The Darwinian purpose of the state and universalist ideology/religion

The state and universalist ideologies (political, economic or religious) all appeal, amongst other things, to man's tribal nature, in order to create the illusion of us all belonging to the same super-tribe, which then serves as a socioeconomic environment and human resource, organized primarily by the state and capital to  facilitate society's self-exploitation, to the advantage of those in power, wealth and privilege.

In modern western democracies, to a greater or lesser extent, most of us are privileged, especially academics, whose independence and objectivity, without them being aware of it, is severely compromised as a consequence, rendering them incapable of recognising the true (Darwinian) nature a socioeconomic order so favourable to their own advantage and success.

Scientists' failure to recognise the Darwinian nature of their own civilization

LINK to Guardian article,

[In] the drive to commercialise science . . . even the pure quest for knowledge is subverted by the need for profit.

It is about time (150 years, now, since publication of On the Origin of Species) that scientists like John Sulston recognised the Darwinian nature of our civilization, i.e. the social, political and economic power structures on which it rests.

The reason that he and his colleagues do not recognise it - or if they do, don't make an issue of it - is that they themselves, even more than most, perhaps, are materially and emotionally completely dependent on this deeply Darwinian SYSTEM, in which human society itself - perversely and unsustainably - serves primarily as an exploitable ENVIRONMENT.

If we recognised and developed an understanding of this, we could place the necessary constraints on the SYSTEM, or better still, radically transform it, so that it ceases to treat civilization as an exploitable environment and "human resource".

Scientists are absolutely brilliant at understanding the material world, but when it comes to understanding themselves and their own society they are still very much in the Dark Ages.