With Don's permission I have taken this off CS for our continued discussion on the Nature of man.I liked what Don presented from an anthropological point of view. Our closest relatives,chimps,have been observed killing members of other tribes. Wolves,another highly social animal,will do so,as well.So I, too, believe we do have to be taught and socialized to get along and not attack each other and possibly kill each other.Some are taught better than others.

And,Don's discussion of the size of groups and how many we can comfortably get along with was definitely a eureka moment.No wonder I'm having so much trouble stomaching internet forums.I avoid crowds like the plague thay are. I have always lived and worked and learned and played either alone or in very small groups.I hate cities and avoid them as well. I do not have the survival skills necessary to live with large bodies of people.

Well,here's what Don and Kirk were discussing.Permission to swipe his words obtained from Don Armstrong and copywritten 2001 :o)

And I guess Kirk will let me have his here,too. Right, Kirk?.............

Kirk, I believe you're incorrect. Not that I'm jumping up and down and slanging off at you, but I believe you're under a misapprehnsion about people. I think that killing people (or anything else) is as natural as breathing - an animal function built in to the human organism - and I'm not addressing the question of who built it in. I think that NOT killing is the result of brain-washing, or conditioning, or even call it "toddler taming". It's definitely a good thing that we've learnt how to control those impulses so strongly that people think of it as instinctual: that that conditioning is so strong, and so basic to our society, that it takes a massive effort for someone (armed forces, or someone trying to get themselves set up for self defence) to overcome it. However, that's what it is - conditioning, not instinct. In fact, a lot of societal problems we're seeing these days is because children are no longer being inculcated with the beliefs and attitudes they would previously have aquired at their mother's knee, or out in the field with their father, or while chatting to the huge strong admirable (village blacksmith? Carter? Merchant? Priest? Midwife? Carpenter? Cook? Choose whichever other adult a child would find to consider likeable and admirable in a small society, and who would re-infoce what they'd learnt from their parents). These days, a lot of them aren't learning it from their parents in the first place (and indeed a lot of idiots with degrees are trying to ensure parents won't teach their inherently wild children these things). That is, I believe, why we're now seeing an upsurge in high-school killings - we're into a second generation (the first was the ones who "went postal") of people who we've failed to civilise. They are savages in the sense that we haven't taught them to value society and their fellows.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 01, 2001.

Don: I must say I was taken back a bit by your theory. See I always thought that as animals went up the food chain that there was a taboo against killing their own species. I never thought that we were born to kill our own kind and had to be programed not to. Is that what you mean? I must think about that and maybe I can find some research in that area. Nice to be able to discuss some of these topics without the bashing isn't it? Thanks....Kirk

-- Kirk Davis (kirkay!@yahoo.com), August 02, 2001.

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Kirk, yes. I think basically that is what I am saying, although on re- reading I may have overstated my case a bit, or at least omitted a qualifier. People (like prides of lions, or packs of wolves, or baboons, or whatever) handle small numbers of close relatives moderately well (although there are plenty of examples of familial murder, from Cain and Abel and on). Humans in a state of nature are cursorial hunters - that is, we run our major prey down, and that takes a pack to manage best. We appear to be be so constituted that we can work co-operatively in small groups - up to a maximum of about eighteen, according to research. Beyond that, the numbers of interactions become too complex, and the group becomes unstable and eventually splits up some way - either in acrimony, or simply by fission with part of the group moving on to other fields, or two groups merge and then split as three. That number could probably be stretched to eighteen or twenty families in a hunter-gatherer society, since the males and the females would mostly be acting separately during the day. Basically, we work best in a group the size of a small hamlet, a hunting group, or a squad, a platoon, maybe a company. I guess armies do know something about getting people to work together under stressful conditions. Larger social structures probably evolved when people started swapping women between groups - forcibly or voluntarily. Incidentally, one of the most successful demonstrations of that group dynamic is internet forums. You can stretch the numbers a bit in "real life", with good will, and when you're getting the visual feedback and cues about reactions that we're built to be able to use. Without that visual feedback (as in posting to a forum) it takes an enormous amount of constant active goodwill to stretch things beyond that limit of eighteen active contributors.

To take it much further, you need to start introducing structure and authority - an officer, a mayor, a sheriff, a forum moderator (Hello, Ken).

All that was the qualifier. We can more or less, mostly, get on within those limits. However, anything more is unnatural - we have to learn it - be conditioned to it. In clan or tribal societies, the stranger was always different, distrusted, and more or less fair game. After all, who was going to know, who was going to avenge? You can see this pattern emerging all the time in humans - New Guinea villagers, street gangs, internet gamers, a stranger in a bar in a small town, a white walking through Harlem after dark, the KKK, anything. We need to LEARN to co-operate at anything more than that basic level. You can see it emerging in the Bible, as the Hebrews moved from nomadic herdsmen (who were limited in size of groups by their herds' ability to forage), through to an established nation. "Thou shalt not kill" really meant "don't murder", with murder being a legal term meaning "knock off fellow Hebrews". It took a long time for them to expand to limited consideration for non-Jews within their society, and it wasn't really until Jesus came on the scene that Gentiles started getting more-or-less equal consideration - and then that was only a start. It took non-Jews to give Gentiles a real run, and then they turned around and started instituting pogroms.

