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In 1981, Ken Keyes Jr. published a book called The Hundredth
Monkey, which encouraged people to add their individual energies together for
the common good—reaching a “critical mass.” The term came
from the experiments of a group of anthropologists working in the remote islands
scattered off the southern tip of Japan in 1952. These scientists were studying
knowledge transmission among isolated populations of certain Japanese monkeys.
In one experiment, the scientists dumped potatoes on the
sand where the monkeys would find them. The monkeys wanted to eat them, but
were put off by the sand. They refused to eat “dirty food.” After
several weeks, the researchers observed a mature female washing her potatoes
in a nearby stream. One by one, the other monkeys began to adopt the strategy.
About the time that one hundred monkeys learned to wash the potatoes, suddenly
all of the tens of thousands monkeys all over the island knew how to wash the
potatoes. A critical mass had been reached.
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