[00:00:00] Dan: Hello and welcome back to We Not Me, the podcast where we explore how humans connect to get stuff done together. I'm Dan Hammond.

[00:00:13] Pia: And I am Pia Lee.

[00:00:14] Dan: Pia, you know, we've, we've spent a lot of time on this show talking about, uh, the dangers of division and, and in the last few episodes we've had a huge division happening globally in, um, Israel and, uh, and in Gaza obviously. And we've, we've, we've sort of been concerned with other topics, but it's probably time to touch on that in a sensitive way, I think. And I think you've, you and I have both been listening to quite a lot of material on this subject, and whether we understand it or not, I think it's, uh, fully, it's worth, uh, worth a little, little worth a little chat, I think as we get into this episode. 

[00:00:49] Pia: Well, I mean, it is, you know, and once again, you know, war comes in and, um. It's, it's amplified through social media. And then we are asked to have an opinion about something that is actually extremely complex and, um, and, and has had, there's that bias of recency, and I'm not condoning anything, but we have one big event, suddenly everybody seems to have an opinion about israelis and Palestinians when we haven't actually even been thinking about it necessarily two months ago. So, 

[00:01:26] Dan: And I've certainly seen that, you know, on social media for start, your opinions have to be very short because there's not really room in a post very often, particularly on Twitter, which is a particularly divisive platform right now, I think. Um, but you know, it has to be short. But also, I've seen people really being attacked if they, if they're in any way. Um, trying to be, see both sides or hope for the best for, but, you know, sort of, you know, it, it's, it's, it's like a hair trigger it seems. Um, it's really tricky, I think in that environment. 

[00:01:59] Pia: Yeah, you would think that we would sort of be, um, balanced and we would be inquiring and we would utilize, you know, we, we, we, we are meant to be becoming more intelligent and more sort of maybe systemic thinking as human beings. But what social media can do is, um, by the, by that peer group, pressure force you into very simplistic thinking and taking sides, which is then preying on people's vulnerability of feeling liked or part of a group or, you know, so it's, it's highly manipulative. Whereas, um, I was listening to, um. Scott and Cara on Pivot, you know that we listened to that and they, they were both feeling that they were not in a position to give a comment as in to make a judgment on one side. The other because they actually felt that they just did not know enough.

[00:03:02] And sometimes it's better to listen. And Scott talks about this, it's better to listen. It's a more leadership position to seek input and listen rather than, than, than kind of get you kicks out of your own opinion, which may be incorrect and may not help the situation.

[00:03:22] Dan: Yeah. So, and it's a good place to go for leaders who are expected sometimes to talk about these things. It's not about the facts, but about your, about your hopes and the, and the values that you share. You know, sort of, so we should listen. We hope for peace, we hope for shalom, you know, as we saw. Um, and, um, we hope that, that this can be worked out.

[00:03:45] Uh, interesting that this, this sounds potentially partisan, but I heard an interview with the British Ambassador, the ambassador, the Palestinian ambassadors of the UK, um, Husam Said Zomlot. And, you know, he said that this is, the political leadership in the world is so poor at the moment, we just don't see what we used to see in the past. So, um, you know, even our, our, our prime minister from the UK arrived in Israel great. But the things he said were just inflammatory and, um, and it's not helpful. It's not help. We're not seeing people zooming above the thing and saying, okay, let's try. Try to understand both sides, um, however awful that is and how difficult, however difficult is.

[00:04:26] It has been done in other conflicts. Northern Ireland, for example, seemed intractable, but when you started to listen and try to move on it, it was very hard. But it's, it can be done. But I think, I think we've said a few times, we weren't evolved for social media. We, we haven't evolved. We're not ready. We weren't ready. And this has shown it. And, um. In an incredibly nifty segue, we're going to, uh, be looking at evolution today. 

[00:04:52] Pia: Talk about jackdaws, which may seem a very strange segue, but I think, I think there's a whole thing. Let's talk about it afterwards. There's a whole thing about what could we learn about evolution here as human beings? And, uh, we tend to think that we, we run the show, but actually, um, when we talk to Alex, I think we're gonna learn, learn that we should maybe be eating a little bit more humble pie.

[00:05:16] Dan: Yes indeed. Alex has a wonderful story to tell and, uh, about his exploration of animal evolution of all kinds, including the kind of animal we are as humans. So, let's go and hear from Alex now. 

