Technologies, all byproducts of science, have redefined how we live, work, fight, relax and communicate with one another. They have not only given us knowledge and provided a previously unimaginable technologically based standard of living, but also unprecedented coercive powers. Humans can now choose to command forces in the service of differing social, economic and political goals, and also, predictably, any potential consequences of their choices. Paradoxically, it's not the science but the use or abuse of science's gifts that challenge and demand mature intellectual appraisal. By commanding technological powers way in excess of our Stone Age brain's emotional capabilities to responsibly contain that power, we find ourselves at odds with our evolutionary heritage. We seem uncertain in which direction to head and how to achieve the behavioural goals that provide the adaptability requisite for survival and future wellbeing.

Our predicament may reflect that we are, in essence, essentially the same animal that evolved approximately 30,000–35,000 years ago. Within a comparatively short evolutionary period, we have successfully adjusted from a nomadic lifestyle living in small, closely genetically related groups, to living within settled villages and have weathered, more or less, the stresses of nationally based industrial societies.