Science and the great riddle …

… Literary Review - John Gray on E O Wilson's The Social Conquest of Earth. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Wilson's use of theistic concepts is telling, since much of the book is a polemic against religion. 'The illogic of religions', he writes, 'is not a weakness in them, but their essential strength.' One might say the same of evolutionary theories of morality and society. Bright volumes promising evolutionary solutions to perennial human difficulties are among the top bestsellers. Evidently, the genre meets a powerful need - the same need to find meaning in the flux of events that has in the past been met by religions. The difference is that meaning is now served up with the blessing of science.