Saturday, January 10, 2004

The war gene

Did you think war is an exclusive human-created mechanism to gain superiority? Think again! According to a new study, the cause for human tendency to participate in and initiate violence is because of our shared ancestory with the Chimpanzees. As you would be aware, Chimpanzees are supposed to be 'peaceful apes' minding their own business, not aggressive creatures which passed us our "gene for war"!

But detailed observations have found that, in contradiction to above, chimpanzees are and can be violently aggressive and will not hesitate to kill their companions when competing for food or mate. And guys? One absolutely hilarious thing about this is that, only male chimpanzees and their descendant male human counterparts have this "gene"!This theory, which has been named the "Demonic Male Hypothesis", explains how human males and chimps share a tendency to be aggressive due to their huge number of shared attributes ranging from 98.5 per cent of the DNA to their hunting ability.

"We are the result of millions of years of evolution since our common ancestor and chimps must have evolved considerably, too. So how can you compare these two species based on their behavior now? For all you know, the chimps may have developed this character later... " is that what you are asking? Well...Study on to know the counter arguments on why this "war gene" theory should not be accepted!

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