Testing the playdate hypothesis

25:16in a different species that does not have all of the things that we have. And so we have to ask what may seem like basic questions. >> Yeah. because we don't we don't know unless we have the data, >> right? And and that's that I think is what's key about this paper, right? Is like with human beings, I can just ask mothers and they'll tell me, "Yeah, it's hard, right?" But here, it's it's I think it's really cool that using data from behavior over 15 years, we can empirically show that orangutang mothers are kind of feeling the same stresses that human mothers feel. Right? The last the last figures that I'm going to talk about I think are really really cool. The next step is really asking whether

25:58mother's movements change before and after play. >> Mhm. >> Okay. Like is it intentional? You know when we talk about like intentionality? >> Yeah. >> Well, here >> what we do is first we define each mother's reference core using the average of her GPS location from the preceding year 365 days. So we've got a range, right? cuz we need to be like where was this mother before the before the foraging like what is her control and we're like okay this particular mother um Mindy goes in the green region of the forest and another mother Januk goes in

26:38another region of the forest and there's a little bit of overlap because they have similar aged infants okay we've already covered that part right now let's talk about the day when the the infant play happened. >> Okay, let's look at the day before and the day after. The day before, you can see both mothers actually venturing into each other's zones, >> which means there's planning involved, >> right? >> They're scoping the scene. >> They're scoping. Yeah. They're like They're like, "Let's, you know, let's try let's try to find the other woman who has the kid >> that's the similar age as mine and then let's let's try to meet up." That's the yellow, right? You see you see you see

27:20Mindy like going into Januk's zone. >> And then the day of the play, they actually play around and you see where the play starts and where the play ends. >> Yes. >> And and they're they're moving around in their territory. >> And the day after. >> Incredible. >> The day after Mindy's like, you know what? >> That was enough. >> We're good. >> We're good. We're going to we're going to hang out entirely in my own zone. This is incredibly like it's so visceral and visual like because you can see it visually >> you know and again the pre during and post this is why anytime you do data capture like you want the >> pres of the event you're tracking for >> and it's the distinction between the day

28:01before and the day after is so in your face. >> Yeah. >> Um >> and they have statistics to prove this because this is obviously an anecdotal thing right? >> Sure. One of the statistics is this directional bias. I mean these are the statistics on figure 4E. They're actually showing the difference between like the correlation day before day after. There is a huge difference in the behavior. >> Yes. >> The directional difference is what's really cool. >> Um in the day before >> they're moving towards >> Mhm. >> the other territory. That's the yellow compared to the control on the left. >> Yes. And the day after they're moving away.

28:42>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, >> you know, I I one of the things that as we've gone through so many episodes over the last year almost and a half now is really getting a strong understanding of the questions that are asked, the types of data that are gathered, and the type of analysis that's done on that data. and understanding how those three component parts connect to >> conclusions you want to draw. And with animal behavior especially, we've done a lot of these stories. >> It's a very complex all biology is complicated. >> Uh now we're adding behavior on top of just the biological substrate.

29:25>> Um and when you see something like that, it's it's very >> I don't want to say the word convincing. Um but it is present. Yeah. I mean, to me, it's like it's it's um it's confirming a notion that I already had, which is that like of course these animals are like >> are like >> doing all these things, right? But it's just it's pretty awesome that like with 15 years of data and all of this effort, we can like quantify these things. I think it's I think it's absolutely amazing. This makes me think of the whales have culture uh story we did >> and we were having this very emotive

30:06reaction about it because we were showing something that might feel obvious. >> Yeah. >> If you just like of course whales have >> Yeah. >> culture and things like that, but like how do we know? >> Yeah. I I think that's kind of cool >> and I think it's cool that we can like say this is how we know. >> Yeah. >> Um like if you were to say oh the orangutang mothers are solitary but they >> the the headline like we just looked at. Oh, how do you know that orangutang mothers are setting up playdates for their kids? Well, actually, here's the >> Yeah. >> 1 2 3 4. >> Here's how we removed other elements from it. >> Um, and >> it's the well constructed. The methods are well constructed. >> Yeah. Yeah. I I really quite enjoyed

30:46this. Yeah. The evidence here supports um active maternal facil facilitation. >> Yeah. >> And is consistent with planning as we were as we were talking about just now. Now the broader scientific contribution here concerns paternal investment because in evolutionary biology we think about like investment meaning effort or resources devoted to an offspring that have a cost or trade-off for the parent, right? It doesn't require some kind of conscious calculation. We usually think about it in terms of nursing, caring and protection. Those are the obvious examples. In this case, the paper is making a case for including access to a social environment,

31:28>> right? As something that we need to talk about when we talk about paternal paternal parental investment, right? Um the the fact is that like a mother can shape development by changing which other animals her youngster has a chance to meet. Um it's part of a growing movement. There's been a growing movement in the science of behavioral analysis these days where the biologists are now starting to study solitary mammals and they're saying actually like play and socialization is important even if these solitary mammals

