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The Myth of the Alpha Wolf
- deepzn 4y agoNeat related video if interested: Meet the White Wolf Pack of Ellesmere Island | White Falcon, White Wolf (Part 2) | BBC Earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTDlGSIYvZs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTDlGSIYvZs
- Maursault 4y agoHunters that are also dog lovers, which would be most if not all of them, that hunt wolf would, if it were allowed, licensed and in season, also hunt children.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- brindy 4y ago[flagged]
- philshem 4y agohttp://archive.today/FsUbx http://archive.today/FsUbx
- neogodless 4y ago> The researchers looked at how infection in a wolf affected its decision to disperse and its assumption of leadership roles. Toxoplasmosis proved to be a strong predictor for both actions. Toxoplasma gondii never ceases to amaze and scare me. I'm one of the many humans with an identified infection of it (over 25 years ago.) Also super interesting part of this article: > “We found that even more important than pack size was whether a pack had an old individual, male or female,” she said. At six years old, a Yellowstone wolf is considered an elder—only about one in five lives to that age. “If they have one or two older individuals, they are more likely to win—which was not what we’d expected to find.”
- colechristensen 4y agoI’m interested in some recent research that shows a blood pressure drug, guanabenz, which helps clear latent taxo infections.
- saghm 4y ago> “If they have one or two older individuals, they are more likely to win—which was not what we’d expected to find.” This doesn't sound that crazy; maybe the ones able to live that are the ones in packs that are strong enough to win all the time.
- thechao 4y agoCohen the Barbarian style, I guess? An old barbarian is a deadly barbarian!
- naikrovek 4y ago> Cohen the Barbarian this example of autocorrect made me laugh out loud for the first time in days. please do not correct it.
- libraryatnight 4y agohttps://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Cohen https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Cohen If you want more laughs, check out the books ;)
- hardlianotion 4y agoI think it was intended?
- LBJsPNS 4y ago"a man who does for a living what Cohen does and nevertheless survives to such an age must be very good at it indeed." Beware of the old. We've survived. There is a reason the phrase is "Age and treachery will always defeat youth and skill."
- sillysaurusx 4y agoWolves are wonderful animals. I think they got a bad reputation because farmers really don’t like it when they kill off their livestock. But there are a bunch of tiktok channels that show that wolves are basically large dogs, and that you really don’t need to fear them when they’re cared for. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRvP7g42/ https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRvP7g42/ https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRvPKqCk/ https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRvPKqCk/
- sdwr 4y agoThe wolf in that first video didn't sound happy to be there...
- sillysaurusx 4y agoIt’s why I hope they’ll be accepted back into society someday. The risks seem minimal with proper care, and right now their options are captivity or wilderness. But they’re where dogs came from; a few generations of selective breeding to reduce adrenaline response would do the trick. But the growls are kind of cute, and probably sound a lot more ominous than they are. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRv5LQGC/ https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRv5LQGC/
- johndhi 4y agoWhat? Wolves have massively more powerful bites than dogs, right?
- sillysaurusx 4y agoHumans have one of the most deadly bites too. Just because something is dangerous, it’s tempting to shun it. But the danger is relative to the frequency of problems. (If this is a “citation needed” situation: https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-human-bites/basics/art-20056633 https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-human-bites/b...)
- pxc 4y agoProbably more worrisome to me is taking for granted the way we've bred dogs to be gentle, calm, good-natured, etc. Most people don't do much to train their pet dogs or even learn to communicate with them. We more or less get away with that, societally, because dogs are insanely good-natured. Dogs give us so much 'for free'. I think without that, like when people just keep wolves as pets, things look a LOT dicier.
- LudwigNagasena 4y agoThere is a myth of the myth of the alpha wolf. Onсe in several years a media outlet deсides to tell people about "the myth of the alpha wolf" that people supposedly believe in. And it never makes sense beсause few to no people believe in or care about "alpha wolves". A cursory search on Google and Reddit reveals that most people who talk about alpha wolves either talk about a metalcore band or present a yet another article that "dispels" the "myth" of the alpha wolf. Sometimes an article proclaims to speak about "the myth of the alpha male", but it always turns out to be a bait-and-switch for an article that talks about "the myth of the alpha wolf".
