Elaine Myers, an American writer, revisited the research Dr Lyall Watson had quoted, and which Ken Keyes Jr had used for his book. Based on the original research, there was no critical mass, at which point the idea of washing the sweet potatoes transmitted throughout the entire troop. Nor was there any evidence of a physical barrier jump to the other islands. Individuals with the “new” behavior were observed on other islands but not to the extent as implied.
According to her article originally published in 1985, Hundredth Monkey Revisited, she admitted to be disappointed but saw these observations as an example of “the propagation of a paradigm shift”. This theory posits that every generation has its own ideas and ways of doing things and the paradigm does not shift until the older generation withdraws from power, at which time the “new” ideas then become universal.
It is also an example of the domino effect to cultural change. The Koshima monkeys started with washing sweet potatoes, but then began washing wheat and other behaviors that showed an understanding of how to better utilize the environment and its resources. Bathing. Swimming. Consuming sea plants and animals.
That was 1985 but we know now with quantum physics that everything is interconnected. In his book A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance, biologist and author Rupert Sheldrake cites studies of rats around the world learning to complete a new maze much faster once one group has already done it. Other studies exist, showing this phenomenon of morphogenic fields.
It looks like even if the original Hundredth Monkey research may have been distorted in its telling and retelling, the idea that we are all interconnected and information can transmit through morphogenic fields cannot be dismissed.
The whole point of using the Hundredth Monkey as a symbol of change is that each individual counts. We share a bond and we share a collective consciousness, even if this awareness is not held by the majority. Yet.
But if more and more of us held this truth, together we can alter the current holographic model of our reality.