9 ms·

How Chris McCandless Died: An Update

311 points by bkudria 12y ago

notacoward 12y ago
This is pretty awesome. Clausen seemed a bit snotty about the original theory not being in a peer-reviewed journal. Now the followup is, and the underlying science also blows a hole in one of Clausen's own papers. He messed with the wrong guy. Citizen science FTW.
- jakevn 12y ago
  I don't think it's snotty to be skeptical of the results. After all, their original hypothesis turned out to be incorrect. ODAP was not present in the seeds. Because the author took Clausen's consideration seriously, they were able to uncover their mistake and correct it.
  - notacoward 12y ago
    It's not snotty to be skeptical, but it is snotty to be "skeptical" because the theory comes from an amateur, and to go on about "highly technical and complicated" etc. That's pure appeal to authority, the error of which is amply demonstrated by the fact that one of Clausen's own papers got through peer review with the exact same mistake. Hopefully he has learned to address the science, instead of the source or the publication process, next time.
    - jakevn 12y ago
      It would, however, be easy for a non-peer reviewed amateur to make a mistake. It's an appeal to authority, but in this case I don't believe it's a fallacy. Furthermore, since peer review is fallible, I don't believe Clausen's identical mistake making it through peer review proves the process any less important. Perhaps Clausen's criticisms were not well intended, but wouldn't any respectable scientist demand rigor before seriously considering such a hypothesis? After all, the burden of proof is not on Clausen.
      - notacoward 12y ago
        The mirror twins of ad hominem and ad verecundiam (appeal to authority) are always fallacies, regardless of person or circumstances. To say that certain people should get away with them is itself an appeal to authority. In logic, science, or debate, the identity of the person making or disputing a claim is irrelevant. If Clausen had a concern about the data, he should have said so. If he had a concern about the reasoning applied to that data, he should have said so. That would have been "demanding rigor" as you put it, but he did neither. Instead he addressed identity, and that's where he came off as snotty.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        jakevn 12y ago
        He did have a concern about the data. His concern that was it was not peer-reviewed. Had the data come from someone with a proven track record in the field, he may have found it worth his time to peer review it himself. Appeal to authority is not always a fallacy. It would have been fallacious if he was outright denying or accepting a hypothesis as being the logical conclusion based on one's standing. All that I read from it, however, was that he had a hard time believing it, and would not spend the time to look into the data personally, but that it should be reviewed. I don't think it's illogical to take more seriously the hypothesis of someone with a proven track record of good research.
        notacoward 12y ago
        If he couldn't spend the time to examine it, he should have just said that instead of taking the time to blather about journalistic vs. academic review processes. Clearly he did have the time; he just used it poorly.
        sanderjd 12y ago
        Your argument is interesting, but it seems to boil down to dismissing the entire system of peer reviewed journals. If they can't be appealed to, and everything needs to be independently researched based on personal expertise, then they have no purpose. Would you agree with that?
    - hessenwolf 12y ago
      I quite enjoyed how the author quoted, “I would be much more convinced if I was reading the report from a credible peer-reviewed professional.”, without criticising the quote themselves. The reader is left to decide on their own that the quote is douchey.
- defen 12y ago
  The meat of Clausen's paper isn't really wrong - he just drew the wrong conclusions by making an unwarranted inference. He showed that Hedysarum mackenziei / alpinum do not contain significant levels of alkaloids, and that they do not inhibit bacterial growth. He deduced that this "strongly suggested" they were not toxic. He was wrong because the plants contain a non-alkaloid compound that is toxic to mammals (and presumably not bacteria). So there is a lesson here about what kind of conclusions you can draw from scientific data.
- mcmancini 12y ago