Other examples - the Vikings had no compunction about killing their victims while they were raiding - it was simpler and safer than leaving live enemies. Genghis Khan considered wiping out the Chinese to give his ponies more grazing land (a Chinese adviser convinced him they'd be worth more than the land if he simply taxed them). And on and on it goes. You want to think about tribal warfare in Africa today? Or the killing fields in Indo-china? Or the Balkan snake-pit, which has been simmering constantly for about three thousand years now?

Simply put - we're not naturally tame. On balance I think that's good, but it does mean we've got to put the effort into taming ourselves and our children on our own terms.

Gee, I love being able to converse occasionally on this level. Can't take too much of it, but I don't get it in my private life, and it's great.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 02, 2001.

Don: One reason to think we're *not* born with the "kill the humans" instinct is that most of our instincts are in place for the purpose of survival. We're born with the instinct to suck, for example. Also, almost every society in humanity's history has viewed murder as morally wrong and socially unacceptable (yes, Rome had her "gladiator games," but even there, simply running around the streets killing people was not condoned - and I never said all societies were logically consistent in their practices).

Children have little or no concept of "mortality," "death," or "killing," much less an instinct to do it.

Anyway thats the way I lean but you sure gave me something to think about. Thanks for the discussion and you may have the last word if you want! Ha! What a guy huh?.....Kirk

-- Kirk Davis (kirkay@yahoo.com), August 02, 2001.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2001

Answers

I missed adding Don's recent contribution.............

Alright, I'm not too proud - I accept. It's not so much an "instinct to kill" like a cat plays with mice. We WILL kill, as in hunting - heck, even chimpanzees will get together a hunting band and go out and catch some monkeys. What we lack is a general inhibition against killing. Survival instincts only work with close relatives - those carrying our genes, or at least some of the same genes. Killing a stranger and getting all that good gear he's carrying is actually pro-survival at the lowest level (provided you can get away with it and don't get involved in a war or a vendetta). What society needs is to broaden our concept of "us - our group" to include strangers. As it happens, the way we've developed also reflects back into our close group, so there's less likely to be murder among our family and friends as well.

"Every society" - well, that's basically what I've been saying - you can't HAVE a stable society until you've got people controlling their instincts. The early days of societies, though, their prohibitions didn't extend to non-citizens - they'd broadened "our group", but not to the point of including everyone. In fact, I don't think we're there yet.

What I find incredible is that training which has been so successful for so long is now being discarded, or disregarded. The result is predictable, and we're getting it.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 02, 2001.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2001

I think Don's theory is flawed. If I remember right the statistics are that most murders are committed among people who know each other; family domestic violence being right up there.

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2001

I am right with you on that Diane! I didn't want to bring that up on the Countryside postings. But I certainly know in my own area, the news is filled with guns being used by children and the accidental shootings of family and friends. When used to kill intruders it is very likely to be a convinence store and not in the home. I do have another take on this, we do keep our guns in plain site in our home, I want and make a point of letting people know that yes we do have guns in our home. I would think that this is much more of a deterrent. It is also nice to know that our neighbors have a healthy respect of us. Recently someone told my friend "Geeze you don't have to worry about John, its Vicki!" Thank you! Vicki

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2001

Wow...!!!!my brain hurts.I will have to re-read this when the weather cools off this evening!!!

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2001

Animals still do their killing so their species will survive. Weeding out the weak. Man however seems hung up in the middle somewhere. Our survival seems to have shifted from the physical strong survive to the mentally strong survive. Bigger brain power will dominate muscles. But its a slow process. Give me the brain over the gun any day!!!......Kirk

-- Anonymous, August 03, 2001

My understanding of the chimps killing other animals, even each other, is that it is explained by nutritional need. They are most of the time vegetarians, but periodically go on what appears to us to be a killing rampage, but they eat of the animals they kill.

I completely agree with you, Kirk.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2001

Chimp warfare not explained by nutritional needs, re: Goodall research. See info posted below. Also more on this site: animal warfare http://rint.rechten.rug.nl/rth/dennen/animwar.htm

Animal behavior is of special interest to me. I find people to be very animalistic(as opposed to animals having human characteristics- anthropormorphism)

Have you ever been around children who were seriously neglected? Not necessarily abused,but not parented at all.Two very intelligent little girls of this background stayed at the shelter when I worked there. They were really wild kids. One of the counselors with considerable experience and a mother of grown kids herself,described them as "little wild animals".

Some believe we are born pure and innocent and become "corrupted".I see us being born self centered and greedy and require civilizing.Thus,I agree with Don on toddler taming.

Re:Murder crime statistics-they do not even begin to reflect all killings.Wars,ethnic cleansings,inquisitions,"accidental on purpose" deaths,abortion,euthanism and so on are not reflected in crime statistics yet these are most definitely killings of humans by humans (I'm making no judgement on right or wrong here).Murder statistics are just a drop in the bucket. Don speaks of killings,not just murder crime statistics.

