The Seville Statement on Violence is a statement on violence that was adopted by an international meeting of scientists, convened by the Spanish National Commission for UNESCO, in Seville, Spain, on 16 May 1986. It was subsequently adopted by UNESCO at the twenty-fifth session of the General Conference on 16 November 1989. The statement, then known as a 'Statement on Violence', was designed to refute "the notion that organized human violence is biologically determined".

Core ideas The statement contains five core ideas. These ideas are:

"It is scientifically incorrect to say that we have inherited a tendency to make war from our animal ancestors." "It is scientifically incorrect to say that war or any other violent behaviour is genetically programmed into our human nature." "It is scientifically incorrect to say that in the course of human evolution there has been a selection for aggressive behaviour more than for other kinds of behaviour." "It is scientifically incorrect to say that humans have a 'violent brain'." "It is scientifically incorrect to say that war is caused by 'instinct' or any single motivation."

The statement concludes: "Just as 'wars begin in the minds of men', peace also begins in our minds. The same species who invented war is capable of inventing peace. The responsibility lies with each of us."

Founding scientists

The following is a list of the scientists who contributed to the statement:

David Adams, Psychology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, U.S. S.A. Barnett, Ethology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia N.P. Bechtereva, Neurophysiology, Institute for Experimental Medicine of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the U.S.S.R., Leningrad, U.S.S.R. Bonnie Frank Carter, Psychology, Albert Einstein Medical Center, Philadelphia, U.S. José M. Rodriguez Delgado, Neurophysiology, Centro de Estudios Neurobiológicos, Madrid, Spain José Luis Díaz, Ethology, Instituto Mexicano de Psiquiatría, México D.F., Mexico Andrzej Eliasz, Individual Differences Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland Santiago Genovés, Biological Anthropology, Instituto de Estudios Antropológicos, México D.F., Mexico Benson E. Ginsburg, Behavior Genetics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, U.S. Jo Groebel, Social Psychology, Erziehungswissenschaftliche Hochschule, Landau, Federal Republic of Germany Samir-Kumar Ghosh, Sociology, Indian Institute of Human Sciences, Calcutta, India Robert Hinde, Animal Behaviour, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK Richard E. Leakey, Physical Anthropology, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya Taha H. Malasi, Psychiatry, Kuwait University, Kuwait J. Martín Ramírez, Psychobiology, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Biochemistry, Universidad Autónoma, Madrid, Spain Diana L. Mendoza, Ethology, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain Ashis Nandy, Political Psychology, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India John Paul Scott, Animal Behaviour, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, U.S. Riitta Wahlstrom, Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Dissemination and endorsements

Once it was drafted and signed by the founding group in May, 1986, the Statement on Violence was disseminated around the world, as described in the newsletter that was issued three or four times a year from 1986 through 1994 as well as two occasions later in 2002 and 2003.http://culture-of-peace.info/ssov_newsletter.html The Seville Statement Newsletter Index

The Statement has been published in over 150 scientific and popular journals, including versions translated into more than 20 languages.http://culture-of-peace.info/SSOV_publications.html Seville Statement on Violence - Journal and Book Publications

UNESCO decided to disseminate the Statement widely in a decision of the twenty-fifth session of the General Conference on 16 November 1989.http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0008/000846/084696E.pdf Unesco's contribution to peace In 1991, this led to publication and dissemination of a UNESCO brochure in English as well as in Spanish, French and Arabic. The brochure, with the subtitle "Preparing the Ground for the Constructing of Peace" helped prepare the ground for the UNESCO Culture of Peace Programme.

By the time UNESCO published its brochure, the Statement had been endorsed or disseminated by 75 organizations,http://culture-of-peace.info/brochure/pages34-35.html Organizations that Support the Seville Statement including formal endorsements by three of the major social science organizations of the United States, the American Anthropological Association,http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/an.1987.28.9.1.3/full Seville Statement on Violence Endorsed the American Psychological Associationhttp://psycnet.apa.org/record/1991-07451-001?doi=1 The Seville Statement on Violencehttp://culture-of-peace.info/ssov_newsletter/ssov_newsletter_vol_2/2-2-3.jpg Council endorses Seville Statement on Violence and the American Sociological Association.http://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/asa.03.1991.pdf March 1991 Footnotes: Council Endorses the Seville Statement on Violence (page 6)

Practical implications

Belief concerning the relationship between warfare and biology may have practical implications. It has been shown that if one believes that war is biologically determined, he or she is less likely to engage in activities to promote peace. Conversely, if one believes that war is not biologically determined, one is more likely to work for peace.http://culture-of-peace.info/myth/title-page.html David Adams and Sarah Bosch, The myth that war is intrinsic to human nature discourages action for peace by young people, in J. Ramfrez, R. Hinde, and J. Groeble (eds.), Essays on Violence, 121—37 (Seville: University of Seville Press, 1987, retrieved May 16, 2018