[00:05:32] Pia: And a really warm welcome to Professor Alex Thornton. Welcome.

[00:05:37] Alex: Thank you very much. Lovely to be here.

[00:05:39] Pia: Now we're gonna learn a lot more about you, um, but you are a professor of cognitive evolution at Exeter University in the uk. And, um, we're looking forward to a conversation about both animals, two-legged, four-legged, and probably the relationship to humans.

[00:05:57] so I know you do experiments on animals and you, you look at things. So, um, Dan's gonna do a little experiment on you and raise your blood pressure by getting you to answer, um, a question from the starter, starter cards. So, um, just observe how you feel and then we'll, we'll record the feedback later.

[00:06:16] Alex: Holy smokes. Okay, I'm ready.

[00:06:19] Dan: I have a, an an a sort of amber or orange card here, um, which we haven't had before, which is great. Um, if I were a historic figure, I would like to be this person. 

[00:06:30] Alex: Hmm. I like to be someone who had a lot of fun. He's someone who had a lot of fun, but without necessarily being evil. That's the, uh, that's the, that's the tricky balance to strike. Yeah. I don't know. Possibly, possibly an explorer of some kind. I mean, okay. The obvious answer as a biologist is it's gotta be Charles Darwin, doesn't it?

[00:06:54] Dan: Excellent. Excellent. Well, tell us a bit about Hi about him. I, I living in Ilkley as I do, I know he, spent some time in 1859 in Ilkley, recovering from his ailments or trying to

[00:07:04] Alex: he, did he have his hat on or off?

[00:07:06] Dan: I, Well, I think with the treatment he got would require hat off. Um, but tell us what, why Charles Darwin? Tell us a little bit about, about, a little bit about him.

[00:07:15] Alex: Well, I suppose, I mean, Charles Darwin is, is the originator of quite possibly the greatest idea that any human being has ever had, as far as I'm concerned, and as far as I think many scientists are concerned. So he allowed us to understand the nature of the world, why it is that there is so much diversity in the world, um, the conception of humans as part of the world, rather than as being apart from the rest of, uh, the rest of life.

[00:07:42] Um, and, you know, we're still working on his ideas to this day. And, you know, aside from that, he had a, he had an exciting life. You know, he traveled around on the Beagle, seeing the world, being astounded, being, I, I suppose nice thing about Darwin is that he was, he was a pure scientist in the sense of he was totally childlike. He was just curious about the world in the same way that kids wander around going, why is this happening? Or why is that happening? And why is that beak, birds beak a different shape to that other bird? And uh, and you know, that led to some really fundamental ideas, um, that, you know, people I suppose, often don't realize the number of different contexts in which Darwin's ideas affect us, right?

[00:08:24] So you, for example, if you've ever been into hospital and you're worried about an MRSA infection, you know that. That is an an evolutionary process and that we understand largely as a result of things that Darwin taught us. So, so yeah, I think being Darwin would be hard to beat.

[00:08:41] Dan: Fantastic. Well, if we, if we have a chance to beam you back to be Charles Darvin for a little while, we'll, we'll, we'll definitely let you know. Um, 

[00:08:48] Alex: work on my facial hair growth.

[00:08:51] Dan: Yeah, it was impressive, wasn't it? Um, so, but let's talk about the actual, um, your actual life. T talk us a bit about, yeah. what what brought you to this point

[00:09:02] Alex: Yeah, what brought me to this part? I actually grew up in, in a huge city. I grew up in Mexico City. Um, my, my mom's Mexican, my dad's English. And yeah, because I grew up in this massive, massive city, I didn't see that many animals in my day-to-Day life, but my parents used to take me out to, to the countryside and I was always fascinated by, you know, the beasties that I, I used to see out there. Um, I used to spend lots of my time as a small, uh, kind of only child as well, maybe this is informative, um, kind of sitting there copying pictures out of the Encyclopedia of Mammals and things like that.

[00:09:38] And so I always knew I wanted to do something anally. But I didn't really know what that could be. You know, the obvious thing that people kept saying is, oh, you should be a vet. I didn't really want to stick my hand up a cow's bum. So, uh, so I didn't become a, a vet. Then I moved to the 

[00:09:54] Pia: So less appealing. 

[00:09:55] Alex: less appealing, but, you know, I'm glad that they are around, 

[00:09:59] Dan: Yes. 