Yes,most murders as crimes ARE committed by someone they knew or at least knew them,but NOT necessarily someone you socialize with(I.E. neighbor.) Most of OUR murders here are drug related. Yes they know each other,but are not necessarily related to each other or socialize together. Just a business deal gone bad.

The second group of murders is domestic violence but a substantial portion of that is man and woman incidents,again not blood relatives,and frequently not even friendly relationships. Very strange and scary relationships in fact( the ones I learned of thru working at the shelter sure were). And yes O.J. did it.

Enough from me.Here's the info on chimps......

Ultimate Explanations of Chimpanzee 'Warfare'

Chimpanzees, like humans, are 'highly xenophobic' (Schubert, 1983; Goodall, 1986; Diamond, 1992), and they sometimes engage in 'armed fighting' in defense against predators (Kortlandt, 1972), and, as we have seen, lethal raids with 'intent to kill' against conspecifics. Chimpanzees, like humans, are also conspicuous for their 'hunting and predatory behavior' (Kortlandt, 1972). Many authors have pointed to the developing tradition of cooperative hunting in male chimpanzees as a possible facilitating factor in IAB (as it is also hypothesized to be in the evolution of human warfare).

In contrast to the 'matriotic' primate societies structured around female coalitions and matrilines, primate communities organized around male interests tend to follow male strategies and, thanks to sexual selection, tend to seek power with an almost unbounded enthusiasm. "In a nutshell: Patriotism breeds aggression. Males have evolved to possess strong appetites for power because with extraordinary power males can achieve extraordinary reproduction" (Wrangham & Peterson, 1996).

As possible advantages of collective patrolling and IAB by male chimpanzees have been suggested the increased access to females (e.g., Bygott, 1979; Goodall et al., 1979; Low, 1990; Manson & Wrangham, 1991) and foraging for food resources (Nishida, 1979). Bygott (1979) and Nishida (1979) have drawn attention to the size and composition of the respective groups as determinants of arousing the males either to attack or flee. The hypothesis that population pressure and drastic reduction of territorial space, due to increasing human encroachment on their habitat and deforestation, is responsible for the aggravation of chimpanzee 'warfare' (Goodall et al., 1979; Trudeau, Bergmann-Riss & Hamburg, 1981), has not been substantiated yet. Similarly, the hypothesis of abnormal pressures and unusual stresses introduced by artificial provisioning (e.g., Tanner, 1986; Power, 1991; Losco & Somit, 1995) has still to be confirmed.

From the individual-level-of-selection point of view, according to Bygott's (1979) analysis, the chief advantage of collective territorial defense to a male chimpanzee is that he need be involved in very few potentially harmful confrontations with competitors from other communities. A group of males is a more powerful deterrent to intruders than a single one, since a group can inflict a severe or lethal attack with minimal risk to its members. Therefore "By merely accompanying other males on border patrols (which can be combined with foraging), an individual male can help to maintain his continued access to a large number of females. This model implies that there would be strong selection for males to be rapidly aroused to attack strangers, particularly males, on sight" (Bygott, 1979). Gang attacks on strange estrous females have not been recorded thus far. In contrast, Bygott continues, it might benefit males to attack strange females who were pregnant or had small infants, since by doing so they might destroy the offspring of competitor males and increase their own chances of genetic investment (which may also account for the infanticides observed). One major condition for the defense of a group territory, as well as collective hunting, is that males must cooperate to a certain extent. Cooperation depends on the strength of male bonding. Bonds should be strongest if males are incorporated into the male group at a relatively young age and if males are closely related (minimizing intermale competition for females). In chimpanzees, as we have seen, males indeed remain in their natal group, while the females transfer.

Goodall (1986) herself explains the chimpanzee proto-warfare in terms of the idiosyncratic pattern of chimpanzee territoriality and preadaptations common in chimpanzees and early humans. In three important ways, she contends, chimpanzee behavior does not comply with classical territoriality: (a) Both at Gombe and Mahale it is the relative size and the composition of the two neighboring parties that determine the outcome of an encounter, rather than the geographic location; (b) Chimpanzees have a large home range with considerable overlap between neighboring communities; and (c) It is perhaps in the violence of their hostility towards neighbors that chimpanzees differ most from the traditional territory owners of the animal kingdom. Their victims are not simply chased out of the owners' territory if they are found trespassing; they are assaulted and left, perhaps to die. Moreover, chimpanzees not only attack trespassers, but may make aggressive raids into the very heart of the core area of neighboring groups: "In the chimpanzee, territoriality functions not only to repel intruders from the home range, but sometimes to injure or eliminate them; not only to defend the existing home range and its resources, but to enlarge it opportunistically at the expense of weaker neighbors; not only to protect the female resources of a community, but to actively and aggressively recruit new sexual partners from neighboring social groups" (Goodall, 1986). In order to maximize their mating opportunities, male coalitions do not attempt to monopolize females directly, but indirectly by means of the monopolization and 'conquest' of territory. A positive feedback loop of escalating intensity would then be established between successful conquest of territory, elimination of competitor groups by means of intimidation or violence, and the development of the male 'gangs' into true 'warrior coalitions'. The amazing cognitive and affectional make-up of the chimpanzee might, then, partly be a spin-off of this ongoing evolution. There is an amazing similarity to the situation among humans. The development of social structures, in which men join in discrete solidarity groups (fraternal interest groups) is regarded as a condition which favors the development of bellicose tendencies (Van Hooff, 1990; Boehm, 1992). Otterbein & Otterbein (1965) have shown that in humans, feuding is most likely to develop among exogamous patrilineal groups with patrilocal postmarital residence. This arrangement ensures that closely-related males will remain coresident or live contiguously for life, while females are exchanged among various patrilineages or patriclans. They have characterized these groups as 'fraternal interest groups'.

