The 'Alpha' Myth, Debunked

Summary

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Pablo Torre Finds Out

Episode: The 'Alpha' Myth, Debunked
Date: January 16, 2024
Host: Pablo Torre (Le Batard & Friends)
Key Guest/Contributor: Bradley Campbell

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Pablo Torre investigates the "alpha" concept—specifically, the pervasive belief in the "alpha male" archetype, its origins in wolf research, and why this idea is both scientifically flawed and culturally persistent. Through storytelling, interviews, and sharp banter, Torre and his co-hosts trace the journey of the word "alpha" from misunderstood animal behavior to its outsized influence on sports, self-help culture, and broader masculinity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Obsession with the Word "Alpha"

• (01:19–03:10) Pablo and the team riff on how often the word "alpha" comes up in sports culture and how it's applied to athletes and coaches, noting that its usage spills far beyond sports into politics, business, and daily life.
• (03:10–06:07) There's a comedic exploration of "heat culture" (Miami Heat) and how "alpha" is wrapped up in sports branding and identity.

2. The Wolf Book: Where the Alpha Originates

• (03:27–04:23) Discussion centers on "The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species" by L. David Mech (published 1970). This book introduced the idea of the "alpha wolf"—a term that rapidly seeped into popular culture.
• Notable banter: “Whatever, man... That’s a wolf. The ecology and behavior of an endangered species.” — Pablo & Cortez (04:03)

3. The Scientific Origin—and Error—of the Alpha Theory

• (06:07–08:01) Pablo reveals that the book's creator, Dave Mech, later admitted his seminal claim about alpha wolves was incorrect—a point most of the world has ignored.
• The team send producer Bradley Campbell on an assignment to investigate further.

4. Meeting “Alpha Dave” Mech

• (09:47–13:01) Campbell meets L. David Mech, now 87, still energetic and the top wolf biologist in the US. Mech’s background: started studying wolves in 1958, including living among them on Isle Royale, Lake Superior.
• (13:12–15:00) Mech’s skills in animal fieldwork are recounted, including trapping bears before tranquilizer darts—a sign of his own supposed “alpha” credentials.

5. The Data Behind the Original "Alpha" Concept

• (15:26–19:33) Mech’s early studies, influenced by German scientist Rudolf Schenkel, involved observing wolves in captivity—crucially, unrelated adult wolves placed together artificially, leading naturally to dominance struggles.
• Mech’s book translated these artificial conditions to all wolf behavior, popularizing the "alpha" as a dominant, aggressive leader.

6. The Real Wolf Pack: Not Alpha, Just Family

• (25:24–27:55) After decades of fieldwork observing wolves in the wild, Mech realized packs are organized by family, where the “alphas” are simply parents, leading naturally—not through dominance contests.
• Notable quote:

  “It’s just a matter of just like humans, a male and female mating and having offspring. Oh God.” — Dave Mech (27:07)

• There’s no true “alpha” battle; just family structure.

7. The Struggle to Correct the Record

• (28:58–29:42) Mech published a correction in 1999, tried and failed to get his publisher to update or stop printing the inaccurate book. The discredited alpha myth continued to spread.
• Notable exchange:

  “He tries…‘Hey, we have to fix this. It’s completely wrong.’ But the publisher was like, ‘nah, we can’t do that.’ And he was like, ‘No, then just stop selling it!’” — Campbell (29:16)

8. The “Alpha” Myth in Modern Culture

• (31:05–33:32) Pablo tracks how the alpha concept pervades sports—LeBron James, Deion Sanders, and self-help (e.g., Onnit’s “Alpha Brain” supplement promoted by Joe Rogan).
• The archetype is weaponized and commercialized, most egregiously by figures like Andrew Tate, who sells a warped, misogynistic vision of alpha masculinity.
• Notable example:

  “He turned this into, like, a quasi religion. Called tatism. ... I believe that a man’s life is difficult, and he has the sacred duty to become strong, to handle such difficulty.” — Pablo reading Tate (32:50)

9. Why the Myth Persists

• (34:04–35:40) Campbell considers why “alpha” is so compelling, especially among men seeking simple answers to real struggles (mental health, purpose).
• Quote:

  “Guys like me die of suicide in the US at the highest rate. White guys, middle aged. ... you want to reach for a philosophy that’s easy to understand.” — Campbell (34:04)

10. Redefining Alpha: Lessons from Primates

• (36:44–38:32) Primate expert Frans de Waal explains most “alpha males” in chimps are not tyrants but peacekeepers who maintain group harmony. Crucially, in many groups, it’s actually females who determine who becomes “alpha.”
• Notable quotes:

  “One out of five is dictatorial…But four out of five, I would say, are keeping the peace and protecting the underdog and keeping the group together.” — Frans de Waal (37:34)

11. The Word Isn’t Going Anywhere—So What Now?

• (40:58–41:13) Pablo and Campbell reflect on the futility of trying to “put the genie back in the bottle.” The alpha myth, in both word and concept, is stubbornly persistent.
• As Mech himself says:

  “We’re not going to stop that. I mean, that’s just the way that is.” — Dave Mech (41:09)

12. The Reality of Wolf (and Human) Leadership

• (41:45–42:32) The most vital lessons from actual wolf packs and primates: true leadership involves parenting, affection, and community responsibility—sometimes even literal hugging.

