Endnotes: Security in numbers

Back to TopicsMotivationStart: Relativity & Reaction
– Nerd Cheat Sheet: Security In Numbers

(Fact check and references generated by ChatGPT as part of the editing process.)

The factual basis of Nerd Cheat Sheet: Security in Numbers draws from established ethology, primatology, and evolutionary anthropology.
Where modern human social parallels are inferred (e.g., “the warrior became the landlord”), these are conceptual analogies grounded in verified behavioural frameworks rather than literal claims.


Herding, Flocking, and Collective Behaviour

  1. Reynolds, C. W. (1987). Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral Model. Computer Graphics, 21(4), 25–34.
  2. Cavagna, A., Giardina, I., et al. (2010). Scale-free correlations in starling flocks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 107(26), 11865–11870.
  3. Parrish, J. K., & Edelstein-Keshet, L. (1999). Complexity, pattern, and evolutionary trade-offs in animal aggregation. Science, 284(5411), 99–101.

Bird Cognition and Neural Systems

  1. Güntürkün, O., & Bugnyar, T. (2016). Cognition without Cortex: Lessons from the Avian Forebrain. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1956.
  2. Emery, N. J., & Clayton, N. S. (2004). The mentality of crows: Convergent evolution of intelligence in corvids and apes. Science, 306(5703), 1903–1907.
  3. O’Connell, L. A., & Hofmann, H. A. (2011). The Vertebrate Social Behavior Network and Mesotocin in Birds. Hormones and Behavior, 60(3), 310–321.

Wolf Behaviour and Pack Dynamics

  1. Mech, L. D. (1999). Alpha status, dominance, and division of labor in wolf packs. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 77(8), 1196–1203.
  2. Peterson, R. O., & Ciucci, P. (2003). The wolf as a cooperative hunter, social animal, and keystone predator. In L. D. Mech & L. Boitani (Eds.), Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation (pp. 1–34). University of Chicago Press.

Gorilla and Primate Social Systems

  1. Robbins, M. M. (2011). Gorilla Social Behavior. In C. J. Campbell et al. (Eds.), Primates in Perspective (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
  2. Smuts, B. B., Cheney, D. L., Seyfarth, R. M., Wrangham, R. W., & Struhsaker, T. T. (1987). Primate Societies. University of Chicago Press.
  3. Hare, B., Wobber, V., & Wrangham, R. (2012). The self-domestication hypothesis: Bonobo psychology and human evolution. Animal Behaviour, 83(3), 573–585.

Human Evolution and Diet Transition

  1. Aiello, L. C., & Wheeler, P. (1995). The Expensive-Tissue Hypothesis: The brain and the digestive system in human and primate evolution. Current Anthropology, 36(2), 199–221.
  2. Milton, K. (1999). A hypothesis to explain the role of meat-eating in human evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology, 8(1), 11–21.
  3. Domínguez-Rodrigo, M., Pickering, T. R., & Bunn, H. T. (2005). Cut-marked bones from Pleistocene contexts and the earliest evidence of hominin meat consumption. Journal of Human Evolution, 48(2), 109–121.
  4. Wrangham, R. (2009). Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Basic Books.

Agriculture, Ownership, and Social Hierarchy

  1. Diamond, J. (1997). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W. W. Norton.
  2. Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Harper.
  3. Gowdy, J., & Krall, L. (2013). The transition to agriculture and the origins of economic inequality. Ecological Economics, 93, 85–93.

Dark Triad Traits and Human Behaviour

  1. Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2002). The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6), 556–563.

Jonason, P. K., Li, N. P., Webster, G. D., & Schmitt, D. P. (2009). The Dark Triad: Facilitating a short-term mating strategy in men.European Journal of Personality, 23(1), 5–18.


📖 Series Roadmap

  1. Forward: A Little Background
  2. Introduction: Action, Reaction, and the Human Paradox (16.09.2025)
  3. Looking Back in Time: The Development of the Human Brain (23.09.2025)
  4. Abstract Senses: Enhancing the way we see the world outside (30.09.2025)
  5. Bias as a Concept & Climbing the Stairs: Pattern Recognition & Everyday Tasks (07.10.2025)
  6. Abstract Feelings and Abstract Senses (14.10.2025)
  7. Motivation (04.11.2025)
  8. The Social Knowledge Base (11.11.2025)
  9. Potential (18.11.2025)
  10. The Subliminal Way We Go Through Life (26.11.2025)
  11. Taking Responsibility (02.12.2025)
  12. Fishing for Complements (22.12.2025)
  13. Peter and Fermi (22.12.2025)

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Back to TopicsMotivationStart: Relativity & Reaction
– Nerd Cheat Sheet: Security In Numbers


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