History
The question of whether individuals of the same species might not be attempting to deceive each other was raised by Richard Dawkins and John Krebs in 1978. This thinking was prompted by the application of a gene-centered view of evolution to the use of threat displays. Dawkins & Krebs criticised previous ethologists, such as Nikolaas Tinbergen and Desmond Morris among others, for supporting the view that such displays were used "for the good of the species". Dawkins and Krebs (and Krebs and Dawkins, 1982) argued that such communication ought to be viewed as an evolutionary arms race in which signallers evolve to become better at manipulating receivers, while receivers evolve to become more resistant to manipulation.
The game theoretical model of the war of attrition was applied to the problem, and appeared to suggest that threat displays ought not to convey any reliable information about intentions (Caryl, 1979).
Read more about this topic: Signalling Theory
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“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)