• Mech confirms:

  “Actually putting their arms around each other’s neck. ... I published a whole paper on wolves hugging each other.” — Dave Mech (42:01)

• Epilogue: Pablo and Bradley Campbell share a laugh, hug Bud Light cans together, and acknowledge that perhaps the most “alpha” move is taking care of others and forming bonds—like real wolves do.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the alpha myth’s cultural reach:
  “It’s a massive error about alphas. And it’s one that took Dave about 30 years to fit.” — Pablo (24:53)

• On correcting mistakes:
  “There are some mistakes that no matter how hard you try, you can’t correct.” — Campbell (20:21)

• On real wolf dynamics:
  “It’s just a family…they automatically become the dominant members of the pack. Just like a human male and female, a mother and father become dominant to their offspring.” — Mech (27:31)

• On society's desire for simple philosophies:
  “You want to reach for a philosophy that’s easy to understand.” — Campbell (34:04)

• On redefining alpha:
  “The more important thing, to be a great alpha…you gotta be affectionate with your mate. You gotta be really great to your pups.” — Campbell (41:41)

• On wolf affection:
  “Wolves hug.” — Campbell (41:46)
  “I published a whole paper on wolves hugging each other.” — Mech (42:01)

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Timeline of Important Segments

• 00:00–01:47: Intro/Vocabulary talk leads to “alpha” discussion
• 03:27–06:07: The wolf book and its outsized influence
• 09:47–13:01: Dave Mech’s background on wolf/animal research
• 15:26–19:33: The original error—misunderstanding wolf social structure
• 25:24–27:55: Discovery: wolves organize as families, not dominance hierarchies
• 28:58–29:42: Mech’s attempt to correct the error in science and publishing
• 31:05–33:32: The alpha concept in sports, supplements, and masculinity culture
• 34:04–35:40: Why men gravitate toward simple, “alpha” philosophies
• 36:44–38:32: Primatologist’s perspective: true alphas are peacemakers
• 41:45–42:32: The reality: wolves hug—true leadership is affectionate

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Conclusion

The “alpha” wolf myth, born from flawed research and perpetuated by inertia (and relentless publishing), has taken on a life of its own in sport, business, and self-help culture. In truth, wolves aren't ruled by dominant, aggressive “alphas,” but by stable, nurturing family leaders—parents. Science corrected itself, but the world, it turns out, prefers a seductive (if inaccurate) story. The lesson: real leadership is both strong and caring—sometimes, it even hugs.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[B]

And I looked up and here were two wolves charging towards me, maybe 100, 150ft away or so. Then I realized that maybe I was.

[A]

In a little trouble right after this ad. You're listening to Giraffe Kings. I think about vocabulary a lot.

[C]

Yeah, you do.

[A]

You're a nerd.

[C]

And for the listeners who don't know.

[A]

There'S a Twitter account.

[C]

It's called the PTFO Dictionary, right?

[A]

That's right. Shout out to that listener viewer in Israel, apparently, who. Who watches and learns, unlike you. Okay, learning part.

[C]

What he does is he looks up.

[A]

These stupid words you say and he.

[C]

Finds out what they mean, like shambolic and sensorious and great word perum and every. All these other weird words that you were saying on the show. So shout out to him.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

You do think about vocabulary a lot.

[A]

Yes. And so I've been dying to do an episode about vocabulary.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

And I wanted to do one in specific about a word that I. I argue cortez is the most influential term in all of sports.

[C]

These nuts close.

[A]

Would you describe yourself as an alpha male? As alpha males, you always got in.

[C]

The back of your mind saying, listen, I want to be recognized as the.

[A]

Greatest in the game.

[C]

You got two alphas in the prime of their careers.

[A]

He's got that alpha mentality.

[C]

I'm a competitive alpha dude.

[A]

And we could have kept going, by the way, like that. That's just sports. Like the NFL playoffs are going on. Everybody is feeling like in alpha or they want to.

[C]

Well, so you say we could keep going, right? That's something you said.

[A]

Yeah. It goes into non sports politics. It's everywhere.

[C]

What I thought of hearing that was you. Because what you may not know is that our producers here and myself, we've been keeping track of somebody who's been saying that word an awful lot. Go ahead and roll the tape.

[A]

I wanted to be an alpha in this test because he's the alpha again. He's an alpha. Just like huge alpha, like dominant energy from you. The alpha of all alphas. All right, so what I want to explain. You said it. What I want. A lot of times, the reason I have been saying it is because it's actually, first off, you second off, the idea of dominance. Okay. Of being the stronger person, being. Being the alpha. It's something that is instinctive and intuitive.

[C]

That's why you wanted to talk to me like biggest alpha Malta company.

[A]

For the record, by the way for the podcast audience not watching on YouTube or the drafting network. Cortez, I'm just noticing this now. He's speaking of vocabulary.

[C]

What Cortez is, he's wearing a black.

[A]

Polo shirt that says heat culture on it. So before I left the house, I also have a hat that says heat culture. And I put that on and I looked in the mirror and I said, I can't leave the house with a Heat culture hat and a he culture shirt.

[C]

So I put in a Levo hat instead.

