Re:The Myth of the Alpha Wolf
by marssaxman on Monday March 27, 2023 @01:16PM
(#35329389)
> 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".
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".