Comments on: Intensely Territorial

By: Steve Johnson

Steve Johnson — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 16:07:54 +0000

Bob, when you view the original stock and the evolutionary pressure you see that we go from territorial, distrusting of outsiders but highly cooperative within the tribe (where the maximum size of the tribe is limited by food supply) hunter-gatherers to pastoralists and farmers, where the most important change was the increase in the possible maximum size of the tribe. The 10,000 Year Explosion describes the evolutionary pressure that increasing the size of the tribe exerted.

The “cooperative with tribe members, distrustful of outsiders” module is still going strong but has a few bolt-on pieces — a “don’t resort to violence easily” module, a “be willing to accept strangers as tribe members”, etc.

By: Felix

Felix — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 13:08:18 +0000

I agree, Bob. But farming would grow human territorial-ness.

Say these words before considering the reasons for an odd human behavior: “We are bred for farming.”

Wow, now that behavior makes sense!

By: Bob Sykes

Bob Sykes — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 12:20:03 +0000

Actually Wilson is wrong. (He's wrong on very many things, including extinction rates.) As Cochrane and Harpending argued in The 10,000 Year Explosion, agriculture introduced new and very strong selection pressures on human that have changed our character, at least for those with a few thousand years of agriculture. P.S. Harpending has suffered a stroke and is hospitalized.