It turns out there's probably no such thing as an alpha wolf.
If you've spent any time on the internet, you've encountered the concept of the alpha male — the idea that in any social group, one dominant individual rises to the top through strength, aggression, and sheer force of will. It's the backbone of a massive online industry of self-help gurus and masculinity influencers. It shapes how millions of people train their dogs. And its believers will tell you it's rooted in science: the observed social hierarchy of wolf packs.
There's just one problem: The scientist who popularized the alpha wolf concept has spent the last few decades trying to take it all back. That’s because the research it was based on has been thoroughly debunked — in large part by his own work.
Nearly as much mythology as science surrounds the techniques used by early Polynesians to navigate the South Pacific.
Today I have the great pleasure of presenting an episode on a topic that has fascinated me for almost my entire life, which is how the ancient Polynesians were able to navigate their way to islands that were either beyond the horizon, or that were completely unknown, as they were exploring where nobody had ever gone before. Somehow, they did it; and moreover, maintained routes between distant island groups for many centuries — all without any instruments at all. And suspiciously, there's always been a bit of a cloak of magic or a sixth sense over this subject. So today we're going to dive in — no pun intended — and separate the science from the sensationalism surrounding Polynesian navigation.
Traditionally, the term Polynesia refers to a ten million square mile region of the Pacific Ocean, bounded by Hawaiʻi in the north, New Zealand in the southwest, and Rapa Nui in the east. Beginning around 1000 BCE and completing around 1250 CE, Polynesia was completely settled — on every habitable island and land mass — by humans who represented, hands down, the very best skilled navigators on the planet at the time; perhaps at any time, because they did it all without instruments of any kind — not even a system of writing. They had only experience-driven knowledge to go on. And as we'll discuss today, this was not trivial to learn. To navigate these vast distances safely required decades of training from elders.
Although many regard Koko as an ape who used sign language, science tells us that ability probably doesn't exist.
A thorough debunking of the myth that apes can learn language from Skeptoid podcast. Excerpt:
In June of 2018, the famous gorilla Koko died of natural causes. Koko had become famous around the world for her incredible ability to speak in sign language. Koko wrote books. She raised kittens. Koko developed friendships with visiting celebrities. Koko would tell jokes and be silly. Koko would hear things on the news, feel sad, and express her sadness, all using sign language. But it turns out that the field of ape linguistics has virtually evaporated. What evidence there is that apes have been able to sign comes to us not from the academic literature, but only from the mass media — feel-good stories written for the people, apparently devoid of much scientific validity. Today we're going to point our skeptical eye at the field of apes who speak in sign language.
Here is the first thing that suggests not all is as it seems in the world of signing apes. If it works, and the ability to communicate with us can be instilled into apes, then why aren't there signing apes everywhere? Why don't we teach it to all of them — indeed, why don't ape parents teach it to their own young? If apes had any meaningful ability to communicate at even a rudimentary level using sign language, you'd think many of those who interact with humans would do so. They would tell their zookeepers what they want (probably to be set free). They would accompany primatologists on expeditions and translate between the scientists and the native apes. Every animal research institution would have signing apes, and everyone in the world with a degree in primatology would have experience communicating with them. After all these decades, we'd have a deep understanding of ape communication and their thought processes. Signing with apes would be commonplace and widespread.
But none of these things has happened. Not one of them. Not only did signing apes never become common, the number of research programs studying ape signing has gone from a few to even fewer. At its peak in the 1970s, the field of teaching apes to communicate with humans never had more active research programs than you could count on your fingers and toes; today, there is not even a single program anywhere in the world making publishable claims. Backwards is not where promising directions in research tend to go. In every field of science, when we see researchers abandoning projects, the reason nearly always tends to be that the project was a dead end.
Read the rest of the article, listen to the podcast, or read the transcript.
How one special moment redefined how a science teacher does her job.
One of the most vital, yet frequently overlooked, aspects of science education is how scientific knowledge builds. Imagine the cross-section of a tree: at the center are the findings that have been repeatedly confirmed and therefore are the least likely to be overturned. Around the outside are the frontier findings. While textbooks are full of the facts, theories, laws, and models at the center of the tree, the "news" often highlights what's new, exciting, and unexpected. This gives the impression that "scientists are always changing their minds" and therefore shouldn't be trusted, when in reality it's how the process works. (Also, why is changing your mind with evidence a bad thing?)
We live in a world built by science... and we swim in a sea of information. Critical thinking isn't just a valuable skill; it's the essential compass that empowers us to navigate today's issues and resist the pull of misinformation.
Vaccines are history's great medical success story, having saved more lives than anything else.
It seems incredible to still have to say it, but vaccines save lives. The data could not possibly be any more stark, but nevertheless, the US (and the rest of the world in general) is seeing an ever-increasing level of vaccine denial. Claims that vaccines cause more harm than good are shouted through megaphones. US states are enacting anti-vaccine legislation with reckless abandon. So today we're going to take a stroll through the garden of vaccine success stories, and try to counter all that disinformation with a gala of the very best things vaccines have done for us.
2024 marked the 50th anniversary of the World Health Organization's Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), launched in 1974 to try and bring the benefits of vaccinations to populations all over the globe. A group of authors published an assessment of the program's success in The Lancet in May 2024. They found that during just those 50 years, vaccines saved an estimated 154 million lives.
She may have gotten her start as Houdini's sidekick, but Rose Mackenberg became a giant of unmasking fraudulent mediums.
One hundred years ago, the Spiritualist movement was experiencing a revival; mediums and mystics claimed to summon the supernatural, weaving illusions that left many in awe — and often in debt. The name Rose Mackenberg, once drew fear into the hearts of charlatans. You may not have heard of her, but she was a woman who was ahead of her time. Dubbed a 'ghost buster' by the press in the 1950s, she was far more than a cynic of the psychic world. She was a bold trailblazer who challenged deception, exposing frauds with skill and tenacity. However, despite her remarkable legacy, she remains a hidden hero in history.
In the early 1920s, a young, Brooklyn-born Rose Mackenberg was working as a private detective at an agency in New York — unheard of for a woman at the time. She was working on a case about a psychic who had recommended worthless stock to a local banker when she introduced herself to the man who would become her mentor, the magician Harry Houdini. The press was reporting on Houdini, who was waging a crusade against psychics and Spiritualists, which inspired Mackenberg to seek his counsel. Houdini's advice was enough for Mackenberg to ensnare the psychic and have him convicted.
“I do not hold with them in the false hope that they will find Atlantis, but I still very much sympathize. Each of us has some yearning in life, perhaps even an impossible one; but that yearning is a spark that is the difference between life and stagnation. I have my spark and I know what it is, and I will always strive toward it; and that's what makes my life meaningful (to me) and not just a footnote about a random hunk of temporary meat whirling through space. We all have some spark. My question to you is: What is yours?”
- Brian Dunning