Granted that destructive warfare in its typical human form (organized, armed conflict between groups) is a cultural development, it nevertheless required preadaptations to permit its emergence in the first place. The most crucial which Goodall identifies are cooperative group living, group territoriality, cooperative hunting skills, weapon use, and the intellectual ability to make cooperative plans. Another basic preadaptation was xenophobia: an inherent fear of, or aversion to, strangers, expressed by aggressive attack. Early hominid groups possessing these behavioral characteristics would theoretically have been capable of the kind of organized intergroup conflict that could have led to destructive warfare. Chimpanzees not only posses, to a greater or lesser extent, the above preadaptations, but they show other inherent characteristics that would have been helpful to the dawn warriors in their primitive battles: (a) If the early hominid males were inherently disposed to find aggression attractive, particularly aggression directed against neighbors, as (at least some adolescent male) chimpanzees appear to do, this trait would have provided a biological basis for the cultural training of warriors. (b) In humans cultural evolution permits pseudospeciation (Erikson, 1966). In its extreme form pseudospeciation leads to the 'dehumanization' of other groups, so that they may be regarded almost as members of a different species. This process, along with the ability to use weapons for hurting or killing at a distance, frees group members from the inhibitions and social sanctions that operate within the group and enables acts that would not be tolerated within the group. Thus it is of considerable interest to find that the chimpanzees show behaviors that bear strong resemblance to, and hence may be precursors to pseudospeciation in humans. First, their sense of group identity is strong; they clearly differentiate between ingroup and outgroup, between individuals who 'belong to us' and those who do not. This sense of group identity is, Goodall claims, far more sophisticated than mere xenophobia. The members of the Kahame chimpanzee community had, before they split, enjoyed close and friendly relations with their aggressors. By separating themselves, it is as though they forfeited their 'right' to be treated as group members - instead they were treated as strangers. Second, the patterns of attack strikingly differ from those utilized in typical intracommunity aggression: "The victims are treated more as though they were prey animals; they are 'dechimpized'".

Diamond (1992) wondered why these chimps are such inefficient killers compared to humans: "Chimps' inefficiency as killers reflects their lack of weapons, but it remains surprising that they have not learned to kill by strangling, although that would be within their capabilities. Not only is each individual killing inefficient by our standards, but so is the whole course of chimp genocide. It took three years and ten months from the first killing of a Kahama chimp to the band's end... ".

Two further aspects of chimpanzee behavior are of interest in relation to the evolution of behavior associated with human intergroup conflict: (a) In the chimpanzee, as in humans, cannibalism may follow intergroup conflict; and (b) Chimpanzees appear to possess the cognitive sophistication which is a prerequisite for the genesis of cruelty: they are capable to some extent of imputing desires and feelings to others, and they are almost certainly capable of feelings akin to (human) sympathy and empathy. "The chimpanzee, as a result of a unique combination of strong affiliative bonds between adult males on the one hand and an unusually hostile and violently aggressive attitude toward nongroup individuals on the other, has clearly reached a stage where he stands at the very threshold of human achievement in destruction, cruelty, and planned intergroup conflict. If ever he develops the power of language - and, as we have seen, he stands close to that threshold, too - might he not push open the door and wage war with the best of us?" (Goodall, 1986).

Another category of explanations centers on a cost/benefit analysis of chimpanzee proto-warfare. Emphasizing the principle that different behaviors may be adaptive under different circumstances, Manson & Wrangham (1987) note that chimpanzee intergroup raiding has been observed to occur only when the attackers belonged to a community substantially larger than the community containing the defenders.

"This suggests that chimpanzees conduct EIA [Exported Intergroup Aggression] in response to perceived intergroup strength differentials, although a complete model of this phenomenon is likely to be considerably more complex. Eventually, variation in the occurrence and intensity of human warfare may be explained rather completely via natural selection theory. This explanation will almost certainly refer, not to strength of selection for 'aggression' as a global trait, but rather to a cost-benefit model incorporating those features of the social and physical environments that cause individual contributions to varying levels of intergroup competition to be more or less effective means of increasing individual inclusive fitness".

