Hannah Fry (2:09)

On the flip side, Michael, what I.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (2:11)

Will say is, as a good Catholic girl, I've never lied to you. Ever. So.

Michael Stevens (2:15)

And I appreciate that.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (2:16)

Only one of us can feel smug. So.

Michael Stevens (2:18)

And you probably feel better, because now that I've made that confession, I don't feel better. I feel like I've just admitted to being kind of a. A cruddy, thin person.

Hannah Fry (2:27)

You know, it makes you human, Michael.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (2:29)

It makes you human.

Michael Stevens (2:31)

But does it? And that's the rub. That's what we're here to talk about today. Can only humans lie? Or can other animals on this planet actually tell lies, too?

Hannah Fry (2:48)

This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research uk.

Michael Stevens (2:51)

So when most people think of naked mole rats, their unusual relationship to cancer probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind.

Hannah Fry (2:58)

But maybe it should be. Because it is incredibly rare for them to develop cancer, which could be partly down to their unique immune system, or it might be the way that their cells respond to damage.

Michael Stevens (3:11)

So scientists are studying their biology for its cancer fighting secrets. It's a reminder that discoveries can sometimes come from places you don't expect.

Hannah Fry (3:19)

Cancer Research UK is the world's largest charitable funder of cancer research. Thousands of scientists of doctors and nurses work across more than 20 countries to help turn discoveries in the lab into new tests, new treatments and new innovations.

Michael Stevens (3:35)

And the impact is clear. Over the past 50 years, the charity's pioneering work has helped double cancer survival in the uk, meaning more people living longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer.

Hannah Fry (3:48)

For more information about Cancer Research uk, their research, their breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit cancerresearchuk.org restiscience. Okay, so this is what we're looking at today. Can animals lie?

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (4:06)

And I think it's going to be.

Hannah Fry (4:07)

A very short episode because obviously, yes, there is an incredible amount of deception.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (4:12)

In the animal kingdom.

Hannah Fry (4:13)

Michael. This is, this is going to be a very easy one.

Michael Stevens (4:16)

Okay, there's, there is a lot of deception in the animal kingdom, but is there a lot of lying?

Hannah Fry (4:21)

I mean, I think it depends on, it depends on where you're, where you're setting your goalposts here. I mean, stick insects, they're pretending to be sticks. You've got, you've got butterflies, they've got.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (4:30)

False eye spots on their wings.

Hannah Fry (4:32)

You know, venomous snake species that are kind of hard to tell apart because loads of other creatures copy them, pretend to be all venomous. That's sort of. Well, it's definitely deception, isn't it?

Michael Stevens (4:42)

It's definitely deception. Okay, yeah, like camouflage. All right, but I love what you said about the stick insect, that it's pretending to be a stick. Is it pretending to be a stick? That seems to give it a lot of agency. It can't help the fact that it is stick shaped. That is involuntary deception. It cannot help it. It's just the way it was born. A camouflaged animal is not deciding to deceive. It's just natural form is deceiving.

Hannah Fry (5:10)

Okay, but I mean, so are we saying that this is the most basic level of deception then? This idea of like camouflage that doesn't actually involve any behavior?

Michael Stevens (5:19)

Yeah, that's right. Like the animal cannot be otherwise. It just always is in that deceptive state. An insect that looks like a leaf all the time. I think that's like bare bones, lowest level deception. And maybe it's a lie, maybe it's not. But I think like maybe, maybe we'll have be able to answer that by the end of this episode because okay.

Hannah Fry (5:42)

I guess there the deception is not happening by the creature itself. It's more like a meta level evolutionary deception. That's happening.

Michael Stevens (5:48)

That's right. Whereas I think if the animal can sometimes do the deception, but sometimes doesn't and that's triggered by certain events, that feels like a little more complex. An animal that looks like a delicious treat until a predator comes by and then it changes into looking like a stick. That's a little bit more complex. Yeah, that works than always looking like a stick. And we should say that a lot of different researchers have, have tried to make a taxonomy of deception. And so we're going off of a lot of different lists. Robert Mitchell's is really famous. But I think we can all agree that there's a difference between a animal that from birth, or at least for its entire adult life looks like something it isn't versus an animal that behaves and reacts in a way that's deceptive.

Hannah Fry (6:39)

And already the examples that you're giving there, I mean, I think chameleons like spring to mind immediately that they can just camouflage themselves in with the surroundings. But it's sort of a pre programmed behavior. It's not like sort of saying today.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (6:53)

I'm going to be pink. Right, right. Like it's not like in the, in the Disney films where it just, you know, has an array of colors.

Hannah Fry (7:00)

It's reacting to its environment in a way that it was always genetically predisposed to do.

Michael Stevens (7:06)

That's right. That's right. So whether or not it has a choice, we don't even need to answer. We can at least agree that it's different than an animal that is always deceptive. Like the eye spots on a butterfly, they are always there. It's actually responding to its environment. Sometimes more truthfully, sometimes more deceptively.

Hannah Fry (7:26)

Okay, well let me give you another example then because there are definitely some examples of animals making an active choice to deceive.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (7:33)

The cuttlefish is a perfect example of.

Hannah Fry (7:37)

This cuttlefish, which for most of my childhood I only knew as something that you put in a parrot's cage.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (7:44)

But it's actually this, this, this creature.

Hannah Fry (7:47)

That lives off the western coast of Australia. The biggest cuttlefish in the ocean, this particular species of it, and, and also really dramatic, this particular animal. So often these creatures, they get called the chameleons of the sea because they are incredibly good and quick at changing color, right? They can camouflage themselves to the, to the back. But that can come in very handy when they want to engage in a particular type of deception because there are.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (8:17)

Four males for every one female, right?