32:08are kind of doing their own thing. like you can't count out social boundaries and social interactions just because you know by tradition these these animals are are solitary. Now there is a second implication >> okay >> which I found quite intriguing. It was in the discussion of in their in their paper. Um as an Indian I found it quite intriguing. Here's why. So group living means that you know young animals they meet potential partners almost automatically. If you live in a group,

32:50you get introduced to um potential partners pretty regularly. If you're like an orangutang and you're solitary and your mom's solitary, so which means that you are solitary because you're tied to your mom, you're not going to meet a lot of the opposite sex on an organic basis, right? Just from Brownie in motion of like the orangutans. So perhaps in a dispersed society um someone has to bear the cost of making these encounters possible, >> right? >> Kind of like an arranged marriage system, >> right? And and and this is in the discussion of their paper. They're

33:30saying look like you know in a solitary society this is an evolutionary advantage. >> Yeah. Right? Because because the moms like, okay, if we if we get real nitty-gritty down to it, right? The moms care about their genes being passed on. This is about evolutionary fitness, Darwinian fitness, so on and so forth, right? That's going to require their kid in a solitary society to like kind of ingratiate themselves with individuals of the similar age, right? What if what if that's the motive? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Look, look, that's the question. Now we can ask that question >> now. now and and the more data we have we can ask that question and that's

34:11actually what's next right is whether the investment actually ultimately pays off >> in an increase >> in a in an increased like fertility of the offspring >> right we don't have the answer to that question yet but a as an Indian son that like kind of reminded me a little bit about about some of the struggles that I've had >> I this is so it's I love the connection >> you know it's Yes. Yes. I I will make and this is a big spoiler alert for anyone who's not watched the uh new Netflix TV show below. So, spoiler alert. >> Mhm. >> Fast forward like a minute or two. Um,

34:52what's funny about what you just said is in this show uh below, which is about this sort of local town in Newf Finland that gets moved around because they some rich entities want access to resources where they live. >> Um, the main character >> got moved when he was a kid and now he's an adult in an island next to the island he grew up on um in this bay area. And one of the plot lines in the show is that they thought where they were moved from was abandoned, but there was actually a family, a a family and a few other individuals that had stayed there that were solitary. And there was a daughter that the dad was struggling to

35:35find a partner for. And there was this sort of scheme where the main character's son got whisked away to this solitary island to be the potential partner. And this idea of the the parent having this intent around this evolutionary advant like wanting their it was it was and it was a core tension point in the show that had anyway but like it >> I'm just bringing a popular culture reference to something that >> you're talking about here because it's it's literally narrative story lines in like the number two show on Netflix right now. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and that's what the authors are proposing here right in

36:16their discussion. They're saying like as a solitary society the moms are also thinking look I kind of want grandkids >> and even these orangutang moms are thinking the same thing. They're like look I want orangutang grandkids which means that you're going to need to meet people of similar age. It kind of explains the negative correlation between you know age difference and like meetup. >> Very good point. you know, like it kind of explains like the intentionality behind all of this. >> I I think so. So, if if I like the theory, you know, and of course, like there's going to be a lot more data that's going to be involved because what you're going to have to do as

36:57scientists, you're going to have to now follow the offspring. >> Yeah. Right. It's >> and see what their reproductive success is over several decades. Right. >> This is a long longitudinal study. >> Yeah. A long longitudinal study. >> Exactly. But uh but I'm willing to bet that I think that's what's happening. I the the data suggests. Yeah. >> Um very good. Very good. I just want to know because usually in the cont context of below the mother was dead which is why the dad was doing the job. And so that's part of the gender difference there. But like obviously >> here it's like all moms. It's the moms. >> Here it's generally speaking. Generally speaking >> generally speaking look we I we know how it is. Okay. Even in humans it's it's

37:38usually the moms. That's how it goes. >> Uh, fantastic first story. Uh, the animal behavior stories are always so interesting because it's kind of nonobvious for layman to like understand like how would you even go about asking the question and they're so clever at it. >> We are going to transition into our next story which is going to be about AI chatbots and epilepsy. But before we do so, I'm going to do a quick commercial break here for some housekeeping. Welcome for those of you who are joining us. This is from First Principles, the best science show on the planet. I have one very amazing announcement about how you can watch the show. If you're an

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39:00watching the full podcast, leave a comment below letting us know. You've come from Tik Tok, Facebook, etc. We'd love to know uh that you've made the transition to the full show. It's super helpful. You can always get all of the research papers that we talk about at our website ffpod.com. And we are now going to move into our second story of the rundown. AI, chatbots, epilepsy. How do they all connect?