[00:09:59] Alex: Yes. Yeah. But, uh, you know, a bit like doctors, it's fantastic that these people exist, but I couldn't do it. Um, yeah, so then I moved to the UK as a teenager and I went on study biology in Oxford. And then I remember in a lecture just got really hooked on this idea that we could think about how, not only how animals bodies evolve, but how behavior evolves and how it is that behavior fits to the surroundings that animals find themselves in. So the match between behavior and the environment, and obviously that's something that. Um, is relevant to understanding all animals, including humans.

[00:10:35] Um, I started getting really interested as well in the idea that. It's not just humans who learn from each other, but animals can learn from each other as well. Um, so then I went off to do a PhD studying those sorts of questions, studying meercat in the Kalahari Desert, where I was particularly interested in, in understanding how does a little baby meca grow up to be a fully functioning adult because they're cute, but they're useless when they're babies, they can't do anything. Um, so they've got to learn how to hunt, how to avoid predators, all of these sorts of things. And you know, one of the questions I was looking at is. About might the adults help by teaching them. And at the time it was thought that humans are the only animal that teaches. Turns out that Meercat teach. Um, so, and then that set the scene for a whole bunch of other work looking at how information spreads through groups.

[00:11:23] And yeah, then I started going more interested in questions around. How intelligence evolves. So, meerkats are brilliant, but they're not particularly bright animals. But at the time there was lots of research coming out from, um, particularly from Nikki Clayton's lab in Cambridge and, uh, Thomas Nias lab in, in Vienna and Austria showing that birds of the Crow family were remarkably clever. So, you know, almost anything that a primate could do in a psychological test, these birds were capable of doing. They've got extremely big brains relative to their body size, but because people have just studied them in labs. We didn't really have much of an idea of, you know, what are they using these big brains for in their, in their daily lives.

[00:12:03] So then I started studying, um, birds of the crow family in their natural environment to try and understand, well, what challenges do they face? How does that shape the evolution of intelligence? Um, and yeah, at the same time I was getting interested in what is it that makes human culture so distinctive? So we've got a bit of a, a line of work looking at, uh, elements of that as well in people.

[00:12:24] Pia: Am I correct that Ravens are in the Tower of London? Now is there anything to do with their big brains, or is that just feature of history? I'm just wondering whether there's, I've just stumbled on something or it's utterly 

[00:12:40] Dan: two equals six? Yeah. 

[00:12:41] Pia: yeah. that could be. 

[00:12:42] Alex: Um, well, probably a bit of both, I think. Um, so I mean, they're kept in the Tower of London. They're not there of their own kind of free will, if you like. Um, but you know, they are, they're tam birds who live there. And I think the interesting thing is that basically every human culture that has corvids, birds of the crow family living around it, has myths and legends about these birds. I think in large part that's because, you know, they've got very big brains. They're often associated with wisdom. They live alongside us, so they're very good at exploiting opportunities that people provide. And so they've always been around.

[00:13:18] We actually had a, an archeologist come to work with us last year who was looking at corvid remains in human burial grounds and how attitudes to, to these birds have changed over the years. You know, we used to, they used to be primarily associated with, with wisdom, and they still are in, you know, many Native American tribes, for example. Um, and then, you know, with the advent of Christianity, in part, they started to be, become more associated with, with death and darkness. Um, and so I think there's always been this tension that, you know, they're, they're clever and fascinating, but also a bit scary.

[00:13:52] Pia: That's really interesting. What, what are they using their big brains for?

[00:13:57] Alex: Yeah, that's a very good question, and I suppose that that is at the core of all the research that I'm trying to do. And if I could give you the definitive answer, then I could retire. Um, so, you know, we're, well, I dunno if I'd be rich. anyone pay me for that? Probably not.

[00:14:12] Um, but um, yeah, I mean, I suppose it seems to be related to the fact that these birds are a, they're very, very generalists. So, you know, lots of animals have. Have specialist niches where, you know, you specialize on doing one thing and one thing really well. Um, what the corvids seems to be good at is doing lots of things very well. So they're jacks of all trades. And so that means that when, when environments change, they're able to, to adapt their behavior. So they're very flexible behavior.

[00:14:38] Um, and a lot of them live in, in very complex societies. And so this is something that's been argued to be at the core of why we as humans are so intelligent that, you know, people say, if you reflect on your own life, this is probably true. One of the hardest things we need to do is manage relationships, deal with other people, know how to respond to other people, depending on, you know, what they've done to us in the past and their interactions with others and so on. And so people have argued that the need to keep track of all that kind of social information is one of the things that has favored the evolution of intelligence in humans. And we've got evidence that probably the same is true in, in other animals, including these birds of the crow family.

