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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...

Mitzvot, the commandments which G-d enjoins upon the people, can be classified into three groups: Mishpatim -- the social legislation: rulings similar to those every society espouses -- a grid of rational social intervention. Edut -- the testimonies of our culture and history: commemorations similar to every society's need to remember and keep alive its past. Chukim -- the super-rational dictates only the Divine can comprehend and mortals follow on faith alone. Our Torah portion's name is Mishpatim; it deals with the first category, the mitzvot, the precepts, of social legislation that has a basis in logic. "And these are...