![]() ![]() Religion has its part to play, he concedes, since being religious, both as individuals and in groups, is inevitably part of the biological makeup of who we are: “The brain was made for religion and religion for the human brain.” But, on the whole, religion does not fare well here, it being the second topic of part 4’s “idols of the mind,” placed intriguingly between “instinct” and “free will.” In sketching his position on religion, Wilson mixes a few textual and historical references with sweeping comments that beg for greater precision. It is not surprising, then, that comments on philosophy and religion appear throughout his book. ![]() This brief, general-audience treatise, a kind of intellectual memoir, encapsulates with simplicity insights refined over a lifetime about the “reason we exist,” the “unity of knowledge,” “other worlds,” “idols of the mind,” and the “human future.” Given his strong ideas about the human as part of a larger bioecology, Wilson is a scientist of broad learning, interested in the humanities and in wider discourses on the human. Recently a colleague drew my attention to The Meaning of Human Existence by my eminent Harvard colleague, the sociobiologist E. ![]()
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