[00:15:20] So the birds I study mostly, I study jackdaws, which their, their societies are quite similar to ours in some senses. They form these kind of long-term Pearse bonds. So you've got, you know, almost like a marriage with this pair raising their offspring. But then that's embedded within a very dynamic social network where individuals have, you know, they've got their partner, but they've also got friends and acquaintances, and there's individuals coming and going. So the groups aren't stable, but they, you know, they change over time. So, you know, in the winter you'd get thousands and thousands of birds coming together in a winter roost. And then during the breeding season, they'd be mostly hanging around with individuals from their own breeding colony.

[00:15:58] So there's a lot of information to keep track of. And we've been doing some experiments recently to try and understand, actually is it, is it the case that they are keeping track of this information? Can they gain benefits from doing so? 

[00:16:10] Dan: And and where, where is that? I was just, my brain went into a right old spin there trying to think about cause and effect here. So I I is it a, um, presumably it's an evolutionary benefit for the corvid to, for them to form these bigger groups in, for, in some way they get some benefit from that. And then that in turn over time has led to larger brains and therefore larger intelligence. Is that the. Is that the flow of this? 

[00:16:38] Alex: Yeah. So I mean, I suppose what probably what's going on is that there are, there are feedback loops where, you know, coming together in, in groups can provide a lot of different benefits. So, for example, it reduces risk of predation. Um, it also creates problems because once you're together with a bunch of individuals, that creates competition.

[00:16:56] And groups vary, right? So some groups are, for example, a meercat I used to work with live in primarily family groups, um, where in a sense that's, it's slightly easier because everybody's interests are largely aligned. Whereas, uh, the, the jackdaws that I study now, they have families, but these families are embedded within larger groups, which will contain relatives and non-relatives. So, so there's more potential for, for conflict there, or to need to kind of keep track of all the different dynamics that are happening within the group in order to make sure that you can, you can benefit from that.

[00:17:31] And you know, what we find is actually the, the structure of societies, that emerges from individual decisions. So if you imagine each individual in the society is deciding, okay, who am I gonna hang out with? How am I gonna interact with them? That scales up and that produces the structure of the overall society. And so we get these interesting feedback loops where, you know, an animal's cognition, the things that it's using to make decisions then generate society. And then that feeds back into what it's using its brain for. 

[00:18:03] Dan: It's interesting how we can lose track of whether you're talking about corvids or humans when you're talking about 

[00:18:07] Alex: Yeah, 

[00:18:08] Dan: individual decisions 

[00:18:09] Alex: think, yeah, that's part of what makes these ideas interesting is that they, they apply, you know, across both humans and other animals. 

[00:18:17] Dan: And in terms of, we talked about the, you talked about brain size in terms of brain structure, how, is there anything about the, the crow's brain and moving into the human brain, are there any similarities that cause this, um, or any marked differences? 

[00:18:32] Alex: Yeah, I mean at the moment we have, we have a very poor understanding of, of the neuroscience, the neurobiology that generates intelligence, and I think that's true in, in both humans and in in other animals. We're piecing things together. Um, but, you know, research is still relatively in its infancy.

[00:18:51] But there are some interesting parallels. So for example, in in humans and other primates, um, one of the kind of largest areas of the brain is the neocortex, which is thought to be associated with, um, with complex forms of cognition, particularly social cognition. And birds don't have a neocortex. Their brain is structured in a completely different way to a mammal's brain. They've got a structure called the alium, which is analogous and interestingly in corvids and in parrots that is very enlarged compared to other birds. So that's similar.

[00:19:23] Uh, the other thing that's really interesting is, so if you think in absolute terms, you know, the brain of a crow is much smaller than the brain of a monkey. But the brain of a crow ha has twice the neural density. So in a given space, you're packing in twice as many neurons. So that means that actually the number of neurons in the crow's brain is pretty much the same as the number of neurons in a, in a primate's brain. So, you know, they're very, very densely packed.

[00:19:48] Um, so again, you know. It's not really clear what, what's the exact relationship between the number of neurons and kind of information processing capacity, but if you think of it as, you know, the metaphor of your computer, the processing power of a computer, then you know, you would expect there to be some kind of relationship.

