EmpiricalRequires evidence

Part I names the cognitive bias that the whole book is arguing against, and it names it in ants. Evolution shaped us to look for the pacemakers in events, so when we see order we cannot help looking for whoever is directing it, a tendency that served tribal coordination and misleads us now. Hence the myth of the ant queen, apparently confirmed by the queen being rushed to a bunker two feet below the colony at the first sign of trouble. Gordon corrects it: the queen is not an authority figure, she lays eggs and is fed and cared for by the workers, she does not decide what worker does what, and with thousands of ants and feet of tunnel between her and the surface it would be physically impossible for her to direct every worker's decision. The workers protect her because the colony's lineage ends without her, not because she commands them.

Coordination architecture