ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers a preliminary overview of the few types of selection driving not only the biotic universe but also the sociocultural universe. The sociocultural universe created and altered by human agency executed in the structures and cultures of the corporate units organizing human activities in superorganisms is, to some extent, driven by all types of selection. Darwninian dynamics are most relevant for understanding the evolution of organisms, including humans, but it becomes necessary to explore new types of selection processes once analysis shifts to the dynamics of superorganisms, or the "organization of organisms" into societies. Religion is institutionalized as a basic type of sociocultural formation in all known human societies; and thus, it is necessary to leave biology and psychology at some point to address the dynamics of religion in more purely sociological and historical terms.