[00:20:06] Pia: Um, and tell me a little bit about, um, the dynamics, of these crows and jackdaws. Are there, is there a leader amongst them? Is there a, is there a pecking order or a hierarchy? What's the, like, how does that work and how does that relate and could be similar to, to the way that humans structure themselves?

[00:20:27] Alex: Yeah, well, there's a few things to say there, I suppose there. So if you went back and read the literature on jackdaws, we go and read the old papers? Um, then it'll tell you that these birds have a, have a strict dominance hierarchy, a strict pecking order. Um, we've looked into that and I think it's probably a lot more complicated than that.

[00:20:48] Um, so, the problem is that these birds are interacting with so many different individuals. So if you only look at, for example, birds who live in nests very close to each other, among those guys, there may well be a pecking order. And that's useful because you know, you know, it basically reduces conflict. So there's no point challenging the top dog because he is definitely gonna beat me up, so I won't bother. Um, but because they're meeting so many different individuals and some of those individuals they might meet regularly, some of them they might meet once in a blue moon. There's actually a lot of uncertainty.

[00:21:22] And so actually uncertainty is what drives cognition. So the whole point of cognition that using your brain is to reduce uncertainty. So if everything was, you know, very, very simple. And I know that, you know, whenever I meet Dan, I'm always gonna lose. I'm not gonna bother challenging him. It's very predictable, um, then, you know, that probably isn't particularly cognitively challenging. But if the situation is much more flexible and dynamic such that, you know, maybe I will beat him if my partner's with me, um, but I won't under other circumstances or whatever, then there's, there's a lot more information to keep track of. So, so yeah, it does seem that there is a pecking order of sorts, but it's very fluid. I suppose.

[00:22:06] The other thing that I'd say relating to your point, you asked if there are leaders, um, I mean one of the things that we found with jackdaws is that they actually operate in certain circumstances, uh, democratic voting process, where there is no leader, individuals are casting votes. So we find this when they're leaving the roost in the morning.

[00:22:24] Dan: Wow. 

[00:22:25] Alex: So, yeah, I mean here you have, you have a situation where you've got hundreds or possibly thousands of birds and they'll come and spend the night in these, in these roosts during the winter. And then in the morning they've got a bit of a problem. Because every individual is going to have a slightly different preference as to when to leave, you know, depending on how much you fed the previous day, you know, whether you had a good night's sleep, whether you're with your partner and your kids, and so on. But the birds will really benefit if they all manage to figure out a way of all leaving together, because then that's gonna reduce risk of predation and it'll help them to pick up information from each other. 

[00:23:01] So what they do is they have a, a vocal voting system. So if you go very early in the morning, you'll start to hear one or two birds just making a little call, and then more and more and more birds join in and you get this sudden crescendo. And if that crescendo sort of increases very, very steeply and reaches a big peak, then they all just leave poof spontaneously. So you can see, you know, thousands of birds just. Erupting out of a tree like a, like a sudden black snowstorm. It's incredible.

[00:23:31] Pia: That is amazing, isn't it? I mean, that, that's quite, it is quite democratic that, that voting. I guess the poor crow that doesn't wanna vote, isn't gonna get voted out, really. You will have to go with the with the majority in

[00:23:42] Alex: Yeah, it makes sense to go with the majority, and that's because otherwise you're gonna be on your own in the roost and get picked off by a peregrine falcon.

[00:23:52] Dan: It's quite, it's quite simple really, isn't And that is fascinating. And you've already, Alex drawn loads of parallels to, to humans or we, and we've been drawing them. You can see these things. You've, you've studied that particular animal as well, haven't you? The human what? So what have you done, um, done on that group?

[00:24:10] Alex: So with humans, I think the thing that interests me the most is why our culture is cumulative. So we now know that lots of animals have culture. So if you define culture as. Information that spreads through groups, through learning, and that generates differences between groups, so that's kind of the core of what culture is really, it's, it's learned information that spreads through groups, then we see culture in lots of different animals.

[00:24:37] So, you know, I'd see it in the mere cats that I was studying, where different groups of Meca, for example, they had different waking up times in the morning and those were traditional. They were passed down through the generations because they learn them from each other. So it was some lazy groups who liked to have a lion in the morning, some. Groups, get up nice and early from the borough and go off foraging. So that's, that's a simple form of culture in meerkats. Um, you know, in chimpanzees we see lots of different forms of culture with different groups using different kinds of tools, different social rituals and so on.

