The story of the duck and the malamute
Two years after this article was written, it went slightly viral. I love this article because it’s a perfect illustration of story-telling and science. You don’t even have to read the article to get my point here.
The headline is this:
This Duck and Malamute Go Everywhere Together
Before I tell you about the article, what feelings come up when you read this headline? What assumptions do you make when you read this about their relationship? What’s the image in your head when you read it?
Actually, I lied. Here’s the real headline:
This Duck and Malamute Odd Couple Go Everywhere Together
Did that change the image or feelings in your head? How did the addition that duck and dog are, “a couple” change your perception of their relationship? What’s the difference between two individuals travelling together and a couple that travels together?
In the article (and video), we learn that the Malamute’s name is Max and the duck’s name is Quackers; and that Max was the only dog in the household when Quackers was adopted as a duckling.
The observed behaviour here is thus: Max would sit next to the pen in which Quackers was kept, a lot. And after Quackers was let out of the pen, they have done everything together — walking, sleeping, eating, drinking.
But the rest of the story, how Quackers feels; how Max feels; the cause and effect relationship between how Max used to have a husky friend named Sasha who died and left Max feeling lonely; and how Quackers is, in a fashion, Sasha’s replacement — that’s all us. We choose to interpret the observed behaviour in a way that makes sense in a human way to a human; and in this case, in a way that makes us feel happy. We create a story that closes the loop of, “Why would a duck and a dog hang out together?”
When reading a health study, there’s what is observed and the story that is created — by the writer and by ourselves. We seek to close a loop of “Why?” and we also try to create a story that will make us happy even if the results don’t make us happy.
We can observe that genes propagate through a population in a certain way. We can choose to ascribe the attribute of “selfish” to it, because it’s both an emotional and intellectual shortcut. We can pretend that some bacteria are good and other are bad for the same reason, even though they’re actually the same and neither.
Taking shortcuts leads to limited thinking because it’s hard to resist the human emotion that locks us into the story. There’s a reason why stories are so powerful. Reconciling evidence when it’s contrary to the story we believe becomes difficult because we become attached to the story, not the evidence.
Understanding and recognizing when you’re telling yourself a story is one of the first steps towards disentangling yourself from the overwhelm of science.
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