This research demonstrates how genetic selection influences war-related behavior in humans, implying differences between species like chimpanzees and bonobos.
Behavior, including human behavior related to war, is no less subject to Darwinian selection than physical traits. Behavior results from physical brain modules constructed by genes and environmental input. The environmental detection and operation of behavioral switches leading to wars are also under evolutionary selection. War behavior in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) was under positive selection when the alternative (starvation) was worse for genes than war. The model is then applied in an attempt to explain the behavioral difference between chimpanzees and bonobos with additional thoughts on the KhoeSan People of Southern Africa.
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Henson et al. (2025) studied this question.
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