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Article: Killer species.
- Article from:
- Daedalus
- Article date:
- September 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Human social behavior varies so much that our plasticity can sometimes seem infinite. But human variation has obvious limits when we compare ourselves with our primate relatives. Napoleon may have claimed that he always had to give in to his wife, the Empress Josephine, but there are no human societies that follow the lemur pattern of all males invariably subordinating themselves to all females. Nor do women anywhere entice all their male counterparts in their community to mate with them every month, as female chimpanzees do. Just as other species have their particular social tendencies, in other words, so does ours. Features characteristic of human society include social ...