Hannah Fry (8:20)

The females know this.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (8:21)

They are extremely picky about who they'll mate with as a, as a direct result of this. And most of the time when mating attempts happen, what happens is this large male will sort of come in and approach the lady from the side and it will spread its arms and, and then it will grab the female's head, which, I mean, sexy as it sounds, about 70% of the time, it results in a rejection from the female. Okay, so you need to woo her. You need to put on some Barry White cuttlefish. You need to, you need to learn.

Hannah Fry (8:53)

Anyway, here's the thing, right? So there's obviously incredibly high competition among males for mating rights over females. And especially when you have this high chance of rejection, the larger males, what they end up doing is they basically become full time bodyguards around their females. They sort of like shove away these smaller males who dare to come anywhere near. And to get around that, the, the.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (9:16)

Smaller males, they have this act of.

Hannah Fry (9:19)

Deception that they engage in.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (9:20)

So what they do is they like.

Hannah Fry (9:23)

Change their coloring, change their arms, basically.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (9:27)

Mimic being like a cute girl, get in the harem, effectively in amongst all.

Hannah Fry (9:33)

Of the other females, while the big male either isn't looking or mistakes it for a female.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (9:40)

And what can happen sometimes is that.

Hannah Fry (9:41)

The larger kind of alpha males will approach what they think is a female, grabbing their head, etcetera, Only to find out that it's actually a male in disguise, a sneaker, as it's known. And from there, I mean, they have at least a chance to mate, which they otherwise wouldn't. So there's some researchers last year who were looking at these, at these creatures and they were, they were following five different sneaker males. One of the sneakers just got rejected straight off. One was caught off by sort of the alpha and was chased off. Three got close enough to the females.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (10:12)

In order to attempt to mate with them, and two became fathers, new fathers to a brood of baby cuttlefish. So, you know, it's a tactic and it definitely works, right?

Michael Stevens (10:24)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hannah Fry (10:26)

Okay, now that feels like we're going a level deeper into this deception now because. Okay, sure, it sort of doesn't really have that much of a choice because the sneaker males, if they want to.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (10:35)

Have babies, I mean, this is their only option really.

Hannah Fry (10:38)

But at the same time, it feels like it's making a behavioral. It feels like there's some autonomy that's involved in this.

Michael Stevens (10:46)

Yes, it could be otherwise a stick bug will always look like a stick. But a cuttlefish could, you know, not successfully do the deception dance and, you know, lose out and not have kids. But it's still in the cuttlefish. A very instinctive. It's born genetically with this ability to react. I think to go a level further, we need to find animals that do not naturally from birth, have an instinct to deceive, but can learn things that are deceptive.

Hannah Fry (11:22)

Okay, I think I have an example.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (11:23)

For you that brings this on one step further. And it's actually one of my favorite natural history stories of all time. I've been holding this one in my back pocket for an opportunity to bring it up and, and now that day has finally come.

Michael Stevens (11:35)

All right, pull it out, pull it out.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (11:37)

Okay, so in 1910, ish, there are all these expeditions to the, to the.

Hannah Fry (11:45)

To the Arctic regions, right? And George Murray Levick went off to go and study a daily Penguins in particular, he found that they got involved.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (11:54)

In all kinds of like crazy behaviour. So he sort of went off and he was expecting these like really cute, sort of tuxedo wearing birds that acted like proper little gentlemen in these Arctic regions. And then he observed these hooligan males, his words, not mine, by the way, using all kinds of, to the Edwardian eye, horrifying behavior. And some of this, I think remains, remains horrifying to this day. So necrophilia, right?

Hannah Fry (12:22)

Bad coercion, particularly around sexual activity, also bad gang behavior, also I would say bad.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (12:30)

And to the Edwardian eye, homosexuality, which.

Hannah Fry (12:33)

I, if I remember my history correctly, they didn't like at the time.

Michael Stevens (12:36)

They did like it. The gay penguins, man, they're a part of history, aren't they?

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (12:41)

With their little tuxedos? Anyway, he came back, he wrote up his notes and they all decided that.

Hannah Fry (12:46)

They were too scandalous to be able to publish them for Edwardian society. So he translated all of the dark bits into Greek in case a passing lady happened to be looking.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (12:56)

So she extremely well educated and couldn't translate them.

Hannah Fry (13:00)

And then they ended up deciding not to publish them at all.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (13:03)

They hid them in sort of the.

Hannah Fry (13:05)

Depths of like scientific archives for a hundred years. They were finally uncovered in 2012.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (13:10)

He was, he was so disturbed that he wrote in his notebook, there seems to be no crime too low for these penguins. It was very judgy of him. Um, anyway, that was the males, right? That was the sort of. The hooligan males.

Hannah Fry (13:22)

Um, the females, meanwhile, were engaging in sex work.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (13:26)

Okay? So, I mean, it's been described by some people as pebble prostitution, but essentially, they were exchanging the opportunity to copulate with a male for a pebble that they. That they had.

Michael Stevens (13:40)

So, wait, they were. They were paying for sex with pebbles?

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (13:44)

Yes.

Hannah Fry (13:45)

Yes, exactly. Because penguins, they need these stones for their nests. This is not the deception part, by the way.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (13:49)

I'm coming on to the deception part in a second.

Hannah Fry (13:52)

But penguins, yeah, they need these stones for their nest. They're quite hard to find. They're often really prized. So what can happen is that you do get some females who will copulate with a. With a male in exchange for a pebble. That happens. But crucially, what happens sometimes is that some females who actually have a mate who is guarding their nest will go off and engage in a fake courtship bow with the male, essentially, to lead him on. She'll wait for him to present a stone, and then instead of, like, going off to sort of complete the activity, she will grab the stone, and then.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (14:31)

She'Ll run off back to her mate who's guarding the nest.

Michael Stevens (14:34)

So she steals the money. She steals the money, doesn't perform the service that was paid for.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (14:41)

Exactly. Beautifully put. Thank you.

