Reality Check 101

I ran into a rather interesting article the other day by Sophie Brams in The Hill.  The article, “Chimpanzee group offers clues on roots of human conflict: research”, is a short summary of results from researchers who have claimed to have found the possible roots of human aggression.

Let me give you the basics. Primatologists spent 30 years following and studying a group of wild chimpanzees in Uganda.  In 2014, a respiratory illness killed 25 chimps, including four adult males and 10 adult females.  In 2015, two clusters of the Group who had intermingled in the past stopped reproducing with each other because of food supply problems and infighting between males. In 2015, The groups began chasing each other off their chosen patches. The western group attacked the alpha male from the central group. From 2018 to 2024, western group killed about seven adult males and 17 infants from the central group.

What most interested me however, was what they believed they gleaned as evidences for humanity’s dark side. They felt the results showed that violence in humans may have “deeper evolutionary roots than previously thought, given that chimpanzees… are one of humanity’s closest living relatives.”  The report goes on to conclude that, “If chimpanzee groups can polarize, split, and engage in lethal aggression without human-type cultural markers, then relational dynamics may play a larger casual causal role in human conflict than often assumed.”

So, apparently, I have a far distant cousin who is a chimpanzee. He has none of the built-in cultural markers for humanity or the ability to form human-reflecting societies; ethnicity, religion, language. However, in spite of that, he is viewed as participating in a “society”. Further, he is capable of demonstrating relationships which might tell us where evil comes from. After all, if you think about it, it is evil that fuels conflict.

Now, call me naive, and you will, I’m sure any scientist worth his salt will tell you that his or her research is absolutely totally without prejudice toward any outcome. That’s not really a case, is it?  For primatologists, evolution is a proven fact, which it isn’t, and the doctrine involved in the faith of evolution drives any conclusion. Any good scientist, or well-educated high schooler for that matter, knows that we came from monkeys – but aside from evolutionary doctrine, we don’t know that.

It’s really a matter of interpretation. Big African cats have alpha males and fight for food and females. My goat herd has an alpha doe that tries to control access to the hay, including some pretty aggressive behavior. Come to think of it, try putting too many of the wrong kind of fish in an aquarium or attacking a beehive and see what happens!

No, the answer to problem of aggression in humans is not to be demonstrated by an animal – which, by the way, Chimpanzees are. If you’re looking for the cause of conflict between humans, look no further inner person, the soul if you will. As the apostle James put it long, long ago:

       “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.”