[A]

Yeah, but this idea of what he culture embodies and what alpha male signifies and what we're all trying to do by being the dominant person in any competitive environment, which is to say life, it turns out that it all traces back to a book. This book. Cortez read it. What does it say? What does it say on the COVID of this book?

[C]

It says the wolf.

[A]

The ecology and behavior of an endangered species. You say woof. Woof. That's how you pronounce wolf.

[C]

Whatever, man.

[A]

What is this accent? The wolf. That's the wolf. The ecology and behavior of an endangered species.

[C]

Hold on.

[A]

It's spelled W O L F. That's wolf.

[C]

If the way you're pronouncing it is like timber wolf.

[A]

That's a wolf. Oh, my God. L V E. You went. You went to college.

[C]

Fau.

[A]

A good college. Allegedly.

[C]

Let me see that for a second.

[A]

That book is of a weird size and I. It's substantial.

[C]

Why is the font so big, bro?

[A]

So.

[C]

So this is insane. Look at the textbook size.

[A]

It is a large fonted book with a large idea. When was the center of it book written? It was. It was published 1970.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

The author is L. David Meech.

[C]

What does L stand for?

[A]

I don't know. Loser. Okay, stop trying to out alpha the alpha book guy. The point is this gentleman, L. David Meech, is the foremost wolf researcher on the planet.

[C]

Okay?

[A]

And so this book, I. I have been fascinated by it and reading it. Yes, it's. It's large. It's large letters because it's. Look at these. There are wolf diagrams in it.

[C]

Figure 13.

[A]

Start reading. Yeah, go. Expressive positions of the wolf's tail. And there's a picture of a wolf with its tail sticking straight up in the air. And it says, self confidence in social intercourse. That's what it looks like when a wolf is feeling self confident in social intercourse.

[C]

This is a book about wolf sex?

[A]

Well, yeah, actually is. Figure 14. Presentation and Withdrawal of the anal parts. I mean, why there's a diagram why do you have that bookmark? You just, you just saw that. You were like, I love this page. I wolf eared it. The page dominant wolf in rear is presenting his anal area and is exerting control over the anal parts of the subordinate who's withdrawing his anal region. So this is science, this book. Okay. The most influential, most cited part though is the part that establishes the idea of the alpha wolf. This is where it comes from, this tome, this thing that spread out across America and the world to inform what it means to be dominant, to be masculine, to be the Alpha male. And the issue with this book and its research is that that part is wrong.

[C]

It's wrong.

[A]

It is completely wrong according to the guy who wrote the book himself. Huh? And the problem has been for decades now that nobody will listen to him.

[C]

So you're gonna listen to him?

[A]

Well, I'm going to listen to the guy we sent to listen to him.

[C]

Who did you send to listen to him?

[A]

The resident Alpha in our office.

[C]

So you sent me. That doesn't make sense though.

[A]

I would have known about this. As much as your polo shirt suggests that you are both an Alpha and also the manager of the worst Radio Shack in America. There is someone stop laughing.

[C]

Through the soundproof glass.

[A]

And he's waiting on the other side of the soundproof glass Glass. Very good. Bradley Campbell, thank you for for taking on this assignment and drinking what you just confessed off microphone to be dandelion tea.

[C]

Thanks, Pablo. No, I appreciate the embrace.

[A]

Yes. You're a valued part of the Meadowlark media community. You are many things. What you are not known as by the various people on the other side of this glass here is an Alpha.

[C]

No, no, I keep my past hidden.

[A]

That's right. That's right. I don't know if they appreciate what I'm about to show the people watching on YouTube in the draft Kings network. Because you now, Bradley Campbell, are like short sleeved button down podcast guy. You're a narrative podcast producer.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And reporter.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm the guy at the, at the coffee shop ordering a pour over.

[A]

Absolutely.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Before though, you were this. And I just need a stress that your hair is shorter, your quads are Godzilla sized. There's so much Alpha in you, Bradley. Like how old are you in this photograph?

[C]

I mean, I'm 18.

[A]

Where are you? Because you're wearing a tank top and the shortest shorts showing off those quadzillas and you look like you're a part of the super soldier program.

[C]

Oh yeah, that's like 180 pounds of Trump rally just coming at you, looking at that photo. But now I'm at the Dallas high school track. I'm running the anchor of the 4x100 relay.

[A]

Veins pulsating. How does one look like that?

[C]

I mean, well, that was. It was haybucking season. So, like, after I was done with tracking the meat, we go over to Mr. Hatfield late. Mr. Hatfield's like one of his farms because you're from rural, rural Oregon, so super rural Oregon. Dallas. Yeah, just like Texas. Sort of bigger the buckle, the closer to God sort of place to pick up extra money. We'd buck hay. So we just roll around and field buck. Hey, toss it up on the back of a trailer and do that. I don't know, two, three hours after all of our workouts. But yeah, you just, you get gagged.

[A]

Yeah. Gacked is. Is absolutely what is next to this photo in the dictionary? Right next to another term which we conscripted you to investigate because you. Hey, hey, bucker. Yeah. Former high school track athlete, quarterback, all of these things. We sent you back out into nature, into rural America.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

To investigate how it is that we all became obsessed with the idea of the alpha.

[C]

Yeah. You guys sent me out to the great state of Minnesota, out to St. Paul campus at the University of Minnesota. That's where I met our main character for the story, Alpha Dave.

