Free Republic

Demographic factors could be behind diverse aspects of social evolution. Did wars make us the species we are today?Wikimedia Commons Explanations of the evolution of human behaviour often invoke crucial biological changes and revolutionary cultural innovations. Now two papers in Science instead put demography — the size, density and distribution of populations — centre stage.Samuel Bowles, a behavioural scientist at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, tackles the puzzle of how humans acquired such unrivalled altruistic behaviour towards unrelated individuals — tendencies that allowed humans to cooperate as groups and, ultimately, to colonize the planet. The answer, paradoxically, could...

Last month, a 4-year-old Texas student was suspended for hugging a teacher's aide in what school officials called a case of sexual harassment. However, most experts of psychology and law say a child that young cannot commit sex crimes usually reserved for adults. "It's just ridiculous," said Jeanne Milstein, a child advocate for the state of Connecticut. "A 4-year-old has no idea what sexual harassment is." A pre-kindergartner at La Vega Primary School in Bellmead, Texas, near Waco was given an in-school suspension after he allegedly rubbed his face into the bosom of a teacher's aide. The two hugged before...