Monster Morel Mushrooms Conquered the World!
By Heath Shive

It’s morel mushroom season! 

But the morels these days are wimps. 

There were once mushrooms that were big as palm trees! 

These super-mushrooms dominated the surface of the Earth!

I’m talking about Prototaxites, a super-fungus which was once the largest land creature on the planet. 

Even the Mario Bros. couldn’t handle these toadstools!

Don’t believe me?

To the science!

Prototaxites, the Super Mushroom

During what geologists called the late Silurian Period (i.e., 420 to 370 million years ago) – millions of years before the first dinosaur roared – the world was a different place.  The ocean had a lot of life.  But life on dry land was fairly barren.  Plants were small – the tallest trees in the world would come up to your shoulder.    

But Prototaxites could be a 3 feet (1 meter) thick and almost 26 feet (8 meters) high! 

The Prototaxites were discovered in Canada by W.E. Logan in 1843. But John William Dawson thought the tree was a kind of ancient pine tree eaten by fungus – so he named the fossil Prototaxite,”first yew tree.” 

But 150 years later, plant scientist Francis Hueber classified Prototaxites – the whole thing – as one big fungus, due to its structure and morphology. 

A few years later, a research team (including Hueber) concluded that Prototaxites was indeed a fungus, due to its variety of carbon isotopes. In plants, like today's trees, two particular carbon isotopes should be in balance because they get their food by photosynthesis. In plants and animals that eat other life-forms, the isotope ratio should vary widely. The Prototaxites’ combination of isotopes indicated that it fed on decaying organic matter, just what you would expect from a fungus. 

Of course, Prototaxites was a super-fungus, so it would need a large food supply.  But if the plant world was new and small, where would the food come from? Scientists Erik Hobbie and C. Kevin Boyce suggested that Prototaxites could have fed on “algal-derived organic matter.”  Even without true plants, there still would have been a huge compost derived from millions of years of algal mats. 
 
The Non-Fungus Theory

However, another group of researchers asserted that Prototaxites was more like a kind of liverwort, curling up with other liverworts and plants and ascending into the air. They thought that the fungus-like structure was just an associative growth with fungi and cyanobacteria, just like in some modern liverworts.

But the “monster mushroom” theory is currently in vogue.    

The Mushroom Vogue
 
Did Jules Verne know about Prototaxites?  In chapter 30 of Jules Verne’s classic Journey to the Center of the Earth, the heroes find themselves in “a forest of mushrooms” that had been “constructed on a gigantic scale.” 
 
Simon and Schuster’s 2008 edition of the classic has a drawing of the mushroom forest on its cover. If you eliminated the mushroom caps, you’d get a pretty good visual of Prototaxites. 

My cousin told me he was a “mushroom hunter.” I told him that you can’t call it “hunting” when it lacks teeth and legs.  But who could hunt Prototaxites?  Not even Mario and Luigi.

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​How to Brainwash Turkeys…and Maybe Humans Too?  
By Heath Shive

Robert Cialdini wrote what is quite possibly the most influential book in modern psychology, entitled Influence.  In its first chapter, Cialdini describes an experiment made by the pioneering ethologist M.W. Fox. 

Fox noticed that mother turkeys can either care for their young - or they can ignore them. 

A turkey’s mothering is triggered by the “cheep-cheep” sound of chicks. 

The more “cheep-cheep,” the more love.

Fox used a stuffed weasel (or European polecat) in an experiment.  Turkeys and weasels are natural enemies.  But Fox found that if a stuffed polecat played the “cheep-cheep” sounds of baby turkeys, then the turkey not only approached a stuffed weasel, but even gathered the stuffed weasel beneath her! 

When the “cheep-cheep” sound ended, then the mother turkey would attack!

We might think it’s inferior that a turkey is so simply programmed. 

But are humans any different?  Do we honestly “think” about all of our actions?

To the science!

The Norm of Reciprocity

If I give you a gift, you feel compelled to give me something in return.  
 
A study by Dennis Regan published 1971 illustrates this. Two male students were surveyed for their “aesthetic judgments.”  However one of the students was an accomplice - who intentionally either made himself likable or unlikable.

After five minutes, sometimes the accomplice would leave and come back with two Cokes…offering the other Coke to the other student.  At the end of the study, the accomplice asked the real student if he would like to buy some raffle tickets.

The results showed that when the accomplice gave the other student a Coke, he sold nearly twice as many tickets compared with no Coke – whether the accomplice was likable or not!

The Endowment Effect

You automatically ascribe more value to anything  you perceive as “yours.”  

It’s called the endowment effect. 

In a 1989 paper, economist Jack Knetsch asked one group of students to choose between a coffee mug and a chocolate bar. Of these students, 44 percent wanted the chocolate bar, 56 percent wanted mug.  In other words, the items were roughly equal in perceived value.

Knetsch gave a second group only coffee mugs, but they could exchange for chocolate bars later if they wanted.  He gave a third group only chocolate bars, but they could exchange for mugs later.

