ABSTRACT
Sociobiology is positioned to provide with a science of genocide, because killing competitive genes is what selfish genes do in the struggle for survival. This chapter looks at two attempts to provide a science of evil: Ernest Becker's "Science of Man" and the sociobiological interpretation of evolution. Evil is something one has to live with, and die with. The effort to create a science of evil runs into at least two difficulties. First, and most commonly, the scientist may underestimate the ferocity of evil's irrationality and power to destroy. A second difficulty could be even worse. In the attempt to get close enough to evil to explain it, the scientist may get caught up in evil and press his or her science into the service of violence and chaos. Perhaps the worst of human evils one can think of would be war or genocide, or a combination.
