Editing War (section)

===Evolutionary===
{{See also|Prehistoric warfare}}

Several theories concern the evolutionary origins of warfare. There are two main schools: One sees organized warfare as emerging in or after the Mesolithic as a result of complex social organization and greater population density and [[competition]] over resources; the other sees human warfare as a more ancient practice derived from common animal tendencies, such as territoriality and sexual competition.<ref>Peter Meyer. Social Evolution in Franz M. Wuketits and Christoph Antweiler (eds.) Handbook of Evolution The Evolution of Human Societies and Cultures Wiley-VCH Verlag</ref>

The latter school argues that since warlike behavior patterns are found in many primate species such as [[Common chimpanzee|chimpanzee]]s,<ref name = "ApesWar">{{cite news| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3317461/Apes-of-war...-is-it-in-our-genes.html| title=Apes of war...is it in our genes?| access-date=2010-02-06| location=London| work=The Daily Telegraph| first=Sanjida| last=O'Connell| date=7 January 2004| archive-date=4 September 2018| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180904192203/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3317461/Apes-of-war...-is-it-in-our-genes.html| url-status=live}} Analysis of chimpanzee war behavior</ref> as well as in many [[ant]] species,<ref name = "AntsLandmines">{{citation | year = 1996| ssrn = 935783| title= Warrior Ants: The Enduring Threat of the Small War and the Land-mine| last1 = Anderson| first1 = Kenneth}} Scholarly comparisons between human and ant wars</ref> group conflict may be a general feature of animal social behavior. Some proponents of the idea argue that war, while innate, has been intensified greatly by developments of technology and social organization such as weaponry and states.<ref>Johan M.G. van der Dennen. 1995. ''The Origin of War: Evolution of a Male-Coalitional Reproductive Strategy''. Origin Press, Groningen, 1995 chapters 1 & 2</ref>

Psychologist and linguist [[Steven Pinker]] argued that war-related behaviors may have been naturally selected in the ancestral environment due to the benefits of victory.{{refn|group=lower-alpha|name = fn1|
The argument is made from pages 314 to 332 of [[The Blank Slate]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Pinker  |first=Steven |author-link=Steven Pinker |date=2002 |title=The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature |url= |location=London |publisher=The Penguin Group |pages=314–332 |isbn=0-713-99256-5}}</ref> Relevant quotes include on p332 "The first step in understanding violence is to set aside our abhorrence of it long enough to examine why it can sometimes pay off in evolutionary terms.", "Natural selection is powered by competition, which means that the products of natural selection{{snd}}survival machines, in Richard Dawkins metaphor{{snd}}should, by default, do whatever helps them survive and reproduce.". On p323 "If an obstacle stands in the way of something an organism needs, it should neutralize the obstacle by disabling or eliminating it.", "Another human obstacle consists of men monopolozing women who could otherwise be taken as wives.", "The competition can be violent". On p324 "So people have invented, and perhaps evolved, an alternate defense: the advertised deterrence policy known as ''lex talionis'', the law of retaliation, familiar from the biblical injunction "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." If you can credibly say to potential adversaries, "We won't attack first, but if we are attacked, we will survive and strike back," you remove Hobbes's first two incentives for quarrel, gain and mistrust.". On p326 "Also necessary for vengeance to work as a deterrent is that the willingness to pursue it be made public, because the whole point of deterrence is to give would-be attackers second thoughts ''beforehand''. And this brings us to Hobbes's final reason for quarrel. Thirdly, glory{{snd}}though a more accurate word would be "honor"."}} He also argued that in order to have credible [[deterrence theory|deterrence]] against other groups (as well as on an individual level), it was important to have a reputation for retaliation, causing humans to develop instincts for [[revenge]] as well as for protecting a group's (or an individual's) reputation ("[[honor]]").{{refn|name = fn1|group=lower-alpha}}

[[File:Reproduction of Bonampak murals (panorama).JPG|thumb|left|upright=1.2|Increasing population and constant warfare among the [[Maya warfare|Maya]] city-states over resources may have contributed to the eventual [[Classic Maya collapse|collapse]] of the [[Maya civilization]] by 900 CE.]]
Crofoot and Wrangham have argued that warfare, if defined as group interactions in which "coalitions attempt to aggressively dominate or kill members of other groups", is a characteristic of most human societies. Those in which it has been lacking "tend to be societies that were politically dominated by their neighbors".<ref name="HumanPrimateAggression">''Mind the Gap: Tracing the Origins of Human Universals'' By Peter M. Kappeler, Joan B. Silk, 2009, Chapter 8, "Intergroup Aggression in Primates and Humans; The Case for a Unified Theory", Margaret C. Crofoot and Richard W. Wrangham</ref>

[[Ashley Montagu]] strongly denied universalistic instinctual arguments, arguing that social factors and childhood socialization are important in determining the nature and presence of warfare. Thus, he argues, warfare is not a universal human occurrence and appears to have been a historical invention, associated with certain types of human societies.<ref>Montagu, Ashley (1976), ''The Nature of Human Aggression'' (Oxford University Press)</ref> Montagu's argument is supported by ethnographic research conducted in societies where the concept of aggression seems to be entirely absent, e.g. the [[Chewong]] and [[Semai people|Semai]] of the Malay peninsula.<ref>Howell, Signe and Roy Willis, eds. (1989) ''Societies at Peace: Anthropological Perspectives''. London: Routledge</ref> Bobbi S. Low has observed correlation between warfare and education, noting societies where warfare is commonplace encourage their children to be more aggressive.<ref>[http://sitemaker.umich.edu/eugene.burnstein/files/35._low_93_evolutionaryperspective_war.pdf "An Evolutionary Perspective on War"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151016052509/http://sitemaker.umich.edu/eugene.burnstein/files/35._low_93_evolutionaryperspective_war.pdf |date=16 October 2015 }}, Bobbi S. Low, published in ''Behavior, Culture, and Conflict in World Politics'', The University of Michigan Press, p. 22</ref>