[B]

My name is Dave Meech. I'm a senior research scientist with the U.S. geological Survey and I've been a wolf biologist since 1958.

[C]

He's amazing. He's 87 years old. You wouldn't know it, though. Super sprightly. He walked up to. Not walked up. He bounded up to the second floor into his office, pushing desks and tables around to like, get our shoot going.

[A]

Baller. How is it that this 87 year old man became the forefather of the alpha wolf?

[C]

Oh, man. He is the preeminent wolf biologist and it goes all the way back to 1958. He was a PhD student at Purdue University and he was tasked with going to an island called Isle Royale. It's an island in Lake Superior. And he was there to track timberwolves as part of a research study for his PhD slash dissertation.

[A]

Right. But he had the.

[C]

He had the right, you know, kind of kind of resume for it.

[A]

Because he could guard Carl Anthony Towns.

[C]

No, no, I don't know if he. I wouldn't put it past him. I wouldn't put it past him. But no, no, no. I think the biggest reason is because one, he had the Brain for it. He went to Cornell University. People's Ivy. That's right.

[A]

They have an ag school. They do.

[C]

Is it the only one? I think with the ag school.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

God bless Cornell.

[A]

I mean, we're not. We're not. We're not having an ag school over at Harvard University. Bradley, come on. Not bucking hay over there.

[C]

So anyway, he had the brain, but even more importantly for this is that he had experience beforehand trapping bears.

[A]

Trapping bears, yeah.

[C]

So he would go out into the woods, had a whole method for how to stalk bears in order to tag them. And this is. This is before the era of dart pistols and dart rifles.

[A]

So how is this man.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Wrangling a bear before the advent of all the technologies that I would assume one would use to trap a bear?

[C]

You've seen Looney Tunes, right? Of course. You know, like the old school traps.

[B]

We would, you know, bait them and set them out in the. In the woods along old forest roads. And when a bear got caught in one of those, then we had to subdue the bear, drug it, and put ear tags on it.

[C]

His team would jump out, wrestle the bear, grab the bear's feet, essentially, to spread eagle the thing.

[A]

Ridiculous.

[C]

And then get up close and then knock the bear out with drugs by hand. A bespoked bear drugging.

[A]

So I. I do want to point out that this Dave Meech character, the scientist who. Who is the preeminent wolf researcher and apparently an expert bear trapper.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Himself. Major alpha energy so far.

[C]

Oh, huge. Huge. Back in the day. Which made him the perfect PhD candidate to set loose on an island to track down timberwolves, which are for people.

[A]

Who only know of the timberwolves through, like, I don't know, NBA drafting three.

[C]

Point guards before Steph Curry.

[A]

They're a lot scarier than that.

[C]

Yeah, Johnny Flynn's like, jump shot. So anyway, Isle Royal is this undisturbed place that had a pack of timberwolves that one day came over on an ice bridge. They believe to inhabit the island and hunt moose.

[A]

Wow. So he is there to research these wolves. This is like him, in a sense, finding his calling.

[C]

Oh, my gosh. He's. He's in seventh heaven. He wouldn't, like, bound around the island pretending to be a wolf, like, packing stuff. He would pack food, pack around, and then go as far as he could set up camp, try and track wolves the whole summer.

[A]

So I'm imagining this badass who.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

In order to study the wolf, must become himself the wolf.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

But the biggest difference between trying to wrangle a bear. And trying to wrangle a timberwolf would be what?

[C]

You can't find timberwolves. So he spent the entire first summer there tracking these timberwolves, but it was kind of like tracking ghosts, but ghosts who leave behind. So all he did that entire first summer was just run around, track wolf scat, collect it, and then study it to see kind of what they ate, what their diet was, to guess. But all he wanted to do was find a wolf. And so he got the idea in the wintertime to hire a pilot and get up in a Cessna and track him in the sky.

[B]

His name was Don Murray, and he was an old bush pilot that actually had been hunting wolves as part of what he did. So it was handy to have him around and because he knew, you know, quite a bit about wolves and all, so.

[C]

So.

[A]

So the pilot was a wolf hunter in a literal sense.

[C]

Yeah, dude.

[A]

So this is so scientist plus man who's trying to generally kill the thing that he is studying. Right. They form this duo that travels around looking for their. Their targets.

[C]

Yeah, it was almost like a bad buddy cop movie. But the pilot was really good, because if you are hunting wolves from the sky, which I learned, you need a pilot that can fly really, really steady, so that when you aim your rifle or shotgun out the window and shoot them from the sky, there's a good chance you can hit your target. But it's just funny moment where it flipped from. You know, here's this pilot going out there, flying, trying to track down wolves. Then all of a sudden, here's the researcher just sitting there and just kind of looking out, taking notes slowly. So, yeah, you can imagine what the pilot was thinking, too. But I think they ended up forming a pretty good bond until Dave asked him to do something where the pilot was like, dude, nah.

[A]

What did Dave want him to do?

[C]

Well, they were up in the plane one time, and they saw a moose kill. So a pack of wolves had just taken down a moose. And Dave was like, oh, I really want to get close to it. I really want to study this thing.

[B]

The pilot was skeptical about letting me get down on the ground with the wolves. You know, at that time, wolves were considered pretty dangerous to people. In fact, I had the park service made me carry a small revolver, just a gun, just in case I got into some trouble with wolves.

