The Origins of Human Violence
Details
I've decided to host our discussion at the Good Karma Café again. It's near the corner of 10th & Pine in Washington Square West neighborhood, and it's fairly easy to get to if you're using public transit. With SEPTA, take the Broad Street Line & get off at the Lombard South Station, and walk 2 blocks east on Lombard and then turn left on 10th street and it's up a half block. With PATCO, just get off at the 10th & Locust stop and walk 2 blocks south. For those who are driving, parking in the neighborhood can be tough to find. I'd suggest parking in the parking deck connected to the ACME at 10th & South. If you buy at least $10 worth of groceries from ACME, they'll validate your parking so it's free.
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THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN VIOLENCE
This meetup discussion will center around some of the major debates in the scientific study of human violence. As some of you probably know, the skeptic community has studied human violence and debated its causes quite a bit over the past decade. Back in 2006-2007, there was the nearly simultaneous release of books from Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Cristopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett criticizing organized religion which led to the coining of the term "New Atheists". One of their major concerns was the contribution or religious ideology to violence, especially wars & terrorism. (We discussed their critique of Islamic violence at our last meetup.) Then in 2011, Steven Pinker released his book The Better Angels of Our Nature which was a bit more optimistic and looked at various reasons that the overall rates of violence (such as war deaths as a percentage of the total population) seem to be declining over the long term. In 2014, Lawrence Krauss's ASU Origins project hosted a panel discussion entitled, "Transcending Our Origins - Violence, Humanity, and the Future", and the first half featured Steven Pinker, Richard Wrangham, Erica Chenoweth, Adrian Raine, John Mueller & Sarah Mathew discussing the development of violence from a variety of perspectives.
There's been a lot more scientific research since then and we'll try to provide participants with a broad overview of the latest findings in this meetup, along with a skeptical guide to some of the more dubious studies. This meetup will focus on the genetic & anthropological studies on the origins of human violence, and next week we'll cover the historical study of trends on human violence.
I've listed some material below that I'd like our members to check out prior to our discussion. If you're pressed for time, you can just watch the videos (they come to just 31 minutes total) and skip the articles. As you can see, I've listed some notes under the articles that summarize their major points.
WHAT BIOLOGICAL FACTORS CONTRIBUTE TO HUMAN VIOLENCE - XYY SYNDROME, TESTOSTERONE, BRAIN STRUCTURE, THE WARRIOR GENE?
- Estelle Caswell, "The Myth of the 'Supermale' and the Extra Y Chromosome" (4:14 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BsXLnLn9ok
- Christopher Mims, "Strange but True: Testosterone Alone Does Not Cause Violence" (short article)
- Jason Bellini w/ Adrian Raine , "The Anatomy of a Violent Brain" (2:34 min.)
http://www.wsj.com/video/the-anatomy-of-a-violent-brain/DA53C273-D0E0-48EB-95C7-344F253C7E19.html
- John Horgan, "Code rage: The 'warrior gene' makes me mad! (Whether I have it or not)" (medium-length article)
ARE CHIMPS "LIVING FOSSILS" THAT RESEMBLE OUR HOMINID ANCESTORS? IF SO, DOES "COALITIONAL KILLING" IN CHIMPS INDICATE THAT HUMAN VIOLENCE IS AN EVOLVED & DEEPLY INSTINCTUAL BEHAVIOR? DOES THE FACT THAT HUMANS ARE WEAKER & LESS "SEXUALLY DIMORPHIC" THAN CHIMPS INDICATE WE EVOLVED TO BE LESS VIOLENT & MORE COOPERATIVE?
- Richard Wrangham, "The real reason why humans sometimes turn killer" (4:13 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeOrvEjlogA
- John Horgan, "Quitting the hominid fight club: The evidence is flimsy for innate chimpanzee--let alone human--warfare" (medium-length article)
- Jack Miles, "Gracilization: evidence of humans domesticating themselves" (article excerpt)
http://askwhy.co.uk/dinosauroids/?p=560
ARE TODAY'S TRIBAL HUNTER-GATHERERS ANALOGOUS TO OUR PALEOLITHIC ANCESTORS? IS IT TRUE THAT THEIR HOMICIDE RATE IS AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE HIGHER THAN MODERN INDUSTRIALIZED NATION-STATES, AND THUS OUR PROPENSITY TO VIOLENCE IS INNATE?
- The bar graph below is from Lawrence Keeley's book, War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage (1996)
https://secure.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/5/1/f/9/600_460820985.jpeg
- Jared Diamond, "Rousseau Revisited" (short article)
http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Rousseau_Revisited.html
- John Horgan, "Was Civilization the Cure for Primordial Human Violence?" (short article)
- Robert Kelly, "Do Hunter-Gatherers Tell Us About Human Nature?" (20:00 min.)