Old beliefs die hard even when demonstrably false. - Edward O. Wilson

The increase in brain size and refinement of stone artifacts point to an unbroken advance in mental ability over the last two or three million years. ...No organ in the history of life has grown faster.

Ancient Mexico, like most forest-invested New World tropics, was deficient in the kind of large game that flourished on the plains of Africa and Asia. ...The situation was partially relieved by cannibalizing the victims of human sacrifice. ...The [ Aztec ] priesthood... sanctified it... immediately after their hearts had been cut out, the victims were systematically butchered like animals and their parts distributed and eaten.

Pure knowledge is the ultimate emancipator. It equalizes people and sovereign states, erodes the archaic barriers of superstition and promises to lift the trajectory of cultural evolution. But I do not believe that it can change the ground rules of human behavior or alter the main course of history's predictable trajectory.