Is Mankind Intelligent Yet?

We do not include `the ability to assess the effect of our actions on others' in our concept of intelligence. Yet surely it is one of the most important aspects of true intelligence?Anyone who does not or cannot evaluate the effect of his/her actions on the feelings and lives of others is at best a nuisance and at worst a disaster. And is surely a malfunctioning human? This applies to an even greater degree on a national and global scale.If the effects of my actions and choices on the lives of other humans across the planet are of no significance for me, what right have I to claim to be `intelligent' at all?At a time when there is no more pressing or controversial subject than the future of planet earth, and our place in that future, Colin Sayer asks the most fundamental questions in this very timely book. He examines the idea that violence is always failure, and conducts a thought experiment in which a visitor from another planet arrives on earth at some time in the future. What would this visitor make of us and our planet? How would we describe and justify to this visitor our current behaviour and attitudes?Starting with the Big Bang and moving through human history up to and even beyond the present day, and addressing topics from language and criminality to gods and Realpolitik, Is Mankind Intelligent Yet? is a thorough and thought-provoking response to the question Colin Sayer first asked himself many years ago: Do you think that every advanced species in the universe is self-destructive and degrades its own planet?