WSJ's Begley: Theory Men Are Wired To Kill Straying Mates Is Offensive and

[question everything]

SCIENCE JOURNAL
By SHARON BEGLEY

Theory Men Are Wired To Kill Straying Mates Is Offensive and Wrong
May 20, 2005; Page B1

(snip)

David Buss, professor of psychology at the University of Texas, Austin, has. In "The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind Is Designed to Kill," he explains that the male mind "has developed adaptations for killing." (An "adaptation" is a trait that conferred an evolutionary edge; those with it left more descendants than those without it.) Killing, according to his Kipling-esque reasoning, offered so many "advantages to our early ancestors in the competition for survival and reproduction" that, today, "all men have an evolved psychology of mate killing that lies latent in their brains." Men with the genetically based mental circuit for uxoricide had such an edge over their pacifist peers, in other words, that all men living today -- their descendants -- have this murder circuit, too.

For proof, Prof. Buss cites homicide statistics showing that more men than women kill, that over a five-year period in Dayton, Ohio, 52% of the women murdered were killed by a husband, lover or ex, and that women age 15 to 24 are killed by their mates or ex-mates more than over-the-reproductive-hill women are. His explanation: Only the former have evolutionary value, so men are wired to kill them if they stray but not to bother with unfaithful old bags. Also, unemployed men are more likely to kill women who dump them than are gainfully-employed men. Such low-status men, explains Prof. Buss, have the toughest time replacing their lost access to a uterus, so they're wired to raise their attractiveness to women ("you're so strong and powerful!") by murdering a cheating mate.

As evolutionary theory, this is ludicrous. Killing the owner of the uterus that is your only current chance to get your genes into the next generation (the evolutionary imperative), especially if she is caring for your current children and has a father or brothers who take exception to your uxoricide, is an excellent way to a dead end personally and genealogically. Being the target of angry in-laws, not to mention life imprisonment or lethal injection, tends to limit one's reproductive opportunities. As a parsimonious explanation of data, the "evolution made me do it" explanation pales beside alternatives. Yes, murdered women skew young. But twenty-something men are more impulsive than fifty-something men and more likely to have a 23-year-old than a 57-year-old as a mate. And yes, unemployed men are more likely to kill or try to kill when dumped. But traits that make getting a job tough (being poorly educated, stupid, impulsive, psychotic ...) can also incline a man to murder.

The claim that men are wired to kill their mate also flies in the face of fossil and primate data showing that early humans were prey, not predators, notes anthropologist Robert Sussman of Washington University, St. Louis, co-author of the new book "Man the Hunted." "As prey, early humans survived only if they cooperated," he told me. "This, not murder, is what evolution selected for." He calls Prof. Buss's claim "bad science" for ignoring what a lousy strategy wife-killing is. "Not only would the man have all those angry male in-laws, but the next 'Jane,' seeing he killed his first wife, would say, 'Not me,' " and keep her eggs well away from his sperm.

Prof. Buss is no lightweight; he is the author of the definitive textbook on evolutionary origins of human behavior. But the notion that killing women is a winning evolutionary strategy is lousy biology. "Only a few species kill their mating partners" -- insects, says Jaak Panksepp of Bowling Green University, Ohio. "And the killing is usually done by females." He calls Prof. Buss's claim "ugly evolutionary icing with no basis." The claim that works like "Murderer Next Door" are merely following data objectively in a search for truth is getting tiresome. The very decision to seek a "scientific" validation for killing women represents a value judgment. The fact that the claim makes no sense scientifically is almost secondary to that.

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[SteppingRazor]

1. 20-something men are more impulsive...

And so are 20-something women. Perhaps more young cheaters are killed than old cheaters simply because there are far more young cheaters to be killed.

[bennywhale]

2. What a load of shit. You could find

evolutionary excuses or reasons behind alot of stuff, but they always leave out the important bit, what distinguishes us from animals, human conscience.

Otherwise we're just programmed machines with no free will. And we could use the excuse in court. Crap

Its the "All men are potential rapists argument". No they're not.

[SteppingRazor]

3. Very true.

This is so similar to the "men are biologically hard-wired to cheat" thing --

Men can most easily get into the gene pool by sleeping with as many women as possible. But women can't just cast aside a baby and try to have another as quickly as possible. Therefore, men are programmed to cheat.

Um... no. Men cheat if they WANT to cheat. Period.