Michael Stevens (14:43)

And is this something that they have to discover or from birth, are they, like, programmed to be. Little tricky tricks.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (14:54)

Little tricky. I mean, remember what the boys were doing. Okay? So let's not be too judgy about the females. But it's really hard to know, I guess. Right? Like, is this. It's really hard to know because is.

Hannah Fry (15:08)

This something that one penguin came up once and others picked up the behavior and copied it? Or is it something that's like, an innate skill? Really difficult to know. But what you can definitely say is that I think this goes on one level from the cuttlefish, because this is no longer just a mimicry of the. Of your physical shape. This is getting another member of your own species to make a false prediction.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (15:38)

About your future behavior in order to extract something from them.

Michael Stevens (15:43)

Maybe. I'm not sure if I would start talking about false beliefs yet.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (15:48)

Oh, okay.

Michael Stevens (15:49)

I definitely think that it is a more complex behavior. We're using objects now. We're using pebbles. But I think that whenever an animal, like, through trial and error, discovers. Oh, my gosh, if I Lay down like this. It leaves me alone, and it's discovered feigning death. Right. But until it tries that, it won't do it. But once it tries it and realizes it works, it's learned it. That's like a new kind of deception where you weren't born to do it. You've learned to tell this kind of lie.

Hannah Fry (16:26)

Okay, so Levick did have an opinion on this. He wrote that he thought it was an occasional spontaneous tactic rather than a socially transmitted tradition.

Guest Speaker (possibly a historian or expert) (16:36)

Ah.

Michael Stevens (16:37)

But lying can, especially in humans, be a socially transmitted tradition. It can be a thing where we go, you know what? You know, my mom lied, and that's why I'm such a liar today. You know, it was.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (16:51)

It was my great example is. It's my upbringing. The example also is like, how are you? I'm fine. That's a socially transmitted, traditional lie, right?

Michael Stevens (17:00)

Yes, yes. And it's also like a kind of lie that we sort of need.

Hannah Fry (17:06)

So that's the key point for you then, is it? This idea of. Of it's got to be an active choice. It's gotta be an occasional behavior, and it has to be something that you discover.

Michael Stevens (17:21)

No, no, no, no. I'm not saying it has to be any of these things. I think that there's just a difference between them and whether or not something is an active choice that ascribes agency to the animal. I think that the cuttlefish might not be choosing to camouflage or not. As far as we know. It could just be an instinctive action that they have no awareness of. We could also assume that they're choosing to do it, and they could choose not to. But we would have to design experiments to somehow look inside their minds to know if they are intending things or if they're a very complex biological machine. But we can. We can say that there's a definite difference between the stick bug, the cuttlefish, which sometimes is camouflaged and sometimes isn't, and behaviors that involve objects and like. Like the penguins. But then even. Even more complex behaviors that involve discovery, trial and error, and learning where one species over here does it, but the one over here doesn't, because they just haven't discovered it yet.

Hannah Fry (18:26)

I mean, you definitely see that in. In macaques, right? So this is like rhesus macaques. They have these very rigid hierarchies. Again, they have, like, a dominant male, and they have cries that they give out if a predator is nearby, like a hawk, for example.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (18:41)

But occasionally, the researchers who've observed them, they.

Hannah Fry (18:44)

They find that Sometimes there'll be a cry that goes out for a hawk.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (18:48)

Nearby and there's no, no hawk anywhere. And all the macaques will sort of run away and then one clever little monkey who's almost always a low ranking male will run in and like steal a little bit of food before the others come back. But I mean that is the sort of like functional deception that you're describing, I think.

Michael Stevens (19:06)

Okay, interesting. So the macaques learn to do this. They learn that, hey, when that sound happens, we all leave. But if I make the sound when there's no hawk, if I'm a macaque who cries hawk, then the food or whatever I want is left unguarded. And haha, like they come to this realization and then take advantage of it.

Hannah Fry (19:29)

Yeah, it's strategic, right? It's like, is this intentional directed behavior.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (19:34)

In order to get something that they want that they're not born with? They're not born with that ability. It's something that's learned.

Michael Stevens (19:41)

Okay, so these examples of animal deception are all. They're really funny, you know, they're all really cool. But at the end of the day, what I'm looking for and what a lot of researchers are looking for in philosophers is deception where the deceiver knows what they're doing and could be held responsible for it. Like the cuttlefish, the macaques. Is this just behavior that's following rules or is there actually a deeper understanding of you are going to have a different belief in your head because I put it in there and it's not true? That's when I think we get into definite lie territory. And I think we should take a look at that after the break. Foreign.

Dominic Sambrook (20:31)

And welcome to the Book Club, a new podcast from Goal Hanger, hosted by.

Michael Stevens (20:36)

Me, Dominic Sambrook, and me, Tabitha Syed.

Tabitha Syed (20:39)

As some of you may know, I have been Dominic's producer on the Rest Is History and we even did a miniseries last year about all things books.

Dominic Sambrook (20:47)

And since we enjoyed that so much, we have decided to roll it out and as its own show. So it'll be coming out every Tuesday. We'll be doing a different book each time and digging into all the stories behind them.

Tabitha Syed (20:59)

And we are going to be talking about the historical contexts behind some of the greatest and most famous books of all time. We're going to be digging into the remarkable people behind them, the unexpected stories behind the stories, and also unraveling the plot of each book a bit and delving into the depths of the stories.

Dominic Sambrook (21:17)

Now you don't have to have read the books to listen to the show, but we hope that by the end of each episode you will be able to pretend to people that you've read them. That is the key thing. And either way, whether you read them or not, we hope that you'll learn lots of fascinating facts, you'll do lots of great stories, and maybe Tabby the Odd Laugh.

