Saturday, July 28, 2012

Scientific American — The Joker’s Wild: On the Ecology of Gun Violence in America


Scott Fullwiler @stf tweets: "Blending social science of behavior with natural science of behavior--gee, why didn't economists think of that??"

Read it at Scientific American
The Joker’s Wild: On the Ecology of Gun Violence in America
By Eric Michael Johnson
Eric Michael Johnson has a Master's degree in Evolutionary Anthropology focusing on great ape behavioral ecology. He is currently a doctoral student in the history of science at University of British Columbia looking at the interplay between evolutionary biology and politics.

It's the culture, stupid.

In a culture that canonizes pursuit of self-interest and "doing God's will" (Lloyd Blankfein), what does anyone expect other than primate behavior?

1 comment:

Dan Lynch said...

It was an excellent article, based on data and logic.

My only complaint is that it did not address drug prohibition, which has had a huge impact on violent crime.