Murders, he wrote: a note on declining deadly violence

In an article in this Journal, Edwin Mills (J Bioecon 11:296, 2009) raises to future researchers the following question: ‘[W]hy has natural selection not produced a gradual trend toward a reduction in deadly violence?’ This question has two components: (1) Has deadly violence declined? And (2) What role has been played by natural selection? This note highlights evidence bearing upon the first of these questions and offers perspectives on the...