Tabitha Syed (21:33)

We will be looking at thrilling gothic bodice rippers like Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein, as well as iconic stories like the Great Gatsby or Little Women, and then also some more modern stuff. So Game of Thrones, Normal People, the Hunger Games, Hamnet, all manner of exciting stories.

Dominic Sambrook (21:52)

So please join us on our journey into all things books. Wherever you get your podcasts, just search for the book club every Tuesday and hopefully we will see you there.

Michael Stevens (22:08)

Foreign. This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research UK Radiotherapy is over a.

Hannah Fry (22:25)

Century old, but it is still changing Cancer Research UK helped lay the foundations of radiotherapy in the early 20th century and has driven progress ever since.

Michael Stevens (22:35)

Radiotherapy remains one of the cornerstones of cancer treatment today. Every year, millions of people worldwide benefit From Cancer Research UK's work to make it more precise.

Hannah Fry (22:46)

Scientists are still refining how radiotherapy is delivered and one example is an experimental treatment called flash radiotherapy, which delivers radiation in fractions of a second, up to a thousand times faster than standard radiotherapy.

Michael Stevens (23:01)

And early studies suggest that speed could make a real difference. Flash radiotherapy may cause up to 50% less damage to healthy cells, but scientists.

Hannah Fry (23:11)

Don'T yet know why healthy cells seem to be spared. So Cancer Research UK are working to answer that, understanding it could be key to reducing side effects in the future.

Michael Stevens (23:23)

For more information about Cancer Research uk, their research and breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit cancerresearchuk.org forward slash. The rest is science.

Hannah Fry (23:40)

This episode is brought to you by Thriver. Most of us tend to think of blood as something slightly clinical, linked to illness or bad news. But in reality it has been quietly keeping a record of what's going on inside our bodies. Almost like a biological diary, it holds.

Michael Stevens (23:58)

Clues about how everyday choices shape our health. Sleep, stress, food, movement. And without access to that information, staying healthy can feel more complicated than it needs to be.

Hannah Fry (24:10)

Thriver is a proactive health platform that lets you check in from home using regular at home blood testing with clear guidance to help you understand what your body is telling you.

Michael Stevens (24:20)

That sense of clarity changes how health feels. Instead of juggling advice, work rules and trends, you get a simpler sense of direction. What looks consistent, what's shifted a little. And what's actually worth paying attention to.

Hannah Fry (24:33)

Just makes health feel calmer and simpler to think about day to day.

Michael Stevens (24:37)

Head to Thriva Co to get started. That's T H R I v a co and use code tris for 20% off your first test.

Hannah Fry (24:58)

Okay, it sounds like here we are.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (25:00)

Saying that if you're going to be a proper liar, you've got to manipulate with intent.

Michael Stevens (25:06)

I guess I'm still unsure where I want to fall. I think that we can definitely agree that there are different levels and types of deception. Here's the definition of lie from the dictionary. Lie resting position on a supporting surface. Wow, that's a curveball. No, but here's something interesting. I was. As I was. I'm not just joking. I looked into this. Why the heck does the word lie have two meanings? Why can it mean to lay flat on a surface but also to tell an untruth? Do you know the answer?

Hannah Fry (25:42)

No. Tell me.

Michael Stevens (25:43)

There is no answer. They came from completely different words that meant completely different things. And over time, they both came to be pronounced the same. Both. Both the words to tell an untruth and to rest on a flat surface sounded kind of similar thousands of years ago. And then they just came to both be the same. Let's do a little. Let's do a little bit of word stuff because I just. I can't help myself.

Hannah Fry (26:07)

Please, please. Where did the word lie, as in like to tell a mistruth come from? Then what's the origin of that?

Michael Stevens (26:12)

Okay. So to speak falsely. To tell an untruth comes from the Middle English line or lean, which comes from Old English lagon earlier leogan, which is to betray back and back and back. But then to. To rest horizontally comes from lion, which is still the same in Middle English, but in Old English it was lek gone with a cg. And they're. They're. Yeah, I mean, they're both just from different words.

Hannah Fry (26:42)

I think there's something interesting there about that. It originally came from the word betray because that does definitely have negative connotations in the same way as you lying about the present that you gave me. I don't. I mean, you didn't betray me.

Michael Stevens (27:00)

Well, that's right. But I think the negative connotation is really important. When humans lie, we judge them much more harshly then we judge these other kinds of lying that we've been talking about. When I see a stick bug, I don't put my nose up in the air and go, the liar. You know, you're not a stick. That's just despicable behavior. You know, what is, what is the insect world coming to? That you'll just pretend to be a stick. But when a person lies, when they lie to their children, to their spouse, you know, that's like, whoa, this is like, I hope this isn't contagious. This is morally disgusting. And so there's a huge leap in just the way we behave towards non human animal deception and human deception.

Hannah Fry (27:45)

Why is that though? Where did that come from?

Michael Stevens (27:48)

So it's not like the word used to be betray. It's more like these words were all meshed together and you can translate them in different ways depending on the context. So that's why I kind of hooked onto the negative connotation of it. It's like, yeah, they're not related. I thought at first maybe to lie, like to lie down was where we got the word lie, to tell an untruth, and somehow it meant to like, not be straight up and down. But no, they come from different words that over time came to be pronounced the same. Okay, So I get so distracted when I research, I wound up spending hours looking into the difference between lie and lay. Do I, do I lay the pencil on the table or lie? The pencil on the table. Am I. When I get into bed, am I lying down or laying down? Do you know the difference?

Hannah Fry (28:43)

No, I just use them interchangeably. Is there an actual difference?

Michael Stevens (28:47)

There's an actual difference. And the difference is that to lay means to put something down. Okay, lay involves an object, something else that you are acting on. You lay a book down. But to lie means to be in a resting position. So you lie down, but you lay other stuff down.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (29:13)

Okay, so you can, you can lay a child down and then they are lying.

