More on chimp (and human) violence
July 4th, 2010 by Mary
John Horgan at the Scientific American has written a follow-up to Nicholas Wade’s recent article on chimp violence. Horgan reviews the evidence for and against the theory that chimp violence is widespread and that our hominid ancestors inherited the tendency toward violence from our common ancestor with the chimps. Specifically, he explains why he has become skeptical of the theory. What kind of species are we really? Within the limits of our genome, we’re the kind of species we choose to be, but we may be going less against the grain than we sometimes think when we choose peace.
