#253 Douglas Fry: Is War Part Of Human Nature?
RECORDED ON SEPTEMBER 4th, 2019.
Dr. Douglas P. Fry is Professor and Chair in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has written extensively on aggression, conflict, and conflict resolution in his own books and in journals such as Science and American Anthropologist. His work frequently engages the debate surrounding the origins of war, arguing against claims that war or lethal aggression is rooted in human evolution. He’s the author or editor of books like The Human Potential for Peace; Beyond War; War, Peace, and Human Nature; and Nurturing Our Humanity.
In this episode, we focus on the anthropology of war. Dr. Fry critiques the evolutionary psychology approach to war. We go through some of the flaws with the archaeological evidence presented by Steven Pinker in The Better Angels of Our Nature. We then get into the ecological and social conditions that favor war, and critiques about the data Napoleon Chagnon collected on the Yanomamö. We also talk about violence-defusing mechanisms in mammals. We end the interview talking about ways of preventing war in modern societies.
Time Links:
What evolutionary psychologists get wrong about war
Why the archaeological evidence Steven Pinker gathered about war is misleading
The ecological conditions and social organizations that bring about war
Fighting over women, Napoleon Chagnon, and the Yanomamö
Violence-defusing mechanisms across mammals
Evolutionary psychology, and the problem of lumping together aggression and war
Preventing war in our modern world
Follow Dr. Fry’s work!
Follow Dr. Fry’s work:
(Upcoming faculty page from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro)
ResearchGate profile: http://bit.ly/2kjdlYD
Amazon page: https://amzn.to/2krFU5W
Relevant papers/books:
The Human Potential for Peace: https://amzn.to/2lClh7g
War, Peace, and Human Nature: https://amzn.to/2jZdXCl
Nurturing Our Humanity: https://amzn.to/2lClyHk
The Evolutionary Logic of Human Peaceful Behavior: http://bit.ly/2kjeC1R
The Original Partnership Societies: http://bit.ly/2lxuXjy
Complete list of references: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jvVX8mL8sqWjhOe7_TtDgGQtCkLSthrg