About half of the students should have traded the items, right?  No!  Only 11 percent of the mug-owning students wanted to trade, and only 10 percent of chocolate bar-owning students wanted to exchange for mugs. The vast majority of students didn’t want to part with what they had now that they had (“owned”) it!

The Peak-End Rule

We judge an experience based on how it ends!

Barry Schwartz – author of the fantastic book The Paradox of Choice - cites a lab study where participants were asked to listen to two terribly loud noises.  The first noise was awful, but lasted only 8 seconds.  The second noise was the same as the first and also lasted 8 seconds…but it was followed by another 8 seconds of unpleasant noise that wasn’t as loud.

The vast majority of the participants chose the second noise – despite the fact that it had all the noise of the first, and was twice as long (16 seconds vs. 8 seconds).

Conclusion

Your mom always told you to think before you act.  But “thinking” is a long and deliberate process.  Our brain is guided primarily by instincts (shortcuts to decision-making) that are written on our DNA. 

Whoever knows your instincts knows the “buttons” in your mind.  Much of modern advertising and political propaganda is trying to bypass our thinking to control us by instinct.

But knowing that there’s a trap is the first step in avoiding it.  Mind your thoughts!

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Sources:
Cialdini, Robert.  Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.  Rev.ed. Collins, 2007. 

Knetsch, Jack L., "The Endowment Effect and Evidence of Nonreversible Indifference Curves," American Economic Review, 1989, 79, 1277-1284.

Regan, D. T. (1971). Effects of a favor and liking on compliance.  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 7, 627-639. 

Schwartz, Barry.  The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less.  New York: Harper Perennial, 2004.  

Birdy Words, Political Hype, and How to Create a Stereotype
By Heath Shive

In the early 1970s, psychologist Eleanor Rosch started a revolution in cognitive science.

Rosch asked her subjects the following questions:

1) A robin is a bird. True or false?
2) A chicken is a bird.  True or false?
3) An ostrich is a bird.  True or false?

The answer to all questions is the same.  But what Rosch really measured was how quickly they responded.  People responded almost immediately to question 1, but took a little longer to answer question 2, and longer still to answer question 3.

So why was it easier to classify a robin as a “bird” than a chicken?    

When the subjects thought “bird,” a robin fit the definition in their head much more readily than a chicken.  Rosch concluded from this and other studies that we tend to think in terms of prototypes – or the most idealized example in a category. 

The Prototype Theory

When confronted with a category, your most idealized example will be the first and fastest image to your mind.  It is harder for us to accept the variations from that ideal! 

A Republican President might see a tax cut as idealistically good - despite the explosive national deficit following the tax cuts.  Tax cuts aren’t automatically good.  There are variations from that ideal. 

A Democratic President might see a Medicare expansion as idealistically good – despite the fact that around 9% of payments are “improper” (i.e., going to the wrong people, for the wrong procedure, or for outright fraud).  Medicare isn’t automatically good.  There are variations from the ideal that need reform. 

The Stereotype

A stereotype is just a prototype with a negative social effect.    

If you have a very negative experience with a person, then that memorable experience could form a stereotype.  Instead of seeing individuals (the variations in a group), you generalize the whole group based on the stereotype.  This would explain racism, sexism, misogyny, misandry, crusade, jihad, and xenophobia. 

Have you ever heard a woman say “Men!” with disgust?  Have you ever heard a man say “Women!” with disdain?  They apply their bad experience to a whole gender!

What do you think of when I say “immigrant,” “welfare mom,” or “redneck”?

This is how propaganda works.  The propaganda machine only needs to keep emphasizing a specific image of an “enemy.”  Eventually that image is the dominant image in your head (the prototype) and you will hate accordingly.

Conclusion

Wisdom is not a byproduct of age.  Old fools start as young fools. 

Wisdom is a product of mental discipline. We gain wisdom when we expand our imagination, recognize our assumptions and limited thinking, when we recognize the assumptions in other people, when we patiently research a topic for evidence, and even when we introspectively challenge our own ideals.

Prototypes profoundly narrow our perception of the world.  That does not mean we are stupid!  It means we must reach for our full potential!   

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Cracked Backs & Mosquito Attacks: How Even Docs Can Be Quacks 
By Heath Shive

Causation confusion – or causefusion for short – is any misunderstanding about the causes of complex events. 

No one wants to feel ignorant.  Ignorance insults our vanity.  And the unknown can be frightening.  So we oversimply – for various reasons – so at least we can pretend to understand. 

Causefusion is a cognition trap, one of many explored by Zachary Shore in his book “Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions.”

To the science!

Malaria: It Was Never “Bad Air”

The Romans believed that swamp air caused illness and disease.  They called this sickness malaria, from the words for bad (“mal”) and air (“aria”).  So the Romans drained the swamps.  The disease incidence dropped dramatically. 

So bad air caused the disease.

Except it didn’t.

Now science connects malaria to blood parasites transmitted by anopheles mosquitoes.

For centuries, medical authorities thought that draining swamps destroyed the disease, even when those efforts failed. 

Malaria outbreaks were decimated only with the introduction of mosquito-busting measures, like mosquito netting, citronella plants, using insecticidal surfactants (like DDT) timed to mosquito breeding cycles, and eliminating any mosquito breeding grounds (not just swamps).

