ABSTRACT
The extinction of human populations has become less commonplace in the last two thousand years. For some thousands of years before that there was nothing extraordinary in one group of people setting out to exterminate another. That, as was mentioned earlier, was the recorded fate that befell the unfortunate Hittites, Amorites, Caananites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Extinction played a major part in sharpening the genetic differences between survivors and non-survivors and in speeding up human evolution in terms of psychogenetic characteristics and their cultural concomitants. But with the eventual demise of the god- king as the central figure in nation-states, the situation changed. Genocide, as standard practice, went into decline. One reason was connected with the rise of universal religions, like Christianity and Islam, and world religious and secular philosophies that included Buddhism, the Bahai Faith, Taoism and others. Any creed that embraces adherents from different races cannot sanction genocide. The sharp fall in genocide has been a factor in the rapid rise in the population of the world. Killing of course continued as nations fought nations. But the issues were primarily about political control, doctrinal disputes or economic 109rivalry and in most cases had limited biological significance. Victors and losers would suffer fatalities, sometimes on a large scale, but their genetic stock continued largely unchanged.
