DanielLC: Thank you for your follow-up! I am not invested in the monkey trap being true or false, but I'd rather know if it was a folk tale or a fact before I speak of it in the future.
The video you found looks to me like a video of the folk tale, not evidence that monkeys have this behavior. I only speak English and American Sign Language, and so I don't know how much the narration adds or takes away from the credibility of the video. The video appears scripted and the critical event of a monkey that won't let go is shown as an animation, not as video. The video description says "The monkey trap is a metaphor for addictive emotional attachment among other things." The links in the video go to a motivational speaker and "COMING SOON - GLOBAL SOLALIGN COMMUNITY." There are plenty of motivational speakers talking about the monkey trap. I have yet to find confirmation of the monkey trap from a scientist who has a background in non-human primate behavior.
Evidence the monkey trap is fact would (I suggest) include something that: has been peer reviewed; names what kind of monkey; what group of men use this technique to capture a monkey; whether anyone outside that group of men observed the monkey trap in action and under what circumstances; why a monkey trap is better than a net / cage / gun; whether this monkey behavior has been observed in labs or zoos; etc.
If I trap 99 monkeys in a monkey trap, will the 100th figure it out? It seems to me the monkey trap is as much of a folk tale as the hundredth monkey. If only I had an infinite amount of monkeys to do random research on the issue...
Update: The story of The Boy and the Filberts goes back to 108 AD and perhaps earlier.
Today's post, Ethical Inhibitions was originally published on 19 October 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
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