Conrad Hake is a friend of mine from Kansas. He is now based in ‘the valley’ with his own consulting company and, as a dad himself, finds that he, too, is frequently wrong, but never in doubt. But that doesn’t stop any of us dads from telling stories and giving out shit-hot free advice. I like the way he gives out advice and commentary with his natural story telling ability.
There is a great experiment done in a zoo setting (or animal preserve, I’m not sure) with some great apes, perhaps gorillas. Many of them lived together in one caged area. A bunch of bananas was suspended from the ceiling of their cage, a delectable treat if ever there were one. Naturally, one of the apes immediately went to retrieve one or more – and was immediately hit with a blast from a fire hose! Not only that, but, if memory serves me, so were the other apes! Bummer!
When another ape dared later to try, the same thing happened. These guys are smart. The pattern is set and they know to not go after bananas suspended from the top of the cage. Days and weeks worth of bananas proved this.
Then a new ape was introduced into the cage. He had no experience with the fire hose, so, the first bunch of bananas suspended from the ceiling, he went for them! Only thing was, the other apes didn’t want to get hosed, so they attacked him and made him stop. He learned through that pathway to not go for the bananas.
One-by-one, the apes were swapped out. Eventually, none of them had ever experienced the fire hose, yet none of them would go for the bananas. This persisted for generations.
How often do humans do the same things? How often have coincident events led to belief in causal connections? In this case, the experimenters were the cause, but the apes had no way to know that. In life, some things just happen together – and then it is passed from generation to generation that the bananas are taboo! Pigs get trichinosis and pork becomes dangerous. Even after we learn what the source of the problem is and how to protect ourselves, pork is taboo for many, encoded in religious prohibition.
I wonder how many good bananas we are missing today because of this…
1 user commented in " A Kansan Making His Way In Silicon Valley: Another Dad, More Advice "
Good story Conrad…it is better than the old story about the roast in the roasting pan at family dinners. Finally, the young wife asked her mother why she always had her cut off the one end of the roast before putting in the pan. I am not sure, she was told, Grandma told me to do, so I did it, and I told you. Maybe we should ask Grandma. So they did–and Grandma allowed as how, at her house back in the day, she only had one roasting pan, and in order for roasts to fit, she had to cut off one end. Same-same…the point is crucial: most of the time what we think are conventions, aren’t.
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