Make you Fink on Friday

Two stories today, both different, but both could lead to our extinction.

A vicious circle, climate change apparently increases violence, and traits like selfishness are not valued in evolution…

Firstly, violence.

Rise in violence ‘linked to climate change’

The researchers believe that war and personal conflicts are links to shifts in climate

Shifts in climate are strongly linked to increases in violence around the world, a study suggests.

US scientists found that even small changes in temperature or rainfall correlated with a rise in assaults, rapes and murders, as well as group conflicts and war.

The team says with the current projected levels of climate change, the world is likely to become a more violent place.

Read more on BBC

Selfish traits not favoured by evolution, study shows

Humans and animals could not evolve in a co-operative environment by being selfish, scientists say

Evolution does not favour selfish people, according to new research.

This challenges a previous theory which suggested it was preferable to put yourself first.

Instead, it pays to be co-operative, shown in a model of “the prisoner’s dilemma”, a scenario of game theory – the study of strategic decision-making.

Published in Nature Communications, the team says their work shows that exhibiting only selfish traits would have made us become extinct.

Read more on BBC

Two seemingly linked theories, one that man is affecting climate change and that that climate change can lead to a rise in violence, two, that selfishness and that means to me meanness and violence as well, are not favoured by Mother Nature.

If this is the case, are we not the authors of our own demise?

A paradox.