11:37am UK, Thursday May 12, 2005

Humans are programmed to kill and anyone could commit murder in the right circumstances, a scientist claims.

Professor David Buss, an academic at the University of Texas, argued in a new book that killing is part of human nature.

180 generic knife crime violence

Do we all have it in us?

Murder could be traced back to the "ruthless evolutionary drive to reproduce", he said.

Prof Buss, an evolutionary psychologist, told the Times Higher Education Supplement: "I believe we all have the capability to commit murder."

His book, The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind is Designed to Kill, argues that 91% of men and 84% of women have had fantasies about killing someone.

It rejected the conventional view that people are driven to kill by influences such as child abuse, images in the media or culture.

Thousands of years ago killing an enemy would boost a man's social status and improve his chances of attracting a mate, the book argued.

Murderers' genes won the evolutionary battle over those of their victims and the instinct to kill now lies dormant in all of us, Prof Buss argued.

The book draws on a study of 375 murder cases, including interviews with convicted killers.