Genetic and Cultural Evolution: Implications for International Security Policies

Abstract

At the 1986 meetings of the International Society for Research on Aggression, some of the leading lights there completed work on what came to be called the Seville Statement, named for the charming city in Spain in which we met. Given the strong mix of psychologists, ethologists, and biologists, it was a remarkable document, vigorously rejecting any suggestion that war waging is genetically innate in Homo sapiens, and therefore an inevitable and permanent covariate of the human condition. Rather, it was argued that “It is scientifically incorrect to say that war or any other violent behavior is genetically programmed into our human nature” and “We conclude that biology does not condemn humanity to war.” Shifting from the negative to the positive, they recognized that while “We do have the neural apparatus to act violently, it is not automatically activated by internal or external stimuli. Like higher primates and unlike other animals, our higher neural processes filter such stimuli before they can be acted upon.” See Beroldi (1994) and Scott and Ginsburg (1994) for a more extensive debate about the merits of the Seville Statement on Violence.KeywordsHuman NatureViolent BehaviorCultural EvolutionChild SoldierPermanent CovariateThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.