Evolutionary Criminology

Most criminological theories look for the causes of crime in childhood, society or the brain. Evolutionary criminology looks much further back: to the hundreds of thousands of years in which our species was forged in the competition to survive and reproduce. Its hypothesis is as fertile as it is dangerous: that certain patterns of violence —rivalry between young males, sexual jealousy, aggression over status or resources— are not modern malfunctions, but ancestral strategies that were advantageous for our forebears and that we still carry, out of tune, in a world that is no longer the savanna.

// OriginDaly, Wilson and the logic of homicide

The foundational study was authored by evolutionary psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson in Homicide (1988). Analysing murder statistics, they discovered that lethal violence is not distributed at random: it follows patterns that fit the logic of natural selection. The vast majority of homicides are committed by young men against other young men, in disputes over status, respect or women —what they called the «young male syndrome»: the profile biologically most prone to risking its life in competition—. They also detected that sexual jealousy is a universal homicidal driver, and that the risk of a child being abused soars when there is a stepfather in the home instead of the biological father (the so-called «Cinderella effect»). None of these patterns makes sense from morality; all of them make sense from the cold arithmetic of passing on one's own genes.

The idea was expanded by psychologist David Buss in The Murderer Next Door (2005): he argues that the human mind includes circuits shaped by evolution to, in certain extreme circumstances, calculate that killing could be advantageous —eliminating a rival, punishing an infidelity, defending status—. He does not say we are programmed to kill; he says we carry predispositions that, triggered by the right environment, push towards violence with a logic we would recognise in any other territorial animal.

// In fictionFive predators and the ancestral logic

Fiction exaggerates, until they become legible, the drivers the theory tracks. Yautja, the Yautja, is competition for status made ritual: a species that hunts the most dangerous prey not out of hunger, but for prestige —the trophy as a marker of rank, exactly the logic of the hunter who displays his kill to climb the hierarchy—. Drogo, the Dothraki khal, embodies the warrior-reproducer: his power is measured in battles won and his union with Daenerys is, in his culture, a prize of status —the old equation of dominance, violence and reproductive access—. And Euron takes the logic to the extreme of fratricide: he kills his own brother to seize his throne, the coldest calculation of the competition for power, even at the cost of kinship.

The other two show the darkest faces. el Hombre Púrpura, the Purple Man, is sexual coercion without restraint: his power to control minds lets him take what he wants without ever hearing a «no» —a monstrous fantasy of the worst evolutionary logic, that of reproductive access imposed by force—. And Homelander is the pathological alpha male: obsessed with dominance, status and his own legacy, incapable of tolerating any rival, willing to kill to remain at the top of the hierarchy. In all five, fiction illuminates what the theory claims: beneath much violence beats an ancient logic of competing, possessing and prevailing.

ED

Depredador · Film

El Depredador

KD

Juego de Tronos · Series

Khal Drogo

EG

Juego de Tronos · Series

Euron Greyjoy

KI

Jessica Jones · Series

Kilgrave

PA

The Boys · Series

Patriota

From the hunting trophy to the alpha male: five versions of the ancestral logic of violence. Tap to open its case file.

// The dangerThe naturalistic fallacy: to explain is not to justify

No criminological theory is as easy to pervert as this one, and for a specific reason: the naturalistic fallacy —the illegitimate leap from «it is natural» to «it is good» or «it is inevitable»—. Saying that sexual jealousy has an evolutionary root can sound, to lazy or malicious ears, like «men are made for violence» or, worse, like excusing the aggressor («he could not help it, it is nature»). None of that follows from the theory. That an impulse has an evolutionary history makes it neither good nor obligatory: we also carry the predisposition to binge on sugar, and no one accepts «evolution made me do it» as a defence against diabetes. Biology explains the existence of the impulse; it grants no permission to act on it.

In fact, evolutionists themselves stress that natural selection also gave us empathy, cooperation, self-control and a strong sense of justice —equally «natural» tools for curbing violence—. The human being is not a puppet of ancestral impulses: it is precisely the animal that can recognise and overcome them. Explaining the evolutionary root of a violence is the first step to defusing it, not a surrender to it.

// The cracksNeither "it is in our nature" nor a tale without proof

The first crack is the alibi, already stated: «it is human nature». That Drogo belongs to a warrior culture or that jealousy has an evolutionary root does not exonerate a single death —it explains the impulse, it does not eliminate the choice to act on it—. Evolutionarily «understandable» violence is still violence, and the responsibility, whole. The second crack is scientific: much of evolutionary criminology consists of hypotheses hard to prove, plausible «adaptive stories» that cannot always be tested —the risk of inventing, after the fact, an evolutionary tale for any behaviour—. The hard data of Daly and Wilson (the patterns of homicide) are solid; many later extrapolations are elegant speculation. The theory is stronger as a source of questions than as a catalogue of certainties.

And there is a third crack, historical and terrible: evolutionism misused was the alibi of eugenics and social Darwinism, which turned «the struggle for existence» into a licence for racism and extermination. Any theory that speaks of «nature» and «crime» carries that shadow, and must be handled with extreme ethical caution.

// Why it mattersKnowing the impulse in order to defeat it

Properly understood —with all its caveats—, evolutionary criminology brings something valuable: it helps to predict where and when certain violence will erupt. If we know that rivalry for status among young men with no prospects is a powerful driver, we can design environments that offer status by other means; if we know that sexual jealousy is a universal homicidal risk factor, we can fine-tune the prevention of intimate partner violence. Not to excuse, but to anticipate and curb. The practical lesson is the usual one in biological criminology: knowing the root of an impulse is not surrendering to it, but gaining the map to combat it.

The theory leaves us, in the end, with an image both humble and demanding: that we carry, in the body, echoes of a violent past —but that we are the only species capable of recognising them and deciding not to obey them—. Explaining where the impulse to compete, possess and prevail by force comes from does not excuse it; it reminds us exactly what, within ourselves, we must build civilisation against.