IConflicts of interest – between predators and prey, between females and males, between parents and offspring – are among the most important driving forces of evolution. The direction in which the evolutionary change takes place and the balance that is achieved also depends on how the communication between the parties involved takes place. This communication can be honest and reliable, but also lies and fraud. Honesty, lying, and deception rely on the use of signals – auditory, visual, or olfactory features that evolved during evolution because they change the behavior of the receiver to benefit the sender of the signal.
This definition also suggests that the interests of the sender and receiver do not have to be identical – an actually tasty butterfly tries to scare off predatory birds with its warning coloring copied from actually poisonous species, or male fish camouflage themselves as females to avoid competition from other, stronger ones males and hope to be able to sneak some eggs into fertilization.
The brood parasitism of the cuckoo
In his book, biologist Lixing Sun shows how widespread strategies of lying and deception are in nature and in humans, how honesty is enforced, and how the evolutionary race between sender and receiver can create innovation and complexity. Sun identifies two fundamental principles of deception. In the first case, that of the liar, honest messages are faked in order to promote one’s own interests. In the second case, that of deceivers and deceivers, weaknesses in the cognitive systems of other organisms are exploited.
The author uses numerous examples to show how widespread these two principles are. Dishonest warning calls are an example of the first principle. Birds, for example, ostensibly warn their flock of an approaching bird of prey in order to have undisturbed access to a profitable food source. Classic examples of the second principle are the brood parasitism of the cuckoo, which exploits the fact that birds have never been under strong selection pressure to identify their eggs down to the smallest details; or protective mimicry, in which tasty organisms disguise themselves as poisonous species and thereby deter predators. Nevertheless, all in all, organisms benefit the most from honest communication. How honest communication within and between species is enforced is another central theme in Sun’s presentation.
With charm and flattery
However, the author’s approach to this topic is a bit one-sided. His presentation of credible and honest signals is based on a theory that, after some time of widespread acceptance, has been questioned again in recent years. The handicap principle, formulated in 1975 by the Israeli biologist Amotz Zahavi, states that signals are particularly credible when they are accompanied by a “handicap” – extravagant features such as the peacock wheel can endure in evolution because they signal that the wearer of the trait was able to survive despite the associated waste of resources.
Zahavi later put forward a second hypothesis, which suggested that males express their distinctive features to a degree that corresponds to their physical condition. Such signals are therefore not resource-wasting exaggerations, but characteristics optimized by selection that balance costs – if any costs arise at all – and benefits. This hypothesis, which has now been well proven empirically and theoretically, shows that handicaps are much rarer than the author assumes.
The second half of the book deals with lies and deception among people. The author treats these phenomena using the same analytical tools as lies and deception in animals and plants. The famous case of the fraudster Frank Abagnale and his autobiography “Catch Me If You Can” – filmed in 2002 by Steven Spielberg with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role – serves as a starting point for dealing with the power of lies and deception. Here too, the two laws of deception apply to Sun: abusing honest signals and exploiting gaps and weaknesses in the victim’s cognitive system. Fraudsters like Abagnale know how to copy signals of reliability and trustworthiness and use charm and flattery to create sympathy for themselves.
Unfortunately, this story used as a guide has a catch. It has now emerged that Abagnale lied about almost all of his fraudulent adventures – as a pilot, as a pediatrician, as a prosecutor, as a sociology professor. Most of the time he supposedly flew around the world as a pilot was actually spent in prison. That’s why “Catch Me If You Can” is not a factual report, but an elaborate, extravagant lie about a life full of small, not always successful lies and deceptions.
Sun’s book is still worth reading as a compendium of fascinating examples of fraud and deception in nature. And it stimulates reflection on whether and how practices of deception and lying that require human, strategic thinking can be understood as a continuation of natural history.
Lixing Sun: “The Liars of Nature and the Nature of Liars”. Cheating and Deception in the Living World. Princeton University Press, Princeton 2023. 288 pp., hardcover, €26.99.
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