Learn about why gynandromorphs are born half male and half female. Then, we’ll talk to poker champion turned decision strategist Annie Duke about when it’s best to go with your gut.
Learn about why gynandromorphs are born half male and half female. Then, we’ll talk to poker champion turned decision strategist Annie Duke about when it’s best to go with your gut.
Gynandromorphs are animals born half male and half female by Grant Currin
Additional resources from decision strategist Annie Duke:
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/the-best-time-to-make-a-gut-decision-w-annie-duke
ASHLEY HAMER: Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity.com. I'm Ashley Hamer.
NATALIA REAGAN: And I'm Natalia Reagan. Today, you'll learn about gynandromorphs or animals that are born half male and half female, then we'll talk to poker champion turned decision strategist, Annie Duke, about when it's best to go with your gut.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
NATALIA REAGAN: A couple of months ago researchers in Pennsylvania spotted a very odd bird. On one side of its body, it had markings typical of a male. On the other, it looked like a Female the researchers immediately knew they were looking at a type of animal known as a bilateral gynandromorph. These creatures don't just look half male, half female. That's what they really are.
Bilateral gynandromorphs are rare but not impossibly so. One researcher estimated they account for between one in 10,000 and one in 1 million birds. There are a ton of ways an individual can fall outside of the expectations for what a female or male is supposed to be like. Hermaphrodites are probably the most well known. They typically have genitals with a mixture of male and female characteristics. But in bilateral gynandromorphs, the differences extend way past the private parts.
The bones, muscles, and in birds, feathers, on the left side look entirely different from those on the right side. Scientists aren't totally sure how it happens, but they have a theory. See, biological sex, which is different than gender, by the way, depends on an individual's particular combo of sex chromosomes. In humans, typically, individuals with an X and Y chromosome are biologically male. And those with two X chromosomes are biologically female.
In birds, it's sort of reversed. Males typically have two Z chromosomes and females usually have a Z and a W. When a researcher looked at DNA from different cells across a gynandromorphed chicken's body, he found that its biological sex split right down to the chromosomal level. The cells on the male half were ZZ, and the cells on the female half were ZW.
So here's what some scientists think is going on. Under normal circumstances, a developing egg gets rid of half of the chromosomes in its nucleus by surrounding them in their own little package called the polar body and kicking them out of the cell. It's a totally routine process that makes way for the chromosomes delivered by the sperm. But it doesn't always happen. If an egg hangs on to both sets of chromosomes and both get fertilized, that is the egg's nucleus and the polar body, then it would be possible for the one cell to develop with two different genomes, one on the left side and another on the right.
It's not just in birds either. People occasionally come across crabs, shrimp, butterflies, and moths that are bilateral gynandromorphs. The same genetic quirks can happen in mammals, too, but they don't usually have that split down the middle look because for them, sex characteristics are strongly influenced by hormones that travel through their bloodstream. So the next time you hear someone going on about X and Y chromosomes, remember that nature is always a little bit more complicated than you think.
ASHLEY HAMER: This year, we've all faced decisions that we've never had to make before, decisions like whether to visit family and risk spreading the virus, whether to send our kids to school, or whether to risk exposing ourselves to the virus at the grocery store, or put the risk on a delivery driver instead. These are incredibly difficult decisions. And most of us are pretty ill-equipped to make them.
Today's guest is an expert in decision making. And she's got some advice for the non-experts among us. Annie Duke is a world champion poker professional who's since become an author, corporate speaker, and a consultant on decision making. Her new book is called How to Decide-- Simple Tools for Making Better Choices. We started our conversation by asking her, what made her want to write this book?
ANNIE DUKE: Well, actually what made me want to write this book was writing my last book. So my last book was called Thinking in Bets. And it was really kind of talking about the problem of when we make decisions, there is a lot of luck and that kind of determines how that outcome, what sort of ends up happening.
And then the other problem that we have is there's just so much information that we don't have when we're trying to make decisions. I mean, I think that we can feel those two forces really strongly right now with the pandemic. There's obviously a lot of luck involved. I mean, for one thing, that bat didn't have to meet that human. But also, like when's the vaccine going to come out, is it going to be effective? All those things, these are all things that we can't control.
And then we can feel the problem of lack of information. None of us have enough information to really be 100% certain about decisions that we're making for our own health, like, how much are we interacting with other people, or should we be going to grocery stores, or sending our kids to school. These are all really important decisions that we make without a lot of information and where we know there's going to be a lot of luck. And that's what the first book was about.
So after writing that book, I had so many conversations with readers who said, OK, I get it, but how? How would I make great decisions? What would a great decision process look like? And that's really why I ended up writing those books is that I wanted to respond to the people who are asking me for help with that.
ASHLEY HAMER: How much do you think intuition or going with your gut should go into making a big decision?
ANNIE DUKE: So that gut feel is going to come really kind of only at the end of a very big decision, and then not even always done. And the problem is that if anybody's heard anything about cognitive bias, and there's so much that's written about that, your gut is where all of that lives, where it's like I want to do this and I'm not really sure why, but I'll just go with it.
And that's where you get all the cognitive bias. That's where you get actually all the bias itself, which is that you might be discriminating against certain types of people and not really even realize why. And your guts going to give you a good reason. You're going to say, oh, they just seemed less qualified or less personable or something like that. And you're not really poking around there in order to say, well, is that really reasonable? Is that rational? And that's how we end up with all this kind of both cognitive bias and regular bias in the system.
