Fate of Earth II: Our Predisposition to Violence

The Fate of Earth II: Our Genetic Predisposition to Violence

The first piece at 5 May 2004, this is the second of two articles on Jared Diamond, who is a physiologist at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). Recipient of a MacArthur Genius Award, he is a man of many interests and passions. In a 1995 video interview for Discover magazine, he revealed their range and depth. Here are some of his comments during that interview.

Medical ethics. Would you conduct experiments on humans with severe mental retardation whose mental capacities are less than chimpanzees? Who are so handicapped that they feel less pain and social distress? Of course not. Then why do it on chimpanzees? ( People have little problem with experiments on mice, but have difficulties with cats and dogs, and so on up the chain.)

Forget Rousseau, the Romantics, and others who revere the "noble savage." Living closer to the earth does not exempt a people from the same ignorance and barbarities as committed by those in advanced civilizations. In fact, they can be worse. Violent deaths are far more common in New Guinea human societies than in European or American society. In fact, per capita violent deaths are more common in tribal societies, than in modern states. Although human beings have a genetic predispostion for violence, modern states are more successful in curbing that predisposition. Of course we had genocides such as the holocaust, but they resulted from a few people without the curbs imposed on behavior by other modern societies. Modern states typically exercise more curbs. The statistical evidence comparing modern states to tribal societies consistently shows modern states dampen the genetic predisposition.

This genetic predisposition is not unique to man. Those species which have the physical or mental ability to inflict genocide on another of their kind will do so. Jane Goodall found one troupe of chimps committing genocide over a few years, completing wiping out a neighboring chimp troupe. Genocide has been documented in hyenas and wolves. Murder has been witnessed in Peregrine falcons. Rape has been recorded in orangutangs, which is easy because the male weighs double the female. Group rape has been documented in mallard ducks.

My Comment: In Iraq, the recent vile abuses at Abu Ghraid prison provide support for the evidence of biologists. We must not forget Stanley Milgram's famous experiments which suggest the torturer in everybody. Nor should we ignore Zimbardo's prison experiments with students at Stanford University. * As Walt Kelly had Pogo say in the cartoon strip, "We have met the enemy and he is us." * ( In my college classes I have assigned these experiments as required reading. To my question, What would you do?, most students say they would never stoop so low. I hope they are right, although statistics suggest that more than a few of them would be wrong.) 

See Fate of Earth Part I and Part III.

Fate of Earth I: Population Pressure and Collapses

The Fate of Earth

Archeological studies indicate that whenever people can expand beyond the limits of their environment with the technology to harm it, they will do so.

Jared Diamond is a physiologist at UCLA. Recipient of a MacArthur Genius Award, he is a man of many interests and passions. In a 1995 video interview for Discover magazine, he revealed their range and depth. Here are some of his comments during that interview.

Overpopulated and deforested, Haiti is already so badly damaged environmentally that it won't be able to reverse itself. Look at Somalia and Iraq. Areas that breed war are also areas of environmental damage. The two situations contribute to one another, and this is no accident.

Easter Island was settled by Polynesians in 500 C.E. Unlike the Roman or Sumerian empires, which arguably could have collapsed from either internal or external forces, or both, Easter Island civilization had no neighbors, so it had to collapse from within.

In 500, fossil evidence indicates a large pollen forest existed. By 1600, the forests were extinct. This meant no trees. All land prey had been hunted to extinction. Because of deforestation, erosion rendered soil infertile for crops. Nor did people have wood to build boats to catch fish. A population crash occurred, 7000 dropping to 2000. They could go nowhere else. Out of this environmental catastrophe cannibalism arose. People were killed for meals.

99.9 percent of plants and animal extinction today is caused by human society. This figure is based on rates of extinction in the past.

Human population is doubling every 35 to 42 years. Jared Diamond pegged the present population at 5.5 billion. With regard to plant and animal extinction, most environmental changes will occur in the next 50 years.

Of the energy fixed by plants, 40 percent is used by people. If the population doubles in 35 to 42 years, 80 percent of plant energy would be needed then. This would be energy commandeered from other life forms. In sixty years, nature would have nothing left to take, nor to give.

During the cold war, the risk of nuclear holocaust had our attention because it could wipe out hundreds of thousands in a few seconds. While the risk of it has receded, the risk of environmental holocaust increases dramatically but does not get our attention because it happens slowly. The human brain is wired so it can turn away from the evidence. ( To better understand this, our human predicament, see Descartes' Error: Antonio Damasio, Somatic Markers, As-If Loops, and Moral Dilemmas, 11 April 2004, as well as  Evolutionary Psychology and Moral Dilemmas, 12 March 2004.)

Reason for hope. The Easter Islanders had no recorded history, no way to learn. We have books, a way to learn. 

See Fate of Earth Part II and Part III.