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It's ok, we sigma now. (mander.xyz)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 121 points 7 months ago (3 children)

There's no wolf alphas in nature neither. It's an old and debunked theory based on studying captive wolves.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-alpha-wolf-idea-a-myth/

[–] [email protected] 101 points 7 months ago (4 children)

To be absolutely clear to anyone who hasn't read about this; it was debunked by the same guy who came up with it in the first place!

The dude studied wolves in captivity, drew conclusions about their behaviour, then applied those studies to wolves in the wild and discovered that he'd got it all wrong. The behaviours that he observed in captive wolves were all stress responses.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Because he’s a good scientist. He followed the evidence, ran a different experiment to test his findings, and followed the evidence again.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

Absolutely. He had the courage to question his own assumptions when they were challenged by new evidence. Everyone could stand to learn from him.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So, what I'm hearing is that there are human alpha males... but only in prisons. That checks out.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago

No no you've got it backwards. Those are just stress responses. Human alphas do exist but you have to put them in the wild with a hungry pack of wolves.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

To be fair, the alpha male thing in humanity is also a stress response.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Well then I'm alpha as fuck.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Didn't he also put a bunch of adolescent wolves together for that? It was basically a lupine Lord of the Flies in there.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I found this too be quite interesting:

Toxoplasmosis and Wolves

To me, this makes all the "I'm an alpha, like a wolf" bumble even funnier. Nah, you're just a cat person with poop on the brain.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

That is an interesting article, thanks for sharing!