Human Evolution and Male Aggression: Debunking the Myth of Man a ...

Chapter 1

Introduction

Scientists are supposed to be unbiased in their research and writings, but history shows that this is not necessarily what happens. Scientists live within their cultures and take on the prejudices that prevail in their lives. Perhaps no scientific area is more rife with bias than that of human evolution. For this book—which of course we presume to be unbiased (as is usual for such books)—our specific topic considers why scholars have assumed humans’ early male ancestors were aggressive rather than largely peaceful individuals living in amicable groups whose calm was now and then disrupted by squabbles. Here are four recent and/or prevailing biases on the subject of animal behavior.

Bias Against Females

Behavioral studies used to be rife with sexism. In 1983, Dagg published a book entitled Harems and Other Horrors: Sexual Bias in Behavioral Biology. She wrote,

The social behavior or sociobiology of animals until the past two decades has been studied almost entirely by men who have brought with them to their work the concept that women are inferior to men.