Dear Dr Sapolsky,

I´ve been a great fan of your work after since watching your course on behavioural evolution, I especially enjoyed your stories about the baboons you studied. You once talked about a radical change in the behaviour of these baboons after the more aggressive males died from tainted food, with a more gentle social dynamic arising as a result. Would such a change be ´permanent´? Would this either permanently change the culture in the group or would this eventually return to the status quo? What potential lessons could we draw from this case concerning human social and political structure? Thank you in advance for being here!

RobertSapolsky,

Thanks -- that finding is near and dear to my heart. The social culture of that troop continued for about 15 more years, and it was a bit lucky -- male baboons change troops at puberty, so there'd be a new adolescent male show up now and then. Invariably, having grown up off the commune, he'd be this aggressive, displacing jerk; fortunately, the troop could handle one or two of these at a time, slowly assimilating the newcomer into this style -- "we don't do stuff like that here." What always panicked me (nice objective science?) was that three or four males from the real world out there would transfer in at the same time, and they'd have the numbers to destroy the whole culture. Good news -- this never happened. Bad news -- this never happened because the reality of things out there resulted in a large percentage of the troop being shot by park rangers. Another story.

So the lesson is that to have a more kind, inclusive society is to get rid of the a-holes (so they don't catalyse a aggressive, excluding behavior)?

Well, who would have known.

havenyahon,

Instead we give them all the money.