Social animals organize into hierarchies precisely because hierarchies bubble quality to the top.
Deers have antlers for reasons other than competing with other deer. To defend themselves from predators.
Since they have them, they use them to settle differences in quality. In this case, quality of self-defence.
Also, in herd animals like sheep the hierarchy consist on basically more aggressive individual eating fist and getting what they want. But, the other members dont follow them and there is no meaning of leadership. Just that, if you are stronger and beat others, you can eat first or pick place to sleep.
> Social animals organize into hierarchies precisely because hierarchies bubble quality to the top.
They don't. In business, it can be "cheapest" or "lies the most convincingly" or "has the right connections".
Even among humans, the quality that fairy often bubbles on top is violence. You see that everywhere in the world. In Chechenia it is Kadyrov and his quality was "born to correct dad and already have proven he is ruthless when dad dies". The quality that got Adolf Hitler on top was "good speaker, able to channel fear and hate".
Those are extreme examples, but I wanted something super clear. What bubbles on top is what bubbles on top. It can occasionally be quality, but it can be host of other things too.
Seen it in dogs too, seen it a million times in people. Those are more artificial situations though.
If the animals making up the hierarchy disagrees with the individual on top, they remove it from the hierarchy. Easily. That's the whole point of herds, packs, and hierarchies. Together stronger than alone.
> If the animals making up the hierarchy disagrees with the individual on top, they remove it from the hierarchy. Easily. That's the whole point of herds, packs, and hierarchies. Together stronger than alone.
You write about it as if animals were rational systems thinkers and that is just not so.
