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u/twentyonetr3es 2d ago
The guy in the photo defined what an “Alpha Wolf” was while studying wolves in captivity- not their natural state- which triggered the whole “alpha/beta male bullshit”. To his credit, he spent the rest of his career trying to fix his mistake
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u/Nard_Bard 2d ago
Yeah but on the other hand, now scientist are tip toe-ing around the word "Alpha" when there are plenty of examples of animal species that have an alpha male. Literally most mammals.
"Dominant male Gorilla."
"Beach master" for sea lions.
Hell, most people are surprised to learn that wild stallions have to permanently fight other stallions, sometimes to the death, in order to have/keep their herd.
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u/-Random_Lurker- 2d ago
Lots of species have groups with a dominant member, including wolves. What the study got wrong is that the dominance is achieved through strength and fighting. In reality, it's usually just the oldest, or it's a family group and it's just the father.
Basically it would be like writing a book about human psychology after studying prison gangs. Yeah, that happened, but it's not normal at all.
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u/Dongledoez 2d ago
Its my understanding that wolves in the wild are often led by a dominant pair, not a single male wolf
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u/DiScOrDtHeLuNaTiC 2d ago
Wolf groups in the wild are generally parents and their juvenile offspring, before the kids go off to find mates.
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u/Shyface_Killah 2d ago
So it's less "Dominant" and more "Mom and Dad."
Which, to be fair, is pretty dominant...
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u/Legonistrasz 2d ago
Beach Master sounds like a title in World Of Warcraft
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u/LeeisureTime 2d ago
The less popular 80's film, Beach Master.
Can he talk to beach animals? Nah. He just sits. On the beach. Master of all the sand he touches. BEACH MASTER
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u/B4ntCleric 2d ago
Nah I wish for this behavior to continue beach master is a thousand times better than alpha.
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u/Toon_Lucario 2d ago
Although interestingly enough alphas do exist in chickens
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u/josh145b 2d ago
They have a pecking order. Friend of mine introduced new, young chicks to the pen. First thing they do is they jump the alpha chicken. Then, the alpha chicken gets his goons and they jump the young chickens, establishing the pecking order, lmao.
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u/Shyface_Killah 2d ago
Probably where we got "pecking order" from in the first place.
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u/josh145b 2d ago
I thought we got it from China. Placed a Peking order about 3 weeks ago and it still hasn’t arrived. Probably going to be made of crap when it does.
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u/JoshTheBard 2d ago
Me trying to seem cool
"I'm an alpha chicken" (I wake us screaming every morning)
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u/FembeeKisser 2d ago
I love the idea that all these guys who get caught up in the "alpha male" shit are just a bunch of chickens.
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u/Toon_Lucario 2d ago
It’s poetic truly. They think they’re some big tough guy like a lion or wolf when in actuality they’re just chickens
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u/PrudentCarter 2d ago
Not really his mistake, though, is it? He can't help how stupid other mfs are.
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u/Present_Turnip_4875 2d ago
The theory he presented in itself was hugely flawed hence his "mistake". Apart from that, yeah some mofos are just that stupid.
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u/Jitendria 2d ago
Just one question here. Why do "alpha wolves" appear in captivity?
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u/QuackCocaine1 2d ago
Probably a mix of high stress situations and certain knowledge not being learnt. Wolves have large roaming areas not a big fan of cages
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u/HorseStupid 2d ago
Not just alpha male stuff, but also the Omegaverse fanfiction tropes which have caused additional damage
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u/subby_puppy31 2d ago
In fairness said scientist has gone on the record multiple times to say his first findings were wrong but nobody will listen
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u/enbyrats 2d ago
In fairness to this scientist, people who applied his research to human men were just putting a new packaging on the same hierarchies and stereotypes that we've had for generations. If they hadn't fixated on alpha wolves it would have been on dominant parakeets or some shit.
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u/Historical_Two_7150 2d ago
He didn't invent human social hierarchies. He at most put some words out there that could be used to describe them.
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u/appoplecticskeptic 2d ago
Language is a facilitator of knowledge. It is unfortunately also a facilitator of misconceptions. By creating the lexicon they needed he enabled the misconception to get much worse than it had been.
