"Science is a magnificent force but it is not a teacher of morals.” So observed William Jennings Bryan in Tennessee at the conclusion of the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. Or, to misquote palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould: what does the age of rocks have to do with the Rock of Ages?
Against the background noise of so many tendentious speculations on evolutionary psychology, The Goodness Paradox stands out as a weighty contribution to our understanding of what makes us both saints and sinners.
As a biological anthropologist, Harvard professor Richard Wrangham rests his arguments on fieldwork in human and primate societies. He is also able to explain the mechanisms through which evolutionary changes relate to embryonic development.
