Richard Wrangham And Peterson Summary
In the article Are Humans Inherently Violent?, there are two opposing views up for discussion between whether or not humans are ‘programmed’ for violent nature or whether it is learned through their environment and upbringing. Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson believe that violent humans are a result of our sociobiology. Robert W. Sussman on the other hand sees aggression as a result of environmental factors and upbringing. Each bring interesting evidence to light and provide a solid presentation to their point of view.
Biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham and science writer Dale Peterson come with view that male humans and chimpanzees have an instinctive aggressiveness in order to defend their territory and possessions. Chimpanzees …show more content…
Although Wrangham and Peterson believe in an aggressive gene, they have yet to identify any particular genes that cause one to be more aggressive than another but still hold the hypothesis due to the diversity of aggressive behavior found among the world’s diverse populations.
Wrangham and Peterson relate their whole argument back to sociobiology; “the branch of biological anthropology that seeks biological explanations for modern human behavior by drawing on arguments about natural selection.” This consists of two claims, one being that “all human behavior is ultimately driven by instinct” and two being that “those instincts result from natural selection favoring the behaviors they cause” (Peterson and Wrangham, p 17).
Sussman rejects the idea of sociobiology being the responsible for violence and instead takes a side that explains that males are aggressive because of their environment and upbringing, or are culturally shaped instead of biologically. He rather thinks that humans and most apes are non-aggressive just as our earliest human ancestors were. Not only does Sussman find the evidence of male chimpanzees attacking each other as weak, but he also refuses to see the relevance of studying chimpanzee behavior for understanding human
Biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham and science writer Dale Peterson come with view that male humans and chimpanzees have an instinctive aggressiveness in order to defend their territory and possessions. Chimpanzees …show more content…
Although Wrangham and Peterson believe in an aggressive gene, they have yet to identify any particular genes that cause one to be more aggressive than another but still hold the hypothesis due to the diversity of aggressive behavior found among the world’s diverse populations.
Wrangham and Peterson relate their whole argument back to sociobiology; “the branch of biological anthropology that seeks biological explanations for modern human behavior by drawing on arguments about natural selection.” This consists of two claims, one being that “all human behavior is ultimately driven by instinct” and two being that “those instincts result from natural selection favoring the behaviors they cause” (Peterson and Wrangham, p 17).
Sussman rejects the idea of sociobiology being the responsible for violence and instead takes a side that explains that males are aggressive because of their environment and upbringing, or are culturally shaped instead of biologically. He rather thinks that humans and most apes are non-aggressive just as our earliest human ancestors were. Not only does Sussman find the evidence of male chimpanzees attacking each other as weak, but he also refuses to see the relevance of studying chimpanzee behavior for understanding human