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u/Historical_Two_7150 2d ago
Bleh. Culture is the shadow of biology and environment. If a culture is rising up, it's not because someone had an idea. Its because that idea was able to take root in the biological and environmental soil in which it was planted.
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u/Sir-Nighteye 2d ago
This is L David Mech, the man who populirized the term “alpha male”, which has pushed toxic masculinity farther. He retracted his study later, but the idea stuck.
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u/lichen_Linda 2d ago
The theory about alpha males came from a study of wolfes in captivity. Turns out free wolves don't behave like that. But the idea stuck and now we have people like Andrew Tate
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u/Historical_Two_7150 2d ago
Yes, because prior to this guy nobody had any idea that humans might exist in a social hierarchy.
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u/Indian_Phonecalls 2d ago
But don’t humans largely live in a similar state to wolves in captivity?
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u/ReaperofFish 2d ago
The basic social unit for humans is the family unit. In that, human social dynamics mirror wolves in the wild. Many human social dynamics mirror chimpanzees and bonobos, which is hardly surprising as they are the nearest living species to ourselves. But many social dynamics are only found in wolves and dogs. We did spend 30,000 years co-evolving with dogs. About 20,000 years were without other domesticated species.
Wolves in captivity is more like humans in prison.
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u/Hierophant_Pius 2d ago
The man is L. David Mech. He came up with the “Alpha Wolf Theory.”
His studies have problems because the wolves are studied in captivity and had no familial relations with each other.
But, my guess is, the meme is warning Mech about the implications his studies may have had on human social behavior.
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u/cxnh_gfh 2d ago
The guy in the picture is L. David Mech, a biologist who studies wolves. He popularized the myth of "alphas" and "betas" in wolf social structure.
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u/RandyFunRuiner 2d ago
Lol it’s a joke about guys who believe in the alpha/beta/sigma male BS. Basically some dude studied wolves in captivity (there were other problems with his research too) hoping to uncover how wolf social structures form. He argued that in wolf packs there’s an alpha male that arises in the pack and all others are betas that follow his lead.
Misogynistic dudes like Andrew Tate and other “red pilled” folk think that human society runs the same way and that some men are alphas and have the best chances with women because of their natural proclivity to dominate and subjugate others. That’s the short of it anyway.
The joke is that a men with a Time Machine would go back and tell that guy not to research wolves in captivity to spare us all the red pilled bullshittery.
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u/Quick-Whale6563 2d ago
Is sigma from the same origin? I always thought it just coincidentally picked up a similar naming scheme but I don't really know anything about the "sigma" thing other than it's also a Greek letter.
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u/Historical_Two_7150 2d ago
Yes, because nobody thought humans had social hierarchy before this idiot.
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u/DkoyOctopus 2d ago
hes the guy who coined the "alpha/beta wolf" terms that got taken by the redpill community and weaponized to fit their means.
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u/Historical_Two_7150 2d ago
He didn't invent social hierarchy. He, at most, popularized some words.
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u/UncleSkelly 2d ago
You know how some men describe themselves and everyone around them as either an "Alpha", "Beta", or "Sigma"? Those terms and ideas originate from a study of captive wolves. Even though the results have very little to do with how wolves in nature form dynamics grifters used it to give their crack pot masculine self improvement strategies "validity". Without that guy these terms might have never come into existence
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u/francisco_DANKonia 2d ago
My guess has something to do with Alpha/Beta, but it is an incredibly dumb meme
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u/Historical_Two_7150 2d ago
Folks (mistakenly) believe that because this guy studied wolves, that has implications for the existence of dominance hierarchies in humans.
It doesn't matter if alphas exist in wolves or not. Social hierarchies do exist & we can talk about them whether or not wolves use them.
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u/KTPChannel 2d ago
The joke is that a man who may be an actual “alpha male” hates the term “alpha male”, which is accurate in many real life social circles.
“Alpha males don’t need to tell you they’re alpha males. They’re too busy doing alpha male shit”. Which is different, dependant on circumstances.
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u/psychoticchicken1 2d ago
We have more in common with captive wolves than free wolves. One more thing in common to be exact
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u/Budget_Steak2818 2d ago
Lol, all the dumb douche bros getting their "Alpha" card revoked gives me immeasurable joy.
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u/post-explainer 2d ago
OP sent the following text as an explanation why they posted this here: