human potential
and New Age communities, has embraced the trappings
of pseudoscience and become prone to accept and
amplify 'bad myths', of which the Hundredth Monkey
story is only one example. As a specialist in mass
psychology and cross-cultural phenomena, she is
particularly qualified to comment on the 'critical mass'
concept idealized in the Hundredth Monkey myth, and to
provide us with an insider's view of the reasons behind
the rise of superstition in humanistic science. Dr O'Hara
is currently the acting president of Saybrook Graduate
School and Research Center in San Francisco.
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