it must suck to be that researcher who retracted his "alpha" research after realizing it was totally wrong and see your wrong idea completely saturate popular culture
But the research wasn't retracted, it was just found to only apply to some packs of wolves that were in captivity, and not those in the wild. You could argue that humans too, are in captivity.
The real fall of the argument is the research that shows that wolves =/= humans
I try to point people who are caught up in this mindset to Richard Dawkins' Nice Guys Finish First followup that he did when the right started using his Selfish Gene work in a way he didn't really like. Dawkins isn't great and there's a lot to criticise about him but they like him and this particular video is pretty good at getting these type of nerd to realise that collective behaviour is more beneficial than selfish.
not trying to say he's bad or evil, just the powerful levels of cringe I already get seeing "alpha" would be so much worse if I had basically created it
it must suck to be that researcher who retracted his "alpha" research after realizing it was totally wrong and see your wrong idea completely saturate popular culture
It's still an incredibly useful metric.
If anybody ever posts about being an alpha sincerely you know you can thoroughly disregard anything they say.
They probably find it cringe
But the research wasn't retracted, it was just found to only apply to some packs of wolves that were in captivity, and not those in the wild. You could argue that humans too, are in captivity.
The real fall of the argument is the research that shows that wolves =/= humans
but what of the furry hierarchy
In the dark, hairball-wet corners of the web you can sometimes hear whispers of the legendary Alphafurry.
I try to point people who are caught up in this mindset to Richard Dawkins' Nice Guys Finish First followup that he did when the right started using his Selfish Gene work in a way he didn't really like. Dawkins isn't great and there's a lot to criticise about him but they like him and this particular video is pretty good at getting these type of nerd to realise that collective behaviour is more beneficial than selfish.
better than the guy who invented both leaded gasoline and CFCs (though idk he was kind of a piece of shit so probably deserved it)
not trying to say he's bad or evil, just the powerful levels of cringe I already get seeing "alpha" would be so much worse if I had basically created it