The demography of human warfare can drive sex differences in altruism

Micheletti, Alberto J. C.; Ruxton, Graeme D.; Gardner, Andy

doi:10.1017/ehs.2020.5

Cited by 13 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…For example, Cant and Johntone (2008) suggest that the evolution of menopause in humans can be partly explained by an asymmetry in relatedness to offspring between older and younger women that results from female dispersal. Similarly, kin selection modelling by Micheletti et al (2017) suggests that sex-differences in relatedness to the group may lead to intrafamilial conflicts of interest with respect to the fitness benefits of engaging in intergroup violence and differences in the benefits of altruistic behaviour towards groupmates Micheletti, Ruxton & Gardner (2020). Assessing the plausibility of such hypotheses for human social evolution requires more than average relatedness; we also need detailed data on age and sex differences in residence patterns and relatedness to group mates, patterns described by Croft et al (2021) as 'kinship dynamics'.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relatedness within and between Agta residential groups

et al. 2021

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Theoretical models relating to the evolution of human behaviour usually make assumptions about the kinship structure of social groups. Since humans were hunter-gatherers for most of our evolutionary history, data on the composition of contemporary hunter-gatherer groups has long been used to inform these models. Although several papers have taken a broad view of hunter-gatherer social organisation, it is also useful to explore data from single populations in more depth. Here, we describe patterns of relatedness among the Palanan Agta, hunter-gatherers from the northern Philippines. Across 271 adults, mean relatedness to adults across the population is r = 0.01 and to adult campmates is r = 0.074, estimates that are similar to those seen in other hunter-gatherers. We also report the distribution of kin across camps, relatedness and age differences between spouses, and the degree of shared reproductive interest between camp mates, a measure that incorporates affinal kinship. For both this this measure (s) and standard relatedness (r), we see no major age or sex differences in the relatedness of adults to their campmates, conditions that may reduce the potential for conflicts of interest within social groups.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relatedness within and between Agta residential groups

et al. 2021

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“…It is worth noting that the Choi and Bowles model assumes that all parochial altruists will go to war, whereas in actual human societies, active participation in war is usually restricted to young men (12,22). Negative fitness consequences of parochial altruism in noncombatants would mean that altruism is less likely to evolve and may lead to intrafamilial and intergenerational conflicts of interest, especially if the spoils of war are unequally distributed (22,23).…”

Section: Anthropologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since direct evidence of past selection pressures on altruism and war are unavailable to us, we rely on exploring the coevolutionary dynamics of parochial and altruistic behaviors using mathematical or computational modeling. Several models exploring parochial altruism have been advanced (2-4, 13, 21) as part of a wider literature on the possible impact of warfare on the evolution of human sociality (22)(23)(24)(25). Of these models of parochial altruism, arguably the most influential is a model by Choi and Bowles (3).…”

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confidence: 99%

The evolution of altruism through war is highly sensitive to population structure and to civilian and fighter mortality

Dyble

2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The importance of warfare in the evolution of human social behavior remains highly debated. One hypothesis is that intense warfare between groups favored altruism within groups, a hypothesis given some support by computational modeling and, in particular, the work of Choi and Bowles [J.-K. Choi, S. Bowles, Science 318, 636–640 (2007)]. The results of computational models are, however, sensitive to chosen parameter values and a deeper assessment of the plausibility of the parochial altruism hypothesis requires exploring this model in more detail. Here, I use a recently developed method to reexamine Choi and Bowles’ model under a much broader range of conditions to those used in the original paper. Although the evolution of altruism is robust to perturbations in most of the default parameters, it is highly sensitive to group size and migration and to the lethality of war. The results show that the degree of genetic differentiation between groups (FST) produced by Choi and Bowles’ original model is much greater than empirical estimates of FST between hunter-gatherer groups. When FST in the model is close to empirically observed values, altruism does not evolve. These results cast doubt on the importance of war in the evolution of human sociality.

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“…Undeniably, the most affected part of the population is usually the category of young males. The demography of human warfare can drive sex differences in altruism, as recent research demonstrates (Micheletti, Ruxton and Gardner, 2020). Likewise, on the molecular (genetic) "level", the ecology of warfare drives the evolution of sex-biased dispersal; sex-biased dispersal modulates intrafamily and intragenomic conflicts in relation to warfare and an ecological perspective of conflicts at the levels of the gene, individual, and social group yields novel predictions as to pathologies associated with mutations and epimutations at loci underpinning human violence" (Micheletti, Ruxton and Gardner, 2017, p. 1).…”

Section: These Terms Refer To Two Kinds Of Field Research Done and Viewpoints Obtained: The Emic From Within The Social Group/ Individualmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of the book by Norman Walter (1950) - The Sexual Cycle of Human Warfare: Being a New Theory of the Cause of War and an Inquiry into the Possibility of War-Prediction. London: The Mitre Press, pp.208, ISBN: 978-0705191319

Vivod¹

2021

Security and Defence Quarterly

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This book review is long overdue. The Sexual Cycle of Human Warfare was printed in 1950 in London, which makes this review late by seventy years. To my knowledge, even the publisher doesn't exist anymore. However, many of its readers agree that this one is of the most underrated books on the topic of polemology ever. Among those readers was Anthony Burgess, the author of A Clockwork Orange (1962), who wrote that it is "shamefully neglected" (Burgess et al., 1970, p. 322). Considering that this critique came from a novelist whose work on extreme and grotesque violence marked the second half of the 20th century and changed the way we have viewed gratuitous violence forever thanks to S. Kubrick's masterpiece film (1971) that was inspired by it, maybe it is time to look back and examine this volume.The Sexual Cycle of Human Warfare was written by a former British colonel, Norman Walter. Nowadays, the book belongs to what we would call 'the rare books' and it is almost impossible to purchase a hardcopy. Luckily, few fans of social sciences and those interested in human behaviour have made it possible for potential readers to access it online 1 . The forward to this book was written by an anonymous author (N.I. McN.W) in October 1948, two years before the volume was actually published. This is a significant detail because it offers a historical framework to this volume: it means that it was written immediately after WWII, hence the author's need and desire to elaborate on the phenomenon of war drastically differently from the fashionable theories of that time. This after-war era was an intellectually stimulating period: Raphael Lemkin published https://securityandefence.pl/

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The demography of human warfare can drive sex differences in altruism

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 13 publications

References 82 publications

Relatedness within and between Agta residential groups

Relatedness within and between Agta residential groups

The evolution of altruism through war is highly sensitive to population structure and to civilian and fighter mortality

Review of the book by Norman Walter (1950) - The Sexual Cycle of Human Warfare: Being a New Theory of the Cause of War and an Inquiry into the Possibility of War-Prediction. London: The Mitre Press, pp.208, ISBN: 978-0705191319

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