Credo and Comment A Scientist Reflects Author:Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet Sir Macfarlane Burnet is on e of Australia's most distinguished scientists. Now, after sixty years' association with the medical and biological sciences, he has set down the important features of his thoughts on the human situation in the form of a credo, a statement of his beliefs. — Sir Macfarlane embraces sociobiology, the Darwinian idea that ... more »our social ways are dictated by our genes rather than by our environment. Because of the slowness of evolution, our behaviour in many ways is more appropriate to members of a hunter-gatherer society than to citizens of an urbanized industrial world. This emphasis on the importance of heredity challenges the neo-Marxist line and raises questions about many basic issues: free will, social justice, the equality of man, and the causes of war.
This is not only the testament of an eminent man, but also a disturbing and thought-provoking book which will produce spirited debate.« less