Daniel’s Reviews > Science Of Storytelling > Status Update

"'At some level, without our being aware of it, our brains spend all day, every day, drawing upon initial, formative, high school memories.'" [citing _The Popularity Illusion_ by Mitch Prinstein]

I can feel a 'class' action coming on... If the cited idea became well-established, the legal cost of making amends would make the running of a high school or an education system untenable. And rightly so.

And now we're citing a story from the Daily Mail, where what is clearly a self-deprecating joke told by Prince Charles has been clickbaitingly reported as if it was in earnest. This book was doing so well. What happened? For what it's worth, I think the bird gossip is probably more reliable than the Daily Mail.

"Researchers into bird communication have revealed the astonishing fact that not only do ravens listen to the gossip of neighbouring flocks, but they pay especially close attention when it tells of a reversal in another bird's status."

Uh. WTF? Naturally, I checked the endnotes, which cite the book 'Behave' by Robert Sapolsky. It seems well-reviewed. But I'm sceptical we understand bird communication to this level.

As powerful as culture is, it cannot cancel out or transform these deeply embedded primal forces, but only modulate [them]. No matter where we come from, East, West, North or South, Pleistocene winds blow in our subconscious minds, touching almost every part of our modern lives, from our codes of morality to the ways we arrange our furniture.