Are Humans Hard-Wired For War? Maybe Not.

A number of researchers believe that organized war is a product of socialization rather than inborn aggressive tendencies. They cite as evidence the lack of fossil records indicating warfare before the rise of settled agriculture; the existence, even today, of societies which rarely or never engage in organized combat; and the fact that the death rate from war and homicide in Europe is now one-tenth of what it was in the Middle Ages.