Michael Stevens (29:19)

That's exactly right. Yes. And then not to get too into the weeds here, but this still hasn't changed dictionaries, still haven't changed this. But the past tense of lie, meaning to lie down, is lay, not lied. So I might say something like, well, yesterday I lied down on the couch. That's incorrect. It should be. Yesterday I lay on the couch.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (29:47)

Someone needs to go through those dictionaries and clean them all up, make it, make it a bit simpler.

Michael Stevens (29:52)

Well, that's the, that's, that's the classic debate between the prescriptionists and the descriptionists. Some people say, look, there's certain rules and we need to follow them. And others say, no. The only rule is what do people do and when? We should just be describing how people use the words, and that's the correct usage. So, you know, that's. That's a topic for another day. But let's get back to actual lying, meaning untruths, because I want to go into the realm of theory of mind. This is when, for me, deception really starts to be a lie. So it's one thing to be born looking like a stick. It's another thing to act or learn that certain behaviors help keep you safe. That to us, might look like deception, but at the end of the day, it's really hard to get into the mind of an animal and know if it actually is aware of what it's doing. Is it aware that when it pretends to be dead, the predator goes away? Because the predator thinks in its own mind that you're already dead and not worth chasing. This is what theory of mind is. And, and which animals on earth have it is still very much up for debate. We, being humans, can. Can introspect and go, well, I definitely have it, but here's what theory of mind is. I love this definition. It is the ability to understand that other organisms aren't just responding to reality, they are responding to their beliefs about reality.

Hannah Fry (31:26)

Nice.

Michael Stevens (31:27)

And that those beliefs can be different than yours, that their feelings, what they know, and their goals are different. Because if you're an animal, whether you're human or not, it's obvious that we all. Well, I shouldn't say obvious, but it's been shown that animals understand that other animals can see the same things they can see, can smell the same things they can see. But how do we know if animals know that other animals can think and know the same things that they know? So this is what a theory of mind is. And if a creature has a theory of mind, then they can really, like, lie in a way where it feels like they're responsible and they're kind of bad, they're kind of sinners.

Hannah Fry (32:10)

Because this is something. I mean, young children don't have a fully formed theory of mind, right? Something that comes along as part of their developmental process.

Michael Stevens (32:20)

It's. It's all still. There's still so much we need to learn. But yes, commonly it's stated that, like, under the age of four, children don't seem to have a theory of mind. And one of the most famous ways that this is tested is by testing what are called false beliefs. Can children, human children understand that people who aren't them can believe things that are not true? So, for example, the most famous test is called the Sally Ann test. It's A psychological test that can be given to anyone of any age, where you tell them a story about two girls normally named Sally and Ann. That's where it got its name from. And the story is that Sally has a basket with a little lid on it, and Ann has a box with a lid on it. And Sally shows up, and they're both together. And Sally has a marble, and she puts that marble into her basket and closes it up. And then Sally leaves. And while Sally is gone, Ann reaches in, takes the marble out of the basket and puts it in her box, closes it up. Now, Sally returns, and you ask the child, where will Sally look for the marble? Now, clearly to us, we say, well, Sally is going to look in the basket. That's where she thinks it should be. That's where she put it. She doesn't know that Ann moved it. But under about the age of four, children will say, oh, she's going to look in the box, because that's where it is. I know it. So therefore, Ann knows it and Sally knows it and everyone knows it. And I, I. This makes sense to me because I remember when my daughter was very young, like 2, 3, 4 years old, she would sometimes tell us about a dream she'd had and then forget details and ask my wife to help her finish the story. What was that dream about?

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (34:06)

Adorable.

Michael Stevens (34:07)

And we were like, oh, no, no, no. You have a different mind than us. We don't know. I don't know what you're feeling.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (34:14)

This is, I think, one of the reasons why kids make absolutely terrible liars, Right? I should tell you, this is one of, like, the most genius things that I've ever done in my entire life. Right? Which is when my. My daughter was.

Hannah Fry (34:29)

Was very young, under four. I told her that every time she lied, a light would shine out of her eyes.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (34:38)

Which is, I'll admit, slightly dangerous. It's a lie. What would happen is that if she had done something that she wasn't supposed to do, you know, stolen some chocolate or whatever, she would come into the room, covering her eyes like this to tell me she just couldn't conceive.

Michael Stevens (34:58)

Okay, that's. Yeah, that's devious. But it's also really clever. I use a trick with my daughter. She doesn't like to tell me about her day, but I once it was kind of late at night and she didn't want to go to bed, and I'm like, well, let's see if you're tired. It's well known that when children are tired, they can't Tell the truth. And then I asked her a question about her day and she thought really hard and she told me exactly what had happened because she. Yeah, it was, it was great.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (35:24)

It was great.

Michael Stevens (35:25)

I want to mention though, that these studies that show that under four children don't always seem to have a theory of mind are still kind of controversial because it's unclear whether it's exactly their theory of mind hasn't developed or if it's literally just that. It's hard to ask questions of kids who are two and a half. You know, when you, when you tell them a hypothetical like Sally returns, where will Sally look? They might be thinking, where should she look? Or where would I help her look? Before their language is fully developed, it's hard to know if they're truly understanding what we're asking. There's a lot of other reasons behind this, but I think the research is fascinating and making the experiments better and better is like, I just love this. I love reading the details of how we do it. So, so let's get into non human animals.

Hannah Fry (36:13)

Okay, but this is it though, right? Because if it's difficult for, to design these kinds of experiments for two and a half year old kids, designing them.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (36:21)

For animals is way harder.