[A]

This is a good reminder that even the guy, the badass hunter of wolves, he's like, you need to remember what a wolf is.

[C]

Yes. And at that time, these were thought of as just these pure killing machines. Right?

[A]

I mean, I grew up. I mean, we all grew up. These fairy tales, right, about the big bad wolf and the wolf was always the villain and blowing down pigs houses and dressing up as a grandma, eating kids like this is rooted in all of this fear.

[C]

All of this fear.

[B]

Generally they were considered creatures that we shouldn't have around and that should be wiped out. In fact, Isle Royale was one of the very few places that they survived on at that time. Most places they had been wiped out of the country.

[C]

But eventually the pilot relented and then landed the bush plane. And they had devised kind of a plan to. If the wolves were to attack him, the pilot would dive out of the sky and try to scare him.

[A]

Gotta want a Monday morning quarterback. Someone's wolf survival attack strategy. But that seems like a terrible idea.

[C]

Yeah. I don't know if it was the best or most thought out plan, but it's the plan they went with. And so Dave's out there on the ice walking toward this moose kill, and he gets closer and closer and it is just. It's gore everywhere. Think like Tarantino setting, like it's that.

[A]

A lot of blood in a moose.

[C]

Oh, yeah. And it's just. It snows everywhere, right? So you've got blood on snow, which even if you've had a bloody nose in the snow, it just looks like a massacre. Well, I might be a little bit hesitant around blood. Like Dave's biologist kind of used to it. So he just went there and then just started examining the killer.

[B]

Suddenly the plane started coming in low and kind of diving the trees a little bit. And I thought maybe the wolves are coming back. And I looked up and here were two wolves charging towards me, maybe 100, 150ft away or so. Then I realized that maybe I was in a little trouble. And I wondered, should I film these wolves coming towards me or. Or should I grab the pistol?

[A]

This is when I'm yelling at the screen during the horror movie. Dave, there's an obvious choice here, the science. Hold the gun. What are you doing?

[C]

Yeah, the guy was scared. I mean, the wolves, like we said, they were thought of as killing machines. And he's sitting there with these two options and it's just going through his head. Are these killing machines or are these something else?

[B]

I decided to grab the pistol. I had the camera in one hand and I grabbed my pistol, and as I pulled it out, the wolves saw me move and that startled them. And they stopped, turned around and ran away. And then I Felt kind of foolish because actually, they were afraid of me.

[C]

That was the last time that he ever packed a gun. He actually thought that it would be more dangerous just to have a gun on him as he was hiking throughout the island than to just walk around in the wild with timberwolves around him.

[A]

So Dave, his eyes are open for the first time as to actually these nightmare creatures are more complicated than it might actually seem.

[C]

Yeah, definitely. And also in that moment, he realized that he made a mistake.

[A]

He's a scientist.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And so he regretted the instinct to be a hunter.

[C]

I think in that moment, he made. He realized that he made a mistake. And Dave's a guy that owns up to his mistakes and is like, it's okay. If you correct him, it'll be all right. But later on, he would understand that there are some mistakes that no matter how hard you try, you can't correct.

[A]

Right, right. And so Dave Meech, this true believer, this man who has his eyes open now for the first time, really, to what wolves might really be, he's confronting this mistake that brings us directly to this book that's been sitting on this desk. So this book titled, again, the wolf, originally published 1970. This, Bradley, is the text that Dave Meech brought down from this mountaintop. And it was where and how the alpha wolf concept took off. Like, this is where we trace it to.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Research.

[C]

Totally. I mean, even at the start of the. The national. The recent national championship game between Michigan and University of Washington.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

They were talking about how Jim Harbaugh likes to play videos of. Of predators hunting to his team to get him fired up. And he says the most like, lethal set of predators are a pack of wolves hunting. The perfect fighting unit to me, is a.

[B]

Is a pack of wolves, you know, wolf pack. And you see them. You see them gathered together, you know, before the fight. You see them together going to the fight. You see them together in the fight. You see him celebrating after the fight.

[C]

It's just like. Nah.

[A]

A descendant, though, of this book. Like, that is the through line, Right?

[C]

Yeah. Or people that never read the book.

[A]

So what did the book actually say?

[C]

Well, the big thing in the book is, is that Dave wanted to write things that were right. What he had to do was he had to review all the other literature about wolves that was out there. Famous one was out by a German behaviorist named Rudolf Schnenkel. And this guy had studied wolves in captivity, and he was really interested in this thing called pack dynamics.

[B]

But to make his pack to study in captivity Then Schenkel just grabbed a bunch of wolves from different zoos and threw them all together into an enclosure and considered that a wolf pack.

[C]

The idea was that all the wolves were together and just thrown together in some random group. And then there would be a fight, a competition battle, in order to get to that top spot. And once they reach that top spot, through aggression, through dominance, through just pure.

[A]

Ass kicking, ass kicking, haybucking.

[C]

They would be called the alpha. And so Dave looked at this previous research and realized it actually matched up to what he witnessed on Isle Royale. There was always one dog that was the lead dog and subordinates behind it. So he was like, oh, okay, it must just be the alpha. This is just kind of how things work.

