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I 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. S

I 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 ago
Who 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 ago
  I 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 ago
    I 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.
    - slibhb 4y ago
      The comment I responded to explicitly questions hierarchies in nature. It suggests that leadership is "perfunctory" and that "with animals it usually comes down to a more mixed hierachy".
tspike 4y ago
I think TFA addresses this pretty clearly. The idea of the alpha wolf is that within a pack, through a series of fights, the most aggressive and assertive animal rises to a leadership position. In the wild, what's actually observed is that the leadership positions are the parents, with infighting an extremely rare phenomenon.
- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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nyrikki 4y ago
Why not go to the original myths author's explanation directly. https://davemech.org/wolf-news-and-information/ https://davemech.org/wolf-news-and-information/ Wolf.org also has resources related to the topic and they no longer use the term.
- torstenvl 4y ago
  There is no explanation there. There is no articulated reason why "dominant breeder" (the new preferred term) is more accurate. The term "alpha" literally just means "first," as it has meant for millennia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals If wolves truly have no dominance hierarchy at all, then you can claim that the idea of there being an "alpha" or "first" is a myth. In any situation beyond that, this is just pseudoscientific pandering nonsense trolling for clicks.
  - ononon 4y ago
    yea it’s basically bc masculinity (courage, independent thinking) = bad to people in power so they publish this kind of crap all day every day
    - taurawah 4y ago
      weird thing to suggest that courage and independent thinking are masculine traits
      - nyrikki 4y ago
        “The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.” - Eric Hoffer The True Believer
      - gordian-mind 4y ago
        Is it wrong or is it true? What's weird is your choice of words.
telchior 4y ago
I'm really not being facetious here -- you may be helped along by one of the definitions of "myth". > A popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence The institution here is wolf packs; the popular belief or story is, well, exactly that. A story, which sprung out of a research study that the actual researcher has admitted was fallacious. The popular belief is also fairly odd; it has nothing to do with wolves, but rather, with the need for humans (specifically men) to sort themselves into imaginary groups. Nobody besides scientists and naturalists ever really cared about wolf packs.
jrochkind1 4y ago
Well, one of the first quotes in the article: > As Kira Cassidy, an associate research scientist with a National Park Service research program in Yellowstone, explained, “The wolves generally in those dominant positions are not there because they fought for it. It’s not some battle to get to the top position. They’re just the oldest, or the parents. Or, in the case of same-sex siblings, it’s a matter of personality.” Suggests the myth is that there's a top wolf in a dominant position in a group because they fought to get there, or were most aggressive. But that that's incorrect because the wolves in the dominant positions are usually just the oldest wolf around, or the parents of the other wolves. She goes on to say there is actually very little fighting within a pack. Is that the sort of thing you were asking about?
- torstenvl 4y ago
  That gets at what another poster suggested, albeit very obliquely. Thank you! However, I ultimately don't find that responsive. There's still a pack leader. Whatever term is used for it is a question of human linguistics, not of wolf behavior. I fail to see how the idea of there being an alpha wolf/pack leader/whatever is a myth. In particular, claiming that alpha wolf is a myth is quite a different thing from claiming that alpha male is a myth. Since dominance relationships in a wolf pack are hardly affected by sex, the latter would be a defensible claim. The former is emphatically not. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5126626/#!po=0.454545 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5126626/#!po=0....
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    The article says it's a myth that the leader gets there by competing with other wolves, not that it's a myth there is a leader, true. I think it's suggesting that many people have ideas about what an "alpha wolf" is that are mistaken. If someone doesn't have those ideas and "alpha wolf" doens't mean those things to them, then fine. The article doesn't get much into what the role of this dominant wolf is like, I suspect there are other popular but mistaken ideas there too as well. Usually when I hear people talking about "alpha wolf" or similar, the idea is that the individual gets to this position by competing with other individuals, and then winning by using strength or aggression. It's that part the article is suggesting is a myth. As you say, words are human inventions and people use them in different ways. If that's not the way you are using "alpha wolf", then the article may not address how you are using it.
