Batesian Mimicry: Can you spot the mimic?
I recently came across this article on FS about Batesian Mimicry and it got me thinking how often we fall prey to it without even realizing.
What is Batesian Mimicry?
The above FS blog gives a great explanation, for the sake of continuity let me give you a quick overview. Batesian Mimicry at its core is an art of deception- there’s a model (the one who is mimicked) generally a powerful/poisonous species and the mimic -a harmless/less powerful species that mimics the model to appear dangerous and hence escape predators example coral snake (model) and the milk snake (mimic), honeybee (model) and the hoverfly bug (mimic), etc.
But it is not just limited to snakes and bugs etc, turns out humans exhibit Batesian Mimicry too. You can even find detailed tutorials on this (how to be like the famous leaders from their morning routines to copying their way of speaking). What is even more interesting is more often than not we do not even realize and we fall prey to such “how-to(s)”.
How to spot a mimic?
I’d like to first tell a story, a story that has been retold so many times that it probably has attained the status of a classic by now. The story goes like this:
“Once upon a time, there was a physicist named Max Planck. After he won the Nobel prize in 1918 for Physics, he toured Germany to deliver lectures on new quantum mechanics. After hearing the same lecture n number of times, Planck’s chauffeur came to know it by heart and requested Planck to let him deliver the lecture in his stead at their next stop which was Munich. Planck liked the idea and agreed to it. Later, the chauffeur stood in front of an audience comprising of physicists, lecturers, and Planck in a chauffeur’s cap and gave a lecture on quantum mechanics. Post the lecture a physics professor posed a question to the chauffeur, who recoiled and said “I’m surprised that in an advanced city like Munich I get such an elementary question. I’m going to ask my chauffeur to reply.”
While a fun anecdote, it is important to understand the distinction between the Planck knowledge and the chauffeur knowledge. The chauffeur is a perfect example of the mimic and Max Planck of a model. While the chauffeur was able to convince a distinguished audience that he is a Nobel prize-winning physicist, he didn’t have an answer to the question posed to him.
Planck’s knowledge is a knowledge that comes doing the work, burning the midnight oil, putting in the hours required. Whereas chauffeur’s knowledge is easily attainable and is more about looking the part and using jargon and spitting out the crammed paragraphs. With all the information available at the tip of a finger, it is becoming increasingly difficult to spot the difference between a mimic and the model. How will you figure out the difference between a subject matter expert and an expert google user in a 10-minute conversation? Think about all the interviews that you have given, did you know everything you were talking about? Or did you google most of the stuff a day before or even 10 minutes before the interview and don’t remember a thing about it now? Think of every time you just pretended to follow the conversation even when you did not know and just added some obvious common points. In ISB we called such inputs FAF — when you have not done the homework, but you need class participation marks so you make up random points or painfully obvious points just for the sake of it.
So, how to spot a mimic then?
I’d tell you the strategy that our professors used on us when they wanted to see if we are “FAFing” or not. It’s a two-part strategy:
Let the person keep talking because if someone doesn’t know the subject matter sooner or later he/she will start rambling and repeating themselves. Have you ever noticed how your points are sharper and to the point when you know the answer vs when you are desperately trying to make stuff up to save face.
Second, ask questions. Actively listen and ask questions, ask how they reach till the point, what was their process. Do not stop yourself from asking questions because you are afraid of looking stupid or being labeled as someone who asks too many questions.
It is also important to stop and self-analyze. It is very easy to fall through this rabbit-hole of “morning routine of so and so” or “do what the leaders do …”. It is subconsciously fed to us by blogs, videos, advertisements to be like the ones who are successful. But we need to make a conscious effort to not just learn the formula but understand the derivation as well. Because just by looking like someone successful and talking like someone successful, will we be successful? Maybe. Will that success last? I doubt. Because there will come a day when the chauffeur won’t have his wit to save him from a question.