offering it wouldever be accused of raking a fatalistic approach to cancer or implying that nothing canbe done about it

Nevertheless, no one is prepared to give up on the goal of cancer control.

n the second half of the twentieth century, an era without a major arstedconflict, at least 50 million people Bled m small wars.

This third stage greatly reduced'prejudice and conflict in just a few days;

hey named themselves Eagles and Rattlers, spoke dispar-agingly of each other, and began to react territorially to each other's "incursions."

destmction of enemie

A classic experiment in socialpsychology showed that a subject will predictably deny the evidence of his or her per-ception of even something as simple as the relative length of lines if a small group ofothers (confederates of the experimenter) make dear their own denial

illions of people become simul-taneously impressed with one delusion

e reduce this sense of responsibility and its concomitant anxiety by heLvingto a set of rules a ti ' acing oll, -rivp Rulesou ey can become rigid thec-most benign of the three option

Fear, and fear of the strange in particular, is a basic characteristic of nervoussystems

e a physical continuum betweenp and b, but we must make up our minds whichone we are hearing in order to have a language that works

Societies become more complex as their populationincreases, with such features as social stratification, division of labor and taxationplaying increasing roles.

"either a man is a kinsman ... or he is a person to whom youhave no reciprocal obligations and whom you treat as a potential enemy

Even the King refer to themselvesas "the true people" and others as "strange

. The soldier gets to turn his back on the thousand frstrationsof home life, while elevating his importance in the eyes of his family; to commitfoia time to a purpose that seems pure and clear; to experience t e excite-t:meat martial adventure; to express an cep-seated frustration and WpL.and to achieve the enduring satisfaction and respect far having faced and triumphedivi;s1

threat of natural dis-asters (e.g.; weather or pests) that destroy food supplies

"organ-ized" is more important than "violence."

is also associated withattempted murder, rape, arson, and other acts of impulsive aggression that werenot attributable to low intelligence alone.

lending of strains showed that aggressivegenes are dominant, with the young resembling the more aggressive parent

Yet at age 10 and inadulthood these girls are psychologically different from their sisters and from unre-lated controls. By their own and their mothers' reports, they play less with dolls,are more "tomboyish," and express less desire to be married and have children whenthey grow up

Females cradled and cuddled the infant more while males hit the infantmore, and the difference was highly significant

nally, testosterone level)74 helps predict aggressive 1 wetcognitive ability

steroid treatment, whether of androgen deficient men, nor-mal athletes, or ordinary vo unreers, can increase aggressive tendencies

ale castration

But impulsive aggression does not lead to a stable dominant role.Males must win fights to become dominant, but they must pick them sensibly, whichmeans controlling rage.

urthermore, drugs direcdyaffecting those neurotransmitters can increase or decrease isolation-induced fighting

paranoidsymptoms and childhood abuse

lower activity in theleft frontal and temporal lobes reduces inhibition, leading to outbursts of physicalrage

ompared to veterans with_otlts larain damage,those with lower frontallobe damage are more likely to have outbursts of rage at family members, friends,and calk ues

rare brain tumor that may have chronically irritated his amygdala

brain tumors causing damage to the medial hypothalamus or the sep-tal area have trouble controlling aggression

Aggressionrequires the hypothalamus, which inte• aces messa es from other parts of issystem, biasing it toward or away from violence

maternal aggression,

7-month-olds showed that both aggression and a sex difference in aggres-sion have already emerged by that ag

5 tribal societies on all continents, menwere more likely to dream of coitus, wife, weapon, animal, death, red, vehicle, hit,ineffectual attempt, and grass,

Fights over adultery or presumedadultery were involved in several cases, and a majority of the others were retaliationsfor previous homicides

but they killed victims and hunted heads

Yet in all her cultures there was homicidal violence and, in all, that vio-lence was overwhelmingly male

When a criticalmass of about 18 males get together, excitement builds until theygo oulTin-difirfor-estill a single filnuirtussally quiet, passing up hunting opportunities along the wayuntil they cross the boundary of their own territory.

it was found that after a society has been pacified by exter-nal powers, it becomes less interested in training boys to be aggressiv

Culture can reduceviolence

Bur when the British engaged the Semai in counterinsurgency against Communistrebels in the mid-1950s, they became extremely violent:

sychological capafIgic

They were not observed to have organized groupconflicts in recent times. Nevertheless, their homicide rate matches or exceeds thatfor American cities

Forty percent of men have killed at least one other man,and those who have killed have demonstrably higher reproductive success than thosewho have not (Chagnon, 1988). Such descriptions of the most violent societies canbe multiplied and give the impression that humans are a very bloody species com-posed of dysfunctional cultures

Many collections of skeletons show embedded projectilepoints, left-sided skull fractures (reflecting blows with weapons in the opponent'sright hand), and parry fractures of the lower arm sustained while warding off suchblows. Burials with weapons and armor are seen in many sites and evidence of forti-fications becomes ubiquitous

seriously challenged in a cross-cultural study showing that 64percent of such societies had combat between communities or larger entities at leastonce every two years

zechoslovakian cemeteries from roughly the sameperiod show substantial evidence of violent death, perhaps on a large scale. A 20,000-year-old male burial in the Nile Valley had stone projectile points in the abdominalsection and another embedded in the upper arm. Egyptian Nubia shows many moresuch cases in a time frame of 14,000 to 12,000 years ago. And European sites beforethe spread of agriculture to Europe show ample evidence of common violence,including the famed "Iceman" of 5,000 years ago, whose well-preserved body hasan arrow embedded in the upper back.Huma- These violent injuries an- phase of human prehistory,: the respective regions, andin a wide range of huntingHadza, and othersinertly claimed that hunter-1but this claim has been seriopercent of such societies hac...Once every two years (C. R.open to challenge—it incluWho run not serve as a modeof hunter-gatherers has beener'eXidence of warlike behavpaintings in southern Africa,silent spear wounds in 2,00(& Register, 2003, pp. 100--:z. With the Neolithic revol-dence of warfare becomes dParts of the ancient world.points, left-sided skull fract.right hand), and parry fract,'t: blows. Burials with weaponsfications becomes ubiquitoushole of human history sinoa process of relentless, exp:1983). The Neolithic revoltfixed tracts of cultivated lamthe hunter-gatherer baselineCross-Cultural EvicleruWe could suggest an innatviolent societies (Bohannan tbein, 1970): the YanomamoNew Guinea, the equestrian .gols, due Zulu of nineteenth-Reich. Among the traditionlence, and life was largely o.called "the fi erce people" la.1968; Chagnon, 1992). Forand those who have killed hawho have not (Chagnon, 191Abe multiplied and give the itposed of dysfunctional cul

eaves no drs,ht that homicidal violence was partof life in our own species beginning at least 27,000 years

One adult male at this sire has apartially held scar on the top of his left ninth rib caused by a sharp object thrustinto his rhest (Trinkhaus, 1995), probably a deliberate spear wound

Ferale coalitions prevent male abuse

males fightmuch less severely and never attack females, perhaps due to female coalitions

ll socially living animal species exhibit violence. Con-flicts usuall occur ove ce resources such affood, ace, or mating opportunity

They survive and reproduce while the others do not. Thus competition is ofthe, essence of living matter.

Recognizing that violence is not the same as war,

will argue that there is in human nature a natural tendency to violence and,tionally, to war, and ifiat thelailure to fully recognize this tendency—a commons`r failure in academic circles—increases the risk