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‘I didn’t want to write about this’: the man who first saw chimps waging civil war (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/science@lemmy.world
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[–] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Also not a biologist but I note there is a narrative that all the great apes are peaceful and that so there is something wrong with warlike humans. I don't believe it's a narrative from science, but it might be what makes this newsworthy

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Just to add to this, I feel like we believed war was an emergent property of civilization and with sufficient progress it could be eliminated. Evidence that war occurs in nature implies a deeper underlying impulse that cannot easily be avoided.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    In a certain way, this is encouraging. If we can uncover the underlying mechanisms driving aggressive and war like behavior in chimpanzees, we may be able to treat these behaviors in humans.

    Additionally, if it’s not an emergent phenomena of civilization, it may be only sometimes emergent in evolution. If life has evolved elsewhere, it may be possible they did not evolve war or war like aggressive behavior, and thus may not have the evils we have.

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