According to an international survey of students in 1972, about half the respondents "favoured a hereditary theory of war and aggression".Eckhardt, William 1972. "Theories of War and Aggression". Peace Research, Vol. 4, No. 2 (February 1972), pp. 13-16.Eckhardt, William 1972. "Crosscultural theories of war and aggression," International Journal of Group Tensions, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 36–51. This result was replicated by studies in Finlandhttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00291463.1984.10636883 Riitta Wahlstrom, On the psychological premises for peace education Nordisk Psykologi 1984 36 (3): 160–168 and the United States.Douglas Fry and James N. Welch. Beliefs about Human Nature and Conflict: Implications for Peace Education. American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA, 2–6 December 1992 John Horgan reported in 2009 that 185 out of 205 surveyed students at Purdue University believed that humans would never stop fighting wars.

Criticism

Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker has criticized the Seville Statement as being an example of the moralistic fallacy. Pinker has used the Seville Statement as an example of the idea of biological determinism, the incorrect idea that genes are solely responsible for any of our behaviors.Pinker, Steven. How the Mind Works. W. W. Norton & Company, 1997, pp. 44 and 49.

Joseph Manson and Richard Wrangham wrote, "We agree with the Statement on Violence that there is no justification for using biological findings in the service of violence and war. We disagree, however, with the idea that the biological basis of war is irrelevant to thinking about peace. We believe (a) that the tendency to behave aggressively in particular circumstances has been favored by natural selection in humans and other animals; (b) that natural selection has favored particularly extreme forms of aggression in humans and very few other species; and (c) that it is easier to foster peace by understanding rather than ignoring the biological conditions that have favored violence and war. Thus, we believe that war does have a biological basis, and not just in the trivial sense that humans have the biological capacity to make war." Robert Hinde, one of the signatories, responded the statement "argues that the genes, neural apparatus etc. which make war possible do not make it inevitable... the Statement is in no way to be construed as attacking the basis of the interesting research conducted by Manson and Wrangham and their colleagues."Human Ethology Newsletter, Volume 5, Issue 2, June 1987

Robin Fox expressed dismay the statement was endorsed by the American Anthropological Association, describing it as a "pointless document" and "shopworn denunciations of ideas that no one really held in the first place."Human Ethology Newsletter, Vol 5, Issue 5, March 1988.

In "Aggression and Peacefulness in Humans and Other Primates", editors James Silverberg and J. Patrick Gray write, "a narrow focus on what is scientifically incorrect formulates the issues incompletely and makes the SSV appear to be naive... Missing from the Statement is a sense of what science does know about aggression and violence in humans and other animals. Without this information we believe the SSV fails in its laudable purpose of alleviating pessimism about our ability to control violence. Simply to inform the public that "it's not biological"—that human nature or animal nature cannot be "blamed" for war and violence—provides no guidance on how to explain and thus possibly to control these phenomena. In other words, the SSV fails to provide grounds for the optimism that its signatories see as vital in efforts to promote peace. If the SSV does generate an optimistic outlook on the possibility of controlling war and violence, we fear it will be an unreasoning and thus a vulnerable optimism. Our view derives from the fact that recent research on the multiplicity of biological, sociological and cultural factors relevant to violence among primates indicates that some level of violence, or the threat of violence, plays a vital role in the social life of some primate species. An important implication of this research is that, in commenting on the nature of violence, we must abandon the often unexamined equation of violence with social pathology. We must be willing to accept the possibility that in certain circumstances threatened and even actual violence might have pro-social outcomes... An understanding of this dynamic is vital to the control of violence in human societies."Silverberg and Gray, "Aggression and Peacefulness in Humans and Other Primates" (1992). Oxford University Press. . Pg 1.

Primatologist Frans de Waal wrote, "While welcoming the spirit of the Statement (SSV), I... question the wisdom of its signatories in downplaying the importance of biology (read: genetics) relative to other influences on human behavior. Admittedly, biologists have promoted a rather narrow view of human and animal nature, with great emphasis on competition... A more balanced and moderate view can be achieved, however, without abandoning previous valuable insights... In providing this correction, however, the SSV makes essentially the same mistake: it emphasizes one influence at the expense of the other. Not satisfied with the full recognition of environmental factors, the SSV tends to dismiss human nature altogether... By presenting the majority view outside biology as the academic consensus, the SSV is driving a wedge between ethology and the other behavioral sciences. This is an unfortunate development that needs to be countered both by pointing out the weaknesses and internal contradictions of the document itself, and by a search for common ground."