title: The Pill Really Can Be Mightier Than the Sword: A Response to Recent Commentaries.
abstract: We appreciate the four commentaries that add new material and fresh perspectives to our article "The pill is mightier than the sword." In emphasizing the role of voluntary family planning and girls' education as achievable strategies with a potential to make the world a more peaceable place, we did not mean to oversimplify or disregard the intrinsic complexity of human conflict. On the whole, the commentators support and add to our thesis, although we question Pillai and Ya-Chien Wang's suggestion that we may have overstated the unique human predisposition to kill our own species. We present additional data on male team aggression.
authors.affiliation: The OASIS Initiative, Bixby Center for Population, Health and Sustainability, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Malcolm
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Potts
authors.affiliation: The OASIS Initiative, Bixby Center for Population, Health and Sustainability, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Alisha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Graves
mesh_terms: D005193:Family Planning Services; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014754:Violence; D014857:Warfare; D014930:Women; D016387:Women's Health
keywords: Family Planning; Girls’ Education; Population; Terrorism