[A]

The alpha dominates the others. They saw it in captivity in Germany with the study, and now Dave is seeing this on Isle Royale.

[C]

Actually, the quote, in competitive situations, dominance takes the form of privilege. The dominant animals showing the initiative and claiming whatever is desired.

[A]

There it is. Yeah, I can imagine. So this book comes out again, 1970.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Just the way that so many finance bros must have felt so justified.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

In this description of my privilege comes from my dominance.

[C]

Oh, yeah. And you can imagine finance bros love it too, because, like, the alpha wolf actually walks with his tail up so other wolves can sniff its ass.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, anytime you can buy a biologically justified butt sniffing. Oh, Wall street loves that.

[C]

Oh, they love that stuff. They love that stuff.

[A]

But by the way, so too broadly did like America did, people in the. In the marketplace for books. Like, this thing took off.

[C]

It did, it did. I think this one's like the fifth printing.

[A]

This one, I think, is from 1987. Yep. This is printing number five, which means that it gets bought and sold over and over and over and over again.

[C]

Across the world and all sorts of schools everywhere. Even in small town Dallas, Oregon, that little rural town that I come from, fourth grade, we were learning all about wolves. And a lot of it came from that book.

[A]

No, it's an actual sensation that informs and influences scientific thinking. Trickles down all the way to little Bradley Campbell.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

Can't wait to get those muscles pumping. In honor of the alpha wolf.

[C]

Firewood isn't going to split itself.

[A]

And it cements every instinct, I suppose, we have, about, oh, this villain in all of these fairy tales, the big bad wolf.

[C]

Yeah, it was. It was essentially true. Squatter, the whole thing. But within this book, while most all of it is correct, there was one major problem. This massive error about alphas. And it's one that took Dave about 30 years to fit.

[A]

Okay, so I'm just doing the math here. Right. So 30 years for Dave brings us to about 1999, height of total request, Live America at its peak. And we have Dave Mech, the number one wolf researcher in the entire world. Yep. The man who has at least five printings of his super influential tome, the Wolf that establishes and teaches America that the alpha wolf is a real thing. That these are dominant animals claiming what's desired. That's the quote. And then he realizes that he has something up about this seminal research.

[C]

Yeah. And it just starts eating away at him.

[B]

I began to realize that rather than strange wolves coming together and fighting and be one becomes the alpha and all that. That's not the way it works.

[A]

I'm imagining Dave Meads like in the shower one day, this true believer scientist who still is like stressed out about whether he should have pulled that gun on that wolf that was about to kill him. Like that guy's like, I, I have, I, I have made a huge tiny mistake. A nightmare. A nightmare for Dave Meech.

[B]

So there's no fighting or great competition to become the top member of that group, the dominant one. But rather it just happens naturally. And therefore the term alpha does not really apply because the term alpha implies that there was a fight, a battle, a challenge, a competition to get to the top. And with wolves, that's not what happens. It's just a matter of just like humans, a male and female mating and having offspring. Oh God.

[C]

It just hits him again and again. And he continues to do research and continues to bolster this, this fact. And he just realized it's not just a bunch of random wolves coming together, but it's just a family. That's it. It's a family. And honestly, he said it relates a lot to a human family where it's like they raise their kids, then their kids grow up, then they go off and they find a mate and they make families of their own.

[B]

They come together, male and female, and as they reproduce, they automatically become the dominant members of the pack. Just like a human male and female, a mother and father become dominant to their offspring.

[C]

There's no battling. There's no battling. No. It's just a mom and dad that's an alpha. Parents.

[A]

This is for so many people for whom the alpha male was a way to either get back at or become their dad. This is a cruel bit of scientific poetry.

[C]

Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes, it is.

[A]

So just to be very clear here for our listeners, because we're establishing something that is staggering and radical. The alpha wolf.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Is what? Horseshit. But the next question I have then, given the way that horseshit tends to.

[C]

Smell, which you know how horse smells.

[A]

That's right.

[C]

One of the few animals.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

In New York, I smelled dogs that scat.

[A]

Familiar with. How did Dave tolerate this for so long? Like, this is a huge existential concern. Now, this guy is a true believer. He cares deeply about correcting mistakes. And this was not. I mean, it was horse, but it was not a lie. He just got it wrong. And so how does this sit with him for so long? How does he go about fixing this?

[C]

He went to fix it in the most scientific way possible by publishing a journal article in 1999. And he challenged the whole idea and, like, brought to life the truth about what he learned. And then he's like, okay, settled it with scientific community. Let me now change my book.

[A]

Right.

[C]

And he tries and he's like, hey, we have to fix this. It's completely wrong. But the publisher was like, nah, we can't do that. And he was like, no, then just stop selling it. Like, you need to stop selling this thing. But it kept on selling, and it kept on selling past 1999, past 2000, past 2010, past 2018, all the way up to 2022. It finally went out of publication.

[A]

This part is incredible.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

The idea that Dave is doing the rare thing that so few public intellectuals of any kind ever do, which is raise their hand and say, not only do I want to correct the record, I would like to stop profiting off of this and the publishing machine. Why don't they help him make the record correct?

[C]

I reached out to the publisher, and they said they only comment on books that are being published. Right. But anyway, then I talked to another friend. Yeah, yeah, big paper, big paper. Total big paper response. But anyway, then I talked to another friend who is in the publishing world, actually involved in Bill Simmons book of Basketball publishing, and he said, it's a lot less nefarious.

