by Zoe Pollock
John Horgan makes the case that "Sebastian Junger's documentary film Restrepo deserves an Oscar, but his theory of war is wrong." One of the examples he cites:
The evidence that war is in our genes is flimsy to nonexistent. Lethal raiding among chimpanzees, our closest relatives, is often cited as strong evidence that human warfare is ancient and innate. But as I pointed out in a previous post, scientists have observed a total of 31 chimpicides over the past half century; many chimp communities have never been observed engaging in deadly raids. Even Wrangham has acknowledged that chimpanzee raids are "certainly rare."
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