DrewADesign 4y ago
You can't prove a negative. The burden of proof is on whoever makes the claim— that wolf packs are led by alpha male wolves– not on everybody else to prove they aren't. One experiment in very unnatural conditions showed these results. They were not observed in subsequent studies that were better designed. Why would someone conduct an expensive study specifically to search for phenomena observed once but never again? Because of people so insecure they need to justify their antisocial, domineering behavior through unrelated research?
- pxc 4y ago
  > You can't prove a negative. Idk why this saying persists. Many, many negatives are easy to prove. For instance, it is very provable that an adult elephant is not sleeping in your bed right now.
  - DrewADesign 4y ago
    > Idk why this saying persists. Many, many negatives are easy to prove. For instance, it is very provable that an adult elephant is not sleeping in your bed right now. Sure in situations where you can see 100% of my beds, but the only meaningful context for that phrase is when you're trying to generalize information to learn about more than one thing in the world. You know... What studies do. The whole point of the scientific method. So what burden of proof would you recommend beyond subsequent observational studies in wolf behavior not showing this phenomena? Or were you just using a deliberately obtuse interpretation of that phrase for pure pedantry?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - marketerinland 4y ago
    It’s invisible.
  - amalcon 4y ago
    Yeah, for some reason people say "you can't prove a negative" but mean "you can't prove a universal". Any positive assertion can be trivially restated as a negative assertion, so it would be impossible to prove anything if it were impossible to probe a negative. Any negative assertion can likewise be trivially restated as a positive assertion. Hell, "you can't prove a negative" is itself a negative -- so it's tautologically impossible to prove that you can't prove a negative (either because it's false or because it's true).
LudwigNagasena 4y ago
I was a bit confused too! But then I noticed the subtitle of the article: "The model of aggression and dominance has infected human society. But new research shows how wrong we got it." After reading it I have figured out the answers to your questions. > Does anyone have any idea what they mean when they say it's a myth? They mean that men shouldn't strive to be assertive and dominant. > What is the myth? In what way is the idea incorrect? The myth is that you can read news without getting constantly bombarded by inane agendaposting.
AlbertCory 4y ago
Everyone saying it's completely a myth is ignoring one question: Suppose there's a leader who's the oldest, their spouse is gone, and he/she has 6 littermates who "follow" him/her. Then the leader dies. Which of the littermates becomes the new leader? Maybe the pack disperses? Otherwise there's a fight. Please explain how that's incorrect.
- jccalhoun 4y ago
  In what animals does this actually happen? Can you give actual examples, please?
mudita 4y ago
A very imperfect analogy: Imagine alien scientists had studied humans, but only in prison, and then created a model of social behaviour around their observations of prison gangs with a lot of fights to establish hierarchies and who has preferential access to resources. Only later they study humans outside prison and discover that actually humans - in this hypothetical scenario - are most often organised in farm households/families with a husband and wife leading the household, their children and in richer/bigger households maybe a few farmhands, maids and grandparents around. They discover that the social patterns in extended families are very different from the patterns in prison gangs, children usually don’t fight their parents for the leadership role, sometimes the head of the household gets the nicest piece of meat, but sometimes in times when food is rare the youngest children are also fed first…. So the models and terminology these alien scientists developed to describe human social behaviour and roles are only fitting for a very specific artificial scenario - prisons - and they try to discourage the old terminology like “gang leader” and start to use new terminology like “head of household” in their work.
marssaxman 4y ago
> Does anyone have any idea what they mean when they say it's a myth? It's all right there in the article. The "alpha wolf" idea was promoted back in 1970 by a researcher named David Mech in his book "The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species". Mech continued studying wolves, realized that his earlier theory was mistaken, and actually asked his publisher to stop printing his own book. It is Mech himself who "claims" that his own "idea of an alpha wolf" is a myth, because of his continued research into wolves in the wild, which demonstrated that "packs are usually made up of families", and the alpha/beta structure found in groups of wolves in captivity is simply a recreation of the family. There is no Step 3 because it would be very strange to say, "this guy who has spent his whole life studying wolves understood them much better 50 years ago than he does now, so we ought to keep using his old, obsolete theory instead of his newer, better-informed one".

