Richard Wrangham’s hypothesis that teams of beta males systematically killing off alpha males is what made us Homo sapiens is perhaps the most dramatic “selective killing driving evolution” argument.
The problem is that in reducing the propensity for violence, the ability to mount vigorous self-defence is also hindered. No wonder Western societies are being overrun by aggressors from less pacified cultures. Sadly, pacification may be the proverbial self-cleaning oven.
Dr. Frost, your very interesting proposed project regarding genetic pacification could be enhanced by considering the temporal variation in the onset of the State monopoly on violence as a function of geography. The Scottish-English Border region came under the full weight of the justice system approximately 600 years later than, say, Wessex. My personal experience in the American South with descendants of Scots-Irish immigrants (Ulstermen themselves descended from Borderers) suggests that genetic pacification in that group may be less than in Germans, for example. Albanians would be another likely group whose pacific selective pressure began much later in time.
"Medieval times - most people fail to develop mentally beyond the stage of preoperational thinking."
No, the issue is not the stage of preoperational thinking, but the stage of preformal thinking. The people of the European Middle Ages were at the concrete-operational stage, i.e. above preoperative thinking; but they had not yet reached the stage of formal-operative thinking.
A good study of executing enemies in the micro, and its effect on the rise of Western Civ. A macro study could, perhaps, be done on the fall of Western Civ being the result of no longer killing our enemies (since August, 1945), but in the absurdity of limited “war,” a contradiction in terms. Charlemagne built Western Europe in part by his annual war on the Saxons. Rome erased Carthage in its entirety.
The hotspots in the world today - the obstacles to peace - all are in areas where too much concern about collateral damage stopped us from killing our enemies. See Israel v Gaza today.
Richard Wrangham’s hypothesis that teams of beta males systematically killing off alpha males is what made us Homo sapiens is perhaps the most dramatic “selective killing driving evolution” argument.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1713611115
The problem is that in reducing the propensity for violence, the ability to mount vigorous self-defence is also hindered. No wonder Western societies are being overrun by aggressors from less pacified cultures. Sadly, pacification may be the proverbial self-cleaning oven.
Dr. Frost, your very interesting proposed project regarding genetic pacification could be enhanced by considering the temporal variation in the onset of the State monopoly on violence as a function of geography. The Scottish-English Border region came under the full weight of the justice system approximately 600 years later than, say, Wessex. My personal experience in the American South with descendants of Scots-Irish immigrants (Ulstermen themselves descended from Borderers) suggests that genetic pacification in that group may be less than in Germans, for example. Albanians would be another likely group whose pacific selective pressure began much later in time.
"Medieval times - most people fail to develop mentally beyond the stage of preoperational thinking."
No, the issue is not the stage of preoperational thinking, but the stage of preformal thinking. The people of the European Middle Ages were at the concrete-operational stage, i.e. above preoperative thinking; but they had not yet reached the stage of formal-operative thinking.
A good study of executing enemies in the micro, and its effect on the rise of Western Civ. A macro study could, perhaps, be done on the fall of Western Civ being the result of no longer killing our enemies (since August, 1945), but in the absurdity of limited “war,” a contradiction in terms. Charlemagne built Western Europe in part by his annual war on the Saxons. Rome erased Carthage in its entirety.
The hotspots in the world today - the obstacles to peace - all are in areas where too much concern about collateral damage stopped us from killing our enemies. See Israel v Gaza today.