  I don't think your read on Clausen is accurate. Krakauer's excerpt of Cole's article was poorly done. If you go to the source article, Clausen says, “First, it seems like a rather remarkably lucky shot in the dark for a person to suspect the presence of a specific toxin on so little evidence," he wrote. "Couple this with the observation that ODAP is only reported in certain plants of the genus lathyrus which is not the genus hedysarum and the conclusions are even more remarkable (though not impossible). I would be much more convinced if I was reading the report from a credible peer-reviewed professional journal such as the Journal of Natural Products or equivalent. I have often heard a key indicator of bad science that is highly suspect is having its results published in the popular media." ... "Again, I don't make any claims that the report is wrong since I have no data to analyze, but I am skeptical and will remain so until I see a better forum for the results to be published in." [1] which to me sounds reasonable and, as a professional scientist, sounds just like what I (and I expect, my colleagues) would say. The peer review process isn't perfect, but it is consistently superior to the crap that is scientific journalism appearing outside of peer reviewed journals. Here's why, and why I don't understand why you would hold Krakauer as an example of citizen science. Krakauer made (by his own admission) a "rash intuitive leap" [2] that an unidentified alkaloid contributed to McCandless' death, based on one of McCandless' journal entries and unpublished preliminary research by Clausen. As an aside, if one wants to piss off a scientist, that's a good way to go about it. When Clausen completes his research and finds the mystery alkaloid theory doesn't work, Krakauer intuits that a mystery toxic mold must have been involved, a theory he announces on Oprah and NPR. This second theory doesn't hold up (as was demonstrated by Clausen, again). Despite your conjecture, it sounds like Clausen actually investigated Krakauer's theories, up to a point. Krakauer then latches on to ODAP, which was close but still not there. His fourth theory may be correct, but Krakauer disseminated a lot of incorrect information along the way. I wonder, did he publish retractions as a professional scientist would? I'm not sure why you would hold Krakauer's methodology as "citizen science FTW", but I'm interested to hear. [1]: http://www.adn.com/article/20130917/krakauers-wild-theory-mccandless-gives-short-shrift-science http://www.adn.com/article/20130917/krakauers-wild-theory-mc... [2]: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-chris-mccandless-died http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-chris-mccandl...
qsymmachus 12y ago
Do the exact mechanics of Chris McCandless's death really matter? He didn't take the wilderness seriously and that's what got him killed. We shouldn't romanticize his stupidity.
- daxfohl 12y ago
  Well for those that do take the wilderness seriously, as something of a tautology, yes it matters.
- herbig 12y ago
  The last sentence of the article: "And because many people—both admirers of McCandless and his detractors—regard “Into the Wild” as a cautionary tale, it’s important to know as much as possible about how McCandless actually may have died."
  - code_duck 12y ago
    Does it really matter whether he was poisoned by one chemical or another, or simply starved to death? Either way, the cautionary tale of against deciding to go live in the woods without adequate preparation stands.
    - auxym 12y ago
      FTA: "The death of Chris McCandless should serve as a caveat to other foragers: Even when some parts of a plant are known to be edible, other parts of the same species may contain dangerous concentrations of toxic compounds. Additionally, there may be seasonal, as well as ecotypic, variations in the concentrations of L-canavanine between various communities of H. alpinum."
      - code_duck 12y ago
        Thanks, I read the article too. That different parts of a plant may differ in toxicity is surprising at all given that some of the most common edible food such as tomatoes and potatoes exhibit similar characteristics.
scott_s 12y ago
Discussion on the original: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6376498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6376498
antirez 12y ago
