> 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. 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.
That's just the first thing in the article that seemed to address your question, it's a long article with more. Is that what you were asking?
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.
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 article may not address how you are using it.
Like, when someone describes themselves as "an alpha", they're generally, well, beyond showing themselves to be somebody to be ignored, also not claiming to be the oldest.
> As for high-ranking [wolf] animals asserting any practical control over subordinates, the nature of the interaction is highly conditional. For example, with large prey such as adult moose (Alces alces), pack members of all ranks (ages) gather around a carcass and feed simultaneously, with no rank privilege apparent (Mech 1966; Haber 1977); however, if the prey is smaller, like a musk ox calf, dominant animals (breeders) may feed first and control when subordinates feed (Mech 1988; National Geographic 1988).
> Similarly, pups are subordinate to both parents and to older siblings, yet they are fed preferentially by the parents, and even by their older (dominant) siblings (Mech et al. 1999). On the other hand, parents both dominate older offspring and restrict their food intake when food is scarce, feeding pups instead. Thus, the most practical effect of social dominance is to allow the dominant individual the choice of to whom to allot food.
> The only other rank privilege I am aware of in natural situations is that high-ranking pups are more assertive in competing for food deliveries by adults and sometimes accompany adults on foraging trips at an earlier age than do subordinates (Haber 1977).
https://www.wolf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/267alphastat...
Further, how humans are organized changes massively across cultures and usually there is a shared leadership model - shaman and chief equivalents that tell us nothing about how wolves organize themselves.
Is it really hard to accept that there is another meaning that is in vogue, but you did not consider it instead of doubling down on a false assumption?
Hard disagree. Even in communities who like to throw the term a lot, they get into discussion about which ones are the real alphas and thus they invented stuff like “sigma”.
Real life usage is really diffuse and mostly like the meme version of the “chad”, seems to be about who I personally like or like to be.
There is some heuristic which may avoid having to fight it out all the time, but this does not disprove that an alpha exists based on being more fit/dominant/strong/intelligent whatever, even fighting ability! Maybe age, or strength, or assertive personality, etc..all are proxies or different permutations for "fitness" which combine to promote some alpha above the rest. The general point here is that there still can be a hierarchy.
As I said in another comment[0] all of this is propaganda to muddle reality and disprove hierarchies, to re-assert egalitarianism/equality as dominant political ideology.
And a previous comment from yesterday seems applicable[1]... that constant fights don't need to occur to be able to identify and reward alphas even for fighting ability or other proxies of fitness, strength, capability etc shouldn't be surprising.
Here we have a guy who's been studying wolves for decades, and says it doesn't work like you describe. But you are so certain it works that way, that you say, well, he hasn't proved absolutely with certainty that it _doesn't_. That is not the way scientific knowledge works. The people actually studying wolves for years say it does not in fact work like you are simply assuming it does.
"alpha wolf" is not equivalent to "pack leader", and the 'myth' of the alpha wolf isn't that there is a wolf in charge that you could call "alpha wolf" if you wanted to, but that the leadership role was attained through dominance[1].
As for the reason it is an interesting myth to explore, there are ideologies that build their basis of human interaction around dominance hierarchies e.g. alpha/beta male manosphere stuff, parts of Jordan Peterson's work.
Of course proving or disproving dominance hierarchies in wolves doesn't necessarily mean anything for its applicability to humans, but the connection probably does make it a more clickable topic to write about, especially because proponents of those ideologies often use animal behavior to support their theories.
This also gives a clue about what kinds of groups might be able to combat corporate leviathans: Families of related individuals.
"Alpha" has not implied dominance through cruelty for at least the past couple of decades, if it ever did.
I suspect, though have no evidence, that this revisionism is due to political pressure over perceived "toxic masculinity" adopting "alpha" as a trope. If so, it is extremely distasteful, even dangerous; reinforcing the idea that science should bend to politics is authoritarian, naive, and threatens the survival of any nation where such is done.
> 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.
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.
https://davemech.org/wolf-news-and-information/
Wolf.org also has resources related to the topic and they no longer use the term.
The term "alpha" literally just means "first," as it has meant for two millennia.
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.
The claim that woman cannot be courageous or independent thinkers is wrong.
And as for societal ideals, specifically in response to a post showing that the concept of being a leader through aggression is also wrong.
Aggression is often a response to fear.
Fear is a secondary emotion, typically a response to pain or fear.
I personally view aggressive behavior and the attempt to gain status through aggression as a reason to pity someone far more than it ever makes me respect them.
If aggression is your primary method of gaining status you are not courageous, you are weak and lashing out.
