<!-- bryant-content-generator:start --> # The same arithmetic runs through reproduction.... > The same arithmetic runs through reproduction. Male chimpanzees kill infants, and a 24-year study of one community found that the majority of known attackers were males and that two-thirds of victims of known age were less than a week old. Females whose infants were killed conceived again dramatically sooner than females whose infants lived, and the evidence best fit the sexual-selection hypothesis: a nursing infant delays the mother's return to reproductive availability, and its death shortens the delay. An infant is torn from its screaming mother, killed by a bite through the skull, and sometimes eaten in front of her, and within weeks she is cycling again and mating with the males who did it. {{Nature does not require hatred, possession or philosophy in order to kill. It requires only another organism occupying biological time that could otherwise become someone else's offspring.}} {{Nature does not have to hate you to kill you. Sometimes you are simply standing where somebody else's future wants to go.}} **Source:** [[books/Chimping Out|Chimping Out]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “The same arithmetic runs through reproduction. Male chimpanzees kill infants, and a 24-year study of one community found that the majority of known attackers were males and that two-thirds of victims of known age were less than a week old. Females whose infants were killed conceived again dramatically sooner than females whose infants lived, and the evidence best fit the sexual-selection hypothesis: a nursing infant delays the mother's return to reproductive availability, and its death shortens the delay. An infant is torn from its screaming mother, killed by a bite through the skull, and sometimes eaten in front of her, and within weeks she is cycling again and mating with the males who did it. Nature does not require hatred, possession or philosophy in order to kill. It requires only another organism occupying biological time that could otherwise become someone else's offspring. Nature does not have to hate you to kill you. Sometimes you are simply standing where somebody else's future wants to go.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/passages/passages-same-arithmetic-runs-elses-future-wants ``` <!-- bryant-content-generator:end -->