"The death of Chris McCandless should serve as a caveat to other foragers: Even when some parts of a plant are known to be edible, other parts of the same species may contain dangerous concentrations of toxic compounds." Definitely, the most obvious example is potatoes. The fruit and other parts contain solanine. In general there is a great amount of danger around us, within 100 square meters of my home I can recognize at least 5/6 toxic species, so when one learns to eat a plant, it is important to also learn how all the similar plans that are dangerous look like, and what part of the plans are edible and what not.
michael_h 12y ago
If you found 'Into The Wild' interesting, make sure to checkout 'Into Thin Air' from the same author. It's about a summit attempt of Everest that went awry and is awesome. Edit: come to think of it, I've read pretty much everything that Jon Krakauer has written. The guy's grocery lists are probably well thought out and have a compelling narrative.
- rondon2 12y ago
  I read everything he writes. The only time I have had a problem with anything he said was in "Under the Banner of Heaven" he partially blamed the Mormon church for the kidnap and rape of Elizabeth Smart. I suspect that the guy that kidnapped her would have been a piece of shit no matter what religion he was born into.
  - soperj 12y ago
    are people really born pieces of shit though? or are they molded into one?
  - pstuart 12y ago
    I'm guessing you must be Mormon to take offense. For all the glory of God that religion may bring, there's a lot of less "praiseworthy" elements. It's important to acknowledge all of it.
    - briandear 12y ago
      Actually, if he were Mormon, "shit" would be the last word he'd write.
  - wavefunction 12y ago
    I think his point was more about the indoctrination and conditioning of young women in the LDS system.
- ghaff 12y ago
  Pretty much. I actually found "Into the Wild" to be among his least interesting--probably because I couldn't really identify with McCandless."Into Thin Air" is the book that put him on the mainstream map and it's awesome. "Under the Banner of Heaven" is particularly noteworthy as well--although I found the historical parts the more interesting. (The modern story was mostly just depressing.)
woodchuck64 12y ago
What's fascinating is inferring the other motives and agendas swirling around the issue that are then cut through by hard science (in Krakauer's favor): From http://www.alaskacommons.com/2013/09/22/what-everyone-is-getting-wrong-about-chris-mccandless/ http://www.alaskacommons.com/2013/09/22/what-everyone-is-get...: "The forensic question “Were the seeds poisonous?” is of interest only because it sheds light on broader, more contentious question, expressed bluntly as “How stupid was Chris McCandless?” If, like Alaska Dispatch reporters Dermot Cole and Craig Medred (and again), you think McCandless was a clueless, crazy knucklehead, arrogant in his disdain for wild nature and its perils, then you want to think the seeds weren’t poisonous; the kid just died of starvation because he was too stupid/crazy/arrogant to make it to safety." "But if, like Jon Krakauer (and, in the interest of full disclosure, like me), you have some level of empathy with or sympathy for McCandless, you want to think the seeds were poisonous—he was doing his best to survive a difficult enterprise and was done in because he consumed something that was not known to be poisonous until two decades after his death."
- Isamu 12y ago
  I have empathy for McCandless, he didn't deserve to die and I wish he hadn't. But clearly he didn't know what he was getting into, didn't prepare and unwittingly contributed to his own death. It's not a judgment about his character. He wasn't a knucklehead, he was probably fairly intelligent. He was probably just unaware, like most people, how hard it is to subsist in nature alone, and how harsh the beautiful landscape can be. In the right context, ignorance is a kind of superpower. When you survive and it all works out, you are a genius. Many successful people start their story with: "If I had known what I was getting into, I would never have started..." So yeah, I kind of admire this ignorance ... in other people. I am WAY too self-conscious and introspective to embark on some enterprise where I know that I know nothing. Oh, and the poisonous seed thing - he was just eating a plant whose edibility was not established. I dunno, maybe people think nature is benevolent, and sure I can think of a bunch of edible plants in the woods near my house ... but I can think of plenty that are poisonous, or mildly toxic, or carcinogenic, or indigestible, or otherwise liable to disagree with you. He didn't know if he should or shouldn't eat it. He was rolling the dice. If you roll the dice and you live, you're a genius and in a few years you get to write your memoirs as the next Thoreau.
