This book works on and from the following assumptions. One, that academic psychology and the social sciences are very largely secularised. This means that they do not invoke metaphysical concepts such as ‘god’, ‘gods’, ‘spirit’ or some other conception of a supreme being or grand designer in order to explain how people think and behave. And the second assumption is that psychology and the social sciences embrace a secular view of life and humanity which encompasses a more-or-less explicit acceptance that life forms on earth, including human beings, and that there is at least tacit acceptance that evolution has come about by the process of natural selection.