wfgodot
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NPR:
What Meerkat Murder Tells Us About Human Violence
The Concourse/Deadspin:
These Mammals Are Just Straight-Up Murdering Each Other All The Time
more at the links, with The Mammals Most Likely to Kill Their Own Kind chart
What Meerkat Murder Tells Us About Human Violence
A new study of violent behavior in more than 1,000 mammal species found the meerkat is the mammal most likely to be murdered by one of its own kind.
The study, led by José María Gómez of the University of Grenada in Spain and published Wednesday in the journal Nature, analyzed more than 4 million deaths among 1,024 mammal species and compared them with findings in 600 studies of violence among humans from ancient times until today.
The findings tell us two things:
1. Some amount of violence between humans is attributable to our place on the evolutionary tree.
2. Meerkats are surprisingly murderous.
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The Concourse/Deadspin:
These Mammals Are Just Straight-Up Murdering Each Other All The Time
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Such is the paradox: It appears nature has trouble creating cooperative social systems that aren’t rife with murder. The obvious, controversial question, one that’s long troubled philosophers and evolutionary psychologists, is whether the existence of murder in humans is a byproduct of evolution or a benefit.
Either way, we’ve been a lot worse.
more at the links, with The Mammals Most Likely to Kill Their Own Kind chart