#743 Vibeke Ottesen: The Evolution of Violence, and the Consequences of Banning Abortion
RECORDED ON NOVEMBER 19th 2022.
Dr. Vibeke Ottesen is a Norwegian criminologist with an interest in how nature and nurture combined create human behavior. She has a popular science blog – Biosocial - where she comments on news, scientific findings and literature relevant to her subject – more often than not with an evolutionary informed approach to understanding the subject matter. She has held numerous lectures on the benefits of an evolutionary informed approach to understanding the cross-cultural sex and age differences in anti-social and criminal behavior.
In this episode, we talk about violence from an evolutionary perspective. We get into the causes of criminal behavior, and discuss the relationship between mental illness and crime. We talk about the evolved functions of violence, violence as an intrasexual competition strategy, and the archaeological and ethnographic evidence behind it. In the last part of the interview, we discuss the relationship between legal access to abortion and levels of neonaticide, as well as the evolutionary rationale behind the opposition to abortion, as a way of controlling female sexual behavior.
Time Links:
Intro
Violence from an evolutionary perspective
The causes of criminal behavior
Is there a relationship between mental illness and crime?
The functions of violence
Archaeological and ethnographic evidence for the evolutionary bases of violence
Violence as an intrasexual competition strategy
The relationship between legal access to abortion and levels of neonaticide
Opposition to abortion as a way of controlling female sexual behavior
Follow Dr. Ottesen’s work!
Follow Dr. Ottesen’s work:
Our first interview: https://youtu.be/4VxwKrCjAVQ
Blog: https://bit.ly/3sRWbyD
Works on ResearchGate: https://bit.ly/2SMtqXi
Twitter handle: @biososial