[00:25:07] But human culture seems to have this very distinctive property, which is that, um, you know, we, we build on the shoulders of giants so our culture gets ever more complex and efficient. Hence, you know, we're having this conversation via, you know, this electronic medium and, you know, we've got Pia sitting in Australia and we're still having this conversation. Whereas, you know, if you think about it only, it wasn't that many generations ago in human history that we were banging a couple of rocks together.

[00:25:34] So what is it that has allowed our culture to accumulate in that way? And that seems to be something that although other animals have culture, they're clearly not doing that to the same degree. You know, other animals aren't sending people to the moon and stuff. Um, and so I'm really interested in, well, what is it that enables us to transmit culture in that way that we can kind of build upon what's come before.

[00:25:59] And one of the, the interesting things there seems to be the role of human teaching. So I mentioned that I, I found that Meerkats teach, um, and we, now that there's, there's a handful of animals that are known to teach, but they all teach in very specific contexts. So meerkats teach their pups how to hunt, but they don't teach anything else. Whereas human teaching is open-ended, we can teach in an in infinite number of contexts, really. We can, I can teach you something about the past or about an abstract concept. Um, crucially, I can teach you about things not to do. So from my own experience, I can't just show you can do what I do. I can also help you to learn what, you know, what things might not work. And, and we do that through language largely. So, you know, I think the idea about kind of the role of. Language in enabling human teaching and how that's allowed us to generate increasingly complex culture.

[00:26:52] And again, that will, that will create these feedback loops, right? That once you are, once you start to become more and more dependent, say on tools that are very, they're too complicated for you to learn how to build them on your own. So then there's even more benefit from having mechanisms to transmit that information and to learn that information, so, so I've been doing a lot of experiments looking at the role of different forms of learning and allowing humans to build up cultural complexity. 

[00:27:21] Dan: I, I can see the long, that's fascinating, and I can see the really long flow of that over thousands of years. Is it, if you learned anything about learning that we, that we should learn, if you like, that we can, we can take away that you, you've seen that that's a spec, a particularly effective one, accelerates development or, um, anything along those lines?

[00:27:46] Alex: Well, I think maybe one of the most useful things that I've learned is that there's, there's just such a diversity of different ways that one could learn. Um, and so to give you one example, you know, when I first started studying teaching in in meerkats at the time, psychologists made this argument that humans are the only animal that can teach. And that's because we have what's called theory of mind, which is the, the idea that I can understand that you have thoughts and values and knowledge that might differ from my own. And so if that's the case, then I could recognize if you are ignorant about something and intentionally sets about to correct your ignorance. So people argue, well only hear humans have theory of mind, therefore only humans can teach. Turns out that meerkats almost certainly don't have theory of mind, but they can teach perfectly well using quite simple mechanisms.

[00:28:36] And, and so that kind of got me thinking about, well, if we think about, you know, there's lots of different ways that one could arrive at teaching, you know, if teaching is the. Is the endpoints, the, it's the functional point, which is basically helping somebody else to learn, having thinking about the mental states of other individuals could be really useful, but it's not the only way to do that. And so that's led me to, with a, with a PhD student of mine, we've been doing some work on of neurodiverse human populations, because actually there's variation among people as well. So some people find it very intuitive to think in terms of other people, what other people think and know. For other people that's far less intuitive and automatic. So for example, for people with, with autism, often that's something that they, you know, they wouldn't automatically tend to reason in terms of, okay, you don't know this, therefore I'm going to set it out to correct your ignorance.

[00:29:31] And you know, going back there was, you know, during the seventies, eighties, even up to the nineties, some people, some psychologists were making wild claims suggesting that, you know, therefore people with autism would be incapable of teaching, or would be somehow acultural, which is clearly nonsense. And so I think if we can start to unravel different ways that people could transmit information, that could also help to open up, you know, the ability to, I suppose, better incorporate the talents of neurodiverse people into societies to help, you know, so many of these people are phenomenally talented in many, many ways. Um, and so if we just assume, well, you know, their talents are locked within them, because they, they aren't gonna be able to transmit them. That's, that's clearly very stifling. So if we can begin to think about, well, how, what are the ways through which people can transmit this information most effectively? And you know, it might differ between different people. Some people do it one way, some people might do it another way.

[00:30:29] Pia: Do you see that neurodiversity when you, when you're studying animals?