Back Pain: Not in Herniated Disks

For years – and to this day – many blame their back pain on herniated disks in their spine.  The doctors saw your herniated disks with an MRI.  Nodding their heads, they would point out your herniated disks and insist you needed surgery. 

Surgery is an invasive and expensive procedure.  Yet many back surgeries fail to provide pain relief. 

So what if herniated disks were never the problem?

In 1994, a study in The New England Journal of Medicine pointed out the non-sequitur. 

People without back pain (asymptomatic) were examined with a MRI.  Of the 98 subjects (mean age, 42 years), 52 percent had a bulge on at least one disk, 27 percent had a protrusion, and 1 percent had an extrusion.  Also, 38 percent had an abnormality on more than one disk!

Yet none of these people had back pain!

Back pain wasn’t simply about herniated disks or even spinal abnormalities. 

So the benefits of some surgeries are questionable at best.  Medicare has been debating their protocols and now sees some surgeries (like spinal fusion) as a waste.

The Burden of a Complex World

When the Romans drained those swamps, malarial incidence decreased.  But without the mosquito part of the equation, malaria couldn’t be combated effectively.

Some treatments for herniated disks seem to bring significant pain relief.  But obviously, herniated disks alone are not the problem.

We want understanding.  Simplification seems to offer that understanding.  But simplification can also create – what Shore called –“monocausal myopia.”  That’s the trap – the cognition trap – that Shore warns us about.

We make assumptions, we limit our thinking.  And that limit puts the brakes on our progress. 

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Sources:

Jensen, Maureen C, Michael N. Brant-Zawadzki, Nancy Obuchowski, Michael T. Modic, Dennis Malkasian, and Jeffrey S. Ross.  Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Lumbar Spine in People without Back Pain.  New England Journal of Medicine 1994; 331: 69-73 (July 14, 1994). 
Shore, Zachary.  Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions.  Bloomsbury, 2008.

Exposure Anxiety:  When “Strong” Isn’t Smart
By Heath Shive

Exposure anxiety is the fear of looking weak.  It is also a “cognition trap” – a mind-set (belief, personal philosophy) that limits your ability to think and act. 

Maybe everyone has felt this way.  But when very powerful people are affected, the results are disastrous and large-scale. 

Zachary Shore is a professor of national security affairs.  He is also the author of a book entitled “Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions.” 

It’s a great read, and his chapter on exposure anxiety is the first “cognition trap” he tackles.

To the science!  (Mixed with history.)  

Orwell and His Mad Elephant

When he was young, the future-author George Orwell had been a police officer in Burma.  A local elephant had broken free and gone on a rampage.  When Orwell finally found the elephant, the elephant’s rage was gone and it was calmly eating grass.  But the entire town had come out to watch Orwell deal with the elephant. 

Everyone expected a show.  Orwell didn’t want to shoot – but if he didn’t do something "strong," how could the Burmese respect his authority?    

Orwell shot the elephant repeatedly…but it wouldn’t die quickly.  In frustration, Orwell just left.  The elephant died a half hour later. 

Orwell didn’t look very powerful.  He didn’t impress.  He felt a fool.  Even though Orwell did not want to shoot the animal, he did not want to look weak to his audience.

Greeks and the Price of Overkill

 In the 5th century B.C.E, the Greek island of Mytilene had revolted against the city of Athens.  In retaliation, Athens sent a war party to the island with these orders: kill every man, enslave every woman and child. 

However, some Athenians had second thoughts.  So they had a debate.  The Athenian Cleon argued that if Athens showed mercy, it would look weak and there would more revolts in the future. 

But the Athenian Diodotus argued for mercy.  He pointed out that not all the Mytilenians had revolted.  Many of the rebels had surrendered their arms. But – Diodotus argued – if other cities knew that there would be no mercy, new revolts would be better planned and the rebels would fight to the death.  There would be no incentive for surrender. 

Cleon’s show of strength actually would make future revolts more ferocious and implacable. 

Athens sided with Diodotus and a fast ship was sent to stop the war party in Mytilene.

Abu Ghraib and the Need for Morale

The abuses at the prison of Abu Ghraib made international headlines.  Many Americans did not see the big deal – the victims were enemy soldiers.  Sergeant Ivan Frederick was court-martialed for his part in the crimes.  In the closing statement, the prosecutor Major Michael Holley said that treating enemy soldiers to basic dignity was essential for long-term warfare.  Because if the “prisoner – or an enemy, rather – believes that he will be humiliated…why wouldn’t he continue to fight to his last breath?”

If surrender wasn’t incentivized, then the fighting would be more intense and more soldiers’ lives lost. 

Conclusion

Exposure anxiety leads its victims to overreact, but the aftermath usually leaves them less secure than before the conflict began. 

Anxiety warps our feelings and imagination.  Anxieties create a chain of fears.  Anxieties cripple our ability to get what we want, because we fear how we look.

It is important to not act on fear.  Act in your interest.  Then you can win.    

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Sources:

Shore, Zachary.  Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions.  Bloomsbury, 2008.