Manson & Wrangham (1991) base their explanation on the notions of 'resource alienability' and '(im)balance of power', determining the cost/benefit ratio of the behavior: (intergroup) aggressive behavior has come to be viewed as a tactical option pursued when assessment indicates that it will be cost-effective, or, in other words, when the benefits sufficiently outweigh the inherent costs. The cost of severe aggression by chimpanzees appears to be unusually low, because, in contrast to the situation in aggression by other primates, chimpanzee victims are immobilized. This prompts the hypothesis that lethal attacks are promoted by an imbalance of power. Specifically, unrestrained attacks on opponents are favored merely because their cost is low. According to this hypothesis, long-term social bonds facilitate the formation of cooperatively attacking subgroups, and variation in subgroup size reduces the cost of damaging aggression to attackers with sufficient numerical superiority. The hypothesis predicts that (1) the cost to the aggressors will be low, (2) attacks will be restricted to occasions of overwhelming superiority, (3) potential victims will attempt to travel in large subgroups, and (4) attacks will occur whenever the opportunity arises. In sum, evidence supports two influences on intergroup aggression by chimpanzees. First, attacks are lethal because where there is sufficient imbalance of power, their cost is negligible. Second, attacks are a male and not a female activity because males are the philopatric sex. This relationship conforms to Alexander's (1989) proposal of the importance of male-male cooperation and female transfer, following earlier arguments by Bygott (1979), Goodall et al. (1979), Nishida (1979), and Wrangham (1979). The relationship between male philopatry and predominantly male participation in intergroup aggression is explicable as follows (Ghiglieri, 1987): Across primate species male philopatry is closely associated with male-male cooperation (Pusey & Packer, 1987). Chimpanzee social organization probably evolved from a system in which both sexes were solitary because of the high cost of feeding competition. Males then became able to travel in pairs, although this was still inferior to solitary travel as a foraging strategy (Wrangham, 1987). But because singletons were then necessarily subordinate to pairs in mate competition, selection began to favor male gregariousness. Bonded males compete more effectively than solitaires, so males form bonds wherever the ecological costs of bonding are not prohibitive (Rodman, 1984). cf. Wrangham & Peterson's (1996) 'party-gang species' concept. Theoretically the ultimate benefit of intergroup aggression among chimpanzees is expected to be increased access by aggressive males to reproductively valuable females, via either incorporation of neighbors or encroachment on the territory of neighboring males.

Given the chimpanzee evidence, Manson & Wrangham (1991; cf. Wrangham & Peterson, 1996) propose that imbalance of power must have been an important factor favoring the evolution of damaging aggression in humans also and that, through variability in subgroup size alone, power imbalances may have favored lethal raiding even before the evolution of weapons. Accordingly, Manson & Wrangham hypothesize that, among foraging humans, where crucial material resources are alienable, intergroup aggression will occur primarily over those resources, while where they are not it will occur over women.

Why does all this not apply to females? Why do not females raid for reproductive access to males? Why is coalitional aggression either absent or extremely rare in females? As we have seen, coalitions play an important role in male chimpanzee politics. To be sure, coalitions are not unknown to, or beyond the grasp of female chimpanzees, but females never seem to form coalitions for the purpose of communal violence. Why and whence this conspicuous difference between the sexes? Tooby & Cosmides (1988), whose approach predicts the striking asymmetry that exists between males and females in coalitional aggression, suggest some answers (elaborated in Ch. 4), which may be summarized as follows:

(1) Coalitional aggression evolved because it allowed participants in such coalitions to promote their fitness by gaining access to reproductive resources. For males, females are the limiting reproductive resource, and the ultimate benefit of multi-male coalitional aggression is increased access to females. Males can easily be induced to go to war, despite its lethal effects on many of them. Selection will favor participation in the coalitional aggression regardless of the mortality among the aggressors (within broad limits).

(2) Females, on the other hand, are rarely limited by access to males, so that the net reproduction of a coalition of females would drop in direct proportion to the number of females killed. In a curious fashion, males may be so ready to engage in coalitional aggression because it is reproductively 'safer' for them to do so. Females have more to lose, and less to gain, and such differences in consequences should be reflected in psychological sex differences in attitudes towards coalition formation and coalition-based aggression.

These considerations may be supplemented with the following: In a cross-cultural study of female participation in warfare, Adams (1983) presents evidence that women are excluded from participation in warfare where there is patrilocal residence, internal warfare, and community exogamy. Adams argues that under these conditions a woman will likely have a conflict of interest - her husband may be fighting with her father and brothers. Husbands will have reason to fear their wives' knowledge of war plans and therefore will prevent them from handling weapons and obtaining such knowledge. The obverse, of course, is that matrilocal societies (which tend to lack community exogamy and tend to have external warfare; see Ember & Ember, 1971; Adams, 1983) are unlikely to generate a conflict of interest in women and therefore are more likely to allow women to participate in warfare. Adams's explanation of female participation in intergroup aggression is different from Manson & Wrangham's, but the results for humans parallel the results for nonhuman primates (Ember, 1991). Irons (1991) ventured the thesis that human females participate in warfare by proxy in letting the males do the fighting for them. In anthropology textbooks one may find many variants of the so- called 'relative expendability' argument as an explanation of why males have monopolized violence in human societies. The 'relative expendability' argument goes something like this: "Because fewer of them are needed to produce and maintain offspring, from a population maintenance perspective, males are more expendable than females". But, as Rodseth et al. (1991) observe, this argument is vulnerable to all the criticisms of group selection first articulated by G.C. Williams (1966). And even if a 'relative expendability' argument were evolutionarily sound, it could not account for the fact that males seem equally expendable in savanna baboons and many other primate groups, yet females in these groups regularly engage in violent competition with other females.

