In defence of politics Book

This inept book is yet another testimony to the ability of so many people in the social sciences to teach for their whole professional career a subject they utterly fail to understand. Apes have been doing small group politics for tens of millions of years in stagnating economic conditions, and that is what shapes our brains, but that simple fact is obviously beyond Crick's grasp. Since the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago, which unleashed demographic growth, our main problem has been the scaling-up of human groups, but again that simple fact is beyond Crick's grasp. Until the 17th century, humans lived short lives in a world with negligible economic growth, a world where war and theft were the main ways of improving one's lot, and that has shaped our moral and political perception and our states, but Crick fails to understand that. Apart for stumbling on a couple of quotable sentences (*), reading this was an utter waste of time.

(*) Notably "Boredom with established truths is a great enemy of free men."