[A]

There are just a lot of pages here or what?

[C]

It's just a hella old technology.

[A]

Oh, books, printing, Printing physical copies.

[C]

Yeah. You can't just go in and, you know, quickly get into the CMS and edit something, scrub it and fix it, and boom, like the change never happened.

[A]

And so this is sad also, because Dave is. Is losing control of this creature, this alpha. Yeah.

[C]

He can't put it back in the cage, man.

[A]

We know this from just living from.

[C]

From living in the present, being in sport in the sports world in particular, where this is everywhere, dude.

[A]

Oh, it's LeBron James who can't stop referencing Alphas. He's. He's talking about how Anthony Davis needs to be an Alpha to be able.

[C]

To get, you know, a young, hungry, you know, you know, Alpha male to go out there and just do the things that he do. It's Deion Sanders, Coach prime, firing up his. Firing up his football players.

[A]

Dominance.

[C]

To be dominant all the time. Let's be dominant. Let's prepare to be dominant in the weight room, in the classroom, at home.

[A]

In your meetings, and on this field.

[C]

We got that?

[A]

Yes, sir.

[C]

All right. It even goes out to a brain supplement.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

In order to get an Alpha brain called Alpha Brain.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

That is promoted by. By Joe Rogan.

[A]

Of course.

[C]

If I go to a UFC and.

[A]

I don't have Alpha brain, I panic. I take it before every podcast. I even oftentimes take it on the air just to let people know.

[C]

Like, I really take this. Look, I gotta admit, like, Joe Rogan doesn't bother me. Like, he does some good interviews like his one with Rick Rubin.

[A]

Okay, fine. Solid interview. I'm not here like Joe Rogan on trial.

[C]

My old Alpha is like, oh, hey, Joe, how you doing? We can talk about squats, about chokeholds.

[A]

I do, though, want to speak to the person who was actually on trial who also embodies this whole.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

This whole Alpha scheme.

[C]

He's the one that took it all the way off the rails, this dude, Andrew Tate. If you guys want to know what it's like to be an Alpha male, you know, I think Andrew exemplifies this more than just about anyone I know, because he just does whatever the he wants. He says whatever the he wants, and he gets whatever the he wants.

[A]

And that, you know, in my definition.

[C]

Is what an Alpha male is. He turned this into, like, a quasi religion.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Called tatism. These are the 41 tenets I believe in. I believe that men have the divine imperative to become as capable, powerful, and competent as possible in this life.

[A]

I believe that a man's life is.

[C]

Difficult, and he has the sacred duty.

[A]

To become strong, to handle such difficulty. I believe that men have the sacred duty to approach everything in life from a position of strength. So this is where I have to point out, if you're not familiar, if you are, in fact, blessedly unfamiliar with Andrew Tate and his ura, this is the dude who got arrested in Romania.

[C]

Prosecutors in Romania have filed formal charges against the controversial influencer Andrew Tate. His brother Tristan and two Romanian associates. The charges include rape, human trafficking and forming an organized crime group.

[A]

And those trials, that whole legal proceeding is still unfolding now. But that's the guy who took this lineage, the lineage of the alpha wolf and built a whole business on it. An allegedly criminal business that, let's be honest about this, that is more popular than any of us would like to admit. Like the whole alpha brain, alpha male, alpha wolf industrial complex. It's clearly speaking to something that men at least are deeply sort of searching for.

[C]

Yeah, I guess to get real for a moment, please, you know. Well, yeah, it's just like guys like me die of suicide in the US at the highest rate. White guys, middle aged. And I, I guess in order to cope with it, you want to reach for a philosophy that's easy to understand.

[A]

Right. We keep on looking at animals, animals for our.

[C]

There's a purity toward animals. And if you actually go and you see a wolf or you act to any wild animal up close, it's like, oh, that, that, that's pure. How they live is just perfect and it's easy and they seem at ease and they just are full of just innate confidence that like it's. That we don't have. That we don't have.

[A]

It is strength.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

But also it is an uncomplicated vision of seemingly.

[C]

But man, when you're, when you're close to an apex predator, it's just, it's, it's powerful and, and so. Yeah, so I think a lot of people that are going toward this, I don't know, this way of living, I guess they just want something simple, to be that salve within their lives and allow them to not think about all the complexities.

[A]

Right.

[C]

To go out and dominate.

[A]

And so I just want to spell all of this out for the audience here. The thing that has been eating away at America, this, this psychological desire to, to be strong, to be an Alpha, to be the wolf, to be this alpha male, that's all been premised on, on a scientific misunderstanding. Like none of it is actually true.

[C]

Well, kinda. What, you know, and I'll get, I guess I'll get to that in a sec.

[A]

What, what have we been doing here this entire time? I'm trying to understand what it is that I found out today.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And I had thought that the alpha male, as established by our debunking, but which is, by the way, Dave Meech's own debunking of himself.

[C]

Correct.

[A]

Of the alpha wolf concept. We agree on that. That is not in dispute it's not a dispute that this then went out to every high school and college in America. Basically how every athlete, every coach, every locker room wants to worship at the altar of what it means to be the alpha.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

And so what are you now trying to tell me?

