Reviews for Civilized man's eight deadly sins

The average rating for Civilized man's eight deadly sins based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-02-16 00:00:00 Mark Lewis Lorenz is spot-on regarding the ”sins” of the civilized man: overpopulation, devastation of environment, the man's race against himself, the break with tradition, emotional entropy, indoctrinability, genetic decay and nuclear weapons. They are all linked with each other and most of the problems termed under the famous label "the crisis of the modern world" can be probably traced to one of the "sins" identified by Lorenz. Although the book is very short and readable, I found the author's continuous emphasis of the importance of "phylogenetic factors". It is nonetheless understandable as he is not a sociologist or psychologist, but a biologist-ethologist and it is natural for him to support his views with arguments from his field of expertise. Still, a layman like me could only wish that Lorenz paid at least just as much atention to other factors. As it is, the book is by no means a satisfying account of the "eight sins", and must be correlated with more elaborate views on the topic from the fields of political, economical and social sciences. By this, I certainly don't mean to understate Lorenz's contribution. On the contrary, the perspective of his views is rather interesting and insightful, and he puts forward arguments that could have been hardly produced by specialists from other fields.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-02-12 00:00:00 Lori Batton This book, won the Nobel-prize in 1973, the same year as it was written, has some really interesting and inspiring points. It critizises modern society and human behaviour, which still is present in society today. It is also written in a simple language which makes it idealy suited for idealistic and critical thinking adolescents, but can be read by everyone. However many of the scientific facts in this book are outdated and his (right-wing) political views are represented very strongly.