I pity those people because they tend to undervalued their own merits and instead of having the courage to lead by example or to be confident in their positions they have to resort to methods ranging from name calling to physical violence.
A true leader doesn't need to resort to unrestrained fear based responses to gain or maintain status.
By definition those who have to resort to aggression are weak and full of self doubt.
Actions based on fear are not the actions of confident individuals but the actions of cowards resorting to letting fear drive their lives.
Which is exactly why the original studies found 'alpha' behaviors in stressed populations.
If you read the above papers you will find that in wolves, submission for the betterment of the pack takes much more courage than aggression.
Incels tend to like the 'alpha' concept because it is justification for not stepping up and accepting that they have caused many of their own problems.
It is only viewed as 'courage' to other individuals with low self worth.
If you truly believe that aggression is courageous I sincerely suggest you work on looking at the examples of truly courageous people and not seeking the approval of low esteem individuals who make other low self esteem individuals feel better by idealizing fear based outbursts. Bullies are pitiful creatures who have to resort victimizing others to feel better about themselves.
Typically people who yield to bullies don't respect them and those who aren't filled with self doubt simply pity them.
Aggression for personal gain is a sign of weakness and doesn't relate to the concepts you mentioned.
Here is another.
https://wolf.org/headlines/44265/
You are offering a false dichotomy and suggesting that gaining dominance through force or challenge is the only path to authority.
Also a 'dominance hierarchy' can exist without the need for contest or battle.
If you have worked around dogs outside of the silly 'alpha' concept you will notice that dominant members can impact the behaviors of other members with a simple look or by withholding attention and positive reinforcement.
This is why real professional dog training for working dogs is almost exclusively positive reinforcement these days.
Fear and intimidation is a rather poor training method for domestic dogs.
Of course if you want to discard the original meaning of 'alpha' as presented by the people who originally coined the term for your own personal definition no evidence they offer that their previous research was wrong will fit you expectations.
'Alpha' was specifically coined to describe their misunderstanding of behavior at the time and doesn't simply imply 'first' in their context.
Dominance and aggression are separate behaviors that may have intersection but gaining status through aggression tends to result in unstable relationships and is incredibly expensive to males in species where it is a predominant method of gaining status.
Wolves rarely gain status within their group through aggression, thus labeling the primary breeding pairs as 'alpha' by default is scientifically incorrect.
Most of the status of the breeding pair was gained through breeding and not aggression and in reality true aggression is simply not typically tolerated by the dominant members of the pack.
Uhhhh...
> The concept of the alpha wolf is well ingrained in the popular wolf literature, at least partly because of my book “The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species,”...
You are directly contradicting the author you're claiming to support.
This isn't an episode of Dr. Who. Time travel does not exist. Two things cannot cause one another over the course of a fifty year span.
Either the concept of "alpha wolf" arose from Mech's work (in which case it didn't imply anything because it was a wholly new term), or it didn't (in which case it wasn't his idea and him repudiating it doesn't carry the weight you think it does).
I've never heard that take before.
It is also absolutely NOT in the article, anywhere.
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?
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).
And, no, if you asserted that an adult elephant is sleeping in the OP's bed right now, they wouldn't be able to disprove it to you.
I forget what we were arguing about. Please go ahead and have the last word and thanks for the exchange.
But I'm tired of it, too, by now. Thanks for your engagement as well, even though I took us on a detour!
But another is to actually look at the rest of your comment. And you might also ask why my 'pedantic' reply is the only one your comment got at all, as of time of writing. Let's review:
> 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?
There are a few observations about norms in the scientific community, which might be a bit useful and relevant.
But this?
> 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?
Fully half your comment was rhetorical questions that serve only to dress another person down— pure ingroup signaling, snark, and moralism. You're unlikely to get the kind of engagement you imagine you deserve with an approach like that, whether from pedants or anyone else.
I can understand finding yourself riled up by this topic. I can't claim that I never indulge in snark. But seriously, I didn't respond to the rest of your comment or even really address you directly in my reply because your post told me that talking to you would be unpleasant and hostile.
You've called me out for pedantry, which is what we call it when someone's corrections seem trivial to us. But the comment I was replying to was all about correcting someone else's thinking, and it was frankly uglier than it was interesting. The same turned out to be true of your subsequent comments in the wider thread as well— not seriously engaging with you was very much the right call for me.
I hope at least some of this has been useful, but either way you won't get another reply from me.
I hope you have a better day tomorrow.
Edit: The text is so short I'll just post it here.
"A pedant (/ˈpɛd.ənt/ PED-ent) is a person who is excessively concerned with formalism, accuracy and precision, or one who makes an ostentatious and arrogant show of learning."
> 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.
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.
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.
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".
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?