aaron695 12y ago
> And because many people—both admirers of McCandless and his detractors—regard “Into the Wild” as a cautionary tale, it’s important to know as much as possible about how McCandless actually may have died." Cautionary tales are just that, tales. It's entertainment pure and simple. Cautionary tales have never taught, if anything they do the opposite and create wrong thought patterns. We don't need to know to not go off to live in the crazy wilderness unprepared. Eat less cheese burgers is a boring story(Morgan Spurlock aside) but a better lesson. The fact people seem to have the need to self justify that they are entertained about stories of someone else's downfall is an interesting condition.
- welly 12y ago
  Actually, the least interesting part of the story for me was that he died from poisoning. I was entertained by the rest of the story, that he decided to quit everything and leave everything behind, to start a new life of some description. I wouldn't describe that as a story of someone's downfall. I'm not sure I would go as far as to say the entire film was about someone's downfall and I find it rather strange that you do too. It was a story of being free.
  - aaron695 12y ago
    I personally think the ending was an important contrast to the beginning from a traditional story perspective. Has he succeeded would it have been a movie.... I do agree the beginning was a great story about being free and what I enjoyed most.
- danneu 12y ago
  Just because we all die at the end doesn't make the tales of our lives about downfall.
  - aaron695 12y ago
    Needlessly dying in your prime does to me.
Throwaway1224 12y ago
i saw the movie and thought the alexander supertramp guy came across like a huge asshole. i also watch pro wrestling.
Panino 12y ago
Krakauer's arguments on this subject are based on conjecture and ignore facts. He conjectures that McCandless misidentified a plant he had been identifying for an extended time, for another plant. Unlikely. He makes claims without providing supporting evidence. Sorry, but saying "there is evidence that..." is not evidence. He states that eating this plant poisoned him to death, despite the fact that he died almost 3 weeks later. The autopsy ruled the death as starvation. The natural conclusion of extreme, extended calorie deficiency is starvation.
michaelbuddy 12y ago
There are many hooks in the story and the "whodunit" or in this case 'whatdunit' is a hook that keeps a lot of readers through the story. I don't have a big log of books I've read in my life as compared to some, but this was one that I would pick up and devour and then push away from me upset. I'd stare at it thinking I didn't want to read more of the tragedy then I'd pick it up again. I can't think of any other book like that I've felt the same with. That Chris' story has a proper resolution is important to the author and for those of us who took Chris' journey by reading Krakauer's book. There are still plenty of mysteries within it aside from the cause of death. Why did he do what he did? There's a theory out there that he may have been suffering an onset of schizophrenia. We have a good record of what he said to people and his journaling, but we will always be limited by what remains of that. He was in many ways a very amazing person. If you recall he sought to 'kill the false being within' him. His seeming desperation to seek his most authentic self through a journey and a physical and emotional withdrawal from his family and familiar lifestyle (as I understand, which I may not) is something that is as relatable as it is strange and unique. Nuggets of the idea you hear elsewhere by some pretty amazing individuals. For example, I have loads of respect for Bruce Lee. He was a celebrity and a person of deep thought but of massive action in his life. He made a point in an interview of the challenge to being able to actually express yourself honestly in what you do. To anyone seeking authenticity in themselves rather than whatever expectations or reactions real or imagined the rest of the world may have, to be completely free of that mindset. I hope Chris believed he succeeded in the end. But I selfishly wish a lot more that he would have maybe almost succeeded but instead came back to tell the rest of us about it in his own words.
reality_czech 12y ago
Why doesn't someone just feed wild potatoes to a few rats for a few weeks and see if they die? Did we forget how to actually do science?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

