Re: Origins of Human Violence


Passer By wrote:
"ta" <padlrnc@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

How did violence and aggression evolve in human beings, and what
evidence would you supply to support your position?

Did the earliest humans employ violence against one another, or was
the behaviour learned out of necessity?


It was likely born out of the pressures of sexual selection. Women
tend to be more attractive to aggressive men. The aggression should be
directed toward other "tribes," but they should be compassionate to
there wife and children. Women also tend to become pregnant more often
from any given act of rape vs any give act of consensual sex, thus
there are "genes" for rape in humans. Occasionally, men may have to
defended themselves from wild animals, but this was probably less
common than man-to-man combat. Again along the lines of sexual
selection men would hunt very large animals mostly to impress women
(small game gives more steady energy supply, but isn't as impressive).

No doubt, women were more attracted to aggressive men for survival
reasons, but then the real underlying question I was trying to get at
is how did aggression and violence become a useful trait to begin with.
There seem to be 2 general theories from my cursory understanding of
the issue:

1. We inherited this from our primate relatives (i.e., hominids have
always had the aggressiveness trait), or

2. It was learned behaviour -- environmental influences, such as
increasing population and dwindling habitat (our ancestors couldn't hop
on a plane and move to California when the nuts and berries ran out)
put pressure on the existing populations, causing the need to defend
territory and guard against intruders.

If the answer is 1, then one could conclude that we're just screwed.

If the answer is 2, then there are obvious things we should be doing to
reduce the usefullness of such traits. For example, wouldn't violence
become rather useless in a world of 500 million people and virtually
unlimited resources (given today's technology)?

These ideas come mostly from the books
- The Mating Mind - Miller
- Sperm Wars - (I can't recall now, but its a MUST READ!)
- The Evolution of Desire - David Buss

Thanks.


.

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