And so definitely don't want to use gut too much for really important decisions. So we want to use a really good process. Now, having gotten to a good process, a lot of times what happens is that we'll get down to like two really good options that we really like. And we'll start to get into this analysis paralysis, where we think if I'm deciding between two things on a menu, if I just asked another person, which one they thought I should get, I would be able to choose. Or if I'm deciding between two colleges, I'm looking at all of the sites that give you information about the colleges and the other students experience, and somehow I'd be able to decide between these two colleges that are like amazing and both fit my category. Or if I'm deciding between two job candidates that both fit the role, you'll start to get into these kind of analysis loops. That's where gut can be really helpful.
The reason being is that there's no information that you're going to go find out that's going to help you decide between the two anyway. That's an illusion. Because the thing that you really need to do is experience it. You need to try the dish on the menu. Or you haven't gone to the college, and that's the information that you would really need. Or if you had a time machine and you could tell which employee was going to end up better in your company, that would be great. But unfortunately, we can't be sure about those things.
So the way to figure out when to use your gut is when you can say, if this was my only option, like if this candidate were my only option, would I be happy? If your answer is yes to candidate A. And then you said the same thing about candidate B, if this candidate were the only person I could hire, the only one that was available, would I be super happy? If the answer is yes to that as well, those two options have passed the only options test, which means that they're about the same. And then you should go with your gut. And that's totally fine because they're pretty close and just get out of that loop, and that's the best time to use your gut in decision making.
ASHLEY HAMER: That almost sounds like your gut is basically as good as a flip of a coin.
ANNIE DUKE: Yes, that's exactly right. You've honed in. But people are kind of uncomfortable saying just flip a coin, although that's kind of what I do. But when I say just go with your gut, it makes-- I think people are more comfortable with that. So I'm a big let go with your gut person or flip a coin, whether it's I can't decide between the chicken and the fish. It's like, OK, well, what you're saying is you'd be happy either way, so flip a coin.
If you can't decide between two colleges, once you've gotten down to two colleges that you would be super happy going to. You've already thought about, do I want to be on a big campus or a small campus? You've done that deliberative process. Does it have the type of classes that would fulfill the thing that I think that I want to major in? If I change majors, what do I think I might want to change to? Does it have classes that would help me with that as well? Where is it located? Do I want to be where there's winter or where it's warm all the time, whatever? So you've gotten-- you've done all that stuff, and now you've got it narrowed down.
I'm a big coin flipper, but use your gut if you want. That's kind of what I feel like.
ASHLEY HAMER: Again, that was Annie Duke, decision strategist and author of the new book, How to Decide-- Simple Tools for Making Better Choices. You can find a link to pick it up in the show notes. Annie Duke will be back tomorrow to tell us what we should do when we make a bad decision.
NATALIA REAGAN: OK, let's recap today's takeaways.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, we learned that there are some birds and other animals that are literally half male and half female down to the chromosomal level. They're called bilateral gynandromorphs. And they'll have all-male characteristics on one side and all female characteristics on the other, which shows that determining sex is way more complicated than just thinking in binary male, female kind of things.
NATALIA REAGAN: They're fascinating.
ASHLEY HAMER: They're totally fascinating. And I would highly recommend googling this or looking at the links in our show notes because the pictures are astounding. There's a bilateral gynandromorph cardinal, which is incredible because only the males are red, and the females are kind of brown, gray. And it's just split right down the middle. It's only red on one side. It's amazing.
NATALIA REAGAN: I think it's so cool. Yeah, I honestly was wondering if maybe animals that had a lot of sexual dimorphism in terms of size differences or even like how many feathers they have, like, for instance, the peacock versus the peahen, that would be a really interesting gynandromorph, just seeing one half with these huge feathers that are not exactly the best to have if you're trying to out fly or outrun or whatever any sort of predators. And that beautiful color versus the peahen's, which are still pretty in their own way, but they're a bit more what would consider drab.
ASHLEY HAMER: Right.
NATALIA REAGAN: But, yeah, I love the bilateral gynandromorph lobster, too. It's just-- it's definitely, it's intense. It's like, whoa, it's very like haute couture.
ASHLEY HAMER: Absolutely, yeah. The chicken that the scientists were talking about, it died of natural causes. And they actually dissected it. And the bones, like the rib cage, was larger on one side. Like, even when there are different sizes, this kicks in. It's wild.
NATALIA REAGAN: Well, we also learned that gut feelings should only really come towards the end of a really big decision. So essentially, you've narrowed down all your options using your noodle. And then you got those final options that maybe would both make you equally happy, and that's when you kind of bring your gut into the mix to sort of make that final decision. So I know you were really excited about this interview because you're a big fan of Annie Duke.
ASHLEY HAMER: I am a big fan of Annie Duke. I used to-- I had a poker face in college. And I would watch a lot of TV poker. And she would just sit there at a table full of men and just dominate. It was really cool to see. And so I was really excited to be able to talk to her. And it was very excited that she responded to my suggestion that it was like flipping a coin so enthusiastically. It was pretty big moment, pretty big moment.
But no, this is how a lot of fortune telling works. The flipping a coin, tarot decks, anything where you have to have a yes or no answer, it just helps you lean toward one option or the other rather than like telling you what your future is going to hold. But that's helpful. Knowing which way to lean is something that a lot of us need a lot of the time.
NATALIA REAGAN: And going back to yesterday's episode, I wonder how much of that sort of preference building or gut instinct is influenced by our choices as a very young infant. And for those people who didn't hear yesterday's episode about babies and their preferences that happened very early on, I highly recommend it. It's really interesting.
ASHLEY HAMER: Absolutely, yeah. Totally reminded me of that, too.
NATALIA REAGAN: I'm like, oh, it's all connected. That's right. I always tell my classes, it's all connected.
Today's first story was written by Grant Curran and edited by Ashley Hamer, who's the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Scriptwriting was by Natalia Reagan. Today's episode was edited by Jonathan McMichael and our producer is Cody Gough.
NATALIA REAGAN: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: And until then, stay curious.