Year: 1994 Source: New York Times Science, (April 5, 1994), p.B-5 & B-8 SIEC No: 20061056

This article explores the suggestion of some scientists that the persistence of suicide at fairly high rates across most cultures suggests an underlying evolutionary component, a possible Darwinian rationale for an an act that often seems irrational. Scientists propose the tendency toward suicide could be a concomitant of a trait or a group of traits that at some point in evolutionary history conferred benefits on those with it. Suicide may make enough sense to be maintained as a behaviour at a certain low but significant level.