[00:30:33] Alex: Yeah, that's a good question. I suppose what we do see is we see incredible individual differences. So it's, at the moment, it's not really clear whether those individual differences are due to kind of differences in, in cognitive styles. They could be due to a whole bunch of things. You know, it could be due to hormonal variation or differences in early life experience or whatever. Um, so why those differences exist is still quite open. But, you know, for example, when we study the jackdaws,, one of the most striking things is every time we do an experiment, which is actually quite annoying in many ways. It makes the data hard to analyze, different individuals will respond, but they respond in different ways.

[00:31:14] So, I mean, to give you one example, the former PhD student of mine who, who you, I know you've spoken to on the podcast, Beki Hooper, she did an experiment to test whether jackdaws show consolation. So this is the idea that, you know, if your, if your partner's upset, has experienced something stressful, do you then go and console them, you know, do you go and give 'em a hug?

[00:31:34] Um, and so she did an experiment where. She, um, she created a, a mild stressor that these female jackdaws were exposed to when they were in the nest. So their male partner wasn't around. Something stressful happened, so she played back, sounds that simulated an intruding male coming in, which is a bit of a stressful event. Um, so females had something stressful that happened. And then the question is, well, what do the males do when they come back? Do they, can they recognize that, you know, something, them the misses is upset? Um, and, and the cool thing was that they do, they do seem to recognize that something is amiss 'cause they respond.

[00:32:10] But different individuals respond in different ways. So some of them, as you might kind of naively expect, would then increase their, their cuddliness towards the female. They'd go in pre and so on. But a lot of them would do exactly the opposite and would just leave. So it'd be like, oh my God, something terrible's happened, I'm Yeah. Um, which actually in many ways, if you think about it, might be a more sensible thing to do. 'Cause if you've got information telling you that something stressful has happened, do you stick around in the same place where the stressful thing has happened? 'cause that might happen to you as well. And given that these, these pairs are raising kids together, that's actually not good for the female either if something bad happens to the male as well. 

[00:32:50] Pia: I mean, that's a more of an emotional response rather than a rational response. Because I mean, you know, if you're, if you're consoling your, your partner jackdaw you are caring about them rather than, you know, necessarily thinking about your own gains or your, you know, what might happen to you.

[00:33:07] Alex: Yeah. Well, I mean, that's true, but I suppose as, as evolutionary biologists, we always wanna be thinking about, well, why would this evolve? So, you know, if it was the case that. You know, you've got this emotional response, which means that you stick around and you, you cuddle your partner, and that means that you are both more likely to die or you know, it's gonna reduce your chances of breeding that's gonna be selected out.

[00:33:31] So, so the question is, well, what are the benefits? You know, and I suppose we always need, we think in terms of, of economics, basically, you know, there's gonna be costs and there's gonna be benefits, and things will only evolve if the benefits outweigh the costs.

[00:33:45] Pia: Given the nature of, you know, your research, do you find yourself watching people in a party? Do, do you find that it, as you sometimes have a bit of a busman's holiday where you're taking this into social settings and thinking, I've seen that in a jackdaw, I've, I've seen that, and now they're doing it.

[00:34:06] Alex: Yeah, all the time. Yeah, absolutely. So, um, which, you know, means it's, it's, it's always fun. There's always something to watch. But yeah, I mean, humans are endlessly interesting and we do all sorts of stuff that most of the time we don't even realize that we're doing it. So, yeah, it is really interesting to, to kind of look at the dynamics.

[00:34:23] I, I remember, you know, I, I teach in a lot of. Field courses with students. Um, and, you know, just seeing some of the interactions, like we had one, one young Ladd on a field course a couple of years ago who kept when there were, when there was a bunch of girls around, he kept sort of dropping to the floor and doing press-ups and it's just, it's, it's peacocking, isn't it? I mean, it's fantastic. 

[00:34:45] Dan: That's brilliant. It's, 

[00:34:48] Pia: What a legend.

[00:34:50] Alex: yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:34:52] Dan: marks for trying. Definitely. Yeah. 

[00:34:56] Pia: And I bet the girls were unimpressed. They didn't need any consoling. They were just like, oh, God.

[00:35:00] Alex: Here we go again. 

[00:35:01] Dan: That's just what I'm looking for in a mate. Exactly. 

