Emperors Underway

Antarctica's emperor penguins exhibit one of the world's most fascinating and formidable procreation processes, that play out in the dead of an Antarctic winter—in one of the harshest weather conditions on the planet. The females lay their single egg and then depart from the continent's interior—for a long trek to the sea. That journey will replenish their body fat and allow them to survive. In doing so, they leave behind their male mates (no same-sex relationships in this game), to care for the family's egg, over the coming severe weather spell.

Each male coddles his egg in a protective pouch above his feet. His job, over the next few months, is to keep the egg from freezing, by huddling with several dozen other fathers, to generate some warmth in the interior of the huddle, by their bodies alone. They do not eat during this time, as their body weight drops from about 85 lb (40 kg) to some 50 lb (23 kg).

How do they survive, in temperatures of -50⁰ F (-46⁰ C) and strong Antarctic winds? The fathers pack together—jamming tightly against one another—which can raise the temperature at the center of the group up to 100⁰ F (38⁰ C). That may be fine for the interior penguins, but what about those poor guys out on the perimeter, who face the full blast of the Antarctic winter?

Once again, Mother Nature has devised a way for the group to survive. It is an emergent process, in the sense that something extremely intelligent emerges from the behavior of a collective of simple animals. Just as a large flock of starlings will cluster tightly together, creating a swarm of birds from which emerges a beautifully evasive group maneuver that baffles predators, emperor penguin clustering creates a process by which the they survive—even thrive.

The birds on the bitterly cold windward side of the cluster will slowly migrate around the outside to the warmer leeward side—getting some protection from the frigid conditions. This shuffling group motion exposes the next interior group to the cold, who soon also migrate around, pushing their former cold companions toward the center and those cozy interior temperatures. As this process unfolds, the entire penguin huddle slowly migrates downwind. The tight group is constantly on the move; constantly underway as each father shuffles along. Thus, each member gets a chance to get a little respite from the bitter winter. Collectively, they survive.

Just before the fathers expire from starvation, the mothers—full of fat and energy—come to the rescue, relieving their mates, who now take their own long trek across the ice, to reach the sea and put some weight back on. The moms take over, regurgitating food for the newly-hatched chicks.

Am Like an Ant

Ants are fascinating creatures, which is why one of my mentors, E.O. Wilson—a distinguished professor and researcher at Harvard—has devoted many decades to the study of their behavior. Wilson was one of the first scholars to describe an ant colony as a “superorganism,” which defines the colony as exhibiting an intelligence and cognitive ability that is far beyond the capabilities of any one ant. Scientists refer to this phenomenon as an “emergent” quality. It is a capability that no human theory or model can predict—it's almost as if it magically appears when a large number of simple creatures cooperate.

We humans tend to look down upon lowly ants as primitive creatures, because any single ant is rather rudimentary, when compared to one of us. An ant doesn't have much of a brain and its behaviors are extremely limited. Yet a colony of ants can perform acts that are strikingly similar to us. Here are a few examples.

Some ant species herd and milk bugs, rather like we herd and milk cattle and sheep. Some ant species are very sophisticated farmers—they are, in fact, considered to form highly-civilized farming communities. Millions of years before we humans discovered agriculture, these ants evolved into accomplished farmers. They are commonly known as leafcutter ants. They harvest leaves of plants (or portions of leaves), which they cut and drop to the ground, where sister transporter ants carry the fragments back to the “farm.” It's not the leaves they are interested in, but the fungus that they cultivate on the leaves and then consume. Our human ancestors could have learned a trick or two about farming from these ants.

Have you ever hummed a tune, as you engage in some routine task? Well, ants do it, too. As the leafcutter ants scissor away at a leaf, they “sing” by rubbing body parts together (sort of like crickets). But these little singers are smart—their singing helps them in their surgical efforts, by assisting their mandibles (their chewing mouth parts) to cut a leaf more efficiently. But they also sing for help. If one ant gets trapped, it cries (oops, sings) out for its sisters to come to the rescue.

We may look at a tiny ant and experience it as an alien critter, but it's more like us than first meets the eye. If we take a closer look—as E.O. Wilson has done all his life—we begin to understand the similarities in our behavior. I may look down upon it, but in many ways I am like an ant.

Next time: ways we ain't like an ant.