- vlovich123 4y agoThe terminology morphed to p people (alpha males) despite absolutely no indication that it applies to wolves or humans (except prisons). That’s the myth.
- LudwigNagasena 4y agoPresumably, scientists (David Mech in case of wolves and Frans de Waal in case of humans) aren't dumb or mischievous, so they wouldn't make up something there was no indication of. There probably was an indication that they based their opinions on. Maybe there is a myth of "alpha males", but the article doesn't expose it, it doesn't even talk about it beyond a single sentence.
- Blackthorn 4y ago> And it never makes sense beсause few to no people believe in or care about "alpha wolves". The last fifty or so years of western literature beg to differ.
- LudwigNagasena 4y agoWhat literature do you refer to?
- Blackthorn 4y ago
- privong 4y agoThis was a nice, deeper dive into this topic. I'd recently come across the idea the the pack structure with an "alpha" wolf wasn't scientifically accurate while reading "Inside of a Dog"[0]. The book obviously focuses more on things from the dog side, contrasting them with wolves, but did include a brief discussion on the common incorrect thinking of wolf families as being "alpha-dominated packs". It did mention the Mech and Schenkel work, including nothing that Mech was up front and outspoken about the fact that his original published findings on the topic was found to be incorrect. [0] https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Inside-of-a-Dog/Alexandra-Horowitz/9781416583431 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Inside-of-a-Dog/Alexa...
- torstenvl 4y agoI keep seeing this and similar claims come up, but they are never backed up by any substance — including in this article. It's always the same formula, too. Step 1: Claim that the idea of an "alpha wolf" is a "myth." Step 2: Explain that packs are usually made up of families. Step 3:.... Nothing. Does anyone have any idea what they mean when they say it's a myth? What is the myth? In what way is the idea incorrect?
- throwawaaarrgh 4y agoWho created the idea of an alpha? A human. It's a human word for a concept a human thought up. There's nothing biological or sociological to suggest it's even a real trope in animals. Even in mountain gorilla troops and other primates where there appears to be a single large adult male leading the group, it turns out from study that it's more of a profunctory role and the whole group is more involved with decisions. The idea of an alpha leader really comes more from human societies, as there's actual sociological evidence there, whereas with animals it usually comes down to a more mixed hierarchy.
- slibhb 4y agoI don't think this is true. Humans, like other mammals, have fairly clear hierarchies. What's interesting (and what the article argues) is that these hierarchies aren't based on brute strength or ability to win a fight or aggressiveness (though these can be factors). But this doesn't change the fact that animals have clear hierarchies.
- setr 4y agoI don’t think anyone uses alpha/beta terminology to simply mean “the hierarchy”, and I find it disingenuous that you keep arguing as such. The common interpretation is that “an alpha” is someone/thing that can take over a group by being the strongest (where strength in wolves is domination through physical strength, and humans in social domination). This is the myth. Hierarchies exist, but not for this reason.
- t344344 4y ago> Mech had relied on research done on captive wolves. But it describes wolves in captivity pretty well! Most references about "alpha" I seen were from a dog behavior. Pack of dogs has a hierarchy and follows orders. Pick-up originated from dog training. Maybe that is how this term got applied to people.
- avereveard 4y ago> When Mech published his book, even after more than a decade of field research, he had only once come within fifteen feet of a free-range wolf > while he was on Ellesmere that “it dawned on me the need to tell the world about this alpha stuff. Because it’s nonsense. so basically both the original and the myth are one anectdote each? he even say: > It makes no sense up here. how this special community of wolves generalize to other? article doesn't care enough to say. does the researcher say at some point? is there anyone doing actual research with data that can be repeated, instead of deriving principles from natural observations? I thought we were past Aristoteles&co.
- t-3 4y ago> how this special community of wolves generalize to other? article doesn't care enough to say. Parents and children. Wolf packs are just a family of related animals.
