Field of Science


Geometry Proves Sheep Are Selfish Jerks














  1. I always suspected sheep were baa-stards.

    Incidentally, King's at Swansea, not University of London (which is a largely administrative term now anyway) - although Hailes is at UCL, which huddles in the UoL to avoid being singled out by Imperial.

  2. Journalists have an unfortunate and mistaken assumption that research is only interesting if it finds something "surprising" that contradicts previous beliefs.

    Here, it's not the case that "the way [the sheep moved] was surprising." To the contrary, the authors' results (in their own words) "support the long-standing assertion that individuals can respond to potential danger by moving towards the centre of a fleeing group." Hamilton considered and analyzed the nearest-neighbor strategy, but he didn't propose it as an explanation of real-world herding. (It doesn't produce herds, he noted, and he described it as "poorly realistic.")

    That said, research like this that carefully tests (and in this case, happens to confirm) long-standing assertions is newsworthy, even if the results are unsurprising. In fact, experiments that support and confirm theory are at the heart of what science is about. Theories are developed, experiments are designed to test them, and the theories are either supported (as in this case), rejected, or modified.

    The public would be well-served by journalists who report on good science without a bias towards "surprising" findings, and without feeling as though some sort of "surprise" must be described, even when there is nothing surprising. The "new research upsets previous assumptions" narrative leads the public to think "theories" and established science are in general wrong. In fact, theories, based on solid science, observation, and experimentation, are often robust.

  3. Wouldn't a "move toward your nearest neighbor" approach often lead to smaller, scattered clusters that don't afford the same level of safety for anyone? It seems like an entire flock using that strategy might get selected out pretty rapidly.

    Also, in the presence of a single threat (the dog), wouldn't the most "selfish" behavior be to put the centroid between oneself and the threat?

    (OK, maybe I should go read the Hamilton paper first.)

    Great post!

  4. Highly relevant to traders and investors.


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