Michael Stevens (36:24)

Okay, so non human animals, like, let's look at some of our closest relatives, chimpanzees. Do they have a theory of mind? Well, we've developed versions of the Sally Ann test for apes and they don't pass. Okay? They, they just, they don't, they don't pass. Another famous version involves taking a box of candy and asking a child what's in here? And they'll, they'll be like, candy. And then you open it and it's actually full of pencils. And then you close it back up. And then their mom walks in and you go, what is your, what do you think your mom's going to say is in here? And they go, well, pencils, okay. So you can, you can design experiments like that for chimpanzees. But, you know, it's hard to know with it, with an animal that doesn't speak English or speak a language, you know exactly what they think you want them to do and what they mean. So some really clever studies have been designed that have looked into theory of mind in chimpanzees. So in 2016, a fantastic study was done that I think did this really carefully. They had chimpanzees and bonobos and orangutans and they brought in these fake haystacks, like little haystacks that were hollow inside, so a person could go inside them. And they put two of them in the enclosure. Let's call one the left haystack and one the right haystack. And the ape is watching this. First of all, this, this whole thing sounds really hilarious because it has to be. You cannot go up to a chimpanzee and be like, hey, look at this puzzle. Because the chimpanzee will say, I don't care and move away. So you have to surprise it. You have to do novel things. So what they did is they had one of their researchers dress up like a gorilla. They called, they called this the King Kong character. And by the way, it makes the videos and images from the experiment so friggin confusing because I can never tell if I'm seeing a real ape or a researcher dressed up like a gorilla. But, but here's how the experiment worked. First of all, they taught the ape that when this King Kong character runs into one of the haystacks, a human who watches them is going to take a broomstick and come up and hit the haystack that they're in and then go back in. So the ape loves watching this. It's very fun. We know they're paying attention. Then they started to do an experimental condition where they had the human watch and of course the chimpanzee subject is watching. King Kong comes in and runs into the left haystack. And then the human goes inside to get the broomstick. And while they're inside, behind these opaque walls, King Kong leaves the haystack and moves into the other one. Oh, and then the human comes back out.

Hannah Fry (39:07)

So it's the same as the Sally Ann thing.

Tabitha Syed (39:10)

Yes.

Michael Stevens (39:11)

Mm. Now, by using infrared eye trackers, the researchers could check immediately down to the millisecond where the subject chimpanzee's eyes went because it wants to see the broomstick hit the haystack. Is it going to look at the one that has King Kong in it or is it going to look at the one that the, that the human thinks King Kong is in? I forgot, I forgot one really important thing because you might think, well, of course the, the, the chimp is just going to look where King Kong is, because that's, that's important. Like maybe King Kong's going to run out again. So actually what they had King Kong do is while the human was gone, King Kong left, went into a different haystack, and then left the entire enclosure. So King Kong is no longer in any haystack.

Hannah Fry (39:59)

Okay.

Michael Stevens (40:00)

Which means the chimpanzee subject has no reason to look at one haystack or the other because it knows that there's nothing in either of them. But will it remember that the human has a different belief? A belief that King Kong is still in that one or does it, where does it look? And as it turns out, the majority of the time the chimpanzees look where the human would think King Kong is.

Hannah Fry (40:24)

That is an incredible experimental design.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (40:28)

I cannot even imagine how long it took for them to come up with that idea.

Hannah Fry (40:33)

I mean that is, that is the Sally Ann experiment. But done for chimps, but done for chips.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (40:38)

That chimps have theory of mind or some version of it.

Michael Stevens (40:42)

Yes, they might have an implicit version. Like they might not be able to feel it, they may not be aware of it and I'll get to that a bit later, but they certainly, at the level of their eye movements, anticipate creatures to act on things that might be just their belief and not the actual subject chimps belief.

Hannah Fry (41:03)

So let me think about this then. So what does that tell us then? I guess it sort of says in a way that the apes know when.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (41:11)

Someone else believes something untrue even though.

Hannah Fry (41:16)

They know the real answer. Like they're not just watching what happens, they are thinking about what somebody else knows. Thinking about what somebody else doesn't know. Yeah, it's like a bigger, more detailed picture maybe.

Michael Stevens (41:29)

It's certainly more detailed. Whether or not they know that the human has different beliefs than they do is really hard because there are researchers who want to make it very clear that they're never going to just accept that like yep, they have a brain like ours. Because it could be that the, there's this evil eye hypothesis that the human just looking where King Kong went somehow contaminates that haystack. And so it's the haystack itself that is now imbued with an importance when the human is present. And so the chimp simply looks at that haystack because it's been imbued with an importance and that would explain the look. It doesn't necessarily mean the chimp looks because it thinks to itself he believes this, he doesn't know. Oh, it's dramatic irony. The chimp might just be saying when that person is around. This is endowed in my mind with something. There's something important, there's some reason to look at it. The chimp may not explicitly know or be aware. Here's the last experiment I want to talk about and I think that it gets even closer to helping us understand where Chimps fall. And this experiment involved teaching chimpanzees to beg for food. So there was an enclosure where food would be put, and then there would be humans inside the enclosure next to a little hole in the. In the plexiglass. And to get the food, a chimp had to put its hand in this kind of little cupped motion through the hole towards the human, and then the human would go and get the food. You can use this to test which human will the ape beg from. They started to do some experiments where they would have two humans in the enclosure and one of them would just be normal and the other one would have a big opaque bucket over their head or a blindfold. They couldn't see anything. A third human would then come in and hide some food somewhere in the room. The chimpanzee sees that it's being hidden, will they then, when it's time to beg for food, go to the. Go beg for food from the human who saw where it was hidden or the human who had a bucket on their head and couldn't know where it was put. And as it turns out, they indiscriminately go one way or the other. It doesn't matter.

Hannah Fry (43:39)

Oh, yeah, wow. Okay. So that kind of contradicts.

Michael Stevens (43:45)

Half the time they go to the person who saw.

