"Hate involves both the interior, primitive parts of the brain and the parts that developed relatively late in human evolution. So our capacity for intense dislike of others of our species may date back as far as 150,000 years, when the first modern humans emerged [source: AMNH.org]. Why hate developed is a murkier question. There's some evidence that humans' ability to hate may actually be an evolutionary adaptation, one that made it easier for a group of hunter-gatherers to justify taking scarce food from competing groups [source: Fishbein]."