311 points by bkudria 12y ago

This is pretty awesome. Clausen seemed a bit snotty about the original theory not being in a peer-reviewed journal. Now the followup is, and the underlying science also blows a hole in one of Clausen's own papers. He messed with the wrong guy. Citizen science FTW.

jakevn 12y ago
I don't think it's snotty to be skeptical of the results. After all, their original hypothesis turned out to be incorrect. ODAP was not present in the seeds. Because the author took Clausen's consideration seriously, they were able to uncover their mistake and correct it.
- notacoward 12y ago
  It's not snotty to be skeptical, but it is snotty to be "skeptical" because the theory comes from an amateur, and to go on about "highly technical and complicated" etc. That's pure appeal to authority, the error of which is amply demonstrated by the fact that one of Clausen's own papers got through peer review with the exact same mistake. Hopefully he has learned to address the science, instead of the source or the publication process, next time.
  - jakevn 12y ago
    It would, however, be easy for a non-peer reviewed amateur to make a mistake. It's an appeal to authority, but in this case I don't believe it's a fallacy. Furthermore, since peer review is fallible, I don't believe Clausen's identical mistake making it through peer review proves the process any less important. Perhaps Clausen's criticisms were not well intended, but wouldn't any respectable scientist demand rigor before seriously considering such a hypothesis? After all, the burden of proof is not on Clausen.
    - notacoward 12y ago
      The mirror twins of ad hominem and ad verecundiam (appeal to authority) are always fallacies, regardless of person or circumstances. To say that certain people should get away with them is itself an appeal to authority. In logic, science, or debate, the identity of the person making or disputing a claim is irrelevant. If Clausen had a concern about the data, he should have said so. If he had a concern about the reasoning applied to that data, he should have said so. That would have been "demanding rigor" as you put it, but he did neither. Instead he addressed identity, and that's where he came off as snotty.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - jakevn 12y ago
        He did have a concern about the data. His concern that was it was not peer-reviewed. Had the data come from someone with a proven track record in the field, he may have found it worth his time to peer review it himself. Appeal to authority is not always a fallacy. It would have been fallacious if he was outright denying or accepting a hypothesis as being the logical conclusion based on one's standing. All that I read from it, however, was that he had a hard time believing it, and would not spend the time to look into the data personally, but that it should be reviewed. I don't think it's illogical to take more seriously the hypothesis of someone with a proven track record of good research.
        notacoward 12y ago
        If he couldn't spend the time to examine it, he should have just said that instead of taking the time to blather about journalistic vs. academic review processes. Clearly he did have the time; he just used it poorly.
        sanderjd 12y ago
        Your argument is interesting, but it seems to boil down to dismissing the entire system of peer reviewed journals. If they can't be appealed to, and everything needs to be independently researched based on personal expertise, then they have no purpose. Would you agree with that?
  - hessenwolf 12y ago
    I quite enjoyed how the author quoted, “I would be much more convinced if I was reading the report from a credible peer-reviewed professional.”, without criticising the quote themselves. The reader is left to decide on their own that the quote is douchey.
defen 12y ago
The meat of Clausen's paper isn't really wrong - he just drew the wrong conclusions by making an unwarranted inference. He showed that Hedysarum mackenziei / alpinum do not contain significant levels of alkaloids, and that they do not inhibit bacterial growth. He deduced that this "strongly suggested" they were not toxic. He was wrong because the plants contain a non-alkaloid compound that is toxic to mammals (and presumably not bacteria). So there is a lesson here about what kind of conclusions you can draw from scientific data.
mcmancini 12y ago
I don't think your read on Clausen is accurate. Krakauer's excerpt of Cole's article was poorly done. If you go to the source article, Clausen says, “First, it seems like a rather remarkably lucky shot in the dark for a person to suspect the presence of a specific toxin on so little evidence," he wrote. "Couple this with the observation that ODAP is only reported in certain plants of the genus lathyrus which is not the genus hedysarum and the conclusions are even more remarkable (though not impossible). I would be much more convinced if I was reading the report from a credible peer-reviewed professional journal such as the Journal of Natural Products or equivalent. I have often heard a key indicator of bad science that is highly suspect is having its results published in the popular media." ... "Again, I don't make any claims that the report is wrong since I have no data to analyze, but I am skeptical and will remain so until I see a better forum for the results to be published in." [1] which to me sounds reasonable and, as a professional scientist, sounds just like what I (and I expect, my colleagues) would say. The peer review process isn't perfect, but it is consistently superior to the crap that is scientific journalism appearing outside of peer reviewed journals. Here's why, and why I don't understand why you would hold Krakauer as an example of citizen science. Krakauer made (by his own admission) a "rash intuitive leap" [2] that an unidentified alkaloid contributed to McCandless' death, based on one of McCandless' journal entries and unpublished preliminary research by Clausen. As an aside, if one wants to piss off a scientist, that's a good way to go about it. When Clausen completes his research and finds the mystery alkaloid theory doesn't work, Krakauer intuits that a mystery toxic mold must have been involved, a theory he announces on Oprah and NPR. This second theory doesn't hold up (as was demonstrated by Clausen, again). Despite your conjecture, it sounds like Clausen actually investigated Krakauer's theories, up to a point. Krakauer then latches on to ODAP, which was close but still not there. His fourth theory may be correct, but Krakauer disseminated a lot of incorrect information along the way. I wonder, did he publish retractions as a professional scientist would? I'm not sure why you would hold Krakauer's methodology as "citizen science FTW", but I'm interested to hear. [1]: http://www.adn.com/article/20130917/krakauers-wild-theory-mccandless-gives-short-shrift-science http://www.adn.com/article/20130917/krakauers-wild-theory-mc... [2]: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-chris-mccandless-died http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-chris-mccandl...

qsymmachus 12y ago

Do the exact mechanics of Chris McCandless's death really matter? He didn't take the wilderness seriously and that's what got him killed. We shouldn't romanticize his stupidity.