Hannah Fry (43:48)

Perhaps not directly, but I guess the automatic conclusion that you want to draw from the haystack experiment, it's not. This experiment that you're describing isn't giving the same satisfying indication.

Michael Stevens (43:59)

That's right. That's right. And so the first experiment with the haystacks was actually designed after the bucket experiment, because some researchers have said, well, here's the deal. Begging for food from a human, that is just so not a natural behavior of an ape.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (44:16)

Whereas watching them hit a haystack with a broom, that absolutely is.

Michael Stevens (44:20)

Yes.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (44:21)

No, being entertained is much more.

Michael Stevens (44:23)

I'm sorry. So, yes. Then there's a third experiment that I think really solved that problem of things being unnatural, like following a King Kong or begging for food from a human. Tomasello did a study, and I think this one's just so brilliant, where they had a room, a middle room with two rooms on the side. One contained a dominant ape and the other contained a submissive ape. Okay. So they knew each other, and the submissive one knew that the dominant one is in charge. This is a very natural primate behavior. Okay. And what they did is they had two windows that they would open, and so both apes could see each other. They could see that the other one is seen and then they would do things in the room. Like they might hide food in a certain location while both are watching and then they'll open the doors and let them both go into that room where the food is hidden. If the submissive chimp saw the dominant chimp watch where it was hidden, the submissive chimp wouldn't even go to the food. They would let the dominant one go get it. But if when they hid the food the submissive chimp could see and the window for the dominant was obviously closed, then when they open the doors, the submissive one goes to the food.

Hannah Fry (45:33)

Right, so there is something, I mean, look, you always have to be careful about the way that you interpret these things. But perhaps some evidence that the chimp there is, is thinking about what the other chimp could see and whether or.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (45:45)

Not it could get away with its behavior.

Michael Stevens (45:47)

Yes, again, it could be the evil eye hypothesis that if the dominant chimp has looked at the food, the food is contaminated and that's all the chimp knows, don't eat that food. They've tried to do some different experiments where they have the dominant chimp look see where it's hidden. They block the dominant chimp's view, allow the submissive to still watch as they rehide it. And when that happens, the submissive chimp does go and get the food. So it could be that the evil eye hypothesis isn't true, or it could be that the evil eye actually means food in that location is off limits. Basically. There's a lot of pressure to make sure that we a hundred percent know this is a theory of mind and not just a rule based behavior. And we still don't know.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (46:30)

That's science, baby. That's science and that's what makes it so good.

Hannah Fry (46:34)

But, but I think that, okay, at its core though, I think when we talk about lying, it's this, it's this idea that it's about a manipulation of belief.

Michael Stevens (46:42)

That's right.

Hannah Fry (46:43)

There is one example of a gorilla at least seeming to do that. And it's actually quite an old example. It's from, from the 1970s. This is San Francisco Zoo. There was a baby gorilla called Coco who got taught sign language by a young researcher called Penny Patterson. And this gorilla could, you know, use hundreds of signs, right? She could name things, she could ask for food, she could, like she had pet cats.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (47:05)

Cats.

Hannah Fry (47:06)

I mean this is very San Francisco, 1970s, isn't it? She would do this, these things a lot of the time. You know, the language that she was using was you could Put it down to sophisticated begging. Right. She was asking for things. And even if she wasn't directly asking for things, she was sort of like essentially instructing the handlers to do something that she wanted in some way. But there was one particular day where she had a sink in her room. I mean, why they're treating a gorilla.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (47:31)

Like this, who knows?

Hannah Fry (47:32)

But she had a sink in her room and the sink broke. She broke the sink. And when she was asked by her handler, Penny, what happened to the sink, she signed the cat did it. She pointed to her kitten and she said, the cat did it. Now, okay, like from the outside, superficially.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (47:51)

That looks to me like a human kind of lie.

Hannah Fry (47:55)

Right.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (47:56)

In the sense of it's the manipulation of belief.

Hannah Fry (47:58)

It's not very good lie.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (47:59)

It's the sort of lie that you get from a kind of two year old. You know, she's shifting the blame, shifting the blame.

Hannah Fry (48:05)

But you can't be, I think, because of everything that you've described and the fact this is one instance in the 1970s. You have to be absolutely sure before you start saying these things as, as, as, as cold, hard facts when you're, when you're trying to infer things about, about animal behavior.

Michael Stevens (48:22)

Yeah, I love that story. And it's like, clearly that ape knows that blaming the kitten might prevent a negative outcome or a consequence or whatever, that they're afraid of whether or not they're doing it because they know that the humans have minds or whether they think it's just A plus B equals C is what we're trying to get at.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (48:47)

Yeah.

Hannah Fry (48:48)

Is it just another form of sophisticated begging in a way?

Michael Stevens (48:52)

That's right.

Hannah Fry (48:53)

Predicting an outcome based on your behavior.

Michael Stevens (48:56)

I think after all of this, I want to make it clear that I, I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here. I think that we should always assume a theory of mind in animals because we should give them the benefit of the doubt and we should think that they're as much like us as possible. In fact, I don't know what we're going to title this episode. I don't know what the producers will do, but if they call it Can Animals Lie? I've kind of got a problem with that because of course they can. Humans lie. We are animals. And I don't like when people use the word animal to mean everything that's not us. As though we're not part of the animal kingdom. Like we own the earth, obviously we're the ones in charge. And then everything else is an animal. Obviously animals can lie. Homo sapiens are a kind of animal. We're in the, we're in the primate family. But what I'm saying is that to be devil's advocate, I think it is good that a lot of researchers say yes, but did Coco lie about the cat doing it? Did Coco think, you guys can be tricked and deceived and I can place a false belief in your minds because your mind is different than mine? Or was Coco behaving in a way that would change a consequence because of a rule that she had learned?