Nascent Wisdom—Part 2

One more example of emergent intelligence in social insects is the honeybee. Although any single bee is pretty simple-minded, the colony is very smart in finding food sources, looking for a new home, or dividing up the colony to follow a new queen. The key to bees’ smartness appears to be how they resolve differences of “opinion.” Bees have an intelligent way of sorting through the conflicting ideas and finding the wisest solution for the hive. They do this by entertaining a diverse set of views (no secretive, smoke-filled, back-room cliques allowed), giving equal voice to all alternatives, and efficiently narrowing down the options.

There’s yet another social animal that has demonstrated its intelligence when gathered in large groups: Homo sapiens. That statement may appear to violate the experience of many of us: people in crowds do pretty stupid things, but wait a minute. Yes, human group-think has often been very dumb and caused incredible harm, but there’s another side to the story. James Surowiecki (an insightful financial columnist for the New Yorker) wrote a book, The Wisdom of Crowds. What he showed is that a human crowd—when they followed a bee-like process—will make choices that are far more intelligent than any one person could make; even the most experienced and brightest expert among them. People can ferret out solutions to tough problems, if they do like the bees: seek diverse opinions (avoid closed-minded in-group mentality, like in the Bush administration did), act in a decentralized manner (no dictators or bosses), and employ a fair and balanced decision-making process.

Maybe what gets in the way of our acting more intelligently is that we humans tend to think too much. Our big brain can get in the way. Rather than instinctively interact democratically with each other, we double-think the process and allow a few individuals to sway us with their oratory, charisma, and power. We hand off our autonomy to the expert or to the big man. We abdicate our responsibility to participate in a democratic process, allowing specialists to take over, or let the bully dominate. We permit somebody else to do the job for us.

So we so-called highly-conscious humans can take some counsel from our “stupid,” simple-minded fellow creatures. Let’s follow their lead: Cooperate with each other and act smart. Our decisions can be unwholesome when we (1) abdicate authority to the experts, (2) we choose hierarchy over equality, (3) we follow ingrown group-think ideology, or (4) when we refuse to cooperate with one another. In fact, that kind of stupidity is fouling our earthly nest, rather than sustaining it.

Nascent Wisdom—Part 1

Science has gained some fascinating insights in recent years about how a large collection of cooperating critters can act far smarter than any one of them. The phenomenon is dubbed “emergent intelligence” or “swarm intelligence”. It’s one of many byproducts of the contemporary mathematical theories of complexity and chaos. Each of these theories recognizes that unanticipated characteristics emerge from processes that are so complex that they are hopelessly beyond the capabilities of traditional mathematics—processes that were once regarded as too chaotic to even attempt to analyze.

An attribute (and even a requirement) of swarm intelligence is that all members act independently; no one’s in charge. A familiar example that we’ve all seen is observed when you watch a large flock of birds or a school of fish. The “cloud” of flying or swimming creatures behaves as one organic whole. They change shape and flow smoothly, in a mesmerizing manner. The shape of the cloud instantly adjusts—ingeniously avoiding predators, confusing the attacker. Predators get their meal only if they can break up the mass, isolating a few individuals that they then go after.

The qualities of emergent intelligence were first observed and cataloged when scientists studied very simple-minded, social creatures. Few critters seem dumber than an ant. About all an individual ant can handle is directly reacting to its immediate environment, mostly by smell (pheromones) and touch. It can’t think; it can’t communicate by other means; it can’t plan tomorrow’s meal.

Yet a colony of ants accomplishes some amazingly sophisticated tasks. The group builds nests and roads, cares for the nursery, efficiently finds food, defends the colony, designates a spot for their graveyard and garbage dump, divvies up complicated and dove-tailing tasks, etc.

Here’s another ant example described by a recent scientific study. It details some pretty astonishing behaviors of leaf-cutter ants. In several ways their gardening abilities are smarter than your average human. This species of ant—acting cooperatively together—carries its freshly-cut leaf particles to “gardens,” where they practice a sophisticated form of sustainable agriculture. After being placed in those gardens, the leaf particles grow a fungus that the ants harvest and eat. But not all ant garden fungi are desirable; some are either regarded as weeds by the ants, or are even toxic. So the ants have a way of discerning and weeding out harmful parasites: they remove them from the garden and trash them a safe distance away. They also grow a type of bacteria on their bodies, that fight other pathogens trying to establish a foothold in their gardens. The leaf-cutter ants have “intelligently” discovered a sustainable way to keep their gardens pest free. That sure beats the destructive manner of human agribusiness!

More examples next time…