daxfohl 12y ago
Well for those that do take the wilderness seriously, as something of a tautology, yes it matters.
herbig 12y ago
The last sentence of the article: "And because many people—both admirers of McCandless and his detractors—regard “Into the Wild” as a cautionary tale, it’s important to know as much as possible about how McCandless actually may have died."
- code_duck 12y ago
  Does it really matter whether he was poisoned by one chemical or another, or simply starved to death? Either way, the cautionary tale of against deciding to go live in the woods without adequate preparation stands.
  - auxym 12y ago
    FTA: "The death of Chris McCandless should serve as a caveat to other foragers: Even when some parts of a plant are known to be edible, other parts of the same species may contain dangerous concentrations of toxic compounds. Additionally, there may be seasonal, as well as ecotypic, variations in the concentrations of L-canavanine between various communities of H. alpinum."
    - code_duck 12y ago
      Thanks, I read the article too. That different parts of a plant may differ in toxicity is surprising at all given that some of the most common edible food such as tomatoes and potatoes exhibit similar characteristics.

scott_s 12y ago

Discussion on the original: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6376498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6376498

antirez 12y ago

"The death of Chris McCandless should serve as a caveat to other foragers: Even when some parts of a plant are known to be edible, other parts of the same species may contain dangerous concentrations of toxic compounds." Definitely, the most obvious example is potatoes. The fruit and other parts contain solanine. In general there is a great amount of danger around us, within 100 square meters of my home I can recognize at least 5/6 toxic species, so when one learns to eat a plant, it is important to also learn how all the similar plans that are dangerous look like, and what part of the plans are edible and what not.

michael_h 12y ago

If you found 'Into The Wild' interesting, make sure to checkout 'Into Thin Air' from the same author. It's about a summit attempt of Everest that went awry and is awesome. Edit: come to think of it, I've read pretty much everything that Jon Krakauer has written. The guy's grocery lists are probably well thought out and have a compelling narrative.

rondon2 12y ago
I read everything he writes. The only time I have had a problem with anything he said was in "Under the Banner of Heaven" he partially blamed the Mormon church for the kidnap and rape of Elizabeth Smart. I suspect that the guy that kidnapped her would have been a piece of shit no matter what religion he was born into.
- soperj 12y ago
  are people really born pieces of shit though? or are they molded into one?
- pstuart 12y ago
  I'm guessing you must be Mormon to take offense. For all the glory of God that religion may bring, there's a lot of less "praiseworthy" elements. It's important to acknowledge all of it.
  - briandear 12y ago
    Actually, if he were Mormon, "shit" would be the last word he'd write.
- wavefunction 12y ago
  I think his point was more about the indoctrination and conditioning of young women in the LDS system.
ghaff 12y ago
Pretty much. I actually found "Into the Wild" to be among his least interesting--probably because I couldn't really identify with McCandless."Into Thin Air" is the book that put him on the mainstream map and it's awesome. "Under the Banner of Heaven" is particularly noteworthy as well--although I found the historical parts the more interesting. (The modern story was mostly just depressing.)

woodchuck64 12y ago

What's fascinating is inferring the other motives and agendas swirling around the issue that are then cut through by hard science (in Krakauer's favor): From http://www.alaskacommons.com/2013/09/22/what-everyone-is-getting-wrong-about-chris-mccandless/ http://www.alaskacommons.com/2013/09/22/what-everyone-is-get...: "The forensic question “Were the seeds poisonous?” is of interest only because it sheds light on broader, more contentious question, expressed bluntly as “How stupid was Chris McCandless?” If, like Alaska Dispatch reporters Dermot Cole and Craig Medred (and again), you think McCandless was a clueless, crazy knucklehead, arrogant in his disdain for wild nature and its perils, then you want to think the seeds weren’t poisonous; the kid just died of starvation because he was too stupid/crazy/arrogant to make it to safety." "But if, like Jon Krakauer (and, in the interest of full disclosure, like me), you have some level of empathy with or sympathy for McCandless, you want to think the seeds were poisonous—he was doing his best to survive a difficult enterprise and was done in because he consumed something that was not known to be poisonous until two decades after his death."