Hannah Fry (50:04)

Because I think that's the point, right? Human lying in the way that we mean it, that is about targeting the belief system of another individual in order.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (50:14)

To change their future behavior, right? Like if you're kind of being, trying to define it, that's really what it comes down to.

Michael Stevens (50:20)

And I don't know if we will ever know if any other animals have that deep of a theory of mind and deceptive ability besides us, because we can't be other animals. But let's go back to that buckethead experiment because I think that what, what fascinates me the most is that begging for the food is also a kind of question asking behavior. It's, could you tell me this answer? Could you tell me where the food is? It's, it's kind of exposing what the chimp thinks. The person knows what is in their mind that isn't in the mind of the other human. And because they don't seem to make a distinction between a human who knows where the food is and one who doesn't, maybe they don't fully understand at a conscious level other people's knowledge. And this ties in with a really fascinating fact, which is that yes, Coco could do sign language. Coco could put together an explanation that wasn't true. But Coco never asked a question. I spoke about this in a TED talk in Vienna a long time ago. And to this day, it's, it's sort of chilling to think that no animal has ever asked us a question. They're curious about things, they want to experience things, but they have never been dim. They've never shown themselves to see others as sources of information in, in novel ways. Of course, bees will gather around another bee to watch it do its dance, to learn where the pollen is. But that's a programmed, instinctive behavior there aren't those like, novel, hey, you saw where the food went. And by the way, like, hiding food in a cage is not my natural. It's not in my DNA. That's not a puzzle. I have Solved through natural selection. It's like a new thing I'm used to. They've never asked questions. And I think that once a species can ask questions, that's when it can tell lies.

Hannah Fry (52:20)

I guess that's the point, right, is that unless you can ask what do you know, unless you have that curiosity about knowledge, specifically you, then I mean, that's the foundation of what do you believe?

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (52:36)

And then can I change it? Which essentially is the top level of lying.

Michael Stevens (52:42)

The top level, yeah. And so. So while I'm going to err on the side of. Of deciding that theory of mind is pervasive in the animal kingdom because I want to give animals more respect, maybe even than they deserve, I'm not going to judge Coco for trying to pass the blame on to the cat, because I think that they don't. They're not as responsible for what they say. Even if in a way they might know what they're doing. I refuse to be judgmental to them about it. But if a human lies to me, don't do it twice is all I can say.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (53:18)

Okay, well, I luckily have a much more liberal attitude towards, like, you can lie as much as you like, Michael. Just.

Michael Stevens (53:24)

Oh, really?

Hannah Fry (53:24)

It's not. It just as long as it's good lies. Okay, I want nice lies. I want lies that make me feel better.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (53:30)

I want. I want lies that increase my overall happiness and well being. All right.

Michael Stevens (53:35)

Okay, well, if that's what you want, then how about this? Hannah? I had a great time on the podcast today. I'm really glad we got to have this conversation and I hope that all of you out there listening did too.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (53:46)

Okay, all of a sudden, I don't know what's real anymore. You can leave.

Michael Stevens (53:52)

That's my job.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (53:52)

Leave us to. Leave us to ponder that. But that's a wrap on this episode. Make sure that you are following the rest of science. Wherever you get your podcast, make sure that you are subscribing to us on YouTube.

Michael Stevens (54:02)

That's right. And if you have any questions you want to ask us, we might just answer them on field notes. So send them to thereest issolehanger.com email us.

Guest or Additional Host (possibly a co-host or contributor) (54:11)

See you next time.

Hannah Fry (54:20)

Hablas espanol Spries to Deutsch.

Babbel Advertiser (54:23)

If you used Babbel, you would. Babbel's Conversation based techniques teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers. Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription right now at Babbel.com Spotify spelled B A B-B-E-L.com Spotify rules and restrictions may apply.

Empire World History Narrator (54:51)

Troy, the Odyssey, the Iliad. All of these great ancient epics depict a monumental collapse that destroyed the interconnected empires of 3,000 years ago. And to understand the the Bronze Age apocalypse that homer wrote about 400 years after it happened, subscribe to Empire World History, a fellow goal hanger podcast where we are deep diving into the biggest imperial collapse in ancient history. To get a flavour of the series, here is a clip from our episode with none other than Stephen Fry.

Guest Speaker (possibly a historian or expert) (55:20)

It is one of my favorite subjects, the story of the Greeks and the siege of Troy and Odysseus return home. Of course I say Greeks. Homer called them the Achaeans, the Danaans, the Argives. The word Greeks is a much later one, but it refers really to the Mycenaeans, a warrior aristocracy essentially obsessed with honor and reputation that would give them an eternal glory. A kleos, as they call it. It's the Kleos that's in the name of so many Greeks. You know, Cleopatra and all, the Socrates, Heracles, who's Hercules. You know Hera's glory. He was actually named Heracles because she hated him, because he was a love child of Zeus. And she never liked Zeus's love childs, her husband, her errant husband. And so as an attempt to placate her, Teiresias, because he was born in Thebes, suggested that he changed his name as a baby. This was to Heracles, the glory of Heracles.

Hannah Fry (56:19)

It didn't help much.

Guest Speaker (possibly a historian or expert) (56:20)

It didn't help at all. Athena even put her on hero Hera's breast when Hera was asleep because it would bond them if he suckled her milk. But she woke and saw it and tossed him away and her breast milk spread across the sky to form the Milky Way.

Hannah Fry (56:34)

I didn't know that story because Galaxy.

Guest Speaker (possibly a historian or expert) (56:36)

Of course, is from the Greek for milk, galactic, as in lactic. So the chocolate makers are right. Anyway, this is completely separate. Keep going, don't stop.

Hannah Fry (56:46)

Well, we really hope you enjoyed that clip. To hear more on the Bronze Age apocalypse and how it shaped the ancient Greek epics, just subscribe to Empire Wherever you get your podcasts.