All these attempts to explain chimpanzee proto-warfare are, not surprisingly, far from being mutually exclusive, rather they emphasize different aspects and facets of the same intriguing puzzle. Virtually all theories converge in their final conclusion: the ultimate rationale of male raiding is enhanced access to 'nubile' females. And ecological selection pressures, sexual selection and kin selection have fueled this process.

Chimpanzee Hunting and 'Warfare'

Of all the 'higher' primates, only human beings and chimpanzees hunt and eat meat on a regular basis. Significantly, males do most or all of the hunting. For chimpanzees, meat is not only another way to get nutrients like fat and protein, but a means to make political bonds and gain access to sexually receptive females (Stanford, 1995). Kortlandt (1972) suggested that hunting was a form of social display in which male chimpanzees revealed their prowess to other members of the community. Perhaps, Van Hooff (1990) speculates, the development of coordinated male between-group aggression has paved the way for the development of such coordinated hunting, not only in chimpanzees but also in the hominid/human evolutionary trajectory. Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1975) already asserted that motivationally, hunting behavior in chimpanzees has probably been derived from intraspecific aggression.

The usual argument is from hunting to warfare, using the social carnivore analogy. Cooperation in a hunt, collaboration in rearing offspring, helping group-members, and ingroup loyalty combined with merciless outgroup enmity - these are all characteristics highly developed in the social carnivores. The suggestion is that by the human transition to a more 'wolf-ish' and hunting lifestyle, these same characteristics have been strongly enhanced. In this scenario, the development of hunting was at the roots of the development of warlike behaviors. The recent observations of chimpanzee raiding suggest to Van Hooff that the development may well have gone the other way around. The cooperation in male between-group conflict may have brought about abilities and orientations which, subsequently, have allowed the development of systematic cooperation in hunting. Of course, a subsequent interaction between both processes might have occurred: hunting tools and stratagems might also prove useful in battle against conspecifics, and vice versa. A tactical refinement acquired in one functional context can be transferred to the other. If such an improvement increases the efficiency of this behavior pattern, then it might also shift the balance of costs and benefits. For example, a group which has developed a method of attack involving less personal risk, will come more easily to a decision to choose (pre-emptive) attack as a means of 'conflict-resolution' (Van Hooff, 1990).

In this context, it may be significant that in the pygmy chimpanzee or bonobo (Pan paniscus), who exhibits only mild intergroup antagonism, males do not develop strong bonds and are not habitually cooperative hunters (Badrian et al., 1981). Significantly, bonobos neither hunt monkeys cooperatively nor wage war (Wrangham & Peterson, 1996). Kano (1987) made the intriguing suggestion that in the pygmy chimpanzees the 'in-group feeling' among females is very strong, and therefore aggressive male expansion of territory is not connected with an increase in available females, and thus does not pay off. Wrangham & Peterson (1996) suggest that female power is the secret to male gentleness for intragroup interactions, while it is the food distribution that enabled this species to nonviolent intergroup interactions.

At this point some caveats are in order. First, nonhuman primate models applied to hominids are problematical for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the arbitrariness involved in the selection of the species to serve as the model. Suppose, for example, that we were to single out the bonobo as a model for early hominid social organization. Cooperative as well as competitive interactions among males would have been low-level, and would probably not include cooperative hunting, nor the Machiavellian and opportunistic coalitional maneuvering encountered in the other Pan species. Intergroup agonistic behavior would have consisted of visual and vocal displays and mild threats uttered from a safe distance, after which the bonobo-hominid braves would return to the home group and try out all coital positions described in the Kama Sutra for reassurance and pleasure. There is, furthermore, no simple linear scale of complexity from prosimians, via monkeys and the great apes, leading to the human condition. The primates as a group have diverged widely, evolving in different directions. The nonhuman primates do not represent steps toward the evolution of humans, but rather, as Scott (1969), among many others, observed, diverging pathways from a common ancestor. Finally, the landscape of hominid evolution is far richer and much complex than a simple linear view - many researchers view human evolution as "a long corridor where chimpanzees enter at one end and modern hunter-gatherers exit at the other" (Tooby & DeVore, 1987) - can accommodate. It is more likely to be a discrete series of branches, stages, and chronospecies. A feature, such as hunting or warfare, that seems to be an appropriate major adaptation for one chronospecies may have been completely inappropriate for others (for this line of argumentation see Tooby & DeVore, 1987). With these considerations in mind, one should be able to appreciate the specific differences as well as the communalities in the behaviors discussed.

