Could War Be on the Decline?

Turn on the evening news and it’s hard to avoid the horror of war. From the deserts of Iraq, to the mountain ranges of Pakistan and Afghanistan, to the jungles of eastern Congo, we see a world consumed by violent conflict. These images feed the assumption that large scale combat is on the rise.

Yet research indicates that warfare has declined since historic and prehistoric times. Anthropologist Lawrence Keeley found that as many as twenty five percent of deaths in hunter-gatherer and tribal societies were caused by war, compared to an estimated three percent of modern humans killed in the wars and genocides of the twentieth century.

Even if humans are proportionately less brutal than our ancient ancestors, most people regard warlike aggression is a part of human nature. Some scholars are questioning that presumption. John Horgan is director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He wrote about new research on war and human nature for New Scientist magazine. He joins us to lay out his argument.

New Scientist: How humans could end war

(Photo by Jayel Aheram via Flickr/Creative Commons)