[C]

Well, alpha wolves, they don't exist. They're parents. But alpha males, they do exist.

[B]

They do exist. But domination is a sort of narrow view.

[C]

So that's Franz de Waal. He's one of the top primate researchers in the world.

[A]

Now we're. Okay, now we're doing primate researchers.

[C]

Yeah, yeah. I think it's important to get into. Get into another species in this because it's important about what he says, because he studied chimps back in the day, had this book called Chimpanzee Politics, Power and Sex among the Apes. Back in the 90s, that book was a thing among people in power.

[B]

Newt Gingrich, of all people in Washington, who recommended it to Republicans in the House, I believe.

[C]

And the craziest part is, just like Dave's book, people immediately went right to the alpha and are like, yeah, love this thing. And they just ran with it. But Franz, when I talked to him, he was just like, could we just pump the brakes?

[B]

The real alpha males that I know in chimpanzees, I think one out of five is. Is dictatorial. And so it's tyrannical.

[A]

And.

[B]

And they often end badly because the group at some point is going to revolt. But four out of five, I would say, are keeping the peace and protecting the underdog and keeping the group together.

[A]

One out of five alpha males and chimps is dictatorial. One in five. The other four out of five, he's saying, keep the bees, protect the underdog, keep the group together, which is not alpha, as I have come to appreciate the alpha male as a concept.

[C]

No, no. And sometimes they're just really friendly. Sometimes they do a lot of favors for their fellow chimps. And he added another important point in that it's more often than not the people who decide who is the alpha of the group. Within chimpanzees, it's the women, the alpha.

[B]

Female of the zoo group where I worked, whose name is Mama, because it was very motherly to everyone, but she had an enormous power, and you basically could not become alpha male without her support.

[A]

So I'm listening to this, and I'm thinking back, like, near the end here, back to my time in high school debate when I felt most alpha.

[C]

I love that you were doing something productive. And I was just like, Stacking plates on the squat rack.

[A]

I was, I was lifting intellectual weights. And what I. What I learned back then is that the key to any good debate, any good discussion of anything, is you got to define your terms.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

If we don't agree on what the we're arguing about, we're just like ships passing in the night. And so here, here I finally settle upon, it seems, this definition of alpha, which is just more complicated.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Right. Like the alpha wolf in the wild is just apparent. That's what Dave Meech, our 87 year old friend in Minnesota taught us, God bless him. It's not the domineering Andrew Tate kind of alpha image, but there are in fact. Andrew Tate, Alpha.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Chimps, in this case, definitely. They're just losers.

[C]

I know, I know. And I think the important part is to ground this. All this whole desire to be the alpha is success, is to get whatever you want.

[A]

Right.

[C]

And so whenever I hear that people using the term alpha, I'm like, why do you want to choose a mode that has you finish one and eight in the pack?

[A]

12.

[C]

Dion catching strays. Jeez.

[A]

But what they're saying is diplomacy.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

An underrated part of leadership. Parenting. The idea to care and to be emotionally sensitive to those who are in your care.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

That's what leadership is. In the animal world, they're quite responsible.

[B]

Characters and they can become extremely popular as a result, so. Because the whole group looks at them for security.

[A]

But now I'm putting on my hat as a political strategist because. Because I am realizing that a complicated definition is a dangerous one.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And so what do we do about the word alpha? Right? Like, where does it go? Can we actually do what Dave tried to do with his own book and, like, undo some of this? How do we approach that?

[C]

Well, I think it's here to stay. I don't think we can do anything. And even Dave agrees with me on that. An alpha does says yes.

[B]

Whatever they want with humans. Yes.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Well, that. We're not going to stop that. I mean, that's just the way that is.

[C]

But I think to bring it back to wolves, you know, in order to be a good parents, they have to be lethal because pups got to eat and moose are huge. So you do have to. You have to kill at times. But the more important thing, to be a great alpha, to be a great parent, you got to be affectionate with your mate. You got to be really great to your. Your pups, your kids. And that leads to possibly the coolest thing that I learned on this whole wolf tale, if you will. Il or le.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

That is that wolves hug.

[A]

Wait, so you mean they physically, literally hug each other? Yep.

[B]

Actually putting their arms around each other's neck. I published a whole paper on wolves hugging each other. Sometimes lie side by side where one will put its. Its front paws along around the neck of the other. And I've seen them doing it this way as well, where they actually hug. I don't see that a lot, or haven't seen it a lot, but seen it enough to know that it does exist. Yeah.

[A]

I love this so much.

[C]

It's great, right?

[A]

I. I feel like the only thing. What I found out today.

[C]

Yeah. Okay.

[A]

Is that there's only one more thing left for clearly two alphas, as properly defined.

[C]

I think so to do. Yeah. Here, wait.

[A]

I mean, Bud Light on the table. Oh, that's some good.

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And.

[C]

Bring it in, man.

[A]

And.

[C]

Yeah, let's do this.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Oh, keeping the cans on. Oh.

[A]

Oh, you're so. How are you still so strong?

[C]

Pilates.

[A]

For more of those quads. And more reporting overseen by Bradley Campbell. Check out Sports Explains the World from Meadowlark Media. Wherever you get your podcasts, this has been Pablo Torre finds out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.