Boehm (1992) systematically enumerated the similarities as well as the differences between chimpanzee and human IAB. Among the similarities are: (a) Both species develop fraternal interest groups that are subject to divisive internal quarrels; (b) Effective management of internal conflicts helps to make possible the formation of community-wide macro-coalitions; (c) Acting as macro-coalitions both species go raiding for sustenance and breeding partners, and sometimes kill their enemies. Among the differences Boehm notes: (a) Chimpanzees do not seem to have anything resembling the blood feud; nor do they engage in all- out warfare, in which the mobilized males of one group attack another group as a whole, or in which two groups deliberately meet on the battlefield; (b) Communities of humans often 'manage' such intensive external conflicts by making external alliances that balance power, and by ending their wars with peace treaties; and (c) Human warriors may be moved to engage in mass combat by a combination of patriotic ideology and negative sanctioning of cowards, two features of macro- coalitional competition that chimpanzees lack.

Some Conclusions

1. The main conclusion emerging from this chapter, namely that Intergroup Agonistic Behavior (IAB) is an adaptive behavior in a number of nonhuman (especially primate) species may sound disconcerting for many readers, yet this conclusion is inevitable given the evidence. The major implication of this conclusion is that a whole body of theories which regard IAB as erratic, or even pathological, behavior can be put quietly to rest.

2. The overwhelming majority of gregarious and social mammalian species does not have Intergroup Agonistic Behavior in its behavioral repertoire. For a good number of species the cost/benefit ratio of IAB precludes the evolution of such behavior anyway, but for an as yet unknown number of species it is less easy to explain why they lack this behavior, which would be highly profitable as a high- risk/high-gain strategy. It is likely that they lack the requisite social and cognitive (domain-specific) skills, such as a coalitional psychology, to cooperate for the sake of concerted competition.

3. In a number of the species reviewed, in which intergroup aggression is serious and concerted business, there seems to be an intricate relationship between intra- and intergroup processes. It even seems, particularly in the chimpanzee case, as if relatively 'peaceful' intragroup relations are conditioned by, and interdependent on, some level of xenophobia (or, rather, proto- ethnocentrism, a "tendency toward closure of the social networks" [Wrangham, 1987]) and hostility toward outgroups, as if it were an export-of-conflict mechanism. This interrelationship will be discussed more fully in Ch. 6 on kin selection and ethnocentrism. Note, however, that intergroup antagonism is no guarantee for suspending intragroup competition, and not necessarily alleviates tense and ambivalent male-male relationships.

4. The role of females in primate intergroup agonistic behavior as well as in human primitive warfare has been, until very recently, seriously underestimated. War, as 'the great business of mankind' has been mainly conducted by males - with females considered to be the active or passive victims of this male preoccupation - but the (reproductive) interests of females in matters of war and peace are at least as great as those of males.

5. Having established at least the possibility of phylogenetic precursors in (or phylogenetic continuities between nonhuman and) hominid intergroup antagonism, I am quite aware that many questions on nonhuman IAB have been left unanswered (To mention only one: Is there any parallel between the selection pressures and ecological conditions underlying both sociality and warfare in the social insects and humans?) This is not because these problems are not vexing and intriguing in their own right, but simply because they would detract us too much from, or are less relevant to, the exploration of our main theme.

This is an abbreviated version of Chapter 3 of my The Origin of War: The Evolution of a Male-Coalitional Reproductive Strategy. Groningen: Origin Press, 1995.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2001

A very complex, detailed and prolonged study of bananas will still not necessarily help me understand an apple, especially if it were just one or two people doing the studies. This is all relative to what??

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2001

Dianne, I REALLY want to understand an apple. What do I need to do?

JOJ

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2001

JOJ.......study an apple??? ;>)

-- Anonymous, August 04, 2001

I can't give an accurate assessment; as I spend waaaay too much time with the AIB specie type in my work. Would scare the hell out of me if I thought all humans were like this; just buried a few layers deeper in the brain - or perhaps covered over with more layers of "toddler-taming". Dang it, Sharon; now I'm gonna have to go play with my flowers for a while to get this out of my head!! Hugs to you,

-- Anonymous, August 05, 2001

Diane

Please excuse my excesses. I love studying animals, and expecially love info on chimps (Yes,I'm really a frustrated wannabe field biologist.) I couldn't figure out how to present this info any other way, since it was just a part of a much larger article on the website given. Yes, It's a lot to put here, but I,myself,found it facinating, informative, thought provoking, well researched, and reasoned.

Did you get to read it? yeah I know lots of garden work to do right now. :o) Maybe later?

The purpose was not to "snow" anyone with information overload BTW.

So why look at chimps? Because chimps are our closest living relative 99% of the same genes. Because Chimps can learn to communicate and reason on the level of an 8 year old. Because since we now have few aboriginal populations of humans in their natural habitat to study (praise the Lord for sending christian troops and missionaries) what choice do we have? Because man and chimps are the primate meateaters,as discussed in this article.

