ABSTRACT
Evolution is the representative, in biological form, of the Enlightenment ideals of progress, secularization, and logarithmic increase of scientific knowledge and power. The sociobiological view of human nature contradicts the thesis of cultural determinism, culture presumably being a construct as opposed to what sociobiology asserts is the given reality of human nature. Genes are the biological causes of somatic characteristics, and there are clear, mathematical laws of genetic inheritance. Human behavior is driven by many types of motives, from the most inherently biological to the most transcendently human. Wilson states that "human beings are still largely ruled by myth," and among the disposable myths is the God of monotheistic religion—who is always male, and who is always found among the beliefs of pastoral societies where herding and the figure of the shepherd are the primary features.
