
Hundredth monkey effect - ColinWright
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect
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borplk
I personally called this effect 'Bandwagon Threshold Theory' (as in, once a
critical mass jumps on the bandwagon, everyone else follows). Didn't know
about 'Hundredth monkey effect' until today.

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d--b
That's unrelated, read the wikipedia article more closely... It states that
after a certain number of monkeys learnt the skill, monkeys from _other_
islands immediately picked up. This means that the theorists thought that
cognitive knowledge could travel by other means that just teach/learn
relationship.

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derleth
> It states that after a certain number of monkeys learnt the skill, monkeys
> from _other_ islands immediately picked up.

It also states that this idea was _discredited_. _This part never happened._

------
derleth
> Rather than all monkeys mysteriously learning the skill it was noted that it
> was predominantly younger monkeys that learned the skill from the older
> monkeys through observational learning, which is widespread in the animal
> kingdom;[5] older monkeys who did not know how to wash tended not to learn.
> As the older monkeys died and younger monkeys were born the proportion of
> washers naturally increased. The time span between observations was in the
> order of years.

So, why is this supposed to be interesting?

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narcissus
I think the link is interesting exactly because of this discrediting.

I've heard of the effect before, thinking it was interesting but unlikely.
However, I never knew that it was 'offically' discredited.