You see apples and bananas. Sorry, but because of the above reasons I don't agree. More like Heirloom winesaps and modern Galas, because we are so closely related. Or more appropriately,crabapples and modern apples.Same family tree,lot of similarities. Describing termites, another social animal, would be apples and bananas (or maybe oaks?).However if you don't believe we decended from apes,then that is a whole 'nother thread.

Now when Kirk and EM brought up animals as part of their argument, you did not choose to cry apples and bananas. When I present an oposing view, you do. OH,OH,me,me(frantic hand waving) I know the answer.......those apples were genetically engineered in the interim. Right? Am I right? :oD Ah....just me and my jokester mouth acting up.

As to what's the point? Why, to counter the statements make by Kirk and EM. They are choosing to believe what I consider popular myths. Because it supports their particular view of things. I choose to support the view presented by a multituide of scientists who's life work has been studying chimp and/or animal behavior, which also corresponds with what I've observed myself (in both people and animals)as an amateur naturalist. And if you read the article, you would see that it was not the opinion of "one or two" people, but showed (footnoted) the multitude of sources of references from these same scientists.

Who are you going to believe? I made my choice based on science.

Hope this helps to clarify my post and your initial perceptions of it.

-- Anonymous, August 06, 2001

Polly.....I do believe this is pretty much the nature of the beast,but also believe that good nurturing(i.e. "toddler taming") from whatever source overrides much of it.Again that's why I liked what Don wrote about us being able to be taught to be altruistic and cooperative and caring,and taught it very well indeed,given the right input. Necessary part of becoming a person - w/o it the kids become "little wild animals",i.e. stay at a more savage state.

Because of all this, I am forever grateful and indeed fortunate that I was given the mother I have. Didn't think that when I was a teen. Sure do as an adult.

-- Anonymous, August 06, 2001

sharon, I read it. Just did not agree with the reasoning. I guess if we all agreed it would be an open and shut case now wouldn't it. I am not convinced that we evolved from the apes, and it has nothing to do with my religion.

I think Don's comments "I think that killing people (or anything else) is as natural as breathing - an animal function built in to the human organism" is way off base. There are many, many animals that do not kill naturally for any reason except perhaps in defense of their young. Showing the behavior of chimps to support that theory does not convince me.

I find it very disturbing that I have just been "pinged" 6 times in the short time I have been on this thread and I am going to just stop now although I have a lot more that I would like to say.

-- Anonymous, August 06, 2001

I got one of those bare foot, runny snot nosed hugs from a 4 yr old the other day and I saw no killing instinct! Only love the way that children do. I still think children come from the context LOVE and only later do they learn to kill. Not based on science, only from my own personal experience....Love to all....kirk

-- Anonymous, August 06, 2001

Hmmmm. Lots of thoughts. First, the least relevant. I had a sudden thought about the 'pings' that seem to increase when on this site and CS. PERHAPS it is the ENTIRE Lusenet system (monolith? conglomerate?)?

As far as chimps being our closest relatives, I was under the impression that it is the BONOBOS, not chimps, with which we share the most DNA. Something like 96% with chimps, and 98% with bonobos, but I don't have any sources on that to hand. Maybe I can find it later. Bonobos have be called 'pygmy chimpanzee', but I also understood that to be an eroneous term. Anyway, the bonobos are very different in behavior from the chimpanzees. Bonobos relieve tensions and resolve conflict by engaging in sex. Apparently, in just about anyway we can imagine, and probably some we wouldn't come up with, either. It's rather mind boggling . . . .

Diane, my take on the evolving from apes would be more along the lines of our mutual ancestor being the crabapple, with the apes being some hardy, naturally occuring variety of apple and ancient humans as a different variety. Further, I'd liken modern humans to a whole bunch of different varieties of apple cultivars, some less successful, many a whole lot less tasty, than the earlier variety! That probably doesn't change your mind any, just mentioning it for general interest.

Kirk, I think kids are capable of love. I think they're also capable of "not-love" -- i.e. indifference to something/someone, so indifferent to whether the something/someone is injured or destroyed.

And some of it is probably inexperience. I knew a boy (well past the savage toddler stage) was given a BB gun at about age 10. Strict instructions that it was NOT to be used on any thing or any being other than the targets tacked up to the practice bunker. So, practically the first thing he did was shoot at a bird. And he hit it, in the wing. He was horrified at the unrepairable damage he had done. He wouldn't let me take the bird to his mother to be fixed up and it remained a dirty little secret. (Of course, the bird died.) If I was ever foolish enough to bring up that incident in subsequent years, it would make him feel so badly about what he had done, he would pound ME for bringing it up. How is that for mixed up impulses? (He is a relatively decent human being, now!)

-- Anonymous, August 06, 2001

". Bonobos relieve tensions and resolve conflict by engaging in sex" Well Joy that is the first real case I have seen for evolution!!! I was definately once married to a man who had to have evolved from a bonobo...........did I say that???

-- Anonymous, August 06, 2001