ABSTRACT
This book advances the proposition that growing knowledge of the biology of human behavior threatens certain assumptions upon which modern government, law, and bureaucracy have been based. Some observers would declare that the threat is already present and there is increasing evidence to give the argument plausibility. The theories of human behavior that underlie modern government have been deduced from prescientific premises; governmental institutions, laws, and programs based upon these theories are thus founded upon propositions that may be true but are not demonstrably valid. Their tenets have remained acceptable because under the circumstances of the past they seemed to have worked to satisfy social needs and purposes. But should they fail to meet the challenge of new conditions, fail to provide reliable answers to persisting social questions, and to retain credibility in the light of scientific inquiry might not, in time, their validity as foundations of our sociopolitical order be called into question?