[00:35:05] Um, Alex, so, um, thank you for all of those insights. You, you've studied animal behavior across all kinds of types, including humans. If we think about groups of humans, what, what could you leave the listener with that, everything you've seen? What, what's your, what's your one little bit tip for just help these little groups to work better together? 

[00:35:27] Alex: Yeah, I mean, I suppose I'd come back to something we mentioned before, which is the idea of, of embracing diversity. Thinking about the fact that, you know, there are lots of different ways in which individuals can, can contribute to science, to society. There's lots of different ways in which we can learn from each other.

[00:35:44] And I think we often try and be very prescriptive. So, you know, if we think about schools for example, you know, schools often have quite, quite rigid, curricular rigid ways in which we think this is the way that teaching should be done. And you know, because of that we often lose sight of the importance of creativity, for example, in in learning. So I think trying to embrace that is is probably one of the most useful things that we can do.

[00:36:10] Dan: Fantastic. Thank you. And, Uh, yeah, I think it reinforces a point we've heard throughout, which is around teaching and learning. Um, and that's, that's where it's gonna come from. So, um, wonderful stuff. Alex, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your wonderful insights. It's been a what a great conversation. Thank you.

[00:36:27] Alex: It's been a pleasure.

[00:36:28] Pia: Especially liked the experiment when they stressed out the Mrs. jackdaw and, and the Mrs. jackdaws were, were worried that there was a predator. And then the Mr. Jjackdawso returned to a flock of stressed females. And, and I think this says a lot about the way that we respond. So there was that act of consoling, I mean, the thought of of a, a jackdaw consoling is really quite, quite an amazing thing. And then 

[00:37:05] Dan: your wing around. 

[00:37:07] Pia: put the wing around. Come here, love. It's okay. but then the others, well, they just flocked off really, didn't they?

[00:37:18] Dan: Well, and, and interesting is it for, for them it's purely a, a evolutionary choice.

[00:37:24] Pia: They just like can't hang around. It's dangerous. Dangerous in here. 

[00:37:27] Dan: Exactly. And as he said, if you are consoling the missus, there there, love, there there, and you both get killed, your, the progeny probably get killed as well. So it, there's a, and like, like the voting system, that sounds already nice, but it's actually, so you don't get picked off by a large predator.

[00:37:45] Pia: And bringing it back to, to the subject that we were talking about, all the complex challenges in the Middle East, really interesting, because there you've got choices and the way that you are behaving for evolution. It was when one of the women that was released was an 85 year old who'd been a peace activist. And she'd been harangued on the, taken on a motorbike, been beaten, been, you know, it wasn't, but the moment when she'd spent her entire life trying to create peace and, and supporting children from the Gaza Strip. When they released her, she reached back and shook hands with her captor, who reached out to her and warmly took her hand in. It was such an interesting thing to look at, and there's that moment of consolation or, you know. yeah, and hope. 

[00:38:44] Dan: Yeah. That's a consoling moment, isn't it? Yeah, and, and hope. And I, and I think some of these folks are trying to kill, kill hope, and trying to rekindle it is important. And I think from an evolutionary standpoint, you know, our corvid friends the jackdaw, you know, while they have structures in their brains that sort of seem to mimic this, we as humans have a very large prefrontal cortex. We shouldn't be run by our limbic brain, which is about immediate threats, family, you know, these more evolutionary things that, that, that, that scan for threats. And we have to make a conscious choice to say, right, you know, almost mentally right? Make me think in the front of my brain, at the top of my brain, but actually also think in a bigger way. We're not seeing that enough at the moment. I know it's gonna be very hard for anyone on the ground to to even do that, but there are people outside that, that sort of, um, world who can not follow their evolutionary instincts to strike back or to, um, to overly react or whatever, but to try to get above it. It's very hard on the ground obviously, but there are those who, the world leaders who could, who could do that. And I think we can all do that in our conversations in the pub, is get above to that picture of, um, of peace and handshaking and hope.

[00:40:02] Um, yeah. So, um, we don't have to follow all our evolutionary instincts all the time, but, um, that is it for this interesting episode where we've been very serious but also had a wonderfully lighthearted but, and scientific conversation about jackdaws. Uh, so I hope you've enjoyed it. If you have enjoyed the show, please do, uh, share the love and recommend it to your friends. Um, you can find show notes at squadify.net under Resources. If you'd like to contribute to the show, just email us at wenotmepod@gmail.com. We Not Me is produced by Mark Steadman of Origin. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.

[00:40:40] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.