throwawaaarrgh 4y ago

Who 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 ago
I 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 ago
  I 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.
  - slibhb 4y ago
    The comment I responded to explicitly questions hierarchies in nature. It suggests that leadership is "perfunctory" and that "with animals it usually comes down to a more mixed hierachy".

tspike 4y ago

I think TFA addresses this pretty clearly. The idea of the alpha wolf is that within a pack, through a series of fights, the most aggressive and assertive animal rises to a leadership position. In the wild, what's actually observed is that the leadership positions are the parents, with infighting an extremely rare phenomenon.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

nyrikki 4y ago

Why not go to the original myths author's explanation directly. https://davemech.org/wolf-news-and-information/ https://davemech.org/wolf-news-and-information/ Wolf.org also has resources related to the topic and they no longer use the term.

torstenvl 4y ago
There is no explanation there. There is no articulated reason why "dominant breeder" (the new preferred term) is more accurate. The term "alpha" literally just means "first," as it has meant for millennia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals If wolves truly have no dominance hierarchy at all, then you can claim that the idea of there being an "alpha" or "first" is a myth. In any situation beyond that, this is just pseudoscientific pandering nonsense trolling for clicks.
- ononon 4y ago
  yea it’s basically bc masculinity (courage, independent thinking) = bad to people in power so they publish this kind of crap all day every day
  - taurawah 4y ago
    weird thing to suggest that courage and independent thinking are masculine traits
    - nyrikki 4y ago
      “The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.” - Eric Hoffer The True Believer
    - gordian-mind 4y ago
      Is it wrong or is it true? What's weird is your choice of words.

telchior 4y ago

I'm really not being facetious here -- you may be helped along by one of the definitions of "myth". > A popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence The institution here is wolf packs; the popular belief or story is, well, exactly that. A story, which sprung out of a research study that the actual researcher has admitted was fallacious. The popular belief is also fairly odd; it has nothing to do with wolves, but rather, with the need for humans (specifically men) to sort themselves into imaginary groups. Nobody besides scientists and naturalists ever really cared about wolf packs.

jrochkind1 4y ago

Well, one of the first quotes in the article: > As Kira Cassidy, an associate research scientist with a National Park Service research program in Yellowstone, explained, “The wolves generally in those dominant positions are not there because they fought for it. It’s not some battle to get to the top position. They’re just the oldest, or the parents. Or, in the case of same-sex siblings, it’s a matter of personality.” Suggests the myth is that there's a top wolf in a dominant position in a group because they fought to get there, or were most aggressive. But that that's incorrect because the wolves in the dominant positions are usually just the oldest wolf around, or the parents of the other wolves. She goes on to say there is actually very little fighting within a pack. Is that the sort of thing you were asking about?

torstenvl 4y ago
That gets at what another poster suggested, albeit very obliquely. Thank you! However, I ultimately don't find that responsive. There's still a pack leader. Whatever term is used for it is a question of human linguistics, not of wolf behavior. I fail to see how the idea of there being an alpha wolf/pack leader/whatever is a myth. In particular, claiming that alpha wolf is a myth is quite a different thing from claiming that alpha male is a myth. Since dominance relationships in a wolf pack are hardly affected by sex, the latter would be a defensible claim. The former is emphatically not. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5126626/#!po=0.454545 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5126626/#!po=0....
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  The article says it's a myth that the leader gets there by competing with other wolves, not that it's a myth there is a leader, true. I think it's suggesting that many people have ideas about what an "alpha wolf" is that are mistaken. If someone doesn't have those ideas and "alpha wolf" doens't mean those things to them, then fine. The article doesn't get much into what the role of this dominant wolf is like, I suspect there are other popular but mistaken ideas there too as well. Usually when I hear people talking about "alpha wolf" or similar, the idea is that the individual gets to this position by competing with other individuals, and then winning by using strength or aggression. It's that part the article is suggesting is a myth. As you say, words are human inventions and people use them in different ways. If that's not the way you are using "alpha wolf", then the article may not address how you are using it.

DrewADesign 4y ago

You can't prove a negative. The burden of proof is on whoever makes the claim— that wolf packs are led by alpha male wolves– not on everybody else to prove they aren't. One experiment in very unnatural conditions showed these results. They were not observed in subsequent studies that were better designed. Why would someone conduct an expensive study specifically to search for phenomena observed once but never again? Because of people so insecure they need to justify their antisocial, domineering behavior through unrelated research?

pxc 4y ago
> You can't prove a negative. Idk why this saying persists. Many, many negatives are easy to prove. For instance, it is very provable that an adult elephant is not sleeping in your bed right now.
- DrewADesign 4y ago
  > Idk why this saying persists. Many, many negatives are easy to prove. For instance, it is very provable that an adult elephant is not sleeping in your bed right now. Sure in situations where you can see 100% of my beds, but the only meaningful context for that phrase is when you're trying to generalize information to learn about more than one thing in the world. You know... What studies do. The whole point of the scientific method. So what burden of proof would you recommend beyond subsequent observational studies in wolf behavior not showing this phenomena? Or were you just using a deliberately obtuse interpretation of that phrase for pure pedantry?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- marketerinland 4y ago
  It’s invisible.
- amalcon 4y ago
  Yeah, for some reason people say "you can't prove a negative" but mean "you can't prove a universal". Any positive assertion can be trivially restated as a negative assertion, so it would be impossible to prove anything if it were impossible to probe a negative. Any negative assertion can likewise be trivially restated as a positive assertion. Hell, "you can't prove a negative" is itself a negative -- so it's tautologically impossible to prove that you can't prove a negative (either because it's false or because it's true).

LudwigNagasena 4y ago

I was a bit confused too! But then I noticed the subtitle of the article: "The model of aggression and dominance has infected human society. But new research shows how wrong we got it." After reading it I have figured out the answers to your questions. > Does anyone have any idea what they mean when they say it's a myth? They mean that men shouldn't strive to be assertive and dominant. > What is the myth? In what way is the idea incorrect? The myth is that you can read news without getting constantly bombarded by inane agendaposting.

AlbertCory 4y ago

Everyone saying it's completely a myth is ignoring one question: Suppose there's a leader who's the oldest, their spouse is gone, and he/she has 6 littermates who "follow" him/her. Then the leader dies. Which of the littermates becomes the new leader? Maybe the pack disperses? Otherwise there's a fight. Please explain how that's incorrect.

jccalhoun 4y ago
In what animals does this actually happen? Can you give actual examples, please?

mudita 4y ago

A very imperfect analogy: Imagine alien scientists had studied humans, but only in prison, and then created a model of social behaviour around their observations of prison gangs with a lot of fights to establish hierarchies and who has preferential access to resources. Only later they study humans outside prison and discover that actually humans - in this hypothetical scenario - are most often organised in farm households/families with a husband and wife leading the household, their children and in richer/bigger households maybe a few farmhands, maids and grandparents around. They discover that the social patterns in extended families are very different from the patterns in prison gangs, children usually don’t fight their parents for the leadership role, sometimes the head of the household gets the nicest piece of meat, but sometimes in times when food is rare the youngest children are also fed first…. So the models and terminology these alien scientists developed to describe human social behaviour and roles are only fitting for a very specific artificial scenario - prisons - and they try to discourage the old terminology like “gang leader” and start to use new terminology like “head of household” in their work.

marssaxman 4y ago

> Does anyone have any idea what they mean when they say it's a myth? It's all right there in the article. The "alpha wolf" idea was promoted back in 1970 by a researcher named David Mech in his book "The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species". Mech continued studying wolves, realized that his earlier theory was mistaken, and actually asked his publisher to stop printing his own book. It is Mech himself who "claims" that his own "idea of an alpha wolf" is a myth, because of his continued research into wolves in the wild, which demonstrated that "packs are usually made up of families", and the alpha/beta structure found in groups of wolves in captivity is simply a recreation of the family. There is no Step 3 because it would be very strange to say, "this guy who has spent his whole life studying wolves understood them much better 50 years ago than he does now, so we ought to keep using his old, obsolete theory instead of his newer, better-informed one".