- sharkjacobs 4y ago> is there anyone doing actual research with data that can be repeated, instead of deriving principles from natural observations? I can’t imagine a way to do a controlled reproducible experiment looking at the social behaviour of wild animals. It’s not like any of this could be observed in a lab environment. There are a lot of subjects that can only be studied through natural observation.
- avereveard 4y agonatural observations can range from personal diaries to rigorous data collection at scale with cross validation and identification of confounding factors to the point where theories can be tested against the data from the field the wording of the article and your reply hints at this research being of the first type.
- coldtea 4y ago>I can’t imagine a way to do a controlled reproducible experiment The question isn't "what would happen if", but "what's the behavior as exhibited", so you don't need to do a "controlled experiment". You just need to observe and accurately describe the kind of pack dynamics and behavior seen. Observation is enough for this, and there are tons of studies done exactly that way on animals, some of them lasting decades, from gorillas to meerkats and from dolphins to mice...
- guilhas 4y agoLions do have a alpha and primates right? It might be just extrapolation But I think there should be enough public wildlife wolf documentaries and videos to be presented as data on how wolves live or others
- advisedwang 4y agoDocumentaries are great way to communicate to the public, but they aren't data. If you just looked at a random 10hr of raw footage of wolves, you wouldn't be able to conclude anything. Most of it would be uneventful, only experts would even be able to recognize which wolf is which ,and it wouldn't be representative anyway (because it's much easier to capture wolves when they're doing certain behaviours, and because 10hrs isn't a large enough sample for rare but critical behavours). Documentaries must carefully select what shots to show, and provide voice-over explaining what is going on. This means they are really just using footage to explain the documentary creator's understanding, not proving or discovering anything.
- 462436347 4y ago>“It turned out all that stuff was mostly wrong,” Mech said. In 2022, his publisher agreed to stop printing the book. Yet, although field biologists no longer use the terms “alpha” and “beta,” they have proved too useful for humans to drop—now we use them in relation to our own groupings and conflicts. Ok, forget about wolves. What about non-human great apes, like chimpanzees or mountain gorillas, much closer to us genetically than canids? Are their societies not hierarchical, polygynous, and alpha-led?
- PKop 4y ago[flagged]
- jccalhoun 4y agoI'd love to read your sources for this information if you would like to share them.
- LBJsPNS 4y agocrickets
- amanaplanacanal 4y agoI suspect that this was all driven by the invention of agriculture. Since in the last 100 years we are starting to move away from being a mostly agricultural society, I’m guessing those relationships will change. Only time will tell.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- greazy 4y agoOur two closest relatives are the chimpanzee and Bonobo. The Bonobo is far more interesting. They have a dynamic society, where sometimes it's matriarchal or more balanced. The wiki article is a fascinating read: > Although a male bonobo is dominant to a female in a dyadic interaction,[46] depending on the community, socially-bonded females may be co-dominant with males[47] or dominant over them, even to the extent that females can coerce reluctant males into mating with them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo Personally I think humans are far closer to Bonobos than chimps in our societal structure. We should allow more dynamic structures to arise, and have more sex along the way.
- awinter-py 4y agoblair braverman (sled dog champion) says something similar about aggression and leadership in sled packs -- the actual leadership skill is 1) when you put a dog at the front, do they run or do they get confused. 2) when the terrain is difficult, are they motivated to find a path
- parentheses 4y agoThe article states that dominance as indicated by “alpha” status is a bad term. However after reading it feels even more appropriate. The term is often not used in a family context but among professional or social circles. When family bonds don’t exist, this terminology seems apropos. I do appreciate that the article reminds us that the wolf is most often not a vicious animal. Having known people who’ve kept wolves, they’re amazing and family oriented animals with capacity for care and compassion. Often even more than dogs since they’re smarter and haven’t had the wild bred out. The fact that such an animal would become comfortable and exchange love with a human while ignoring their desire to be free is amazing! Wolves are greatly misunderstood and demonized in mass media - most recently “the Grey” with Liam Neeson.