Slashdot Mirror
Proof That Nature Hates A Fraud
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have known for years that insects and animals use distinct markings as status badges. Now, by staging wasp fights, researchers have learned that cheaters never win. Wimpy wasps painted with the markings reserved for a leader get beat up. Even if the fakes win, they still get harassed afterward. The study leader likened it to what might happen to a 97-pound weakling who walks around wearing a black belt. Sooner or later ..."
So my plan to get the Alpha Beta Letterman's Jacket and replace my Lambda Lambda Lambda one will fail? Oh noes. I'm doomed!
...but the plain bellied sneeches had none upon thars.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Coming soon to ESPN2: Extreme Wasp Fighting!
"It's a wonderful idea. But it doesn't work." -- Tad Danielewski
Cool. Does this mean we'll be rid of Dubya before 2008?
I know some 97 pound black belts who can kick your ass through the room.
And when they meet a 194 lbs black belt, they probably get thrown in turn. "All else being equal, the stronger man wins."
A true "black belt" wouldn't walk around with the belt showing in any case; doing so only invites aggrivation, and gives away the small man's most important method of defense: underestimation.
The whole premise of this article is silly. They're assuming that A - those markings are the only signals and B - that they can reproduce them well enough to fool the other wasps.
Hello?!? McWasp?!? (Er, McFly!)
But now that this news is out there, maybe a real blackbelt will wear his belt to advertise the fact that he is not a fraud. Then when he is attacked by someone who assumes that he is a weakling impersonating a blackbelt impersonating a weakling impersonating a blackbelt, he can use his new method of defense, "misunderestimation."
Putting "kick me" signs on animals backs.
Duh. Yes, a person's weight and strength directly impact his/her effectiveness as a fighter. This is precisely why boxers, wrestlers, and other martial artists compete against people in their weight class. All other things being equal, if you put a bantamweight boxer in the ring with a heavyweight boxer, 99.9% (pulling this stat from a place where the sun doesn't shine) of the time the heavyweight will win (the other .1% involves a heart attack). Sure, a 97 pound weakling with a black belt might be able to beat the fat kid that everyone remembers from high school (or is that the average /. reader, is there a diff?). That does not justify your statement that weight/strength "has very little do with how well you fight." If everything other than wtrength/weight is equal, strength/weight plays a direct role in how dangerous a person is. There's a reason you gave your lunch money to the bigger kids -- they were bigger and more dangerous! Catch a clue.
Hey, I wear a black belt, a black leather belt. It is the only color belt that goes with my all black outfit.
Hey a guy has got to do something to scare and itimidate the other coworkers away so I can read slashdot.
BUT, a movie quote does come to mind:
some dude: I could beat you in a fair fight.
capt sparrow: That's not much incentive for me to fight fair, then, is it?
Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
Staging wasp fights? I can't believe that's legal.
:D
;)
I mean... they banned cock fighting, bear baiting and dog fights years ago! How come wasps don't get protection?.
Ah well... I guess even entomologists need the excitement of work place betting occasionally.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Strength matters, and reach matters, but skill matters considerably more than either.
Very true. Which is why I didn't say "green belt" or "random punk." When our meter of skill is "black belt", we can assume identical values for skill given identical variables.
If the smaller man is more skilled, or actually is stronger, the larger man is out of luck. But I think a 97-pound strong man would have to be less than four feet tall (i.e., REALLY small) to have a greater lift/weight ratio than the 194 lbs man -- and if you're measuring unadjusted dead lift and the 194 lbs. man is fit, the 97 lbs man is going to be noticably shaped well beyond the human norm.
Aren't there things other than markings that might distinguish a leader? Chemical scents and flying patterns and what not. Does the fake even know that the scientists have made him a leader? If not, how is he to try to assert himself?
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
Just before my first day at Junior High, my older sister told me to put a big-ass comb in my pocket. This was a status symbol back then.
But, people kept grabbing the comb and tossing it all over the place. I couldn't do anything about it. I was not strong enough (back then) and did not have enough buddies to help. The fact that I could not get the comb back was an ad for further abuse. No more status combs for me.
Table-ized A.I.
You deliberately mischaracterize what I wrote. I never claimed that strength/weight were the only determinative factors. I stated that strength/weight had a direct relationship to a person's effectiveness as a fighter. If a 97 pound weaking with no training, and a 197 pound strongman with no training were involved in a fight, you can say goodbye to the 97 pound weakling. You indicate that you have been in, and won, fights with people significantly larger than yourself. You never indicate if these people have the same training you do. As I stated in my original post, all other things being equal, strength/weight directly impact how well a person fights. Bigger people hit harder. Bigger people can take more physical abuse. On the con side, bigger people get tired faster (it takes a lot more energy to fight when you are big). Answer me this, if strength/weight do not matter, why is it that women are abused by men much more often than vice versa. Strength/weight do matter. So does training. So does natural aptitude.
Do 'leader' wasps that are painted to look weak still get respect?
as always, google has more info
Well, if you go into a commercial chicken house, and paint red spots on a couple of chickens, those chickens will get pecked to death (oddly enough, they don't do it if they're coverd with shit). With my own chickens, they seem to like pecking at my preety, shiny wedding ring. It's not bad when they're 3 weeks old, but by the time they're 8 weeks old, they're big enough that it starts to hurt.
Our sheep, we tried putting coats on them this summer. Well, we didn't get them all coated. The ones that were coated were ostracised by the rest of the flock... But once we got them all coated a couple of weeks later, they all seemed to realize quickly that they all had coats on, and they adjusted soon enough amd were back to behaving normally.