A common predator of the antelope is the lion. Lions, in a search for food, seek out the meaty flesh of the antelope as a means of nutrition and in due course, survival. Throughout the evolution of the lion, the adaptive trait of killing antelopes for food has evolved through natural selection. That is to say that throughout time, lions that were successfully able to hunt and kill antelopes were more likely to reproduce because they were better fed, whereas the lions who failed at hunting and killing antelopes would eventually perish and therefore be unable to reproduce, all because of the food they retain from the antelope. This food allows the lion to gain strength to fuel them, which aids in their ability to prey upon more antelopes and, in the long run, reproduce. Lions do not kill antelope to strengthen their species, and they most certainly do not do it for the pure sport of it. Killing for sport would be detrimental to their survival because it would be wasted energy that they would essentially need to reproduce and fight off predators. Instead, they seek out antelopes for purely nutritional purposes –antelope meat being their main goal. Antelope meat, like all meat, is rich in proteins, nutrients and vitamins that the lion needs for his lifestyle. These nutrients and proteins keep the lion alive for a day longer, and therefore it is a day longer in which the lion is able to copulate with their female counterparts. In his novel The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins proposes the question of why lions seek out the meat of other animals specifically. He questions why lions do not just eat the meat of other lions, because other members of the lions own species are made of meat too. If lions were to hunt and kill members of his own species, this would be considered cannibalism. While antelope may be slightly harder to find and may involve an element of hunting, why don’t lions just kill their own species that are also rich in the nutrients that they need and they are available to them?
Humans are the same way. Grocery stores, restaurants, fast food places and convenience stores litter the streets of the world. They are places that humans go to every day to get food. While the lion is expected to go out and hunt for their food, the human is able to drive through the drive-thru, open the refrigerator or pick something of the menu and gain almost instant nutrition. While it can be argued that not everything that humans eat is for their own survival, in the general scheme of things, we eat to live. Without food we cannot survive, and if we cannot survive, we are unable to reproduce. So, even though we do not have to go out into our backyard and find a suitable antelope to hunt down and kill for dinner, the mere process of getting in the car and heading to the local grocery store to pick from the steaks and chicken breasts is also a survival technique. Nonetheless, much like the lion risks losing energy hunting for antelopes, humans also must sacrifice a bit of their hard earned cash, which for arguments purpose may be equivalent to the energy of the lion. Therefore, the question that Richard Dawkins purposed about why there is not cannibalism among lions still reigns true. How come Jeffrey Dahmer was placed in prison for hunting, killing and eventually eating members of his own species, rape and sodomy aside? In our society, cannibalism is unnatural and deviant. Nonetheless, if in ancient times our ancestors had eaten the flesh of their own species and it lead in their own survival, then it is likely that the gene would have been passed on, and therefore we would still continue this behavior today. Yet, we do not kill our parents because we’re hungry or our classmates because we know that if we eat their meat, rich in proteins, it will allow us to survive and reproduce for another day.
The lack of cannibalism in humans and in lions is an adaptive trait; Richard Dawkins argued that cannibalism was not an evolutionary stable strategy. An evolutionary stable strategy is a strategy adapted by a species that aids in their survival and reproduction, and “if most members of a population adopt [this strategy] it cannot be bettered by an alternative strategy.” (Dawkins 69) Therefore, there is a reason that cannibalism does not work. If one were able to put aside the pure fact that eating your brother seems almost inhuman and can look at it as purely survival strategy, instead of cannibalism, in ancient times seems to make a bit of sense. Our ancestors put their necks on the line to hunt animals that they could eat for food. They ran the risk of getting mauled or killed in order to eat the meat from a bear or deer. Nonetheless, they continued to hunt animals outside the human species. In theory, wouldn’t it have been easier to simply kill another member of the human species whilst sitting around the fire instead of battling the elements and other predators in order to get food? Somewhere along the evolutionary pathway humans, like lions, were able to learn that cannibalism was a bad idea.
First, it is important to dismiss the idea that cannibalism would go against the greater good, because that is not the purpose of natural selection. Natural selection and the genes that survive through natural selection are essentially selfish. Their main focus and goal is to for their body to be able to successfully reproduce and therefore pass on the genes to the next generation. They are unconcerned with the greater good of the species. In fact, they are completely unconcerned with what the animal next to them of the same species is doing with their lives, as long as they can produce a viable amount of offspring. If one can dismiss this idea, they are able to discharge the possible answer that cannibalism would mean that you run the risk of killing a potential mate, or if one were to eat members of their species than the species would not survive. Genes are not necessarily altruistic. They do not worry about the better of other members of their species, instead they are purely concerned with their own ability to reproduce and be passed on, therefore eating another human, if it meant that that gene could still be passed on, would pass the natural selection test. Nonetheless, it has not, so there must be another reason.
The best explanation as to why humans do not eat other humans and lions do not eat other lions is best explained with the lion example. Lions are ferocious, they are natural born fighters. They are able to successfully take down an animal that may be a foot taller than them and eat that animal. Their teeth are made for destruction and their claws and speed match that. If an antelope were ever to fight back at a lion it would still be killed, in fact it’s not likely that antelopes stand at chance against the lion. Accordingly, if the lion has such a strong ability to fight back against a potential antelope attack, which is not likely to happen, one can only imagine what would happen if that lion attempted to kill another lion who was stronger and bigger. Because the adaptive traits of lions say to fight back, then this lion, lion A, would lash back at the lion, lion B, that was attacking him in order to eat him. Since lion A is much stronger and more evenly matched against lion B, as opposed to the antelope who is at distinct disadvantage against a lion, the likelihood that lion B would get hurt, or maybe even killed is much higher. Consequently, it would not make much sense for lions to hunt and kill other lions because of the “danger of retaliation.” (Dawkins 83) When a lion hunts an antelope, he is more likely to be able to kill that antelope, and less likely to get killed by the antelope, but when a lion fights another lion who is essentially evenly matched against him in strength, he runs a greater risk of getting killed when that lion retaliates. If the lion he is attacking retaliates and he dies then his genes die with him, as well as his ability to reproduce and pass on said genes. Thus it does not make much sense for a lion to run the risk of getting killed by another lion in his attempts to eat him, instead its much safer to kill an animal of a difference species, one whom is less matched in strength. The same can be said for humans. Since humans in ancient times knew how to fight, they were likely to know how to fight each other and thus ran the risk of getting killed by each other in a bitter fight for survival, whereas if a human was to go out and kill a fish, it was not likely the fish would retaliate and kill the human. So, as more humans survived and reproduced by killing animals that were of lesser matched species, the gene for this behavior survived and the gene for cannibalism was essentially erased.
There's a love coming to us all. 