Isamu 12y ago
I have empathy for McCandless, he didn't deserve to die and I wish he hadn't. But clearly he didn't know what he was getting into, didn't prepare and unwittingly contributed to his own death. It's not a judgment about his character. He wasn't a knucklehead, he was probably fairly intelligent. He was probably just unaware, like most people, how hard it is to subsist in nature alone, and how harsh the beautiful landscape can be. In the right context, ignorance is a kind of superpower. When you survive and it all works out, you are a genius. Many successful people start their story with: "If I had known what I was getting into, I would never have started..." So yeah, I kind of admire this ignorance ... in other people. I am WAY too self-conscious and introspective to embark on some enterprise where I know that I know nothing. Oh, and the poisonous seed thing - he was just eating a plant whose edibility was not established. I dunno, maybe people think nature is benevolent, and sure I can think of a bunch of edible plants in the woods near my house ... but I can think of plenty that are poisonous, or mildly toxic, or carcinogenic, or indigestible, or otherwise liable to disagree with you. He didn't know if he should or shouldn't eat it. He was rolling the dice. If you roll the dice and you live, you're a genius and in a few years you get to write your memoirs as the next Thoreau.

aaron695 12y ago

> And because many people—both admirers of McCandless and his detractors—regard “Into the Wild” as a cautionary tale, it’s important to know as much as possible about how McCandless actually may have died." Cautionary tales are just that, tales. It's entertainment pure and simple. Cautionary tales have never taught, if anything they do the opposite and create wrong thought patterns. We don't need to know to not go off to live in the crazy wilderness unprepared. Eat less cheese burgers is a boring story(Morgan Spurlock aside) but a better lesson. The fact people seem to have the need to self justify that they are entertained about stories of someone else's downfall is an interesting condition.

welly 12y ago
Actually, the least interesting part of the story for me was that he died from poisoning. I was entertained by the rest of the story, that he decided to quit everything and leave everything behind, to start a new life of some description. I wouldn't describe that as a story of someone's downfall. I'm not sure I would go as far as to say the entire film was about someone's downfall and I find it rather strange that you do too. It was a story of being free.
- aaron695 12y ago
  I personally think the ending was an important contrast to the beginning from a traditional story perspective. Has he succeeded would it have been a movie.... I do agree the beginning was a great story about being free and what I enjoyed most.
danneu 12y ago
Just because we all die at the end doesn't make the tales of our lives about downfall.
- aaron695 12y ago
  Needlessly dying in your prime does to me.

Throwaway1224 12y ago

i saw the movie and thought the alexander supertramp guy came across like a huge asshole. i also watch pro wrestling.

Panino 12y ago

Krakauer's arguments on this subject are based on conjecture and ignore facts. He conjectures that McCandless misidentified a plant he had been identifying for an extended time, for another plant. Unlikely. He makes claims without providing supporting evidence. Sorry, but saying "there is evidence that..." is not evidence. He states that eating this plant poisoned him to death, despite the fact that he died almost 3 weeks later. The autopsy ruled the death as starvation. The natural conclusion of extreme, extended calorie deficiency is starvation.

michaelbuddy 12y ago

There are many hooks in the story and the "whodunit" or in this case 'whatdunit' is a hook that keeps a lot of readers through the story. I don't have a big log of books I've read in my life as compared to some, but this was one that I would pick up and devour and then push away from me upset. I'd stare at it thinking I didn't want to read more of the tragedy then I'd pick it up again. I can't think of any other book like that I've felt the same with. That Chris' story has a proper resolution is important to the author and for those of us who took Chris' journey by reading Krakauer's book. There are still plenty of mysteries within it aside from the cause of death. Why did he do what he did? There's a theory out there that he may have been suffering an onset of schizophrenia. We have a good record of what he said to people and his journaling, but we will always be limited by what remains of that. He was in many ways a very amazing person. If you recall he sought to 'kill the false being within' him. His seeming desperation to seek his most authentic self through a journey and a physical and emotional withdrawal from his family and familiar lifestyle (as I understand, which I may not) is something that is as relatable as it is strange and unique. Nuggets of the idea you hear elsewhere by some pretty amazing individuals. For example, I have loads of respect for Bruce Lee. He was a celebrity and a person of deep thought but of massive action in his life. He made a point in an interview of the challenge to being able to actually express yourself honestly in what you do. To anyone seeking authenticity in themselves rather than whatever expectations or reactions real or imagined the rest of the world may have, to be completely free of that mindset. I hope Chris believed he succeeded in the end. But I selfishly wish a lot more that he would have maybe almost succeeded but instead came back to tell the rest of us about it in his own words.

reality_czech 12y ago

Why doesn't someone just feed wild potatoes to a few rats for a few weeks and see if they die? Did we forget how to actually do science?

deleted 12y ago

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